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The exuberant excrescence of his diction I have often lopped, his triumphant exultations over Pope and Rowe I have sometimes suppressed, and his contemptible ostentation I have frequently concealed; but I have in some places shown him, as he would have shown 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 solicit favour, against those who command reverence; and so easily is he praised whom no man can envy. If my readings are of little value they have not been ostentatiously displayed or importunately obtruded. I could have written longer notes, for the art of writing notes is not of difficult attainment. work is performed, first by railing at the stupidity, negligence, ignorance, and asinine tastelessness of the former editors, and showing, 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 concluding 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 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. The critics of ancient authors have, in the exercise of their sagacity, many assistances, which the editor of Shakspeare is condemned to want. They are employed upon grammatical and settled languages, whose construction contributes so much to perspicuity, that Homer has fewer passages unintelligible than Chaucer.

Perhaps I may not be more censured for doing wrong, than for doing little; for raising in the public 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 impossible to be done. I have indeed disappointed no opinion more than my own; yet

I have endeavoured to perform my task with no slight solicitude. Not a single passage in the whole work has appeared to me corrupt, which I have not attempted to restore; or obscure, 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 accumulated a mass of seeming learning upon easy scenes: but it ought not to be imputed to my negligence, 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 Shakspeare, 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 negligence 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 Theobald and of Pope. Let him read on through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and corruption; let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and bis 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 refrige rated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted 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 remoteness necessary for the comprehension of any great work in its full design and in its true proportions; a close approach shows 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 author'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 accumulate upon him, while the reading was yet not rectified, nor his allusions understood; yet then did Dryden pronounce, that Shakspeare 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 anything, you more than see it, you feel it too." Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation. 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 everywhere 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 comic wit degenerates into clenches, his serious 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.

"Quantam lenta solent inter viburna cupressi."
Id. Preface.

TEMPEST.

I

Gonzalo (of the boatswain during a storm at sea). . have great comfort from this fellow; methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. ... Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, anything: the wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death.-(Exit.) Act 1. Sc. 1.

Trinculo. Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.

-2.2.

Prospero. Our revels now are ended: these our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabrick of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve;
And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind: We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.-4. 1.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. Valentine. Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.Act 1. Sc. 1.

Julia. His little speaking shows his love but small.
Lucetta. Fire, that's closest kept burns most of all.—Sc. 2.
Julia. The current, that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
But, when his fair course is not hindered

He makes sweet musick with the enamell'd stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;

And so by many winding nooks he strays,

With willing sport to the wild ocean.-Act 2. Sc. 7.

Speed. Item, she is slow in words.

Launce. O villain, that set this down among her vices!

To be slow in words, is a woman's only virtue :

I pray thee, out with't; and place it for her chief virtue.-3. 1. 2nd Outlaw. Are you content to be our general?

To make a virtue of necessity,

And live as we do, in this wilderness ?-4. 1.
Valentine. How use doth breed a habit in a man!
This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,

I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:
Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And, to the nightingale's complaining notes,
Tune my distresses, and record my woes.
O! thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless;
Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall,
And leave no memory of what it was!
Repair me with thy presence, Silvia;

Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain !-5. 4.

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

Or this play there is a tradition preserved by Mr. Rowe, that it was written at the command of Queen Elizabeth, who was so delighted with the character of Falstaff, that she wished it to be diffused through more plays; but suspecting that it might pall by continued uniformity, directed the poet to diversify his manner by showing him in love. No task is harder than that of writing to the ideas of another. Shakspeare knew what the Queen, if the story be true, seems not to have known; that by any real passion of tenderness, the selfish craft, the careless jollity, and the lazy luxury of Falstaff must have suffered so much abatement, that little of his former cast would have remained. Falstaff could not love, but by

ceasing to be Falstaff. He could only counterfeit love; and his profession could be prompted, not by the hope of pleasure, but of money. Thus the poet approached as near as he could to the work enjoined him; yet having, perhaps, in the former plays completed his own idea, seems not to have been able to give Falstaff all his former power of entertainment. This comedy is remarkable for the variety and number of the personages, who exhibit more characters appropriated and discriminated than perhaps can be found in any other play.-Johnson.

Shallow. Sir Hugh, persuade me not: I will make a Starchamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, Esquire.

Slender. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and

coram.

Shallow. Ay, cousin Slender, and Cust-alorum.

Slender. Ay, and ratolorum too; and a gentleman born, master parson; who writes himself armigero; in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, armigero.

Shallow. Ay, that we do; and have done any time these three hundred years.-Act 1. Sc. 1.

Shallow. Is Falstaff there?

Evans. Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar, as I do despise one that is false; or as I despise one that is not true. The knight, Sir John, is there;-id.

Falstaff. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about. Pistol. Two yards, and more.

Falstaff. No quips now, Pistol; indeed, I am in the waist two yards about, but I am now about no waste; I am about thrift.-Sc. 3.

Falstaff. I will not lend thee a penny.

Pistol. Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.-

I will retort the sum in equipage.

Falstaff. Not a penny. I have been content, sir; you should lay my countenance to pawn: I have grated upon my good friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow, Nym; or else you had looked through the grate like a geminy of baboons. At a word, hang no more about me, I am no gibbet for you:-go-a short knife and a thong; to your manor of Pickthatch, go.-Act 2. Sc. 2.

Page. Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter, though now a man of peace.

Shallow. Bodykins, Master Page, though I now be old, and

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