Preface to Shakespeare's Plays

Samuel Johnson

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THAT praises are without reason lavished on
the dead, and that the honours due only to
excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint
likely to be always continued by those, who, being
able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence
from the heresies of paradox ; or those, who,
being forced by disappointment upon consolatory
expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what
the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that
the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at
last bestowed by time.

Antiquity, like every other quality that attracts
the notice of mankind, has undoubtedly votaries
that reverence it, not from reason, but from pre-
judice. Some seem to admire indiscriminately what-
ever has been long preserved, without considering
that time has sometimes co-operated with chance ;
all perhaps are more willing to honour past than
present excellence ; and the mind contemplates ge-
nius through the shades of age, as the eye surveys
the sun through artificial opacity. The great con-
tention of criticism is to find the faults of the mo-
derns, and the beauties of the ancients. While an au-
thour is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst
performance, and when he is dead we rate them by
his best.

To works, however, of which the excellence is
not absolute and definite, but gradual and compara-
tive ; to works not raised upon principles demonstra-
tive and scientifick, but appealing wholly to obser-
vation and experience, no other test can be applied
than length of duration and continuance of esteem.
What mankind have long possessed they have often
examined and compared, and if they persist to va-
lue the possession, it is because frequent comparisons
have confirmed opinion in its favour. As among
the works of nature no man can properly call a river
deep or a mountain high, without the knowledge of
many mountains and many rivers; so in the produc-
tions of genius, nothing can be stiled excellent till it
has been compared with other works of the same
kind. Demonstration immediately displays its power,
and has nothing to hope or fear from the flux of
years ; but works tentative and experimental must be
estimated by their proportion to the general and col-
lective ability of man, as it is discovered in a long
succession of endeavours. Of the first building that
was raised, it might be with certainty determined
that it was round or square, but whether it was spa-
cious or lofty must have been referred to time. The
Pythagorean scale of numbers was at once discovered
to be perfect; but the poems of Homer we yet
know not to transcend the common limits of human
intelligence, but by remarking, that nation after na-
tion, and century after century, has been able to do
little more than transpose his incidents, new name
his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments.

The reverence due to writings that have long sub-
sisted arises therefore not from any credulous confi-
dence in the superior wisdom of past ages, or gloomy
persuasion of the degeneracy of mankind, but is
the consequence of acknowledged and indubitable
positions, that what has been longest known has been
most considered, and what is most considered is best
understood.

The Poet, of whose works I have undertaken the
revision, may now begin to assume the dignity of an
ancient, and claim the privilege of established fame
and prescriptive veneration. He has long outlived
his century, the term commonly fixed as the test of
literary merit. Whatever advantages he might once
derive from personal allusions, local customs, or tem-
porary opinions, have for many years been lost; and
every topick of merriment or motive of sorrow, which
the modes of artificial life afforded him, now only ob-
scure the scenes which they once illuminated. The ef-
fects of favour and competition are at an end ; the
tradition of his friendships and his enmities has pe-
rished ; his works support no opinion with argu-
ments, nor supply any faction with invectives ; they
can neither indulge vanity nor gratify malignity, but
are read without any other reason than the desire of
pleasure, and are therefore praised only as pleasure
is obtained; yet, thus unassisted by interest of pas-
sion, they have past through variations of taste and
changes of manners, and, as they devolved from
one generation to another, have received new honours
at every transmission.

But because human judgment, though it be gra-
dually gaining upon certainty, never becomes infal-
lible ; and approbation, though long continued, may
yet be only the approbation of prejudice or fashion;
it is proper to inquire, by what peculiarities of ex-
cellence Shakespeare has gained and kept the favour
of his countrymen.

Nothing can please many, and please long, but
just representations of general nature. Particular
manners can be known to few, and therefore few
only can judge how nearly they are copied. The ir-
regular combinations of fanciful invention may de-
light a-while, by that novelty of which the common
satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures
of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind
can only repose on the stability of truth.

Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all
modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that
holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners
and of life. His characters are not modified by the
customs of particular places, unpractised by the
rest of the world ; by the peculiarities of studies
or professions, which can operate but upon small
numbers ; or by the accidents of transient fashions
or temporary opinions: they are the genuine pro-
geny of common humanity, such as the world will
always supply, and observation will always find. His
persons act and speak by the influence of those ge-
neral passions and principles by which all minds
are agitated, and whole system of life is con-
tinued in motion. In the writings of other poets
a character is too often an individual ; in those of
Shakespeare it is commonly a species.

It is from this wide extension of design that so
much instruction is derived. It is this which fills
the plays of Shakespeare with practical axioms and do-
mestick wisdom. It was said of Euripides, that every
verse was a precept ; and it may be said of Shake-
speare, that from his works may be collected a sys-
{t}em of civil and {oe}conomical prudence. Yet his real
power is not in the splendour of particular
passages, but by the progress of his fable, and, the
tenour of his dialogue; and he that tries to recom-
mend him by select quotations, will succeed like the
pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house
to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen.

It will not easily be imagined how much Shake-
speare excells in accommodating his sentiments to real
life, but by comparing him with other authours. It
was observed of the ancient schools of declamation,
that the more diligently they were frequented, the
more was the student disquali{f}ed for the world, be-
cause he found nothing there which he should ever
meet in any other place. The same remark may be
applied to every stage but that of Shakespeare. The
theatre, when it is under any other direction, is peo-
pled by such characters as were never seen, conver-
sing in a language which was never heard, upon to-
picks which will never arise in the commerce of
mankind. But the dialogue of this authour is often
so evidently determined by the incident which pro-
duces it, and is pursued with so much ease and sim-
plicity, that it seems scarcely to claim the merit of
fiction, but to have been gleaned by diligent selec-
tion out of common conversation, and common oc-
currences.

Upon every other stage the universal agent is love,
by whose power all good and evil is distributed, and
every action quickened or retarded. To bring a lover,
a lady and a rival into the fable; to entangle them
in contradictory obligations, perplex them with op-
positions of interest, and harass them with violence
of desires inconsistent with each other ; to make
them meet in rapture and part in agony ; to fill their
mouths with hyperbolical joy and outrageous sorrow;
to distress them as nothing human ever was distres-
sed ; to deliver them as nothing human ever was de-
livered, is the business of the modern dramati{st}. For
this probability is violated, life is misrepresented,
and language is depraved. But love is only one of
many passions, and as it has no great influence
upon the sum of life, it has little operation in the
dramas of a poet, who caught his ideas from the
living world, and exhibited only what he saw before
him. He knew, that any other passion, as it was

regular or exorbitant, was a cause of happiness or
calamity.

Characters thus ample and general were not easily
discriminated and preserved, yet perhaps no poet ever
kept his personages more distinct from each other.
I will not say with Pope, that every speech may
be assigned to the proper speaker, because many
speeches there are which have nothing characteristical;
but, perhaps, though some may be equally adapted to
every person, it will be difficult to find, any that can
be properly transferred from the present possessor to
another claimant. The choice is right, when there
is reason for choice.

Other dramatists can only gain attention by hy-
perbolical or aggravated characters, by fabulous and
unexampled excellence or depravity, as the writers
of barbarous romances invigorated the reader by a
giant and a dwarf ; and he that should form his ex-
pectations of human affairs from the play, or from
the tale, would be equally deceived. Shakespeare has
no heroes ; his scenes are occupied only by men, who
act and speak as the reader thinks that he should
himself have spoken or acted on the same occasion:
Even where the agency is supernatural the dialogue
is level with life. Other writers disguise the most
natural passions and most frequent incidents ; so that
he who contemplates them in the book will not know
them in the world : Shakespeare approximates the re-
mote, and familiarizes the wonderful ; the event
which he represents will not happen, but if it were

possible, its effects would be probably such as he has
assigned; and it may be said, that he has not only
shewn human nature as it acts in real exigences, but
as it would be found in trials, to which it cannot be
exposed.

This therefore is the praise of Shakespeare, that his
drama is the mirrour of life ; that he who has mazed
his imagination, in following the phantoms which
other writers raise up before him, may here be cured
of his delirious extasies, by reading human sentiments
in human language; by scenes from which a hermit
may estimate the transactions of the world, and a
confessor predict the progress of the passions.

His adherence to general nature has exposed him
to the censure of criticks, who form their judgments
upon narrower principles. Dennis and Rhymer think
his Romans not sufficiently Roman ; and Voltaire cen-
sures his kings as not completely royal. Dennis is
offended, that Menenius, a senator of Rome, should
play the buffoon; and Voltaire perhaps thinks de-
cency violated when the Danish Usurper is represented
as a drunkard. But Shakespeare always makes nature
predominent over accident ; and if he preserves the
essential character, is not very careful of distinctions
superinduced and adventitious. His story requires Ro-
mans and kings, but he thinks only on men. He
knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of
all dispositions; and wanting a buffoon, he went into
the senate-house for that which the senate-house would
certainly have afforded him. He was inclined to shew

an usurper and a murderer not only odious but
despicable, he therefore added drunkenness to his
other qualities, knowing that kings love wine like
other men, and that wine exerts its natural power
upon kings. These are the petty cavils of petty
minds ; a poet overlooks the casual distinction of
country and condition, as a painter, satisfied with the
figure, neglects the drapery.

The censure which he has incurred by mixing comick
and tragick scenes, as it extends to all his works, de-
serves more consideration. Let the fact be first stated,
and then examined.

Shakespeare's plays are not in the rigorous or cri-
tical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compo-
sitions of a distinct kind ; exhibiting the real state of
sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil,
joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of pro-
portion and innumerable modes of combination ; and
expressing the course of the world, in which the loss
of one is the gain of another ; in which, at the same
time, the reveller is hasting to his wine, and the
mourner burying his friend ; in which the malignity
of one is sometimes defeated by the frolick of ano-
ther ; and many mischiefs and many benefits are done
and hindered without design.

