fhall leave it therefore at prefent: and the reader will think it, I believe, high time for us to go and bury the miferable remains of this our critic and commentator. ONE word more to the reader before I conclude this preface. I have long intended to publish my thoughts concerning the fubject of critics and criticifm: which art has been strangely misapplied, if not misunderstood, by two of the greatest critics that ever appeared on the learned ftage of the world, Ariftarchus and Dr. Bentley; for both of thefe altered paffages, for no other reason, oftentimes, than because they disliked them. Sir Thomas Hanmer had just ferved Shakespeare, exactly after these models, when I drew up my critical obfervations, to put fome ftop, if poffible, to this licentious practice. But before I criticifed our poet, 'twas worth while inquiring whether, or no, be deferved to be criticifed. And this is chiefly the fubject of the FIRST Book, where I have very fully examined into his art and skill in forming and planning his dramatic poems. And, because Ariftotle drew his observations from Nature and the most perfect models of antiquity, I have, in a great meafure, been directed by this great Mafter; whofe treatise of poetry, tho' imperfectly handed down to us, is one of the noblest remains of ancient criticifm. The edition, which I ufe, was formerly printed under the direction of Dr. Hare; who, then rifing in the world, with others of his fchool and college, yet tamely could fee his learned pupil fent into an obfcure part of the world to teach the first rudiments of literature to boys, when he might have inftructed the fcholars of Europe. His faltem adcumulem donis, et fungar inani Perhaps what I have written in this first book, whilst it does justice to Shakespeare, may at the fame time be looked on as no bad comment on Ariftotle. Having found our poet worthy of criticism in a larger and more extenfive view: 'lis worth our while doubtlefs to know more minutely his very words and genuine expreffions. This is the fubject of the SECOND Book. And how is his genuine text to be difcovered and retrieved? How but by confulting the various copies of authority? By comparing the author with himself? And by that previous knowledge on which elsewhere I bave laid fuck a ftrefs? To difcover therefore the corruptions that have crept into the context, I have confidered the various ways that books generally be 1 See above, xlv, xlvi. below, 137. come come corrupted. Hence the reader will fee many alterations of the printed copies; which are fubmitted to his judgment. I think a fcholar could not help, by the bye, to mention fome few of the like kind of errors in other books; nor does indeed this Stand in need of any apology. The corrections propofed on feveral paffages of the New Teftament are all omitted in this fecond edition; becaufe, with many additions, I intend foon to print them, as most proper, by themselves. The reader may perceive that by little and little I rife upon him, 'till I demand the giving up, as fpurious, no less than three plays, which are printed among Shakespeare's genuine works. : Confidering therefore the incroaching Spirit of criticism, the reader cannot but fee the expediency of checking its licentious humour. And how can it be checked better, than by confidering what rules the poet laid down to himself when he commenced author and writer in form? And this is the fubject of the THIRD BOOK which, as it treats of words and grammatical conftruction, is very dry, (as 'tis called;) and will fcarcely be red, but by thofe, who are willing thoroughly, and not fuperficially, to understand the diction of our poet. Every rule, there drawn up, is Shakespeare's rule; and tho' vifibly, and apparently fuch to every fcholar-like reader, yet there has 3 not been one editor of our poet, but has erred against every one of these rules. This is the plan, of thofe critical obfervations. which I drew up, "as well to do justice to this our "ancient dramatic poet, as to put fome ftop, if "poffible, to the vague and licentious fpirit of criticifm." And if this plan, here propofed, was followed, "the world might expect a much better, at least a lefs altered edition from Shakespeare's "own words, than has yet been published." Critical Critical Obfervations O N SHAKESPEARE. T IS obfervable, that critics generally fet out with thefe two maxims; the one, that the author must always dictate what is beft; the other, that the critic is to determine what that beft is. There is an affertion not very unlike this, that Dr. Bentley. has made in his late edition of Milton: "I have "fuch an esteem for our poet, that which of the "two words is the better, that I fay was dictated by Milton." And from a fimilar cast of reasoning, in a preface prefixed to his edition. of Horace, he says, that thofe emendations I See his first note on Milton's Paradife loft. 2 Plura igitur in Horatianis his curis ex conjectura exhibemus, quàm ex codicum fubfidio; et, nifi me omnia fallunt, plerumque certiora. |