labours of us all. Noris such an event to be deprecated even by ourselves; fince we may be certain that fome ivy of each individual's growth will still adhere to the parent oak, though not enough, as at present, to " hide the princely trunk, and fuck the verdure out of it." * It may be feared too, should we persist in similar accumulations of extraneous matter, that our readers will at length be frighted away from Shakspeare, as the foldiers of Cato deserted their comrade when he became bloated with poison crefcens fugêre cadaver. It is our opinion, in short, that every one who opens the page of an ancient English writer, should bring with him fome knowledge; and yet he by whom a thousand minutiæ remain to be learned, needs not to close our author's volume in despair, for his spirit and general driftare always obvious, though his language and allufions are occasionally obfcure.

We may fubjoin (alluding to our own practice as well as that of others) that they whose remarks are longeft, and who seek the most frequent opportunities of introducing their names at the bottom of our author's page, are not, on that account, the most eftimable criticks. The art of writing notes, as Dr. Johnfon has pleasantly observed in his preface, p. 255, † is not of difficult attainment. Additional hundreds might therefore be supplied; for as often as a various reading, whether serviceable or not, is to be found, the discoverer can bestow an immediate reward on his own industry, by a display of his favourite fignature. The fame advantage may be gained by opportunities of appropriating to ourselves what was originally faid by another person, and in another place.

Though our adoptions have been flightly mentioned already, our fourth impression of the Plays of Shakspeare must not issue into the world without particular and ample acknowledgements of the benefit it has derived from the labours of the laft editor, whose attention, diligence, and spirit of enquiry, have very far exceeded those of the whole united phalanx of his predeceffors.-His additions to our author's Life, his attempt to ascertain the Order in which his plays were written, together with his account of our ancient Stage, &c. are here re-published; and every reader will concur in wishing that a gentleman who has produced fuch intelligent combinations from very few materials, had fortunately been possessed of more.

Of his notes on particular passages a great majority is here adopted. True it is, that on fome points we fundamentally disagree; for. instance, concerning his metamorphosis of monofyllables (like burn, fworn, worn, here and there, arms and charms,) into 'difsfyllables; his contraction of diffyllables (like neither, rather, reason, lover, &c.) into monofyllables; and his sentiments respecting

the worth of the variations supplied by the second folio. On the first of these contested matters we commit ourselves to the publick ear; on the second we must awhile folicit the reader's attention.

The following conjectural account of the publication of this second folio (about which no certainty can be obtained (perhaps is not very remote from

truth.

When the predeceffor of it appeared, fome intelligent friend or admirer of Shakspeare might have observed its defects, and corrected many of them in its margin, from early manuscripts, * or authentick information.

That such manuscripts should have remained, can excite no furprize. The good fortune that, till this present hour, has preserved the Chester and Coventry Mysteries, Tancred and Gifmund † as originally written, the ancient play of Timon, the Witch of Middleton, with feveral older as well as coëval dramas (exclusive of those in the Marquis of Lansdowne's library) might surely have befriended fome of our author's copies in 1632, only fixteen years after his death.

That oral information concerning his works was still accessible, may with similar probability be inferred; as fome of the original and most

4

knowing performers in his different pieces were then alive (Lowin and Taylor, for instance, ); and it must be certain, that on the stage they never uttered fuch mutilated lines and unintelligible nonsense as was afterwards incorporated with their respective parts, in both the first quarto and folio editions.

The folio therefore of 1623, corrected from one or both the authorities above mentioned, we conceive to have been the basis of its fucceffor in 1632.

At the fame time, however, a fresh and abundant feries of errors and omiffions was created in the text of our author; the natural and certain consequence of every re-impression of a work which is not overseen by other eyes than those of its printer.

Nor is it at all improbable that the person who furnished the revision of the first folio, wrote a very obfcure hand, and was much cramped for room, as the margin of this book is always narrow. Such being the cafe, he might often have been compelled to deal in abbreviations, which were sometimes imperfectly deciphered, and sometimes wholly misunderstood.

Mr. Malone, indeed, frequently points his artillery at a perfonage whom we cannot help regarding as a phantom; we mean the Editor of the second folio; for perhaps no such literary agent as an editor of a poetical work unaccompanied by comments, was at that period to be found. This office, if any where, was vested in the printer, who transferred it to his compositors; and these worthies discharged their part of the trust with a proportionate mixture of ignorance and inattention. We do not wish to soften our expreffion; for some plays, like The Misfortunes of Arthur, and many books of fuperior consequence, like Fox's Martyrs and the Chronicles of Holinshed, &c. were carefully prepared for the publick eye by their immediate authors, or substitutes qualified for their undertaking. But about the year 1600, the era of total incorrectness commenced, and works of almost all kinds appeared with the diladvantage of more than their natural and inherent imperfections.

Such too, in these more enlightened days, when few compositors are unskilled in orthography and punctuation, would be the event, were complicated works of fancy submitted to no other fuperintendance than their own. More attentive and judicious artists than were employed on our present edition of Shakspeare, are, I believe, no where to be found; and yet had their proofs escaped correction from an editor, the text of our author in many places would have been materially changed. And as all these changes would have originated from attention for a moment relaxed, interrupted memory, a too hasty glance at the page before them, and other incidental causes, they could not have