Out of this chaos of mingled porposes and casu-
alties the ancient poets, according to the laws which
custom had prescribed, selected some the crimes of
men, and some of their absurdities ; some the momen-
tous vicissitudes of life, and some the lighter occur-

rences ; some the terrours of distress, and some the
gayeties of prosperity. Thus rose the two modes of
imitation, known by the names of tragedy and comedy,
compositions intended to promote different ends by
contrary means, and considered as so little allied, that
I do not recollect among the Greeks or Romans a single
writer who attempted both.

Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting
laughter and sorrow not only in one mind but in one
composition. Almost all his plays are divided be-
tween serious and ludicrous characters, and, in the
successive evolutions of the design, sometimes pro-
duce seriousness and sorrow, and sometimes levity
and laughter.

That this is a practice contrary to the rules of cri-
ticism will be readily allowed ; but there is always
an appeal open from criticism to nature. The end
of writing is to instruct ; the end of poetry is to in-
struct by pleasiing. That the mingled drama may con-
vey all the instruction of tragedy or comedy cannot
be denied, because it includes both in its alterations
of exhibition, an approaches nearer than either to
the appearance of life, by shewing how greate machi-
nations and slender designs may promote or obviate
one another, and the high and the low co-operate in
the general system by unavoidable concatenation.

It is objected, that by this change of scenes the
passions are interrupted in their progression, and that
the principal event, being not advanced by a due
gradation of preparatory incidents, wants at last the

power to move, which constitutes the perfection of
dramatick poetry. This reasoning is so specious, that
it is received as true even by those in daily expe-
rience feel it to be false. The interchanges of mingled
scenes seldom fail to produce the intended vicissitudes
of passion. Fiction cannot move so much, but that
the attention may be easily transferred ; and though
it must be allowed that pleasing melancholy be some-
times interrupted by unwelcome levity,yet let it be
considered likewise, that melancholy is often not
pleasing, and that the disturbance of one man may be
the relief of another ; that different auditors have dif-
ferent habitudes ; and that, upon the whole, all plea-
sure consists in variety.

The players, who in their edition divided our au-
thour's works into comedies, histories, and tragedies,
seem not to have distinguished the three kinds, by
any very exact or definite ideas.

An action which ended happily to the principal
persons, however serious or distressful through its in-
termediate incidents, in their opinion constituted a
comedy. This idea of a comedy continued long
amongst us, and plays were written, which, by chang-
ing the catastrophe, were tragedies to-day and come-
dies to-morrow.

Tragedy was not in those times a poem of more
general dignity or elevation than comedy ; it required
only a calamitous conclusion, with which the common
criticism of that age was satisfied, whatever lighter
pleasure it afforded in its progress.

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History was a series of actions, with no other than
chronological succession, independent of each other,
and without any tendency to introduce or regulate the
conclusion. It is not always very nicely distinguished
from tragedy. There is not much nearer approach
to unity of action in the tragedy of Antony and Cleo-
patra, than in the history of Richard the Second. But
a history might be continued through many plays ; as
it had no plan, it had no limits.

Through all these denominations of the drama,
Shakespeare's mode of composition is the same ; an
interchange of seriousness and merriment, by which
the mind is softened at one time, and exhilarated at
another. But whatever be his purpose, whether to
gladden or depress, or to conduct the story, without
vehemence or emotion, through tracts of easy and fa-
miliar dialogue, he never fails to attain his purpose ;
as he commands us, we laugh or mourn, or sit silent
with quiet expectation, in tranquillity without indif-
ference.

When Shakespeare's plan is understood, most of the
criticisms of Rhymer and Voltaire vanish away. The
play of Hamlet is opened, without impropriety, by
two sentinels ; Iago bellows at Brabantio's window,
without injury to the scheme of the play, though in
terms which a modern audience would not easily en-
dure ; the character of Polonius is seasonable and use-
ful ; and the Grave-diggers themselves may be heard
with applause.

Shakespeare engaged in dramatick poetry with the
world open before him ; the rules of the ancients
were yet known to few ; the publick judgment was
unformed ; he had no example of such fame as might
force him upon imitation, nor criticks of such autho-
rity as might restrain his extravagance : He therefore
indulged his natural disposition, and his disposition,
as Rhymer has remarked, led him to comedy. In
tragedy he often writes with great appearance of toil
and study, what is written as last with little felicity ;
but in his comick scenes, he seems to produce with-
out labour, what no labour can improve. In tragedy
he is always struggling after some occasion to be
comick, but in comedy he seems to repose, or to
luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his
nature. In his tragick scenes there is always some-
thing wanting, but his comedy often surpasses expec-
tation or desire. His comedy pleases by the thoughts
and the language, and his tragedy for the greater
part by incident and action. His tragedy seems to
be skill, his comedy seems to be instinct.

The force of his comick scenes has suffered little
diminution from the changes made by a century and
a half, in manners or in words. As his personages
act upon principles arising from genuine passion, very
little modified by particular forms, their pleasures
and vexations are communicable to all times and to
all places ; they are natural, and therefore durable ;
the adventitious peculiarities of personal habits, are
only superficial dies, bright and pleasing for a little
while, yet soon fading to a dim tinct, without any
remains of former lustre ; but the discriminations of
true passion are the colours of nature ; they pervade
the whole mass, and can only perish with the body
that exhibits them. The accidental compositions of
heterogeneous modes are dissolved by the chance
which combined them ; but the uniform simplicity of
primitive qualities neither admits increase, nor suffers
decay. The sand heaped by one flood is scattered by
another, but the rock always continues in its place.
The stream of time, which is continually washing the
dissoluble fabricks of other poets, passes without in-
jury by the adamant of Shakespeare.

If there be, what I believe there is, in every nation,
a stile which never becomes obsolete, a certain mode
of phraseology so consonant and congenial to the ana-
logy and principles of its respective language as to
remain settled and unaltered ; this stile is probably to
be sought in the common intercourse of life, among
those who speak only to be understood, without am-
bition of elegance. The polite are always catching
modish innovations, and the learned depart from esta-
blished forms of speech, in hope of finding or making
better ; those who wish for distinction forsake the
vulgar, when the vulgar is right ; but there is a con-
versation above grossness and below refinement, where
propriety resides, and where this poet seems to have
gathered his comick dialogue. He is therefore more
agreeable to the ears of the present age than any other
authour equally remote, and among his other excellencies deserves to be studied as one of the original
masters of our language.

These observations are to be considered not as un-
exceptionably constant, but as containing general and
predominant truth. Shakespeare's familiar dialogue is
affirmed to be smooth and clear, yet not wholly with-
out ruggedness or difficulty ; as a country may be
eminently fruitful, though it has spots unfit for cul-
tivation : His characters are praised as natural, though
their sentiments are sometimes forced, and their actions
improbable; as the earth upon the whole is spherical,
though its surface is varied with protuberances and
cavities.

Shakespeare with his excellencies has likewise faults,
and faults sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any
other merit. I shall shew them in the proportion in
which they appear to me, without envious malignity
or superstitious veneration. No question can be more
innocently discussed than a dead poet's pretensions to
renown ; and little regard is due to that bigotry which
sets candour higher than truth.

His first defect is that to which may be imputed
most of the evil in books or in men. He sacrifices
virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful
to please than to instruct, that he seems to write
without any moral purpose. From his writings in-
deed a system of social duty may be selected, for he
that thinks reasonably must think morally ; but his
precepts and axioms drop casually from him ; he
makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is always careful to shew in the virtuous a disapprobation
of the wicked ; he carries his persons indifferently
through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses
them without further care, and leaves their examples
to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his
age cannot extenuate ; for it is always a writer's duty
to make the world better, and justice is a virtue inde-
pendant on time or place.

The plots are often so loosely formed, that a very
slight consideration may improve them, and so care-
lessly pursued, that he seems not always fully to com-
prehend his own design. He omits opportunities of
instructing or delighting which the train of his story
seems to force upon him, and apparently rejects those
exhibitions which would be more affecting, for the
sake of those which are more easy.

It may be observed, that in many of his plays the
latter part is evidently neglected. When he found
himself near the end of his work, and, in view of his
reward, he shortened the labour, to snatch the profit.
He therefore remits his efforts where he should most
vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is impro-
bably produced or imperfectly represented.

He had no regard to distinction of time or place,
but gives to one age or nation, without scruple, the
customs, institutions, and opinions of another, at
the expence not only of likelihood, but of possi-
bility. These faults Pope has endeavoured, with
more zeal than judgment, to transfer to his imagined
interpolators, We need not wonder to find Hector
quoting Aristotle, when we see the loves of Theseus
and Hippolyta combined with the Gothick mytho-
logy of fairies. Shakespeare, indeed, was not the
only violator of chronology, for in the same age
Sidney, who wanted not the advantages of learning,
has, in his Arcadia, confounded the pastoral with
the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet and
security, with those of turbulence, violence and ad-
venture.

In his comick scenes he is seldom very successful,
when he engages his characters in reciprocations of
smartness and contest of sarcasm ; their jests are com-
monly gross, and their pleasantry licentious ; neither
his gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor
are sufficiently distinguished from his clowns by any
appearance of refined manners. Whether he repre-
sented the real conversation of his time is not easy to
determine ; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly sup-
posed to have been a time of stateliness, formality
and reserve, yet perhaps the relaxations of that se-
verity were not very elegant. There must, however,
have been always some modes of gayety preferable to
others, and a writer ought to chuse the best.

In tragedy his performance seems constantly to be
worse, as his labour is more. The essusions of pas-
sion whic exigence forces out are for the most part
striking and energetic; but whenever he solicits his
invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of his
throes is tumour, meanness, tediousness, and ob-
scurity.

In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp
of diction and wearisome train of circumlocution,
and tells the incident imperfectly in many words,
which might have been more plainly delivered in
few. Narration in dramatick poetry is naturally te-
dious, as it is unanimated and inactive, and obstructs
the progress of the action ; it should therefore always
be rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption.
Shakespeare found it an encumbrance, and instead of
lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend
it by dignity and splendour.

