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learned criticks might, and perhaps did, laugh in their turn (though still, sure, with the fame indecency and indifcretion) at that incomparable man, for wearing out a long life in poring through a telescope.. Indeed, the weaknesses of such are to be mentioned with reverence. But who can bear, without indignation, the fashionable cant of every trifling writer, whose infipidity passes, with himself, for politeness, for pretending to be shocked, forsooth, with the rude and savage air of vulgar criticks; meaning fuch as Muretus, Scaliger, Cafaubon, Salmafius, Spanheim, Bentley. When, had it not been for the deathless labours of fuch as these, the western world, at the revival of letters, had foon fallen back again into a state of ignorance and barbarity, as deplorable as that from which Providence had just redeemed it.

To conclude with an observation of a fine writer and great philofopher of our own; which I would gladly bind, though with all honour, as a phylactery, on the brow of every awful grammarian, to teach him at once the use and limits of his art: WORDS ARE THE MONEY OF FOOLS, AND THE COUNTERS OF WISE MEN.

ADVER

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE

READER.

[Prefixed to Mr. STEEVENS's Edition of Twenty of the old Quarto Copies of SHAKESPEARE, &c. in 4 Vols. 8vo.]

T

HE plays of SHAKESPEARE have been fo often republished, with every feeming ad

vantage which the joint labours of men of the first abilities could procure for them, that one would hardly imagine they could stand in need of any thing beyond the illustration of fome few dark pafsages. Modes of expression must remain in obscurity, or be retrieved from time to time, as chance may throw the books of that age into the hands of criticks who shall make a proper use of them. Many have been of opinion that his language will continue obscure to all those who are unacquainted with the provincial expressions which they suppose him to have used; but, for my own part, I cannot believe but that those which are now local may once have been univerfal, and must have been the language of those persons before whom his plays were represented. However, it is certain that the instances of obfcurity from this fource are very few.

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Some have been of opinion that even a particular syntax prevailed in the time of Shakespeare; but, as I do not recollect that any proofs were ever brought in support of that sentiment, I own I am of the contrary opinion.

In his time indeed a different arrangement of fyllables had been introduced in imitation of the Latin, as we find in Afcham; and the verb was very frequently kept back in the sentence; but in Shakespeare no marks of it are difcernible: and though the rules of syntax were more strictly observed by the writers of that age than they have been since, he of all the number is perhaps the most ungrammatical. To make his meaning intelligible to his audience seems to have been his only care, and with the ease of conversation he has adopted its incorrectness.

The past editors, eminently qualified as they were by genius and learning for this undertaking, wanted industry; to cover which they published catalogues, transcribed at random, of a greater number of old copies than ever they can be supposed to have had in their poffeffion; when, at the same time, they never examined the few which we know they had, with any degree of accuracy. The last editor alone has dealt fairly with the world in this particular; he professes to have made use of no more than he had really feen, and has annexed a list of such to every play, together with a complete one of those supposed to be in being, at the conclufion of his work, whether he had been able to procure them for the service of it or not.

For these reasons I thought it would not be unacceptable to the lovers of Shakespeare, to collate all the quartos I could find, comparing one copy with the rest, where there were more than one of the fame play; and to multiply the chances of their being preserved, by collecting them into volumes, instead of leaving the few that have escaped, to share the fate of the rest, which was probably hastened by their remaining remaining in the form of pamphlets, their use and value being equally unknown to those into whose hands they fell.

Of fome I have printed more than one copy; as there are many persons, who, not contented with the possession of a finished picture of some great mafter, are defirous to procure the first sketch that was made for it, that they may have the pleasure of tracing the progress of the artist from the first light colouring to the finishing stroke. To such the earlier editions of King John, Henry the Fifth, Henry the Sixth, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Romeo and Juliet, will, I apprehend, not be unwelcome; fince in these we may difcern as much as will be found in the hasty outlines of the pencil, with a fair profpect of that perfection to which he brought every performance he took the pains to retouch.

The general character of the quarto editions may more advantageoufly be taken from the words of Mr. Pope, than from any recommendation of my own.

"The folio edition (fays he) in which all the plays " we now receive as his were first collected, was pub" lished by two players, Heminges and Condell, in "1623, seven years after his decease. They declare " that all the other editions were stolen and furrep" titious, and affirm theirs to be purged from the "errors of the former. This is true as to the literal

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errors, and no other; for in all respects else it is " far worse than the quartos.

"First, because the additions of trifling and bom" bast passages are in this edition far more numerous, " For whatever had been added fince those quartos " by the actors, or had stolen from their mouths into " the written parts, were from thence conveyed into " the printed text, and all stand charged upon the "author. He himself complained of this usage in " Hamlet, where he wishes those who play the clowns " would speak no more than is fet down for them (Act " iii. Sc. iv.) But as a proof that he could not

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escape it, in the old editions of Romeo and Juliet, "there is no hint of the mean conceits and ribaldries "now to be found there. In others the scenes of the " mobs, plebeians, and clowns are vastly shorter " than at present; and I have seen one in particular (which feems to have belonged to the play-house, by having the parts divided by lines, and the actors " names in the margin) where several of those very " passages were added in a written hand, which fince are to be found in the folio.

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" In the next place, a number of beautiful passages " were omitted, which were extant in the first single " editions; as it feems without any other reason than " their willingness to shorten some scenes."

To this I must add, that I cannot help looking on the folio as having fuffered other injuries from the licentious alteration of the players, as we frequently find in it an unusual word changed into one more popular; fometimes to the weakening the sense, which rather feems to have been their work, who knew that plainness was necessary for the audience of an illiterate age, than that it was done by the consent of the author: for he would hardly have unnerved a line in his written copy, which they pretend to have tranfcribed, however he might have permitted many to have been familiarized in the representation. Were I to indulge my own private conjecture, I should suppose that his blotted manuscripts were read over by one to another among those who were appointed to tranfcribe them; and hence it might easily happen, that words of fimilar founds, though of fenfes directly oppofite, might be confounded with each other. They themselves declare that Shakespeare's time of blotting was past, and yet half the errors we find in their edition could not be merely typographical. Many of the quartos (as our own printers assure me) were far from being unskilfully executed, and fome of them

were

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