paufes, interpofed as often as the fcene is changed, or any confiderable time is required to pafs. This method would at once quell a thousand abfurdities. In reftoring the author'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 fentences. Whatever could be done by adjusting, points, is therefore filently performed, in fome plays, with much diligence, in others with lefs; it is hard to keep a bufy eye fteadily fixed upon evanefcent atoms, or a difcurfive mind upon evanefcent truth. The fame liberty has been taken with a few particles, or other words of flight effect. I have fometimes inferted or omitted them without notice. I have done that fometimes, which the other editors have done always, and which indeed the state of the text may fufficiently juflify. The greater part of readers, instead of blamingus for paffing trifles, will wonder that on mere trifles fo much labour is expended, with fuch importance of debate, and fuch folemnity of diction. To thefe I anfwer with confidence, that they are judging of an art which they do not underftand; yet cannot much reproach them with their ignorance, nor promife that they would become in general, by learning criticism, more useful, happier, or wifer. As I practifed conjecture more, I learned to trust it lefs; and after I had printed a few plays, refolved to infert none of my own readings in the text. Upon this caution I now congratulate myfelf, for every day encreases my doubt of my emendations. Since I have confined my imagination to the margin, it must not be confidered as very reprehensible, if I have suffered it to play fome freaks in its own dominion. There is no danger in conjecture, if it be proposed as conjecture; and while the text remains uninjured, thofe changes may be fafely offered, which are not confidered even by him that offers them as neceffary or safe. 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 performed, firft by railing at the ftupidity, negligence, ignorance, and afinine tafteleffuefs of the former editors, and fhewing, from all that goes before and all that follows, the inelegance and abfurdity of the old reading; then by propofing fomething, which to fuperficial readers would feem fpecious, but which the editor rejects with indignation; then by producing the true reading, with a long paraphrafe, and concluding with loud acclamations on the difcovery, and a fober wish for the advancement and profperity of genuine criticifm. All this may be done, and perhaps done fometimes without impropriety. But I have always fufpected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without fo much labour appear to be right. The juftness of a happy restoration ftrikes at once, and the moral precept may be well applied to criticifm, quod dubitas ne feceris. To dread the shore which he fees fpread with wrecks, is natural to the failor. I had before my eye, fo many critical adventures ended in mifcarriage, that caution was forced upon me. I encountered in every page wit ftruggling with its own fophiftry, and learning confufed by the multiplicity of its views. I was forced to cenfure thofe whom I admired, and could not but reflect, while I was difpoffeffing 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 fome other editor defended and eftablifhed. "Criticks I faw, that other's names efface, "And fix their own, with labour, in the place; That a conjectural critick fhould often be miftaken, cannot be wonderful, either to others or himself, if it be confidered, that in his art there is no fyftem, no principal and axiomatical truth that regulates fubordinate pofitions. His chance of error is renewed at every attempt; an oblique view of the paffage, a flight misapprehension of a phrase, a casual inattention to the parts connected, is fufficient to make him not only fail, but fail ridiculously; and when he fucceeds beft he produces perhaps but one reading of many probable, and he that fuggefts another will always be able to difpute his claims. It is an unhappy flate, in which danger is hid under pleasure. The allurements of emendation are fcarcely refiftible. Conjecture has all the joy and all the pride of invention, and he that has once ftarted a happy change, is too much delighted to confider what objections may arife against it. Yet conjectural criticifm has been of great use in the learned world; nor is it my intention to depreciate a ftudy, that has exercised fo many mighty minds, from the revival of learning to our own age, from the Bishop of Aleria to English Bentley. The criticks on ancient authors have, in the exercife of their fagacity, many affiftances, which the editor of Shakspeare is condemned to want. They are employed upon grammatical and fettled languages, whofe conftruction contributes fo 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 fame miftakes. Yet Scaliger could confefs to Salmafius how little fatisfaction his emendations gave him. Illudunt nobis conjectura 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 ita nunc 4 the bishop of Aleria-1 John André. He was fecretary to the Vatican Library during the papacies of Paul II. and Sixtus IV. By the former he was employed to fuperintend fuch works as were to be multiplied by the new art of printing, at that time brought into Rome. He published Herodotus, Strabo, Livy, Aulus Gellius, &c. His fchoolfellow, Cardinal de Cufa, procured him the bishoprick of Accia, a province in Corfica, and Paul II. afterwards appointed him to that of Aleria in the fame ifland, where he died in 1493. STEEVENS. VOL. I. S remediis laboratur. And indeed, where mere conjecture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and Lipfius, notwithstanding their wonderful fagacity and erudition, are often vague and difputable, like mine or Theobald's. Perhaps I may not be more cenfured for doing wrong, than for doing little; for raifing in the publick expectations, which at laft I have not anfwered. The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that of knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to fatisfy thofe who know not what to demand, or those who demand by defign what they think impoffible to be done. I have indeed difappointed no opinion more than my own; yet I have endeavoured to perform my talk with no flight folicitude. Not a fingle paffage in the whole work has appeared to me corrupt, which I have not attempted to restore; or obfcure, which I have not endeavoured to illuftrate. In many I have failed like others; and from many after all my efforts, I have retreated, and confeffed the repulfe. I have not paffed over, with affected fuperiority, what is equally difficult to the reader and to myself, but where I could not inftruct him, have owned my ignorance. I might eafily have accumulated a mafs of feeming learning upon eafy fcenės; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence, that, where nothing was neceffary, nothing has been done, or that, where others have faid enough, I have faid no more. Notes are often neceffary, but they are neceffary evils. Let him, that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakspeare, and who defires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every |