His declamations of set speeches are commonly
cold and weak, for his power was the power of na-
ture ; when he endeavoured, like other tragick wri-
ters, to catch opportunities of amplification, and in-
stead of inquiring what the occasion demanded, to
show how much his stores of knowledge could sup-
ply, he seldom escapes without the pity or resentment
of his reader.

It is incident to him to be now and then entangled
with an unwieldy sentiment, which he cannot well
express, and will not reject ; he struggles with it a
while, and if it continues to be stubborn, comprises it in
words such as occur, and leaves it to be disentangled
and evolved by those who have more leisure to bestow
upon it.

Not that always where the language is intricate the
thought is subtle, or the image always great where
the line is bulky ; the equality of words to things is
very often neglected, and trivia sentiments and
vulgar ideas disappoint the attention, to which they
are recommended by sonorous epithets and swelling
figures.

But the admirers of this great poet have never less
reason to indulge their hopes of supreme excellence,
than when he seems fully resolved to sink them in
dejection, and mollify them with tender emotions by
the fall of greatness, the danger of innocence, or
the crosses of love. He is not long soft and pathe-
tick without some idle conceit, or contemptible equi-
vocation. He no sooner begins to move, than he
counteracts himself ; and terrour and pity, as they
are rising in the mind, and are checked and blasted by
sudden frigidity.

A quibble is to Shakespeare, what luminous vapours
are to the traveller ; he follows it at all adventures,
it is sure to lead him out of his way, and sure to
engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power
over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible.
Whatever be the dignity or profundity of his dis-
quisition, whether he be enlarging knowledge or
exalting affection, whether he be amusing atten-
tion with incidents, or enchaining it in suspense,
let but a quibble spring up before him, and he
leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden
apple for which he will always turn aside from his
career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble poor
and barren as it is, gave him such delight, that he
was content to purchase it, by the sacrifice of reason,
propriety and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal
Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was con-
tent to lose it.

It will be thought strange, that, in enumerating
the defects of this writer, I have not yet mentioned
his neglect of the unities ; his violation of those laws
which have been instituted and established by the
joint authority of poets and of criticks.

For his other deviations from the art of writing, I
resign him to critical justice, without making any
other demand in his favour, than that which must be
indulged to all human excellence ; that his virtues be
rated with his failings : But, from the censure which
this irregularity may bring upon him, I shall, with
due reverence to that learning which I must oppose,
adventure to try how I can defend him.

His histories, being neither tragedies nor comedies,
are not subject to any of their laws ; nothing more is
necessary to all the praise which they expect, than that
the changes of action be so prepared as to be under-
stood, that the incidents be various and affecting,
and the characters consistent, natural and distinct.
No other unity is intended, and therefore none is to
be sought.

In his other works he has well enough preserved
the unity of action. He has not, indeed, an intrigue
regularly perplexed and regularly unravelled ; he does
not endeavour to hide his design only to discover it,
for this is seldom the order of real events, and Shake-
speare is the poet of nature : But his plan has com-
monly what Aristotle requires, a beginning, a middle,
and an end ; one event is concatenated with another,
and the conclusion follows by easy consequence.
There are perhaps some incidents that might be spared,
as in other poets there is much talk that only fills
up time upon the stage ; but the general system makes
gradual advances, and the end of the play is the end
of expectation.

To the unities of time and place he has shewn no
regard, and perhaps a nearer view of the principles
on which they stand will diminish their value, and
withdraw from them the veneration which, from the
time of Corneille, they have very generally received
by discovering that they have given more trouble to
the poet, than pleasure to the auditor.

The necessity of observing the unities of time and
place arises from the supposed necessity of making the
drama credible. The criticks hold it impossible, that
an action of months or years can be possibly believed
to pass in three hours ; or that the spectator can sup-
pose himself to sit in the theatre, while ambassadors
go and return between distant kings, while armies are
levied and towns besieged, while an exile wanders
and returns, or till he whom they saw courting his
mistress, shall lament the untimely fall of his son.
The mind revolts from evident falsehood, and fiction
loses its force when it departs from the resemblance
of reality.

From the narrow limitation of time necessarily
arises the contraction of place. The spectator, who
knows that he saw the first act at Alexandria, cannot
suppose that he sees the next at Rome, at a distance
to which not the dragons of Medea could, in so short
a time, have transported him ; he knows with cer-
tainty that he has not changed his place ; and he
knows that place cannot change itself ; that what was
a house cannot become a plain ; that what was Thebes
can never be Persepolis.

Such is the triumphant language with which a cri-
tick exults over the misery of an irregular poet, and
exults commonly without resistance of reply. It is
time therefore to tell him, by the authority of Shake-
speare, that he assumes, as an unquestionable princi-
ple, a position, which, while his breath is forming it
into words, his understanding pronounces to be false.
It is false, that any representation is mistaken for rea-
lity ; that any dramatick fable in its materiality was
every credible, or, for a single moment, was cre-
dited.

The objection arising from the impossibility of pas-
sing the first hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome,
supposes, that when the play opens the spectator really
imagines himself at Alexandria, and believes that his
walk to the theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and
that he lives in the days of Antony and Cleopatra.
Surely he that imagines this, may imagine more. He
that can take the stage at one time for the palace of
the Ptolemies, may take it in half an hour for the
promontary of A{et}ium. Delusion, if delusion be
admitted, has no certain limitation ; if the spectator
can be once persuaded, that his old acquaintance are
Alexander and Cæsar, that a room illuminated with
candles is the plain of Pharsalia, or the bank of Gra-
nicus, he is in a state of elevation above the reach of
reason, or of truth, and from the heights of empyrean
poetry, may despise the circumscriptions of terrestrial
nature. There is no reason why a mind thus wan-
dering in extasy should count the clock, or why an
hour should not be a century in that calenture of the
brains that can make the stage a field.

The truth is, that the spectators are always in their
senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that
the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only
players. They come to hear a certain number of lines
recited with just gesture and elegant modulation.
The lines relate to some action, and an action must
be in some place ; but the different actions that com-
pleat a story may be in places very remote from each
other ; and where is the absurdity of allowing that
space to represent first Athens, and then Sicily, which
was always known to be neither Sicily nor Athens,
but a modern theatre.

By supposition, as place is introduced, time may
be extended ; the time required by the fable elapses
for the most part between the acts ; for, of so much
of the action as is represented, the real and poetical
duration is the same. If, in the first act, pre-
parations for war against Mithridates are represented
to be made in Rome, the event of the war may, with-
out absurdity, be represented, in the catastrophe, as
happening in Pontus ; we know that there is neither
war, nor preparation for war ; we know that we are
neither in Rome nor Pontus ; that neither Mithridates
nor Lucullus are before us. The drama exhibits suc-
cessive imitations of successive actions, and why may
not the second imitation represent an action that hap-
pened years after the first ; if it be so connected with
it, that nothing but time can be supposed to inter-
vene. Time is, of all modes of existence, most ob-
sequious to the imagination ; a lapse of years is as
easily conceived as a passage of hours. In contempla-
tion we easily contract the time of real actions, and
therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when
we only see their imitation.

It will be asked, how the drama moves, if it is not
credited. It is credited with all the credit due to a
drama. It is credited, whenever it moves, as a just
picture of a real original ; as representing to the au-
ditor what he himself would feel, if he were to do or
suffer what is there feigned to be suffered or to be
done. The reflection that strikes the heart is not,
that the evils before us are real evils, but that they
are evils to which we ourselves may be exposed. If
there be any fallacy, it is not that we fancy the play-
ers, but that we fancy ourselves unhappy for a mo-
ment ; but we rather lament the possibility than sup-
pose the presence of misery, as a mother weeps over
her babe, when she remembers that death may take
it from her. The delight of tragedy proceeds from
our consciousness of fiction ; if we thought murders
and treasons real, they would please no more.

Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because
they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring
realities to mind. When the imagination is recreated
by a painted landscape, the trees are not supposed
capable to give us shade, or the fountains coolness;
but we consider, how we should be pleased with
such fountains playing beside us, and such woods
waving over us. We are agitated in reading the
history of Henry the Fifth, yet no man takes his book
for the field of Agencourt. A dramatick exhibition is
a book recited with concomitants that encrease or di-
minish its effect. Familiar comedy is often more
powerful on the theatre, than in the page ; imperial
tragedy is always less. The humour of Petruchio may
be heightened by grimace ; but what voice or what
gesture can hope to add dignity or force to the soli-
loquy of Cato.

A play read, affects the mind like a play acted.
It is therefore evident, that the action is not sup-
posed to be real, and it follows that between the acts
a longer or shorter time may be allowed to pass,
and that no more account of space or duration is to
be taken by the auditor of a drama, than by the reader
of a narrative, before whom may pass in an hour the
life of a hero, or the revolutions of an empire.

Whether Shakespeare knew the unities, and re-
jected them by design, or deviated from them by
happy ignorance, it is, I think, impossible to decide,
and useless to inquire. We may reasonably suppose,
that, when he rose to notice, he did not want the
counsels and admonitions of scholars and crticks,
and that he at last deliberately persisted in a prac-
tice, which he might have begun by chance. As
nothing is essential to the fable, but unity of action,
and as the unities of time and place arise evidently from
false assumptions, and, by circumscribing the extent
of the drama, lessen its variety, I cannot think it much
to be lamented, that they were not known by him,
or not observed : Nor, if such another poet could
arise, should I very vehemently reproach him, that
his first act passed at Venice, and his next in Cyprus.
Such violations of rules merely positive, become
the comprehensive genius of Shakespeare, and such
censures are suitable to the minute and sllender criticism
of Voltaire:


Non usque adea permiscuit imis
Longus summa dies, ut non, si voce Metelli
Serventur leges, malint a Cæsare tolli.


