made to them. Hence we derive many Chafims and Incoherences in the Sense and Matter. Scenes were frequently transposed, and shuffled out of their true Place, to humour the Caprice, or supposed Convenience, of some particular Actor. Hence much Confufion and Impropriety has attended, and embarrass'd the Business and Fable. To these obvious Causes of Corruption, it must be added, That our Author has lain under the Disadvantage of having his Errors propagated and multiplied by Time: because, for near a Century, his Works were publish'd from the faulty Copies, without the Afsistance of any intelligent Editor: which has been the Cafe likewife of many a Claffic Writer.

The Nature of any Distemper once found has generally been the immediate Step to a Cure. Shakespeare's Cafe has in a great Measurere sembled That of a corrupt Claffic; and, confequently, the Method of Cure was likewise to bear a Resemblance. By what Means, and with what Success, this Cure has been effected on ancient Writers, is too well known, and needs no formal Illustration. The Reputation, consequent on Tasks of that Nature, invited me to attempt the Method here; with this View, the Hopes of restoring to the Publick their greatest Poet in his original Purity: after having so long lain in a Condition that was a Disgrace to common Senfe. To this end I have ventured on a Labour, that is the first Affay of the kind on any modern Author whatsoever. For the late Edition of Milton by the Learned Dr. Bentley is, in the main, a Performance of another Species. It is plain, it was the Intention of that great Man rather to correct and pare off the Excrefcences of the Paridise Loft, in the Manner that Tucca and Varius were employ'd to criticize the Æneis of Virgil, than to restore corrupted Passages. Hence, therefore, may be seen either the Iniquity or Ignorance of his Cenfurers, who, from fome Expressions, would make us believe, the Doctor every where gives us his Corrections as the original Text of the Author; whereas the chief Turn of his Criticism is plainly to shew the World, that if Milton did not write as He would have him, he ought to have wrote fo.

I thought I thought proper to premise this Observation to the

Readers, as it will shew that the Critic on Shakespear is of a quite different Kind. His genuine Text is for the most part religiously adhered to, and the numerous Faults and Blemishes, purely his own, are left as they were found. Nothing is altered, but what by the clearest Reasoning can be proved a Corruption of the true Text; and the Alteration, a real Restoration of the genuine Reading. Nay, so strictly have I strove to give the true Reading, tho' sometimes not to the Advantage of my Author, that I have been ridiculoufly ridiculed for it by Those, who either were iniquitously for turning every thing to my Disadvantage; or elfe were totally ignorant of the true Duty of an Editor.

The Science of Criticism, as far as it affects an Editor, seems to be reduced to these three Classes; the Emendation of corrupt Passages; the Explanation of obfcure and difficult ones; and an Inquiry into the Beauties and Defects of Composition. This Work is principally confined to the two former Parts: tho' there are some Specimens interspersed of the latter Kind, as several of the Emendations were best supported, and several of the Difficulties best explained, by taking Notice of the Beauties and Defects of the Composition peculiar to this immortal Poet. But this was but occasional, and for the Sake only of perfecting the two other Parts, which were the proper Objects of the Editor's Labour. The third lies open for every willing Undertaker: and I shall be pleas'd to fee it the Employment of a masterly Pen.

It must necessarily happen, as I have formerly observed, that where the Assistance of Manuscripts is wanting to fet an Author's Meaning right, and rescue him from those Errors which have been tranfmitted down thro' a Series of incorrect Editions, and a long Intervention of Time, many Passages must be desperate, and past a Cure; and their true Sense irretrievable either to Care or the Sagacity of Conjecture. But is there any Reason therefore to say, That because All cannot be retrieved, All ought to be left desperate? We should shew very little Honesty, or Wisdom, to play play the Tyrants with an Author's Text; to raze, alter, innovate, and overturn, at all Adventures, and to the utter Detriment of his Sense and Meaning: But to be so very reserved and cautious, as to interpose no Relief or Conjecture, where it manifestly labours and cries out for Assistance, seems, on the other hand, an indolent Abfurdity.

As there are very few Pages in Shakespear, upon which some Sufpicions of Depravity do not reasonably arife; I have thought it my Duty, in the first Place, by a diligent and laborious Collation to take in the Afsistances of all the older Copies.

In his Historical Plays, whenever our English Chronicles, and in his Tragedies when Greek or Roman Story, could give any Light; no Pains have been omitted to set Passages right by comparing my Author with his Originals: for, as I have frequently observed, he was a close and accurate Copier where-ever his Fable was founded on History.

Where-ever the Author's Sense is clear and difcoverable, (tho', perchance, low and trivial ;) I have not by any Innovation tamper'd with his Text; out of an Oftentation of endeavouring to make him speak better than the old Copies have done.

