written hand, which fince are to be found in the folio.

"In the next place, a number of beautiful passages were omitted, which were extant in the first single editions; as it feems without any other reason than their willingness to shorten some scenes."

To this I must add, that I cannot help looking on the folio as having fuffered other injuries from the licentious alteration of the players; as we frequently find in it an unusual word changed into one more popular; sometimes to the weakening of the sense, which rather seems to have been their work, who knew that plainness was neceffary for the audience of an illiterate age, than that it was done by the consent of the author: for he would hardly have unnerved a line in his written copy, which they pretend to have transcribed, however he might have permitted many to have been familiarized in the representation. Were I to indulge my own private conjecture, I should suppose that his blotted manufcripts were read over by one to another among those who were appointed to transcribe them; and hence it would eafily happen, that words of fimilar found, though of senses directly oppofite, might be confounded with each other. They themselves declare that Shakspeare's time of blotting was past, and yet half the errors we find in their edition could not be merely typographical. Many of the quartos (as our own printers affure me) were far from being unskilfully executed, and some of them were much more correctly printed than the folio, which was published at the charge of the fame proprietors, whose names we find prefixed to the older copies; and I cannot join with Mr. Pope in acquitting that edition of more literal errors than those which went before it. The particles in it feem to be as fortuitously disposed, and proper names as frequently undistinguished by Italick or capital letters from the rest of the text. The punctuation is equally accidental; nor do I fee on the whole any greater marks of a skilful revisal, or the advantage of being printed from unblotted originals in the one, than in the other. One reformation indeed there seems to have been made, and that very laudable; I mean the substitution of more general terms for a name too often unnecessarily invoked on the stage; but no jot of obscenity is omitted: and their caution against profaneness is, in my opinion, the only thing for which we are indebted to the judgment of the editors of the folio.9

How much may be done by the assistance of the old copies will now be easily known; but a more difficult task remains behind, which calls for other abilities than are requifite in the laborious collator.

From a diligent perusal of the comedies of contemporary authors, I am perfuaded that the meaning of many expressions in Shakspeare might be retrieved; for the language of conversation can only be expected to be preserved in works, which in their time affumed the merit of being pictures of men and manners. The style of conversation we may suppose to be as much altered as that of

و

- and their caution against profaneness is, in my opinion, the only thing for which we are indebted to the editors of the folio.] I doubt whether we are so much indebted to the judgment of the editors of the folio edition, for their caution against profaneness, as to the statute 3 Jac. I. c. 21, which prohibits under severe penalties the use of the sacred name in any plays or interludes. This occafioned the playhouse copies to be altered, and they printed from the playhouse copies.

BLACKSTONE,

books; and, in consequence of the change, we have no other authorities to recur to in either cafe. Should our language ever be recalled to a strict examination, and the fashion become general of striving to maintain our old acquisitions, instead of gaining new ones, which we shall be at last obliged to give up, or be incumbered with their weight; it will then be lamented that no regular collection was ever formed of the old English books; from which, as from ancient repofitories, we might recover words and phrases as often as caprice or wantonness should call for variety; instead of thinking it neceffary to adopt new ones, or barter folid strength for feeble splendour, which no language has long admitted, and retained its purity.

We wonder that, before the time of Shakspeare, we find the stage in a state so barren of productions, but forget that we have hardly any acquaintance with the authors of that period, though some few of their dramatick pieces may remain. The same might be almost said of the interval between that age and the age of Dryden, the performances of which, not being preserved in sets, or diffused as now, by the greater number printed, must lapse apace into the fame obscurity.

"Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona

" Multi

And yet we are contented, from a few specimens only, to form our opinions of the genius of ages gone before us. Even while we are blaming the taste of that audience which received with applaufe the worst plays in the reign of Charles the Second, we should confider that the few in poffeffion of our theatre, which would never have been heard a second time had they been written now, were pro

7

bably the best of hundreds which had been dismissed with general censure. The collection of plays, interludes, &c. made by Mr. Garrick, with an intent to depofit them hereafter in some publick library, will be confidered as a valuable acquifition; for pamphlets have never yet been examined with a proper regard to posterity. Most of the obsolete pieces will be found on enquiry to have been introduced into libraries but some few years fince; and yet those of the present age, which may one time or other prove as useful, are still entirely neglected. I should be remiss, I am fure, were I to forget my acknowledgments to the gentleman I have just mentioned, to whose benevolence I owe the use of several of the scarceft quartos, which I could not otherwise have obtained; though I advertised for them, with fufficient offers, as I thought, either to tempt the casual owner to fell, or the curious to communicate them; but Mr. Garrick's zeal would not permit him to withhold any thing that might ever so remotely tend to show the perfections of that author who could only have enabled him to display his own.

It is not merely to obtain justice to Shakspeare, that I have made this collection, and advise others to be made. The general interest of English literature, and the attention due to our own language and history, require that our ancient writings should be diligently reviewed. There is no age which has not produced some works that deserved to be remembered; and as words and phrases are only understood by comparing them in different places, the lower writers must be read for the explanation of

? This collection is now, in pursuance of Mr. Garrick's Will, placed in the British Museum. REED

the highest. No language can be ascertained and settled, but by deducing its words from their original sources, and tracing them through their fucceffive varieties of fignification; and this deduction can only be performed by consulting the earliest and intermediate authors.

were

Enough has been already done to encourage us to do more. Dr. Hickes, by reviving the study of the Saxon language, seems to have excited a stronger curiofity after old English writers, than ever had appeared before. Many volumes which mouldering in dust have been collected; many authors which were forgotten have been revived; many laborious catalogues have been formed; and many judicious gloffaries compiled; the literary transactions of the darker ages are now open to discovery; and the language in its intermediate gradations, from the Conquest to the Restoration, is better understood than in any former time.

To incite the continuance, and encourage the extenfion of this domeftick curiofity, is one of the purposes of the present publication. In the plays it contains, the poet's first thoughts as well as words are preferved; the additions made in subsequent impreffions, diftinguished in Italicks, and the performances themselves make their appearance with every typographical error, such as they were before they fell into the hands of the player-editors. The various readings, which can only be attributed to chance, are fet down among the rest, as I did not choose arbitrarily to determine for others which were useless, or which were valuable. And many words differing only by the spelling, or serving merely to show the difficulties which they to whose lot it first fell to disentangle their perplexities must