Yet when I speak thus slightly of dramatick rules,
I cannot but recollect how much wit and learn-
ing may be produced against me ; before such au-
thorities I am afraid to stand, not that I think the
present question one of those that are to be decided
by mere authority, but because it is to be suspected,
that these precepts have not been so easily received
but for better reasons than I have yet been able to
find. The result of my enquiries, in which it would
be ludicrous to boast of impartiality, is, that the uni-
ties of time and place are not essential to a just dra-
ma, that though they may sometimes conduce to plea-
sure, they are always to be sacrificed to the nobler
beauties of variety and instruction ; and that a play,
written with nice observation of critical rules, is to be
contemplated as an elaborate curiosity, as the product
of superfluous and ostentatious art, by which is shewn,
rather what is possible, than what is necessary.

He that, without diminution of any other excel-
lence, shall preserve all the unities unbroken, deserves
the like applause with the architect, who shall dis-
play all the orders of architecture in a citadel, without
any deduction from its strength ; but the principal
beauty of a citadel is to exclude the enemy ; and the
greatest graces of a play, are to copy nature and in-
struct life.

Perhaps, what I have here not dogmatically but
deliberately written, may recal the principles of the
drama to a new examination. I am almost fright-
ed at my own temerity ; and when I estimate the
fame and the strength of those that maintain the
contrary opinion, am ready to sink down in reveren-
tial silence; as æneas withdrew from the defence of
Troy, when he saw Neptune shaking the wall, and
Juno heading the besiegers.

Those whom my arguments cannot persuade to
give their approbation to the judgment of Shakespeare,
will easily, if they consider the condition of his life,
make some allowance for his ignorance.

Every man's performances, to be rightly estima-
ted, must be compared with the state of the age in
which he lived, and with his own particular oppor-
tunities ; and though to the reader a book be not
worse or better for the circumstances of the authour,
yet as there is always a silent reference of human
works to human abilities, and as the enquiry, how
far man may extend his designs, or how high he may
rate his native force, is of far greater dignity than in
what rank we shall place any particular performance,
curiosity is always busy to discover the instruments,
as well as to survey the workmanship, to know
how much is to be ascribed to original powers, and
how much to casual and adventitious help. The pa-
laces of Peru or Mexico were certainly mean and in-
commodious habitations, if compared to the houses
of European monarchs ; yet who could forbear to view
them with astonishment, who remembered that they
were built without the use of iron?

The English nation, in the time of Shakespeare, was
yet struggling to emerge from barbarity. The phi-
lology of Italy had been transplanted hither in the
reign of Henry the Eighth ; and the learned languages
had been successfully cultivated by Lilly, Linacer, and
More; by Pole, Cheke, and Gardiner; and afterwards
by Smith, Clerk, Haddon, and Ascham. Greek was
now tought to boys in the principal schools ; and those
who united elegance with learning, read, with great
diligence, the Italian, and Spanish poets. But literature
was yet confined to professed scholars, or to men and
women of high rank. The publick was gross and
dark ; and to be able to read and write, was an ac-
complishment still valued for its rarity.

Nations, like individuals, have their infancy. A
people newly awakened to literary curiosity, being yet
unacquainted with the true state of things, knows not
how to judge of that which is proposed as its resem-
blance. Whatever is remote from common appearances
is always welcome to vulgar, as to childish credulity ;
and of a country unenlightened by learning, the whole
people is the vulgar. The study of those who then
aspired to plebian learning was laid out upon adven-
tures, giants, dragons, and enchantments. The Death
of Arthur was the favourite volume.

The mind, which has feasted on the luxurious won-
ders of fiction, has no taste of the insipidity of truth.
A play which imitated only the common occurrences
of the world, would, upon the admirers of Palmerin
and Guy of Warwick, have made little impression ;
he that wrote for such an audience was under the ne-
cessity of looking round for strange events and fabu-
lous transactions, and that incredibility, by which
maturer knowledge is offended, was the chief recom-
mendation of writings, to unskilful curiosity.

Our authour's plots are generally borrowed from no-
vels, and it is reasonable to suppose, that he chose
the most popular, such as were read by many, and
related by more ; for his audience could not have
followed him through the intricacies of the drama,
had they not held the thread of the story in their
hands.

The stories, which we now find only remoter
authours, were in his time acessible and familliar.
The fable of As you like it, which is supposed to be
copied from Chaucer's Gamelyn, was a little pamphlet
of those times ; and old Mr. Cibber remembered the
tale of Hamlet in plain English prose, which the cri-
ticks have now to seek in Saxo Grammaticus.

His English histories he took from English chro-
nicles and English ballads ; and as the ancient writers
were made known to his countrymen by versions,
they supplied him with new subjects ; he dilated some
of Plutarch's lives into plays, when they had been
translated by North.

His plots, whether historical or fabulous, are al-
ways crouded with incidents, by which the attention
of a rude people was more easily caught than by
sentiment or argumentation ; and such is the power
of the marvellous even over those who despise it,
that every man finds his mind more strongly seized
by the tragedies of Shakespeare than of any other wri-
ter ; others please us by particular speeches, but he
always makes us anxious for the event, and has
perhaps excelled all by Homer in securing the first
purpose of a writer, by exciting restless and unquench-
able curiosity, and compelling him that reads his
work to read it through.

The shows and bustle with which his plays abound
have the same original. As knowledge advances,
pleasure passes from the eye to the ear, but returns,
as it declines, from the ear to the eye. Those to
whom our authour's labours were exhibited had more
skill in pomps or processions than in poetical language,
and perhaps wanted some visible and discriminated
events, as comments on the dialogue. He knew how
he should most please ; and whether his practice is
more agreeable to nature, or whether his example has
prejudiced the nation, we still find that on our stage
something must be done as well as said, and inac-
tive declamation is very coldly heard, however musi-
cal or elegant, passionate or sublime.

Voltaire expresses his wonder, that our authour's
extravagancies are endured by a nation, which has
seen the tragedy of Cato. Let him be answered,
that Addison speaks the language of poets, and Shake-
speare, of men. We find Cato innumerable beau-
ties which enamour us of its authour, but we see no-
thing that acquaints us with human sentiments or
human actions ; we place it with the fairest and
the noblest progeny which judgment propagates by
conjunction with learning, but Othello is the vigo-
rous and vivacious offspring of observation impreg-
nated by genius. Cato affords a splendid exhibition
of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers just
and noble sentiments, in diction easy, elevated and
harmonious, but its hopes and fears communicate
no vibration to the heart; the composition refers us
only to the writer ; we pronounce the name of Cato,
but we think on Addison.

The work of a correct and regular writer is a gar-
den accurately formed and diligently planted, varied
with shades, and scented with flowers ; the composi-
tion of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend
their branches, and pines tower in the air, inter-
spersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and
sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses ; fill-
ing the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind
with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets
of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into
shape, and polished unto brightness. Shakespeare
opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in
unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrusta-
tions, debased by impurities, and mingled with a
mass of meaner minerals.

It has been much disputed, whether Shakespeare
owed his excellence to his own native force, or whe-
ther he had the common helps of scholastick educa-
tion, the precepts of critical science, and the examples
of ancient authours.

There has always prevailed a tradition, that Shake-
speare wanted learning, that he had no regular edu-
cation, nor much skill in the dead languages. John-
son, his friend, affirms, that he had small Latin, and no
Greek ; who, besides that he had no imaginable temp-
tation to falsehood, wrote at a time when the cha-
racter and acquisitions of Shakespeare were known
to multitudes. His evidence ought therefore to de-
cide the controversy, unless some testimony of equal
force could be opposed.

Some have imagined, that they have discovered
deep learning in many imitations of old writers ; but
the examples which I have known urged, were
drawn from books translated in his time ; or were
such easy coincidencies of thought, as will happen to
all who consider the same subjects ; or such remarks
on life or axioms of morality as float in conver-
sation, and are transmitted through the world in
proverbial sentences.

I have found it remarked, that, in this important
sentence, Go before, I'll follow, we read a translation
of, I prae, sequar. I have been told, that when Ca-
liban, after a pleasing dream, says, I cry'd to sleep again,
the authour imitates Anacreon, who had, like every
other man, the same wish on the same occsion.

There are a few passages which may pass for imita-
tions, but so few, that the exception only confirms the
rule ; he obtained them from accidental quotations, or
by oral communication, and as he used what he had,
would have used more if he had obtained it.

The Comedy of Errors is confessedly taken from the
Menæchmi of Plautus ; from the only play of Plautus
which was then in English. What can be more pro-
bable, than that he who copied that, would have co-
pied more ; but that those which were not translated
were inaccessible?

Whether he knew the modern languages is un-
certain. That his plays have some French scenes
proves but little ; he might easily procure them to be
written, and probably, even though he had known
the language in the common degree, he could not
have written it without assistance. In the story of
Romeo and Juliet he is observed to have followed the
English translation, where it deviates from the Ita-
lain ; but this on the other part proves nothing against
his knowledge of the original. He was to copy, not
what he knew himself, but what was known to his
audience.

It is most likely that he had learned Latin sufficiently
to make him acquainted with construction, but that
he never advanced to an easy perusal of the Roman au-
thours. Concerning his skill in modern languages, I
can find no sufficient ground of determination ; but
as no imitations of French or Italian authours have
been discovered, though the Italian poetry was then
high in esteem, I am inclined to believe, that he read
little more than English, and chose for his fables only
such tales as he found translated.

That much knowledge is scattered over his works
is very justly observed by the Pope, but it is often such
knowledge as books did not supply. He that will
understand Shakespeare, must not be content to study
him in the closet, he must look for his meaning
sometimes among the sports of the field, and some-
times among the manufactures of the shop.

There is however proof enough that he was a very
diligent reader, nor was our language then so indi-
gent of books, but that he might very liberally
indulge his curiosity without excursion into foreign
literature. Many of the Roman authours were trans-
lated, and some of the Greek; the reformation had
filled the kingdom with theological learning ; most
of the topicks of human disquisition had found Eng-
lish writers ; and poetry had been cultivated, not
only with diligence, but success. This was a stock
of knowledge sufficient for a mind so capable of ap-
propriating and improving it.