Where, thro' all the former Editions, a Passage has laboured under flat Nonsense and invincible Darkness, if, by the Addition or Alteration of a Letter or two, or a Transposition in the Pointing, I have reftored to Him both Sense and Sentiment; fuch Corrections, I am perfuaded, will need no Indulgence.

And whenever I have taken a greater Latitude and Liberty in amending, I have constantly endeavoured to support my Corrections and Conjectures, by parallel Pafsages and Authorities from himself, the surest Means of expounding any Author whatsoever. Cette voie d'interpreter un Autheur par luimême est plus sure que tous les Commentaires, fays a very learned French Critick.

As to my Notes, (from which the common and learned Readers of our Author, I hope, will derive fome Satisfaction;) I have endeavoured to give them a Variety in fome Proportion to their Number. Where-ever I have ventured at an Emendation, a Note is constantly fubjoined to justify and affert the Reason of it. Where I only offer a Conjecture, and do not disturb the Text, I fairly fet forth my Grounds for fuch Conjecture, and submit it to Judgment. Some Remarks are spent in explaining Passages, where the Wit or Satire depends on an obfcure Point of History: Others, where Allusions are to Divinity, Philofophy, or other Branches of Science. Some are added to shew, where there is a Sufpicion of our Author having borrowed from the Ancients: Others, to shew where he is raillying his Contemporaries; or where He himself is raillied by them. And fome are necessarily thrown in, to explain an ob scure and obfolete Term, Phrafe, or Idea. I once intended to have added a complete and copious Gloffary; but as I have been importuned, and am prepared, to give a correct Edition of our Author's POEMS, (in which many Terms occur that are not to be met with in his Plays,) I thought a Gloffary to all Shakespeare's Works more proper to attend that Volume.

In reforming an infinite Number of Passages in the Pointing, where the Sense was before quite loft, I have frequently fubjoin'd Notes to shew the deprav'd, and to prove the reform'd, Pointing: a Part of Labour, in this Work, which I could very willingly have spar'd myself. May it not be objected, why then have you burden'd us with these Notes? The Answer is obvious, and, if I mistake not, very material. Without fuch Notes, these Passages in subsequent Editions would be liable, thro' the Ignorance of Printers and Correctors, to fall into the old Confufion: Whereas, a Note on every one hinders all poffible Return to Depravity; and for ever secures them in a State of Purity and Integrity not to be loft or forfeited.

Again, as fome Notes have been necessary to point out the Detection of the corrupted Text, and establish the Restoration of the genuine Readings; fome others have been as necessary for the Explanation of Pafsages obfcure and difficult. To understand the Neceffity and Use of this Part of my Task, some Particulars of my Author's Character are previously to be explain'd.

There

There are Obscurities in him, which are common to him with all Poets of the same Species; there are Others, the Issue of the Times he lived in; and there are others, again, peculiar to himself. The Nature of Comic Poetry being entirely fatirical, it bufies itself more in expofing what we call Caprice and Humour, than Vices cognizable to the Laws. The English, from the Happiness of a free Constitution, and a Turn of Mind peculiarly speculative and inquisitive, are observ'd to produce more Humourists and a greater Variety of original Characters, than any other People whatsoever: And these owing their immediate Birth to the peculiar Genius of each Age, an infinite Number of Things alluded to, glanced at, and exposed, must needs become obfcure, as the Characters themselves are antiquated and disused. An editor therefore should he well versed in the History and Manners of his Author's Age, if he aims at doing him a Service in this respect.

Befides, Wit lying mostly in the Affemblage of Ideas, and in the putting Those together with Quickness and Variety, wherein can be found any Resemblance, or Congruity, to make up pleasant Pictures, and agreeable Visions in the Fancy; the Writer, who aims at Wit, must of course range far and wide for Materials. Now, the Age in which Shakespeare lived, having, above all others, a wonderful Affection to appear Learned, They declined vulgar Images, suchas are immediately fetched from Nature, and ranged through the Circle of the Sciences to fetch their Ideas from thence. But as the Resemblances of fuch Ideas to the Subject must necessarily lie very much out of the common Way, and every Piece of Wit appear a Riddle to the Vulgar; This, that should have taught them the forced, quaint, unnatural Tract they were in, (and induce them to follow a more natural One) was the very Thing that kept them attached to it. The oftentatious Affectation of abstruse Learning, peculiar to that Time, the Love that Men naturally have to every Thing that looks like Myftery, fixed them down to this Habit of Obscurity. Thus became the Poetry of DONNE (though the wittieft Man of that Age) nothing but a continued Heap