fufficient to embellish his page with the expected decorations.

"With regard to obsolete or peculiar diction, the editor may perhaps claim fome degree of confidence, having had more motives to confider the whole extent of our language than any other man from its first formation. He hopes, that, by comparing the works of Shakspeare with those of writers who lived at the same time, immediately preceded, or immediately followed him, he shall be able to ascertain his ambiguities, disentangle his intricacies, and recover the meaning of words now loft in the darkness of antiquity.

"When therefore any obscurity arises from an allufion to some other book, the passage will be quoted. When the diction is entangled, it will be cleared by a paraphrase or interpretation. When the sense is broken by the suppreffion of part of the sentiment in pleasantry or paffion, the connection will be supplied. When any forgotten custom is hinted, care will be taken to retrieve and explain it. The meaning affigned to doubtful words will be supported by the authorities of other writers, or by parallel passages of Shakspeare himfelf.

"The observation of faults and beauties is one of the duties of an annotator, which fome of Shakspeare's editors have attempted, and some have neglected. For this part of his task, and for this only, was Mr. Pope eminently and indisputably qualified: nor has Dr. Warburton followed him with less diligence or less success. But I never observed that mankind was much delighted or improved by their asterisks, commas, or double commas; of which the only effect is, that they preclude the pleasure of judging for ourselves;

teach the young and ignorant to decide without principles; defeat curiosity and difcernment by leaving them less to discover; and, at last, show the opinion of the critick, without the reasons on which it was founded, and without affording any light by which it may be examined.

"The editor, though he may less delight his own vanity, will probably please his reader more, by fuppofing him equally able with himself to judge of beauties and faults, which require no previous acquifition of remote knowledge. A description of the obvious scenes of nature, a representation of general life, a fentiment of reflection or experience, a deduction of conclufive argument, a forcible eruption of effervescent paffion, are to be confidered as proportionate to common apprehenfion, unaffifted by critical officiousness; fince to conceive them, nothing more is requifite than acquaintance with the general state of the world, and those faculties which he must always bring with him who would read Shakspeare.

" But when the beauty arises from some adaptation of the fentiment to customs worn out of use, to opinions not universally prevalent, or to any accidental or minute particularity, which cannot be supplied by common understanding, or common observation, it is the duty of a commentator to lend his affistance.

"The notice of beauties and faults thus limited will make no diftinct part of the design, being reducible to the explanation of obscure passages.

"The editor does not however intend to preclude himself from the comparison of Shakspeare's fentiments or expreffion with those of ancient or modern authors, or from the display of any beauty not obvious to the students of poetry; for as he

hopes to leave his author better understood, he wishes likewife to procure him more rational approbation.

"The former editors have affected to flight their predeceffors: but in this edition all that is valuable will be adopted from every commentator, that pofterity may confider it as including all the reft, and exhibit whatever is hitherto known of the great father of the English drama."

Though Dr. Johnson has here pointed out with his usual perfpicuity and vigour, the true course to be taken by an editor of Shakspeare, some of the pofitions which he has laid down may be controverted, and some are indubitably not true. It is not true that the plays of this author were more incorrectly printed than those of any of his contemporaries: for in the plays of Marlowe, Marston, Fletcher, Maffinger, and others, as many errors may be found. It is not true that the art of printing was in no other age in so unskilful hands. Nor is it true, in the latitude in which it is stated, that "these plays were printed from compilations made by chance or by stealth out of the separate parts written for the theatre:" two only of all his dramas, The Merry Wives of Windsor and King Henry V. appear to have been thus thrust into the world, and of the former it is yet a doubt whether it is a first sketch or an imperfect copy. I do not believe that words were then adopted at pleasure from the neighbouring languages, or that an antiquated diction was then employed by any poet but Spenser. That the obfcurities of our author, to whatever cause they may be referred, do not arife from the paucity of contemporary writers, the present edition may furnish indisputable evidence.

And lastly, if it be true, that "very few of Shakspeare's lines were difficult to his audience, and that he used such expreffions as were then common," (a position of which I have not the smallest doubt,) it cannot be true, that "his reader is embarrassed at once with dead and with foreign languages, with obfoleteness and innovation."

When Mr. Pope first undertook the task of revising these plays, every anomaly of language, and every expreffion that was not understood at that time, were confidered as errors or corruptions, and the text was altered, or amended, as it was called, at pleasure. The principal writers of the early part of this century seem never to have looked behind them, and to have confidered their own era and their own phraseology as the standard of perfection: hence, from the time of Pope's edition, for above twenty years, to alter Shakspeare's text and to restore it, were confidered as synonymous terms. During the last thirty years our principal employment has been to restore, in the true sense of the word; to eject the arbitrary and capricious innovations made by our predeceffors from ignorance of the phraseology and customs of the age in which Shakspeare lived.

As on the one hand our poet's text has been described as more corrupt than it really is, so on the other, the labour required to investigate fugitive allusions, to explain and justify obsolete phraseology by parallel passages from contemporary authors, and to form a genuine text by a faithful collation of the original copies, has not perhaps had that notice to which it is entitled; for undoubtedly it is a laborious and a difficult task and the due execution of this it is, which can alone entitle an editor of Shakspeare to the favour of the publick.

I have faid that the comparative value of the various ancient copies of Shakspeare's plays has never been precisely afcertained. To prove this, it will be neceffary to go into a long and minute difcuffion, for which, however, no apology is neceffary: for though to explain and illustrate the writings of our poet is a principal duty of his editor, to afcertain his genuine text, to fix what is to be explained, is his first and immediate object: and till it be established which of the ancient copies is entitled to preference, we have no criterion by which the text can be afcertained.

Fifteen of Shakspeare's plays were printed in quarto antecedent to the first complete collection of his works, which was published by his fellowcomedians in 1623. These plays are, A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Love's Labour's Loft, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, The Two Parts of King Henry IV. King Richard II. King Richard III. The Merchant of Venice, King Henry V. Much Ado about Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windfor, Troilus and Cressida, King Lear, and Othello.

The players, when they mention these copies, represent them all as mutilated and imperfect; but this was merely thrown out to give an additional value to their own edition, and is not strictly true of any but two of the whole number; The Merry Wives of Windfor, and King Henry V-With respect to the other thirteen copies, though undoubtedly they were all furreptitious, that is, stolen from the playhouse, and printed without the consent of the author or the proprietors, they in general are preferable to the exhibition of the fame plays in the