Bnt the greater part of his excellence was the pro-
duct of his own genius. He founded the English stage
in a state of the utmost rudeness ; no essays either in
tragedy or comedy had appeared, from which it
could be discovered to what degree of delight either
one or other might be carried. Neither character
nor dialogue were yet understood. Shakespeare may
be truly said to have introduced them both amongst
us, and in some of his happier scenes to have carried
them both to the utmost height.

By what gradations of improvement he proceeded,
is not easily known ; for the chronology of his works
is yet unsettled. Rowe is of opinion, that perhaps
we are not to look for his beginning, like those of other
writers, in his least perfect works ; art had so little, and
nature so large a share in what he did, that for ought I
know, says he, the performances of his youth, as they
were the most vigorous, were the best. But the power
of nature is only the power of using to any certain
purpose the materials which diligence procures, or
opportunity supplies. Nature gives no man know-
ledge, and when images are collected by study and
experience, can only assist is combining or apply-
in them. Shakespeare, however favoured by nature,
could impart only what he had learned ; and as he
must increase his ideas, like other mortals, by gra-
dual acquisition, he, like them, grew wiser as he
grew older, could display life better, as he knew
it more, and instruct with more efficacy, as he was
himself more amply instructed.

There is a vigilance of observation and accuracy
of distinction which books and precepts cannot con-
fer ; from this almost all original and native excel-
lence proceeds. Shakespeare must have looked upon
mankind with perspicacity, in the highest degree ?-
rious and attentive. Other writers borrow their cha-
racters from preceding writers, and diversify them
only by the accidental appendages of present man-
ners ; the dress is a little varied, but the body is the
same. Our authour had both matter and form to
provide ; for except the characters of Chaucer, to
whom I think he is not much indebted, there were
no writers in English and perhaps not many in other
modern languages, which shewed life in its native
colours.

The contest about the original benevolence or ma-
lignity of man had not yet commenced. Specula-
tion had not yet attempted to analyse the mind, to
trace the passions to their sources, to unfold the se-
minal principles of vice and virtue, or sound the
depths of the heart for the motives of action. All
those enquiries, which from that time that human
nature became the unfashionable study, have been made
sometimes with nice discernment, but often with idle
subtilty, were yet unattempted. The tales, with
which the infancy of learning was satisfied, exhibited
only the superficial appearances of action, related
the events but omitted the causes, and were formed
for such as delighted in wonders rather than in truth.
Mankind was not then to be studied in the closet ; he
that would know the world, was under the necessity
of gleaning his own remarks, by mingling as he could
in its business and amusements.
Boyle congratulated himself on his high birth,
because it favoured his curiosity, by facilitating his
access. Shakespeare had no such advantage ; he came
to London a needy adventurer, and lived for a time
by very mean employments. Many works of genius
and learning have been performed in states of life,
that appear very little favourable to thought or to
enquiry ; so many, that he who considers them is in-
clined to think that he sees enterprise and perserverance
predominating over all external agency, and bidding
help and hindrance vanish before them. The genius
of Shakespeare was not to be depressed by the weight
of poverty, nor limited by the narrow conversation to
which men in want are inevitably condemned ; the
incumbrances of his fortune were shaken from his
mind, as dewdrops from a lion's mane.

Though he had so many difficulties to encounter,
and so little assistance to surmount them, he has been
able to obtain an exact knowledge of many modes of
life, and many casts of native dispositions ; to vary
them with great multiplicity ; to mark them by nice
distinctions ; and to shew them in full view by proper
combinations. In this part of his performances he
had none to imitate, but has himself been imitated
by all succeeding writers ; and it may be doubted,
whether from all his successors more maxims of theo-
retical knowledge, or more rules of practical pru-
dence, can be collected, than he alone has given to
his country.

Nor was his attention confined to the actions of
men ; he was an exact surveyor of the inanimate
world ; his descriptions have always some peculiarities,
gathered by contemplating things as they really exist.
It may be observed, that the oldest poets of many
nations preserve their reputation, and that the follow-
ing generations of wit, after a short celebrity, sink
into oblivion. The first, whoever they be, must take
their sentiments and descriptions immediately from
knowledge ; the resemblance is therefore just, their
descriptions are verified by every eye, and their sen-
timents acknowledged by every breast. Those whom
their fame invites to the same studies, copy partly
them, and partly nature, till the books of one age
gain such authority, as to stand in the place of nature
to another, and imitation, always deviating a little,
becomes at last capricious and casual. Shakespeare,
whether life or nature be his subject, shews plainly,
that he has seen with his own eyes ; he gives the
image which he receives, not weakened or distorted
by the intervention of any other mind ; the ignorant
feel his representations to be just, and the learned
see that they are compleat.

Perhaps it would not be easy to find any authour,
except Homer, who invented so much as Shakespeare,
who so much advanced the studies which he cultivated,
or effused so much novelty upon his age or country.
The form, the characters, the language, and the shows
of the English drama are his. He seems, says Dennis,
to have been the very original of our English tragical
harmony, that is, the harmony of blank verse, diversified
often by dissyllable and trissyllable terminations. For the
diversity distinguishes it from heroick harmony, and by
bringing it nearer to common use makes it more proper to
gain attention, and more fit for action and dialogue. Such
verse we make when we are writing prose ; we make such
verse in common conversation.

I know not whether this praise is rigorously just.
The dissyllable termination, which the critick rightly
appropriates to the drama, is to be found, though,
I think, not in Gorboduc which is confessedly before
our authour ; yet in Hieronnymo, of which the date is
not certain, but which there is no reason to believe at
least as old as his earliest plays. This however is cer-
tain, that he is the first who taught either tragedy or
comedy to please, there being no theatrical piece of
any older writer, of which the name is known, except
to antiquaries and collectors of books, which are
sought because they are scarce, and would not have
been scarce, had they been much esteemed.

To him we must ascribe the praise, unless Spenser
may divide it with him, of having first discovered to
how much smoothness and harmony the English lan-
guage could be softened. He has speeches, perhaps
sometimes scenes, which have all the delicacy of Rowe,
without his effeminacy. He endeavours indeed com-
monly to strike by the force and vigour of his dia-
logue, but he never executes his purpose better, than
when he tries to sooth by softness.

Yet it must be at last confessed, that as we owe
every thing to him, he owes something to us ; that,
if much of his praise is paid by perception and judge-
ment, much is likewise given by custom and venera-
tion. We fix our eyes upon his graces, and turn
them from his deformities, and endure in him what
we should in another loath or despise. If we endured
without praising, respect for the father of our drama
might excuse us ; but I have seen, in the book of
some modern critick, a collection of anomalies which
shew that he has corrupted language by every mode
of depravation, but which his admirer has accumu-
lated as a monument of honour.

He has scenes of undoubted and perpetual excel-
lence, but perhaps not one play, which, if it were
now exhibited as the work of a contemporary writer,
would be heard to the conclusion. I am indeed far
from thinking, that his works were wrought to his
own ideas of perfection ; when they were such as would
satisfy the audience, they satisfied the writer. It is
seldom that authours, though more studious of fame
than Shakespeare, rise much above the standard of their
own age ; to add a little to what is best will always
be sufficient for present praise, and those who find
themselves exalted into fame, are willing to credit
their encomiasts, and to spare the labour of contend-
ing with themselves.

It does not appear, that Shakespeare thought his
works worthy of posterity, that he levied any ideal
tribute upon future times, or had any furthur pros-
pect, than of present popularity and present profit.
When his plays had been acted, his hope was at an
end ; he solicited no addition of honour from the
reader. He therefore made no scruple to repeat the
same jests in many dialogues, or to entangle differ-
ent plots by the same knot of perplexity, which may
be at least forgiven him, by those who recollect, that
of Congreve's four comedies, two are concluded by a
marriage in a mask, by a deception, which perhaps
never happened, and which, whether likely or not,
he did not invent.

So careless was this great poet of future fame,
that, though he retired to ease and plenty, while he
was yet little declined into the vale of years, before he
could be disgusted with fatigue, or disabled by in-
firmity, he made no collection of his works, nor
desired to rescue those that had been already published
from the depravations that obscured them, or secure
to the rest a better destiny, by giving them to the
world in their genuine state.

Of the plays which bear the name of Shakespeare in
the late editions, the greater part were not published
till about seven years after his death, and the few
which appeared in his life are apparently thrust into
the world without the care of the authour, and there-
fore probably without his knowledge.

Of all the publishers, clandestine or professed, their
negligence and unskillfulness has by the late revisers
been sufficiently shown. The faults of all are indeed
numerous and gross, and have not only corrupted
many passages perhaps beyond recovery, but have
brought others into suspicion, which are only obscured
by obsolete phraseology, or by the writer's unskilful-
ness and affectation. To alter is more easy than to
explain, and temerity is a more common quality than
diligence. Those who saw that they must employ
conjecture to a certain degree, were willing to indulge
it a little furthur. Had the authour published his own
works, we should have sat quietly down to disentangle
his intricacies, and clear his obscurities ; but now we
tear what we cannot loose, and eject what we happen
not to understand.

The faults are more than could have happened
without the concurrence of may causes. The stile
of Shakespeare was in itself ungrammatical, perplexed
and obscure; his works were transcribed for the
players by those who may be supposed to have seldom
understood them; they were transmitted by copiers
equally unskillful who still multiplied errours; they
were perhaps sometimes mutilated by the actors, for
the sake of shortening the speeches; and were at last
printed without correction of the the press.

