Venus and Adonis, of which I have not been able to procure the first impreffion. The second edition, printed in 1596, was obligingly transmitted to me by the late Reverend Thomas Warton, of whose friendly and valuable correspondence I was deprived by death, when these volumes were almost ready to be issued from the press. It is painful to recollect how many of (I had almost said) my coadjutors have died fince the present work was begun :-the elegant scholar, and ingenious writer, whom I have just mentioned; Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Tyrwhitt: men, from whose approbation of my labours I had promised myself much pleasure, and whose stamp could give a value and currency to any work.

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 dispersed, partly in the copious notes subjoined to Rowe's Life, and partly in the Hiftorical 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, some 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 justly 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 save 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 commodious (and he might have added, the most forcible and elegant,) is not always the true reading."5 On this principle I have uniformly proceeded, having resolved 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."

$ King Henry IV. Part II.

• See particularly The Merchant of Venice, Vol. VII. p. 297:

That many may be meant

By the fool multitude."

with the note there.

We undoubtedly should not now write

But, left myself be guilty to self-wrong,-"

yet we find this phrafe in The Comedy of Errors, Act III.

Vol. XX. See alfo The Winter's Tale, Vol. IX. p. 420:

- This your son-in-law,

"And fon unto the king, (whom heavens directing,) " Is troth-plight to your daughter."

Measure for Measure, Vol. VI. p. 358: "-to be so bared,-." Coriolanus, Vol. XVI. p. 148, n. 2:

"Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart," &c.

Hamlet, Vol. XVIII. p. 40:

"That he might not beteem the winds of heaven," &c, 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, and kennel substituted in its room, though the former term was commonly employed in the same sense in the time of our author; and the learned Bishop of Worcester has ftrenuously 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 controversy by two other passages of Shakspeare. Very foon, indeed, after his death, this rage for innovation seems 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,

As you like it, Vol. VIII. p. 59, n. 7:
My voice is ragged,-."
Cymbeline, Vol. XVIII. p. 647, n. 2:

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

Act II. fc. i:

- throw the quean in the channel." In that passage, as in many others, I have filently restored the original reading, without any observation; but the word in this sense, being now obsolete, should have been illustrated by a note. This defect, however, will be found remedied in K. Henry VI. P. II. At II. fc. ii :

"As if a channel should be call'd a fea."

Hurd's HOR, 4th. edit. Vol. I. p. 55.

some changes were undoubtedly made from ignorance of his meaning and phraseology. They had, I fuppofe, 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 " some 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 instead of the more ancient word, crants. In King Lear, Act I. fc. i. the substitution of " Goes thy heart with this?" instead of" Goes this with thy heart?" without doubt arose from the same cause. In the plays of which we have no quarto copies, we may be fure that fimilar innovations were made, though we have now no certain means of detecting them.

After what has been proved concerning the sophistications and corruptions of the Second Folio, we cannot be surprized that when these plays were republished 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 misrepresented; for though by examining the oldeft copies he detected some 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, tranfpofitions, 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 illustrated a few passages by extracts from the writers of our poet's age. That his work should at this day be confidered of any value, only shows how long impreffions 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 sophistications 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 necessary to say, that he adopted almost all the innovations of Pope, adding to them whatever caprice dictated.

To him fucceeded Dr. Warburton, a critick, who (as hath been faid of Salmafius) seems to have erected his throne on a heap of ftones, that he might have them at hand to throw at 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 shown by his revisers, that I suppose no critical reader will ever again open his volumes. An hundred strappadoes, according to an Italian co