the old copies,

'HE want of adherence to T which has been complained of, in the text of every modern republication of Shakspeare, is fairly deducible from Mr. Rowe's inattention to one of the first duties of an editor.6 Mr. Rowe did not print from the earliest and moft correct, but from the most remote and inaccurate of the four folios. Between the years 1623 and 1685 (the dates of the first and last) the errors in every play, at least, were trebled. Several pages in each of these ancient editions have been examined, that the affertion might come more fully supported. It may be added, that as every fresh editor continued to make the text of his predeceffor the ground-work of his own (never collating but where difficulties occurred) some deviations from the originals had been handed down, the number of which are lefsened in the impression before us, as it has been constantly compared with the most authentick copies, whether collation was absolutely necessary for the recovery of sense, or not. The person who undertook this task may have failed by inadvertency, as well as those who preceded him; but the reader may be affured, that he, who thought it his duty to free an author from such modern and unnecessary innovations as had been censured in others, has not ventured to introduce any of his own.

It is not pretended that a complete body of various readings is here collected; or that all the diversities which the copies exhibit, are pointed out; as near two thirds of them are typographical mittakes, or fuch a change of infignificant particles, as would croud the bottom of the page with an ofientation of materials, from which at last nothing ufeful could be selected.

The dialogue might indeed sometimes be lengthened by other insertions than have hitherto been made, but without advantage either to its spirit or beauty as in the following inftance:

"Lear. No. "Kent. Yes.

"Lear. No, I fay.

"Kent. I fay, yea."

Here the quartos add :

"Lear. No, no, they would not.
"Kent. Yes, they have."

By the admiffion of this negation and affirmation, has any new idea been gained?

The labours of preceding editors have not left room for a boaft, that many valuable readings have been retrieved; though it may be fairly afferted, that the text of Shakspeare is restored to the con dition in which the author, or rather his first publishers, appear to have left it, such emendations as were absolutely necessary, alone admitted: for where a particle, indispensably necessary to the sense was wanting, such a supply has been filently adopted from other editions; but where a syllable, or more, had been added for the sake of the metre only, which at first might have been irregular, such interpolations are here constantly retrenched, sometimes with, and sometimes without notice. Those speeches, which in the elder editions are printed as prose, and from their own construction are incapable of being compressed into verse, without the aid of supplemental syllables, are restored to prose again; and the measure is divided afresh in others, where the mass of words had been inharmonioufly separated into lines.

The scenery, throughout all the plays, is regulated in conformity to a rule, which the poet, by his general practice seems to have proposed to himfelf. Several of his pieces are come down to us, divided into scenes as well as acts. These divisions were probably his own, as they are made on settled

7

principles, which would hardly have been the cafe, had the task been executed by the players. A change of scene, with Shakspeare, most commonly implies a change of place, but always an entire evacuation of the stage. The custom of diftinguishing every entrance or exit by a fresh scene, was adopted, perhaps very idly, from the French theatre.

For the length of many notes, and the accumulation of examples in others, some apology may be likewise expected. An attempt at brevity is often found to be the fource of an imperfect ex planation. Where a passage has been constantly misunderstood, or where the jest or pleasantry has been suffered to remain long in obfcurity, more instances have been brought to clear the one, or elucidate the other, than appear at first fight to have been neceffary. For these it can only be said, that when they prove that phraseology or source of merriment to have been once general, which at present seems particular, they are not quite impertinently intruded; as they may ferve to free the author from a fufpicion of having employed an affected fingularity of expression, or indulged himself in allusions to tranfient customs, which were not of fufficient notoriety to deserve ridicule or reprehenfion. When examples in favour of contradictory opinions are assembled, though no attempt is made to decide on either part, fuch neutral collections should always be regarded as materials for future criticks, who may hereafter apply them with success. Authorities, whether in respect of words, or things, are not always producible from the most celebrated writers; yet fuch circumstances as fall below the notice of hiftory, can only be fought in the jest-book, the satire, or the play; and the novel, whose fashion did not outlive a week, is fometimes necessary to throw light on those annals which take in the compass of an age. Thofe, therefore, who would wish to have the peculiarities of Nym familiarized to their ideas, must excuse the insertion of such an epigram as best

trations from obsolete literature. "I fear (fays he) I shall be cenfured for quoting too many pieces of this fort. But experience has fatally proved, that the commentator on Spenser, Jonfon, and the rest of our elder poets, will in vain give specimens of his classical erudition, unless, at the same time, he brings to his work a mind intimately acquainted with those books, which, though now forgotten, were yet in common use and high repute about the time in which his authors refpectively wrote, and which they confequently must have read. While these are unknown, many allufions and many imitations will either remain obfcure, or lose half their beauty and propriety: ' as the figures vanish when the canvas is decayed.'

"Pope laughs at Theobald for giving us, in his edition of Shakspeare, a sample of

- all fuch READING as was never read.

But these strange and ridiculous books which Theobald quoted, were unluckily the very books which SHAKSPEARE himself had studied: the knowledge of which enabled that useful editor to explain so many different allufions and obsolete customs in his poet, which otherwise could never have been understood. For want of this fort of literature, Pope tells us that the dreadful Sagittary in Troilus and Creffida, fignifies Teucer, so celebrated for his skill in archery. Had he deigned to confult an old history, called The Destruction of Troy, a book which was the delight of SHAKSPEARE and of his age, he would have found that this formidable archer, was no other than an imaginary beaft, which the Grecian army brought against Troy. If SHAKSPEARE IS worth reading, he is worth explaining; and the researches used for so valuable and elegant a purpose, merit the thanks of genius and candour, not the fatire of prejudice and ignorance. That labour, which so effentially contributes to the fervice of true taste, deserves a more honourable repofitory than The Temple of Dullness." STEEVENS.