In this state they remained, not as Dr. Warburton
supposes, because they were unregarded, but because
the editor's art was not yet applied to modern lan-
guages, and our ancestors were accustomed to so
much negligence of English printers, that they could
very patiently endure it. At last an edition was un-
dertaken by Rowe ; not because a poet was to be pub-
lished by a poet, for Rowe seems to have thought
very little on correction or explanation, but that our
authour's works might appear like those of his fra-
ternity, with the appendages of a life and recom-
mendatory preface. Rowe has been clamorously blamed
for not performing what he did not undertake, and
it is time that justice be done him, by confessing,
that though he seems to have had no thought of
corruption beyond the printer's errours, yet he has
made many emendations, if they were not made be-
fore, which his successors have received without ac-
knowledgment, and which, if they had produced
them, would have filled pages and pages with cen-
sures of the stupidity by which the faults were com-
mitted, with displays of the absurdities which they
involved, with ostentatious expositions of the new
reading, and self congratulations on the happiness of
discovering it.

Of Rowe, as of all the editors, I have preserved
the preface, and have likewise retained the authour's
life, though not written with much elegance or spirit ;
it relates however what is now to be known, and
therefore deserves to pass through all succeeding pub-
lications.

The nation had been for many years content enough
with Mr. Rowe's performance, when Mr. Pope made
them acquainted with the true state of Shakespear's
text, shewed that it was extremely corrupt, and gave
reason to hope that there were means of reforming
it. He collated the old copies, which none had
thought to examine before, and restored many lines
to their integrity ; but, by a very compendious cri-
ticism, he rejected whatever he disliked, and thought
more of amputation than of cure.

I know not why he is commended by Dr. War-
burton for distinguishing the genuine from the spuri-
ous plays. In this choice he exerted no judgment
of his own ; the plays which he received, were given
by Hemings and Condel, the first editors ; and those
which he rejected, though, according to the licen-
tiousness of the press in those times, they were printed
during Shakespear's life, with his name, had been
omitted by his friends, and were never added to his
works before the edition of , from which they
were copied by the later printers.

This was a work which Pope seems to have thought
unworthy of his abilities, being not able to suppress
his contempt of the dull duty of an editor. He under-
stood but half his undertaking. The duty of a collator
is indeed dull, yet, like other tedious tasks, is very
necessary ; but an emendatory critick would ill dis-
charge his duty, without qualities very different from
dulness. In perusing a corrupted piece, he must have
before him all possibilities of meaning, with all possibi-
lities of expression. Such must be his comprehension
of thought, and such his copiousness of language.
Out of many readings possible, he must be able to
select that which best suits with the state, opinions,
and modes of language prevailing in every age, and
with his authour's particular cast of thought, and
turn of expression. Such must be his knowledge,
and such his taste. Conjectural criticism demands
more than humanity possesses, and he that excercises it
with most praise has very frequent need of indulgence.
Let us now be told no more of the dull duty of an
editor.

Confidence is the common consequence of success.
They whose excellence of any kind has been loudly
celebrated, are ready to conclude, that their powers
are universal. Pope's edition fell below his own ex-
pectations, and he was so much offended, when he
was found to have left any thing for others to do,
that he past the latter part of his life in a state of
hostility with verbal criticism.

I have retained all his notes, that no fragment of
so great a writer may be lost ; his preface, valuable
alike for elegance of composition and justness of re-
mark, and containing a general criticism on his au-
thour, so extensive that little can be added, and so
exact, that little can be disputed, every editor has an
interest to suppress, but that every reader would de-
mand its insertion.

Pope was succeeded by Theobald, a man of narrow
comprehension and small acquisitions, with no native
and intrinsick splendour of genius, with little of the
artificial light of learning, but zealous for minute
accuracy, and not negligent in pursuing it. He col-
lated the ancient copies, and rectified many errors.
A man so anxiously scrupulous might have been ex-
pected to do more, but what little he did was com-
monly right.

In his reports of copies and editions he is not to be
trusted, without examination. He speaks sometimes
indefinitely of copies, when he has only one. In his
enumeration of editions, he mentions the two first
folios as of high, and the third folio as of middle
authority ; but the truth is, that the first is equivalent
to all others, and that the rest only deviate from it
by the printer's negligence. Whoever has any of
the folios has all, excepting those diversities which
mere reiteration of editions will produce. I collated
them all at the beginning, but afterwards used only
the first.

Of his notes I have generally retained those which
he retained himself in his second edition, except when
they were confuted by subsequent annotators, or were
too minute to merit preservation. I have sometimes
adopted his restoration of a comma, without inserting
the panegyrick in which he celebrated himself for his
atchievement. The exuberant excrescence of diction
I have often lopped, his triumphant exultations over
Pope and Rowe I have sometimes suppressed, and his
comtemptible ostentation I have frequently concealed ;
but I have in some places shewn him, as he would
have shewn himself, for the reader's diversion, that the
inflated emptiness of some notes may justify or excuse
the contraction of the rest.

Theobald, thus weak and ignorant, thus mean and
faithless, thus petulant and ostentatious, by the good
luck of having Pope for his enemy, has escaped, and
escaped alone, with reputation, from this undertaking.
So willingly does the world support those who solicite
favour, against those who command reverence ; and
so easily is he praised, whom no man can envy.

Our authour then fell into the hands of Sir Tho\
mas Hanmer, the Oxford editor, a man, in my opi-
nion, eminently qualified by nature for such studies.
He had, what is the first requisite to emendatory cri-
ticism, that intuition by which the poet's intention
is immediately discovered, and that dexterity of in-
tellect which dispatches its work by the easiest means.
He had undoubtably read much ; his acquaintance
with customs, opinions, and traditions, seems to have
been large ; and he is often learned without shew.
He seldom passes what he does not understand, with-
out an attempt to find or to make a meeting, and
sometimes hastily makes what a little more attention
would have found. He is solicitous to reduce to
grammar, what he could not be sure that his authour
intended to be grammatical. Shakespeare regarded
more the series of ideas, than of words ; and his lan-
guage, not being designed for the reader's desk, was
all that he desired it to be, if it conveyed his meaning
to the audience.

Hanmer's care of the metre has been too violently
censured. He found the measures reformed in so
many passages, by the silent labours of some editors,
with the silent acquiescence of the rest, that he
thought himself allowed to extend a little furthur
the license, which had already been carried so far
without reprehension ; and of his corrections in ge-
neral, it must be confessed, that they are often just,
and made commonly with the least possible violation
of the text.

But, by inserting his emendations, whether invented
or borrowed, into the page, without any notice of
varying copies, he has appropriated the labour of
his predecessors, and made his own edition of little
authority. His confidence indeed, both in himself
and others, was too great ; he supposes all to be
right that was done by Pope and Theobald ; he seems
not to suspect a critick of fallibility, and it was but
reasonable that he should claim what he so liberally
granted.

As he never writes without careful enquiry and di-
ligent consideration, I have received all his notes, and
believe that every reader will wish for more.

Of the last editor it is more difficult to speak. Re-
spect is due to high place, tenderness to living repu-
tation, and veneration to genius and learning ; but
he cannot be justly offended at that liberty of which
he has himself so frequently given an example, nor
very solicitous what is thought of notes, which he
ought never to have considered as part of his serious
employments, and which, I suppose, since the ardour
of composition is remitted, he no longer numbers
among his happy effusions.

{{c3r}}

The original and predominant errour of his com-
mentary, is acquiescence in his first thoughts ; that
precipitation which is produced by consciousness of
quick discernment ; and that confidence with pre-
sumes to do, by surveying the surface, what labour
only can perform, by penetrating the bottom. His
notes exhibit sometimes perverse interpretations, and
sometimes improbable conjectures ; he at one time
gives the authour more profundity of meaning than
the sentence admits, and at another discovers adsur-
dities, where the sense is plain to every other reader.
But his emendations are likewise often happy and just ;
and his interpretation of obscure passages learned and
sagacious.

Of his notes, I have commonly rejected those,
against which the general voice of the publick has
exclaimed, or which their own incongruity imme-
diately condemns, and which, I suppose, the au-
thour himself would desire to be forgotten. Of the
rest, to part I have given the highest approbation,
by inserting the offered reading in the text ; part I
have left to the judgment of the reader, as doubtful,
though specious ; and part I have censured without
reserve, but I am sure without bitterness of malice,
and, I hope, without wantonness of insult.

It is no pleasure to me, in revising my volumes,
to observe how much paper is wasted in confutation.
Whoever considers the revolutions of learning, and
the various questions of greater or less importance,
upon which wit and reason have excercised their powers,

{{c3v}}


must lament the unsuccessfulness of enquiry, and the
slow advances of truth, when he reflects, that great
part of the labour of every writer is only the destruc-
tion of those that went before him. The first care
of the builder of a new system, is to demolish the
fabricks which are standing. The chief desire of him
that comments an authour, is to shew how much
other commentators have corrupted and obscured him.
The opinions prevalent in one age, as truths above
the reach of controversy, are confuted and rejected in
another, and rise again to reception in remoter times.
Thus the human mind is kept in motion without
progress. Thus sometimes truth and errour, and
sometimes contrarieties of errour, take each others
place by reciprocal invasion. The tide of seeming
knowledge which is poured over one generation, re-
tires and leaves another naked and barren ; the sudden
meteors of intelligence which for a while appear to
shoot their beams into the regions of obscurity, on a
sudden withdraw their lustre, and leave mortals again
to grope their way.

These elevations and depressions of renown, and the
contradictions to which all improvers of knowledge
must for ever be exposed; since they are not escaped
by the highest and brightest of mankind, may surely
be endured with patience by criticks and annotators,
who can rank themselves but as the satellites of their
authours. How canst thou beg for life, says Achil-
les to his captive, when thou knowest that thou art
now to suffer only what must another day be suffered.
by Achilles?

Dr. Warburton had a name sufficient to confer
celebrity on those who could exalt themselves into
antagonists, and his notes have raised a clamour too
loud to be distinct. His chief assailants are the au-
thours of the Canons of criticism and of the Review
of Shakespeare's text ; of whom one ridicules his
errours with airy petulance, suitable enough to the
levity of the controversy ; the other attacks them with
gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an
assassin or incendiary. The one stings like a fly, sucks
a little blood, takes a gay flutter, and returns for
more ; the other bites like a viper, and would be
glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind him.
When I think on one, with his confederates, I re-
member the danger of Coriolanus, who was afraid that
girls with spits, and boys with stones, should slay him in
puny battle
; when the other crosses my imagination, I
remember the prodigy in Macbeth,


An eagle tow'ring in his pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.


