THE WORK S O F SHAKESPEAR IN EIGHT VOLUMES. The Genuine Text (collated with all the former Being reftored from the Blunders of the firft Editors, WITH Laft: LE NA A Comment and Notes, Critical and Explanatory, By Mr. POPE and Mr. WARBURTON. IBLIO -Quorum omnium Interpretes, ut Grammatici, Poetarum Ἡ ΤΩΝ ΛΟΓΩΝ ΚΡΙΣΙΣ ΠΟΛΛΗΣ ΕΣΤΙ ΠΕΙΡΑΣ Long. de Sublim. LONDON: Printed for 7. and P. Knapton, S. Birt, T. Longman and MDCCXLVII. TO MRS. ALLEN OF PRIOR-PAR K NEAR BATH. MADAM, A DDRESSES of this Nature have been long the customary Tribute of Letters to fuperior Merit: And tho' Flattery have thrown them to Difrepute, yet this concludes no more against the Continuance of honest Praise, than Hy may VOL. I. A 2 pocrify 7 I pocrify does againft the Practice of Religion. But Adulation no fooner began to belye its Subject, than it perverted the very Purpose of its Application; while, amongst its many artful tra– verses, it would how beg Protection for the Book; and, now again, conftitute the Patron the fovereign Judge of its Merit. In this Light, Madam, you might reafonably wonder to fee a Collection of Plays dedicated to one who reads few Books befides thofe of Piety and Moral; and will think," the Addrefs might have been made with fomewhat lefs Impropriety even to a Bishop. This is true: but, as I faid, this literary Connexion is not, of right, between the Patron and the Work; but between him and the Author. Who, to carry con his Commerce with a good Confcience, must therefore fearch vnarrowly -for a Subject which will not difhonour Ma lo doniqqet oromob Letters, SA -भ DEDICATION. ATION Letters, while he is giving that to Me rit, which only Letters can bestow. But I need not be asham'd to say, that the Knowledge of you, has, at the fame time, abridged my Labour, and rewarded the Integrity of my Purpose. For if Friendship, Generofity, and the Benevolence of Charity, added to every female Virtue that most adorns your Sex, demand this Acknowledgment, it would be hard to find where it fhould be earlier paid, or to whom, in fuller Measure, returned. em If any now should affect to ask, What Stranger this is, of whom so much is faid? Let him know, that this his Ignorance is your fupreme Praife; whose Matron-modesty of Virtue declines all Notice, but where the Influence of your domeftic Character extends. If, haply, you have any further Ambition, it is only this, the being known to conftitute the domestic Happiness of a Man who A 3 |