THE PLAYS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, VOLUME the FIRST, CONTAINING, The TEMPEST. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT's DREAM, KANTONS Printed for A. LEATHLEY, C. WYNNE, P. WILSON, DUBLIN.LUZERN. MDCCLXVI. [i] PREFACE. **HAT praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours due only to excellence are paid T A to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, ** being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the herefies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon confolatory expedients, are willing to hope from pofterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time. Antiquity, like every other quality that attracts the notice of mankind, has undoubtedly votaries that reverence it, not from reason, but from prejudice. Some seem to admire indiscriminately whatever has been long preserved, without confidering that time has fometimes VOL. I. A co-operated |