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and cuftoms, too minute to "attract the notice of law, fuch as modes of drefs, formalities of converfation, rules of vifits, difpofition of furniture, and practices of ceremony, which naturally find places in familiar dialogue, are so fugitive and unfubftantial, that they are not eafily retained or recovered. What can be known will be collected by chance, from the receffes of obfcure and obfolete papers, perufed commonly with fome other view. Of this knowledge every man has fome, and none has much; but when an author has engaged the public attention, thofe who can add any thing to his illuftration, communicate their discoveries, and time produces what had eluded diligence.

To time I have been obliged to refign many pas fages, which, though I did not understand them, will perhaps hereafter be explained, having, I hope, illuftrated fome, which others have neglected or mistaken, sometimes by fhort remarks, or marginal directions, such as every editor has added at his will, and often by comments more laborious than the matter will feem to deferve; but that which is moft difficult is not always most important, and to an editor nothing is a trifle by which his author is obfcured.

The poetical beauties or defects I have not been very diligent to obferve. Some plays have more, and fome fewer judicial obfervations, not in proportion. to their difference of merit, but because I gave this part of my defign to chance and to caprice, The reader, I believe, is feldom pleafed to find his opinion anticipated; it is natural to delight more in what we find or make, than in what we receive.

Judgment, like other faculties, is improved by practice, and its advancement is hindered by fubmiffion to dictatorial decifions, as the memory grows torpid by the ufe of a table-book. Some initiation is however neceffary; of ali skill, part is infused by precept, and part is obtained by habit; I have therefore fhewn so much as may enable the candidate of criticifm to discover the rest.

To the end of most plays I have added short ftrictures, containing a general cenfure of faults, or praife of excellence; in which I know not how much I have concurred with the current opinion; but I have not, by any affectation of fingularity, deviated from it. Nothing is minutely and particularly examined, and therefore it is to be fuppofed, that in the plays which are condemned there is much to be praised, and in these which are praised much to be condemned.

The part of criticifm in which the whole fucceffion of editors has laboured with the greatest diligence, which has occafioned the moft arrogant oftentation, and excited the keeneft acrimony, is the emendation of corrupted paffages, to which the publick attention having been first drawn by the violence of the contention between Pope and Theobald, has been continued by the perfecution, which, with a kind of conspiracy, has been since raised against all the publishers of Shakspeare.

That many paffages have paffed in a ftate of depravation through all the editions is indubitably certain; of these the reftoration is only to be attempted by collation of copies, or fagacity of conjecture. The collator's province is fafe and

eafy, the conjecturer's perilous and difficult. Yet as the greater part of the plays are extant only in one copy, the peril muft not be avoided, nor the difficulty refufed.

Of the readings which this emulation of amendment has hitherto produced, fome from the labours of every publisher I have advanced into the text; thofe are to be confidered as in my opinion fufficiently fupported; fome I have rejected without mention, as evidently erroneous; fome I have left in the notes without cenfure or approbation, as refling in equipoife between objection and defence; and fome, which feemed fpecious but not right, I have inferted with a fubfequent animadverfion.

Having claffed the observations of others, I was at laft to try what I could fubftitute for their mistakes, and how I could fupply their omiffions. I collated fuch copies as I could procure, and wifhed for more, but have not found the collectors of these rarities very communicative. Of the edi

tions which chance or kindness put into my hands I have given an enumeration, that I may not be blamed for neglecting what I had not the power to do.

By examining the old copies, I foon found that the later publifhers, with all their boafts of diligence, fuffered many paffages to ftand unauthorized, and contented themfelves with Rowe's regulation of the text, even where they knew it to be arbitrary, and with a little confideration might have found it to be wrong. Some of these alterations are only the ejection of a word for one that appeared to him more elegant or more intelligible. Thefe

corruptions I have often filently rectified; for the history of our language, and the true force of our words can only be preserved, by keeping the text of authors free from adulteration. Others, and those very frequent, fmoothed the cadence, or regulated the measure; on these I have not exercifed the fame rigour; if only a word was tranfpofed, or a particle inferted or omitted, I have fometimes fuffered the line to ftand; for the inconftancy of the copies is fuch, as that fome liberties may be eafily permitted. But this practice I have not fuffered to proceed far, having restored the primitive diction wherever it could for any reafon be preferred.

The emendations, which comparison of copies supplied, I have inferted in the text; fometimes, where the improvement was flight, without notice, and fometimes with an account of the reasons of the change.

Conjecture, though it be sometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly nor licentiously indulged. It has been my fettled principle, that the reading of the ancient books is probably true, and therefore is not to be disturbed for the fake of elegance, perfpicuity, or mere improvement of the fenfe. For though much credit is not due to the fidelity, nor any to the judgment of the first publishers, yet they who had the copy before their eyes were more likely to read it right, than we who read it only by imagination. But it is evident that they have often made ftrange miftakes by ignorance or negligence, and that therefore fomething may be properly attempted by criticifm, keeping the middle way between prefumption and timidity..

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Such criticifm I have attempted to practise, and where any paffage appeared inextricably perplexed, have endeavoured to difcover how it may be recalled to fenfe with leaft violence. But my first labour is, always to turn the old text on every fide, and try if there be any interftice, through which light can find its way; nor would Huetius himself condemn me, as refufing the trouble of research, for the ambition of alteration. In this modeft industry I have not been unsuccessful. I have rescued many lines from the violations of temerity, and fecured many fcenes from the inroads of correction. I have adopted the Roman fentiment, that it is more honourable to fave a citizen, than to kill an enemy, and have been more careful to protect than to attack.

I have preferved the common diftribution of the plays into acts, though I believe-it to be in almost all the plays void of authority. Some of thofe which are divided in the later editions have no divifion in the first folio, and fome that are divided in the folio have no divifion in the preceding copies. The fettled mode of the theatre requires four intervals in the play, but few, if any, of our author's compofitions can be properly diftributed in that manner. An act is fo much of the drama as paffes without intervention of time, or change of place. A paufe 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 Shakfpeare knew, and this he practifed; his plays were written, and at first printed in one unbroken continuity, and ought now to be exhibited with fhort

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