emptiness of fome notes may juftify or excufe the contraction of the reft.

Theobald, thus weak and ignorant, thus mean and faithlefs, thus petulant and oftentatious, by the good luck of having Pope for his enemy, has escaped, and efcaped alone, with reputation, from this undertaking. So willingly does the world fupport thofe who folicit favour, against thofe who command reverence; and fo cafily is he praifed, whom no man can

envy.

Our author fell then into the hands of Sir Thomas Haumer, the Oxford editor, a man, in my opinion, eminently qualified by nature for fuch ftudies. He had, what is the first requifite to emendatory criticifim, that intuition by which the poet's intention is immediately difcovered, and that dexterity of intellect which dilpatches its work by the easiest means. He had undoubtedly read much; his acquaintance with cuftoms, opinions, and traditions, feems to have been large; and he is often learned without fhew. He feldom paffes what he does not understand, without an attempt to find or to make a meaning, and fometimes haftily makes what a little. more attention would have found. He is folicitous to reduce to grammar what he could not be fure that his author intended to be grammatical. Shakespeare regarded more the ferics of ideas, than of words; and his language, not being defigned for the reader's defk, was all that he defired it to be, if it conveyed his meaning to the audience.

Hanmer's care of the metre has been too violently cenfured. He found the measure reformed in fo

many

many paffages by the filent labours of fome editors, with the filent acquiefcence of the reft, that he thought himself allowed to extend a little further the licence, which had already been carried fo far without reprehenfion; and of his corrections in general, it must be confeffed, that they are often juft, and made commonly with the leaft poffible violation of the text

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

As he never writes without careful enquiry and diligent confideration, I have received all his notes, and believe that every reader will wifh for more.

Of the last editor it is more difficult to fpeak. Refpect is due to high place, tenderness to living reputation, and veneration to genius and learning; but he cannot be justly offended at that liberty of which he has himself fo frequently given an example, nor very folicitous what is thought of notes, which he ought never to have confidered as part of his ferious employments, and which, I fuppofe, fince the ardour of compofition is remitted, he no longer numbers among his happy effufions.

The original and predominant error of his commentary, is acquiefcence in his first thoughts; that precipitation

precipitation which is produced by confcioufnefs of quick difcernment; and that confidence which prefumes to do, by furveying the furface, what labour only can perform, by penetrating the bottom. His notes exhibit fometimes perverfe interpretations, and fometimes improbable conjectures; he at one time gives the author more profundity of meaning than the fentence admits, and at another difcovers abfurdities, where the fenfe is plain to every other reader. But his emendations are likewife often happy and juft; and his interpretation of obfcure paffages learned and fagacious.

Of his notes, I have commonly rejected thofe against which the general voice of the publick has exclaimed, or which their own incongruity immediately condemns, and which, I fuppofe, the author himself would defire to be forgotten. Of the rest, to part I have given the higheft approbation, by inferting the offered reading in the text; part I have left to the judgment of the reader, as doubtful, though fpecious; and part I have cenfured without referve, but I am fure without bitterness of malice, and, I hope, without wantonnefs of infult.

It is no pleasure to me, in revifing my volumes, to obferve how much paper is wafted in confutation. Whoever confiders the revolutions of learning, and the various queftions of greater or lefs importance, upon which wit and reafon have exercifed their powers, muft lament the unfuccefsfulness of enquiry, and the flow advances of truth, when he reflects that great part of the labour of every writer is only the deftruction of thofe that went before him. The firft care of the builder of a new fyftem, is to

demolish

The

demolish the fabricks which are ftanding. chief defire of him that comments an author, is to fhew how much other commentators have corrupted and obfcured him. The opinions prevalent in one age, as truths above the reach of controverfy, are confuted and rejected in another, and rife again to reception in remoter times. Thus the human mind is kept in motion without progrefs. Thus fometimes 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 awhile appear to foot their beams into the regions of obfcurity, on a fudden withdraw their luftre, and leave mortals again to grope their way.

Thefe elevations and depreffions of renown, and the contradictions to which all improvers of knowledge must for ever be expofed, fince they are not escaped by the highest and brightest of mankind, may furely be endured with patience by criticks and annotators, who can rank themfelves but as the fatellites of their authors. How canft thou beg for life, fays 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 to thofe who could exalt themfelves inte antagonists, and his notes have raised a clamour too loud to be diftinct. His chief affailants are the authors of The canons of criticifm, and of The revifal of Shakespeare's text; of whom one ridicules his errors

with

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 affäffin or incendiary. The one ftings 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 ftones, fhould flay him in puny battle; when the other croffes my imagination, I remember the prodigy in Macbeth :

A falcon tow'ring in his pride of place,

Tas by a moufing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.

Let me however do them juftice. One is a wit, and one a scholar*. They have both fhewn acuteness fufficient in the difcovery of faults, and have both advanced fome probable interpretations of obfcure paffages; but when they afpire to conjecture and emendation, it appears how falfely we all eftimate 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 Obfervations on Shakespeare had been published by Mr. Up

ton,

*It is extraordinary that this gentleman fhould attempt fo voluminous a work, as the Revifal of Shakespeare's text, when he tells us in his preface, he was not fo fortunate as to be fur

piked with either of the folio editions, much lefs any of the "ancient quartos: and even Sir Thomas Hanmer's performance was known to him only by Dr. Warburton's reprefentation." FARMER.