With the materials which I have been so fortunate as to obtain, relative to our poet, his kindred, and friends, it would not have been difficult to have formed a new Life of Shakspeare, less meagre and imperfect than that left us by Mr. Rowe: but the information which I have procured having been obtained at very different times, it is neceffarily difperfed, partly in the copious notes fubjoined to Rowe's Life, and partly in the Historical Account of our old actors. At some future time I hope to weave the whole into one uniform and connected narrative.

My inquiries having been carried on almost to the very moment of publication, fome circumstances relative to our poet were obtained too late to be introduced into any part of the present work. Of these due use will be made hereafter.

The prefaces of Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton, I have not retained, because they appeared to me to throw no light on our author or his works: the room which they would have taken up, will, I trust, be found occupied by more valuable

matter.

As fome of the preceding editors have juftly been condemned for innovation, so perhaps (for of objections there is no end,) I may be cenfured for too ftrict an adherence to the ancient copies. I have constantly had in view the Roman sentiment adopted by Dr. Johnson, that "it is more honourable to fave a citizen than to destroy an enemy," and, like him, "have been more careful to protect than to attack." I do not wish the reader to forget, (says the fame writer,) that the most commodions (and he might have added, the most

forcible and elegant,) is not always the true reading. On this principle I have uniformly proceeded, having refolved never to deviate from the authentick copies, merely because the phraseology was harsh or uncommon. Many passages, which have heretofore been confidered as corrupt, and are now fupported by the usage of contemporary writers, fully prove the propriety of this caution.3

The rage for innovation till within these last thirty years was so great, that many words were dismissed from our poet's text, which in his time were current in every mouth. In all the editions fince that of Mr. Rowe, in the second Part of King Henry IV. the word channel has been rejected,

2

King Henry IV. Part II.

3 See particularly The Merchant of Venice, Vol. VIII. p. 66:

That many may be meant

66

66

By the fool multitude."

with the note there.

We undoubtedly should not now write

66

But, left myself be guilty to felf-wrong,

yet we find this phrafe in The Comedy of Errors, Vol. X. p. 266.

See alfo The Winter's Tale, Vol. X. p. 204:

66

This your fon-in-law,

" And fon unto the king, (whom heavens directing,)

" Is troth-plight to your daughter.

Meafure for Measure, Vol. VI. p. 159.: "- to be fo bared,-."

Coriolanus, Vol. XVII. p. 342, n. 8:

Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart," &c. Hamlet, Vol. XXII. p. 37:

"That he might not beteem the winds of heaven, " &c.

66

As you like it, Vol. VIII. p. 222, n.5:
My voice is ragged, --.'
Cymbeline, Vol. XIX. p. 235, n. 5:

"Whom heavens, in justice, (both on her and hers,)
"Have laid most heavy hand."

and kennel substituted in its room, though the former term was commonly employed in the fame sense in the time of our author; and the learned Bishop of Worcester has strenuously endeavoured to prove that in Cymbeline the poet wrote-not Shakes, but shuts or checks, "all our buds from growing;"' though the authenticity of the original reading is established beyond all controverfy by two other paffages of Shakspeare. Very foon, indeed, after his death, this rage for innovation feems to have feized his editors; for in the year 1616 an edition of his Rape of Lucrece was published, which was faid to be newly revised and corrected; but in which, in fact, several arbitrary changes were made, and the ancient diction rejected for one fomewhat more modern. Even in the first complete collection of his plays published in 1623, fome changes were undoubtedly made from ignorance of his meaning and phraseology. They had, I suppose, been made in the playhouse copies after his retirement from the theatre. Thus in Othello, Brabantio is made to call to his domesticks to raise "fome special officers of might," instead of "officers of night;" and the phrase "of all loves," in the fame play, not being understood, "for love's "fake" was substituted in its room. So, in Hamlet, we have ere ever for or ever and rites inftead of the more ancient word, crants. In King Lear, Act I.

the original reading, without any obfervation; but the word in this fenfe, being now obselote, should have been illustrated by a note. This defect, however, will be found remedied in King Henry VI. P. II. A& II. fc. II:

T

"As if a channel should be call'd a fea,"
Hurd's HOR. 4th edit. Vol. I. p. 55.

fc. i. the substitution of "Goes thy heart with this?" instead of "Goes this with thy heart?" without doubt arose from the fame cause. In the plays of which we have no quarto copies, we may be sure that similar innovations were made, though we have now no certain means of detecting them.

After what has been proved concerning the fophistications and corruptions of the Second Folio, we cannot be furprized that when these plays were re-published by Mr. Rowe in the beginning of this century from a later folio, in which the interpolations of the former were all preserved, and many new errors added, almost every page of his work was disfigured by accumulated corruptions. In Mr. Pope's edition our author was not less mifrepresented; for though by examining the oldest copies he detected fome errors, by his numerous fanciful alterations the poet was so completely modernized, that I am confident, had he "re-visited the glimpses of the moon," he would not have understood his own works. From the quartos indeed a few valuable restorations were made; but all the advantage that was thus obtained, was outweighed by arbitrary changes, transpositions, and interpolations.

The readers of Shakspeare being disgusted with the liberties taken by Mr. Pope, the subsequent edition of Theobald was justly preferred; because he professed to adhere to the ancient copies more strictly than his competitor, and illuftrated a few passages by extracts from the writers of our poet's

That his work should at this day be considered of any value, only shews how long imprefsions will remain, when they are once made: for Theobald, though not so great an innovator as Pope, was yet a confiderable innovator; and his edition being printed from that of his immediate predeceffor, while a few arbitrary changes made by Pope were detected, innumerable fophiftications were filently adopted. His knowledge of the contemporary authors was so scanty, that all the illuftration of that kind dispersed throughout his volumes, has been exceeded by the researches which have fince been made for the purpose of elucidating a single play.

Of Sir Thomas Hanmer it is only neceffary to fay, that he adopted almost all the innovations of Pope, adding to them whatever caprice dictated.

To him fucceeded Dr. Warbourton, a critick, who (as hath been faid of Salmafius) seems to have erected his throne on a heap of stones, that he might have them at hand to throw a the heads of all those who passed by. His unbounded licence in substituting his own chimerical conceits in the place of the author's genuine text, has been fo .fully shewn by his revifers, that I suppose no critical reader will ever again open his volumes. An hundred ftrappadoes, according to an Italian comick writer, would not have induced Petrarch, were he living, to subscribe to the meaning which certain commentators after his death had by their glosses extorted from his works. It is a curious fpeculation to confider how many thousand would have been requifite for this editor to have inflicted on our great dramatick poet for the fame purpose. The defence which has been made for Dr. Warburton on this fubject, by some of his friends, is