Let me however do them justice. One is a wit,
and one a scholar. They have both shewn acuteness
sufficient in the discovery of faults, and have both
advanced some probable interpretations of obscure
passages ; but when they aspire to conjecture and
emendation, it appears how falsely we all estimate our
own abilities, and the little which they have been able
to perform might have taught them more candour to
the endeavours of others.

{{c4v}}

Before Dr. Warburton's edition, Critical observations
on Shakespeare had been published by Mr. Upton, a
man skilled in languages, and acquainted with books,
but who seems to have had no great vigour of genius
or nicety of taste. Many of his explanations are curi-
ous and useful, but he likewise, though he professed
to oppose the licentious confidence of editors, and
adhere to the old copies, is unable to restrain the rage
of emendation, though his ardour is ill seconded by
his skill. Every cold empirick, when his heart is ex-
panded by a successful experiment, swells into a theo-
rist, and the laborious collator at some unlucky mo-
ment frolicks in conjecture.

Critical, historical and explanatory notes have been
likewise published upon Shakespeare by Dr. Grey, whose
diligent perusal of the old English writers has enabled
him to make some useful observations. What he
undertook he has well enough performed, but as he
neither attempts judicial nor emendatory criticism, he
employs rather his memory than his sagacity. It
were to be wished that all would endeavour to imi-
tate his modesty who have not been able to surpass
his knowledge.

I can say with great sincerity of all my predeces-
sors, what I hope will hereafter be said of me, that not
one has left Shakespeare without improvement, nor
is there one to whom I have not been indebted for
assistance and information. Whatever I have taken
from them it was my intention to refer to its origi-
nal authour, and it is certain, that what I have not
given to another, I believed when I wrote it to be
my own. In some perhaps I have been anticipa-
ted ; but if I am ever found to encroach upon the
remarks of any other commentator, I am willing that
the honour, be it more or less, should be transferred
to the first claimant, for his right, and his alone,
stands above dispute ; the second can prove his pre-
tensions only to himself, nor can himself always
distinguish invention, with sufficient certainty, from
recollection.

They have all been treated by me with candour,
which they have not been careful of observing to one
another. It is not easy to discover from what cause
the acrimony of a scholiast can naturally proceed.
The subjects to be discussed by him are of very small
importance ; they involve neither property nor li-
berty ; nor favour the interest of sect or party. The
various readings of copies, and different interpreta-
tions of a passage, seem to be questions that might
excercise the wit, without engaging the passions. But,
whether it be, that small things make mean men proud,
and vanity catches small occasions ; or that all con-
trariety of opinion, even in those that can defend
it no longer, make proud men angry ; there is often
found in commentaries a spontaneous strain of invec-
tive and contempt, more eager and venomous than
is vented by the most furious controvertust in poli-
ticks against those whom he is hired to defame.

Perhaps the lightness of the matter may conduce
to the vehemence of the agency ; when the truth to
be investigated is so near to inexistence, as to escape
attention, its bulk is to be enlarged by rage and
exclamation : That to which all would be indifferent
in its original state, may attract notice when the fate
of a name is appended to it. A commentator has
indeed great temptations to supply by turbulence
what he wants of dignity, to beat his little gold to a
spacious surface, to work that to foam which no art
or diligence can exalt to spirit.

The notes which I have borrowed or written are
either illustrative, by which difficulties are explain-
ed ; or judicial, by which faults and beauties are re-
marked ; or emendatory, by which depravations are
corrected.

The explanations transcribed from others, if I
do not subjoin any other interpretation, I suppose
commonly to be right, at least I intend by ac-
quiescence to confess, that I have nothing better to
propose.

After the labours of all the editors, I found many
passages which appeared to me likely to obstruct the
greater number of readers, and thought it my duty to
facilitate their passage. It is impossible for an expo-
sitor not to write too little for some, and too much
for others. He can only judge what is necessary by
his own experience ; and how long soever he may
deliberate, will at last explain many lines which
the learned will think impossible to be mistaken, and
omit many for which the ignorant will want his help.
These are censures merely relative, and must be quietly
endured. I have endeavoured to be neither super-
fluously copious, not scrupulously reserved, and hope
that I have made my authour's meaning accessible to
many who before were frighted from perusing him,
and contributed something to the publick, by dif-
fusing innocent and rational pleasure.

The compleat explanation of an authour not syste-
matick and consequential, but desultory and vagrant,
abounding in casual allusions and light hints, is not
to be expected from any single scholiast. All personal
reflections, when names are suppressed, must be in a
few years irrecoverable oblitterated ; and customs, too
minute to attract the notice of law, such as modes of
dress, formalities of conversation, rules of visits, dis-
position of furniture, and practices of ceremony,
which naturally find places in familiar dialogue, are
so fugitive and unsubstantial, that they are not easily
retained or recovered. What can be known, will be
collected by chance, from the recesses of obscure and
obsolete papers, perused commonly with some other
view. Of this knowledge every man has some, and
none has much ; but when an authour has engaged the
publick attention, those who can add any thing to
his illustration, communicate their discoveries, and
time produces what had eluded diligence.

To time I have been obliged to resign many pas-
sages, which, though I did not understand them,
will perhaps hereafter be explained, having, I hope,
illustrated some, which others have neglected or mis-
taken, sometimes by short remarks, or marginal di-
rections, such as every editor has added at his will,
and often by comments more laborious than the
matter will seem to deserve ; but that which is
most difficult is not always most important, and
to an editor nothing is a trifle by which his authour
is obscured.

The poetical beauties or defects I have not been
very diligent to observe. Some plays have more, and
some fewer judicial observations, not in proportionto
their difference of merit, but because I gave this
part of my design to chance and to caprice. The
reader, I believe, is seldom pleased to find his opi-
nion anticipated ; it is natural to delight more in
what we find or make, than in what we receive.
Judgement, like other faculties, is improved by prac-
tice, and its advancement is hindered by submission
to dictatorial decisions, as the memory grows torpid
by the use of a table book. Some initiation is how-
ever necessary ; of all skill, part is infused by pre-
cept, and part is obtained by habit ; I have therefore
shewn so much as may enable the candidate of criti-
cism to discover the rest.

To the end of most plays, I have added short
strictures, containing a general censure of faults, or
praise of excellence ; in which I know not how much
I have concurred with the current opinion ; but I
have not, by any affectation of singularity, deviated
from it. Nothing is minutely and particularly ex-
amined, and therefore it is to be supposed, that in
the plays which are condemned there is much to be
praised, and in these which are praised much to be
condemned.

The part of criticism in which the whole succes-
sion of editors has laboured with the greatest dili-
gence, which has occasioned the most arrogant osten-
tation, and excited the keenest acrimony, is the
emendation of corrupted passages, to which the pub-
lick attention having been first drawn by the violence
of the contention between Pope and Theobald, has
been continued by the persecution, which, with a
kind of conspiracy, has been since raised against all
the publishers of Shakespeare.

That many passages have passed in a state of de-
pravation through all the editions is indubitably
certain ; of these the restoration is only to be attemp-
ted by collation of copies or sagacity of conjecture.
The collator's province is safe and easy, the conjec-
turer's perilous and difficult. Yet as the greater
part of the plays are extant only in one copy, the
peril must not be avoided, nor the difficulty refused.

Of the readings which this emulation of amend-
ment has hitherto produced, some from the labours
of every publisher I have advanced into the text ;
those are to be considered as in my opinion suffi-
ciently supported ; some I have rejected without men-
tion, as evidently erroneous ; some I have left in the
notes without censure or approbation, as resting in
equipoise between objection and defence ; and some,
which seemed specious but not right, I have inserted
with a subsequent animadversion.

{{c7v}}

Having classed the observations of others, I was
at last to try what I could substitute for their mis-
takes, and how I could supply their omissions. I col-
lated such copies as I could procure, and wished for
more, but have not found the collectors of these ra-
rities very communicative. Of the editions which
chance or kindness put into my hands I have given
an enumeration, that I may not be blamed for ne-
glecting what I had not the power to do.

By examining the old copies, I soon found that
the later publishers, with all their boasts of diligence,
suffered many passages to stand unauthorised, and
contented themselves with Rowe's regulation of the
text, even where they knew it to be arbitrary, and
with a little consideration might have found it to be
wrong. Some of these alterations are only the ejection
of a word for one that appeared to him more elegant
or more intelligible. These corruptions I have often
silently rectified ; for the history of our language,
and the true force of our words, can only be pre-
served, by keeping the text of authours free from
adulteration. Others, and those very frequent, smooth-
ed the cadence, or regulated the measure ; on these I
have not exercised the same rigour ; if only a word
was transposed, or a particle inserted or omitted, I have
sometimes suffered the line to stand ; for the inconstancy
of the copies is such, as that some liberties may be easily
permitted. But this practice I have not suffered to
proceed far, having restored the primitive diction
wherever it could for any reason be referred.

{{c8r}}

The emendations, which comparison of copies
supplied, I have inserted in the text ; sometimes
where the improvement was slight, without notice,
and sometimes with an account of the reasons of the
change.

Conjecture, though it be sometimes unavoidable,
I have not wantonly nor licentiously indulged. It
has been my settled principle, that the reading of
the ancient books is probably true, and therefore is
not to be disturbed for the sake of elegance, per-
spicuity, or mere improvement of the sense. For
though much credit is not due to the fidelity, nor
any to the judgment of the first publishers, yet
they who had the copy before their eyes were more
likely to read it right, than we who only read it by
imagination. But it is evident that they have often
made strange mistakes by ignorance or negligence,
and that therefore something may be properly at-
tempted by criticism, keeping the middle way be-
tween presumption and timidity.

