referve, but I am fure without bitterness of malice, and, I hope, without wantonness of infult.

It is no pleasure to me, in revising my volumes, to observe how much paper is wafted in confutation. Whoever confiders the revolutions of learning, and the various questions of greater or less importance, upon which wit and reason have exercised their powers, must lament the unfuccefsfulness of enquiry, and the flow advances of truth, when he reflects, that greať part of the labour of every writer is only the deftruction 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 defire of him that comments an author, is to shew how much other commentators have corrupted and obfcured 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 error, and fometimes contrarieties of error, take each other's place by reciprocal invafion. The tide of feeming knowledge which is poured over one generation, retires and leaves another naked and barren; the fudden meteors of intelligence, which for a while appear to shoot their beams into the regions of obscurity, on a fudden withdraw their luftre, and leave mortals again to grope their way.

These elevations and depressions of renown, and the contradictions to which all improvers of knowledge muft for ever be exposed, fince they are not efcaped

VOL. I.

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escaped by the highest and brightest of mankind, may furely be endured with patience by criticks and annotators, who can rank themselves but as the satellites of their authors. How canst thou beg for life, says Homer's hero to his captive, when thou knowest that thou art now to suffer only what must another day be fuffered by Achilles ?

Dr. Warburton had a name fufficient 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 afsailants are the authors of The canons of criticism, and of The review of Shakespeare's text; of whom one ridicules his errors with airy petulance, fuitable enough to the levity of the controverfy; the other attacks them with gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an assassin or incendiary. The one stings like a fly, fucks 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 remember the danger of Coriolanus, who was afraid that girls with spits, and boys with stones, should fslay him in puny battle; when the other crosses my imagination, I remember the prodigy in Macbeth:

A falcon tow'ring in his pride of place,

Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and killd.

Let me however do them justice. One is a wit, and one a scholar *. They have both shewn acute

ness sufficient in the discovery of faults, and have both advanced fome 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.

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 feems to have had no great vigour of genius or nicety of taste. Many of his explanations are curious and useful, but he likewife, 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 feconded by his skill. Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist, and the laborious collator at some unlucky moment frolicks in conjecture.

Critical, historical, and explanatory notes have been likewife published upon Shakespeare by Dr. Grey, whose diligent perusal of the old English writers has enabled him to make fome useful observations. What he undertook he has well enough performed, but as he neither attempts judicial nor emendatory criticifm, he employs rather his memory than his sagacity. It

" furnished with either of the folio editions, much less any of "the ancient quartos: and even Sir Thomas Hanmer's per"formance was known to him only by Dr. Warburton's repre"sentation." FARMER.

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were to be wished that all would endeavour to imitate his modesty, who have not been able to furpass his knowledge.

I can fay with great fincerity of all my predeceffors, 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 original author, and it is certain, that what I have not given to another, I believed when I wrote it to be my own. In fome perhaps I have been anticipated; 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 difpute; the fecond can prove his pretensions only to himfelf, nor can himself always diftinguish invention, with fufficient certainty, from recollection.

They have all been treated by me with candour, which they have not been careful of obferving to one another. It is not easy to discover from what cause the acrimony of a scholiaft can naturally proceed. The fubjects to be difcuffed by him are of very small importance; they involve neither property nor liberty; nor favour the interest of fect or party. The various readings of copies, and different interpretations of a passage, seem to be questions that might exercise the wit, without engaging the passions. But, whether it be, that small things make mean men proud, and vanity catches small occafions; or that all cortrariety trariety of opinion, even in those that can defend it no longer, makes proud men angry; there is often found in commentaries a spontaneous strain of invective and contempt, more eager and venomous than is vented by the most furious controvertist in politicks againft 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 furface, to work that to foam which no art or diligence can exalt to fpirit.

The notes which I have borrowed or written are either illustrative, by which difficulties are explained; or judicial, by which faults and beauties are remarked; or emendatory, by which depravations are corrected.

The explanations transcribed from others, if I do not fubjoin any other interpretation, I suppose commonly to be right, at least I intend by acquiefcence to confefs, 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

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facilitate