be properly attempted by criticism, keeping the middle way between prefumption and timidity. Such criticism I have attempted to practise, and where any passage appeared inextricably perplexed, have endeavoured to discover how it may be recalled to sense, with least violence. But my first labour is, always to turn the old text on every fide, and try if there be any interstice, through which light can find its way; nor would Huetius himself condemn me, as refusing the trouble of research, for the ambition of alteration. In this modest industry I have not been unsuccessful. I have rescued many lines from the violations of temerity, and secured many scenes from the inroads of correction. I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honourable to save a citizen, than to kill an enemy, and have been more careful to protect than to attack. I have preserved the common distribution of the plays into acts, though I believe it to be in almost all the plays void of authority. Some of those which are divided in the later editions have no division in the first folio, and some that are divided in the folio have no division in the preceding copies. The fettled mode of the theatre requires fours intervals in the play, but few, if any, of our authour's compositions can be properly distributed in that manner. An act is so much of the drama as passes without intervention of time or change of place. A pause makes a new act. In every real, and therefore in every imitative action, the intervals may be more or fewer, the restriction of five acts being accidental and arbitrary. This Shakespeare knew, and this he practised; his plays were written, and at first printed in one unbroken continuity, and ought now to be exhibited with short pauses, interposed as often as the scene is changed, or any confiderable time is required to pass. This method would at once quell a thousand abfurdities. In In restoring the authour's works to their integrity, I have confidered the punctuation as wholly in my power; for what could be their care of colons and commas, who corrupted words and sentences? Whatever could be done by adjusting points is therefore filently performed, in some plays with much diligence, in others with less; it is hard to keep a busy eye steadily fixed upon evanefcent atoms, or a discursive mind upon evanefcent truth. The same liberty has been taken with a few particles, or other words of flight effect. I have sometimes inferted or omitted them without notice. I have done that sometimes, which the other editors have done always, and which indeed the state of the text may fufficiently justify. The greater part of readers, instead of blaming us for passing trifles, will wonder that on mere trifles so much labour is expended, with fuch importance of debate, and fuch folemnity of diction. To these I answer with confidence, that they are judging of an art which they do not understand; yet cannot much reproach them with their ignorance, nor promise that they would become in general, by learning criticism, more useful, happier or wifer. As I practised conjecture more, I learned to trust it less; and after I had printed a few plays, resolved to infert none of my own readings in the text. Upon this caution I now congratulate myself, for every day encreases my doubt of my emendations. Since I have confined my imagination to the margin, it must not be considered as very reprehensible, if I have fuffered it to play some freaks in its own dominion. There is no danger in conjecture, if it be proposed as conjecture; and while the text remains uninjured, those changes may be safely offered, which are not confidered even by him that offers them as necessary or fafe. If my readings are of little value, they have not been oftentatiously displayed or importunately obtruded. I could have written longer notes, for the art of writing notes is not of difficult attainment. The work is per formed, first by railing at the stupidity, negligence, ignorance, and asinine tastelessness of the former editors, and shewing, from all that goes before and all that follows, the inelegance and abfurdity of the old reading; then by proposing something, which to fuperficial readers would feem specious, but which the editor rejects with indignation; then by producing the true reading, with a long paraphrafe, and concluding with loud acclamations on the discovery, and a fober wish for the advancement and profperity of genuine criticifm. All this may be done, and perhaps done sometimes without impropriety. But I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without much so labour appear to be right. The justness of a happy restoration strikes at once, and the moral precept may be well applied to criticifm, quod dubitas ne feceris. To dread the shore which he fees spread with wrecks, is natural to the sailor. I had before my eye, so many critical adventures ended in miscarriage, that caution was forced upon me. I encountered, in every page, Wit struggling with its own sophistry, and Learning confused by the multiplicity of its views. I was forced to cenfure those whom I admired, and could not but reflect, while I was dispossessing their emendations, how foon the fame fate might happen to my own, and how many of the readings which I have corrected may be by some other editor defended and established. Criticks, I faw, that others' names efface, And fix their own, with labour, in the place; POPE. That a conjectural critick should often be mistaken, cannot be wonderful, either to others or himself, if it be confidered, that in his art there is no system, no principal and axiomatical truth that regulates fubordinate positions. His chance of errour is renewed at every attempt; an oblique view of the passage, a flight mifapprehenfion of a phrafe, a cafual inattention to the parts connected, is sufficient to make him not only fail, but fail ridiculously; and when he fucceeds best, he produces perhaps but one reading of many probable, and he that suggests another will always be able to dispute his claims. It is an unhappy state, in which danger is hid under pleasure. The allurements of emendation are scarcely refiftible. Conjecture has all the joy and all the pride of invention, and he that has once started a happy change, is too much delighted to confider what objections may rise against it. Yet conjectural criticism has been of great use in the learned world; nor is it my intention to depreciate a study, that has exercised so many mighty minds, from the revival of learning to our own age, from the Bishop of Aleria to English Bentley. The criticks on ancient authours have, in the exercise of their sagacity, many affiftances, which the editor of Shakespeare is condemned to want. They are employed upon grammatical and fettled languages, whose construction contributes so much to perfpicuity, that Homer has fewer paffages unintelligible than Chaucer. The words have not only a known regimen, but invariable quantities, which direct and confine the choice. There are commonly more manuscripts than one; and they do not often confpire in the same mistakes. Yet Scaliger could confefs to Salmafius how little fatisfaction his emendations gave him. Illudunt nobis conjecturæ noftræ, quarum nos pudet, pofteaquam in meliores codices incidimus. And Lipfius could complain, that criticks were making faults, by trying to remove them, Ut olim vitiis, vitiis, ita nunc remediis laboratur. And indeed, where mere conjecture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and Lipfius, notwithstanding their wonder.. ful sagacity and erudition, are often vague and dispuputable, like mine or Theobald's. Perhaps I may not be more cenfured for doing wrong, than for doing little; for raising in the publick expectations, which at last I have not answered. The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that of knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to fatisfy those who know not what to demand, or those who demand by design what they think impossible to be done. I have indeed disappointed no opinion more than my own; yet I have endeavoured to perform my task with no flight folicitude. Not a single passage in the whole work has appeared to me corrupt, which I have not attempted to reftore; or obfcure, which I have not endeavoured to illustrate. In many I have failed like others; and from many, after all my efforts, I have retreated, and confessed the repulse. I have not passed over, with affected superiority, what is equally difficult to the reader and to myself, but where I could not instruct him, have owned my ignorance. I might eafily have accumulated a mass of seeming learning upon easy scenes; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence, that, where nothing was necessary, nothing has been done, or that, where others have faid enough, I have faid no more. Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him, that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who defires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play from the first scene to the laft, with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged, let it disdain alike to turn afide to the name of Theobald and Pope. Let him read on through brightness and obscurity, C2 |