Such criticism I have attempted to practise, and
where any passage appeared inextricably perplexed,
have endeavoured to discover how it may be recalled
to sense, with least violence. But my first labour is,
always to turn the old text on every side, and try
if there be any interstice, through which light can
find its way ; nor would Huetius himself condemn
me, as refusing the trouble of research, for the am-
bition of alteration. In this modest industry I have
not been unsuccessful. I have rescued many lines
from the violations of temerity, and secured many
scenes from the inroads of correction. I have adop-
ted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honourable
to save a citizen, than to kill an enemy, and have
been more careful to protect than to attack.

I have preserved the common distribution of the
plays into acts, though I believe it to be in almost
all the plays void of authority. Some of those which
are divided in the later editions have no division in
the first folio, and some that are divided in the folio
have no division in the preceding copies. The set-
tled mode of the theatre requires four intervals in
the play, but few, if any, of our authour's composi-
tions can be properly distributed in that manner. An
act is so much of the drama as passes without inter-
vention of time or change of place. A pause makes
a new act. In every real, and therefore in every
imitative action, the intervals may be more or fewer,
the restriction of five acts being accidental and arbi-
trary. This Shakespeare knew, and this he practised ; his
plays were written, and at first printed in one unbroken
continuity, and ought now to be exhibited with short
pauses, interposed as often as the scene is changed, or
ay considerable time is required to pass. This me-
thod would at once quell a thousand absurdities.

In restoring the authour's works to their integrity,
I have considered the punctuation as wholly in my
power ; for what could be their care of colons and
commas, who corrupted words and sentences. What-
ever could be done by adjusting points is therefore
silently performed, in some plays with much diligence,
in others with less ; it is hard to keep a busy eye
steadily fixed upon evanescent atoms, or a discursive
mind upon evanescent truth.

The same liberty has been taken with a few par-
ticles, or other words of slight effect. I have some-
times inserted or omitted them without notice. I have
done that sometimes, which the other editors have
done always, and which indeed the state of the text
may sufficiently justify.

The greater part of readers, instead of of blaming us
for passing trifles, will wonder that on mere trifles so
much labour is expended, with such importance of
debate, and such solemnity of diction. To these I
answer with confidence, that they are judging of an
art which they do not understand ; yet cannot much
reproach them with their ignorance, nor promise that
they would become in general, by learning criticism,
more useful, happier or wiser.

As I practised conjecture more, I learned to trust it
less ; and after I had printed a few plays, resolved to
insert none of my own readings in the text. Upon
this caution I now congratulate myself, for every day
encreases my doubt of my emendations.

Since I have confined my imagination to the mar-
gin, it must not be considered as very reprehensible,
if I have suffered it to play some freaks in its own
dominion. There is no danger in conjecture, if it
be proposed as conjecture ; and while the text remains
uninjured, those changes may be safely offered, which
are not considered even by him that offers them as
necessary or safe.

If my readings are of little value, they have not
been ostentatiously displayed or importunately obtrud-
ed. I could have written longer notes, for the art of
writing notes is not of difficult attainment. The work
is performed, first by railing at the stupidity, negli-
gence, ignorance, and asinine tastlessness of the for-
mer editors, and shewing, from all that goes before
and all that follows, the inelegance and absurdity of
the old reading ; then by proposing something, which
to superficial readers would seem specious, but which
the editor rejects with indignation ; then by producing
the true reading, with a long paraphrase, and conclud-
ing with loud acclamations on the discovery, and a
sober wish for the advancement and prosperity of
genuine criticism.

All this may be done, and perhaps done sometimes
without impropriety, But I have always suspected
that the reading is right, which requires many words
to prove it is wrong ; and the emendation wrong, that
cannot without so much labour appear to be right.
The justness of a happy restoration strikes at once,
and the moral precept may be well applied to criticism,
quod dubitas ne feceris.

To dread the shore which he sees spread with
wrecks, is natural to the sailor. I had before my eye,
so many critical adventures ended in miscarriage, that
caution was forced pon me. I encountered in every
page Wit struggling with its own sophistry, and
Learning confused by the multiplicity of its views.
I was forced to censure those whom I admired, and could
not but reflect, while I was dispossessing their emen-
dations, how soon the same fate might happen to
my own, and how many of the readings which I
have corrected may be by some other editor defended
and established.


Criticks, I saw, that other's names efface,
And fix their own, with labour, in the place ;
Their own, like others, soon their place resign'd,
Or disappear'd, and left the first behind. POPE.


That a conjectural critick should often be mistaken,
cannot be wonderful, either to others of himself, if
it be considered, that in his art there is no system,
no principal and axiomatical truth that regulates
subordinate positions. His chance of errour is re-
newed at every attempt ; an oblique view of the
passage, a slight misapprehension of a phrase, a ca-
sual inattention to the parts connected, is sufficient to
make him not only fail, but fail ridiculously ; and when
he succeeds best, he produces perhaps but one reading
of many probable, and he that suggests another will
always be able to dispute his claims.

It is an unhappy state, in which danger is hid under
pleasure. The allurements of emendation are scarcely
resistible. Conjecture has all the joy and all the pride
of invention, and he that has once started a happy
change, is too much delighted to consider what ob-
jections may rise against it.

Yet conjectural criticism has been of great use in
the learned world ; nor is it my intention to depre-
ciate a study, that has exercised so many mighty
minds, from the revival of learning to our own age,
from the Bishop of Aleria to English Bentley. The
criticks on ancient authours have, in the exercise of
their sagacity, many assistances, which the editor of
Shakespeare is condemned to want. They are em-
ployed upon grammatical and settled languages,
whose construction contributes so much to perspi-
cuity, that Homer has fewer passages unintelligible
than Chaucer. The words have not only a known
regimen, but invariable quantities, which direct and
confine the choice. There are commonly more ma-
nuscripts than one ; and yet they do not often conspire
in the same mistakes. Yet Scaliger could confess to
Salmasius how little satisfaction his emendations gave
him. Illudunt nobis conjecturæ nostræ, quarum nos pudet,
posteaquam in meliores codices incidimus. And Lipsius
could complain, that criticks were making faults,
by trying to remove them, Ut olim vitiis, ita nunc
remediis laboratur. And indeed, where mere conjec-
ture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and
Lipsius, notwithstanding their wonderful sagacity and
erudition, are often vague and disputable, like mine
of Theobald's.

Perhaps I may not be more censured for doing
wrong, than for doing little ; for raising in the pub-
lick expectations, which at last I have not answered.
The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that
of knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to satisfy
those who know not what to demand, or those who
demand by design what they think impossbile to
be done. I have indeed disappointed no opinion
more than my own ; yet I have endeavoured to per-
form my task with no slight solicitude. Not a single
passage in the whole work has appeared to me cor-
rupt, which I have not attempted to restore ; or ob-
scure, which I have not endeavoured to illustrate.
In many I have failed like others ; and from many,
after all my efforts, I have retreated, and confessed
the repulse. I have not passed over, with affected
superiority, what is equally difficult to the reader
and to myself, but where I could not instruct him,
have owned my ignorance. I might easily have ac-
cumulated a mass of seeming learning upon easy
scenes ; but it ought not to be imputed to negli-
gence, that, where nothing was necessary, nothing
has been done, or that, where others have said
enough, I have said no more.

Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary
evils. Let him, that is yet unacquainted with the
powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel the
highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every
play from the first scene to the last, with utter negli-
gence of all his commentators. When his fancy is
once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or
explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged,
let it disdain alike to turn aside to the name of Theo-
bald and Pope. Let him read on through brightness
and obscurity, through integrity and corruption ; let
him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and
his interest in the fable. And when the pleasures of
novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness ; and
read the commentators.

Particular passages are cleared by notes, but the
general effect of the work is weakened. The mind
is refrigerated by interruption ; the thoughts are di-
verted from the principal subject ; the reader is weary,
he suspects not why ; and at last throws away the book,
which he has too diligently studied.

Parts are not to be examined till the whole has
been surveyed ; there is a kind of intellectual re-
moteness necessary for the comprehension of any
great work in its full design and its true proportions ;
a close approach shews the smaller niceties, but the
beauty of the whole is discerned no longer.

It is not very grateful to consider how little the
succession of editors has added to this authour's power
of pleasing. He was read, admired, studied, and
imitated, while he was yet deformed with all the
improprieties which ignorance and neglect could ac-
cumulate upon him ; while the reading was yet not
rectified, nor his allusions understood ; yet then did
Dryden pronounce "that Shakespeare was the man,
"who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets,
"had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All
"the images of nature were still present to him,
"and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily :
"When he describes any thing, you more than see
"it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to
"have wanted learning, give him the greater com-
"mendation : he was naturally learned : he needed
"not the spectacles of books to read nature ; he
"looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot
"say he is every where alike ; were he so, I should
"do him injury to compare him with the greatest
"of mankind. He is many times flat and insipid ;
"his comick wit degenerating into clenches, his se-
"rious swelling into bombast. But he is always
"great, when some great occasion is presented to
"him : No man can say, he ever had a fit subject
"for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high
"above the rest of poets,


"Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi."


It is to be lamented, that such a writer should
want a commentary ; that his language should be-
come obsolete, or his sentiments obscure. But it is
vain to carry wishes beyond the condition of human
things ; that which must happen to all, has happen-
to Shakespeare, by accident and time ; and more
than has been suffered by any other writer since
the use of types, has been suffered by him through
his own negligence of fame, or perhaps by that su-
periority of mind, which despised its own perform-
ances, when it compared them with its powers, and
judged those works unworthy to be preserved, which
the criticks of following ages were to contend for
the fame of restoring and explaining.

Among these candidates of inferiour fame, I am
not to stand the judgment of the publick ; and wish
that I could confidently produce my commentary as
equal to the encouragement which I have had the
honour of receiving. Every work of this kind is by
its nature deficient, and I should feel little solicitude
about the sentence, were it to be pronounced only
by the skilful and the learned.

FINIS.