as may enable the candidate of criticiſm to diſcover the reſt.
To the end of moſt plays I have added ſhort ſtrictures, containing a general cenſure of faults, or praiſe of excellence; in which I know not how much I have concurred with the current opinion; but I have not, by any affectation of ſingularity, deviated from it. Nothing is minutely and particularly examined, and therefore it is to be ſuppoſed, that in the plays which are condemned there is much to be praiſed, and in theſe which are praiſed much to be condemned.
The part of criticiſm in which the whole ſucceſſion of editors has laboured with the greateſt diligence, which has occaſioned the moſt arrogant oſtentation, and excited the keeneſt acrimony, is the emendation of corrupted paſſages, to which the publick attention having been firſt drawn by the violence of the contention between Pope and Theobald, has been continued by the perſecution, which, with a kind of conſpiracy, has been ſince raiſed againſt all the publiſhers of Shakeſpeare.
That many paſſages have paſſed in a ſtate of depravation through all the editions is indubitably certain; of theſe the reſtoration is only to be attempted by collation of copies, or ſagacity of conjecture. The collator’s province is ſafe and eaſy, the conjecturer’s perilous and difficult. Yet as the greater part of the plays are extant only in one copy, the peril muſt not be avoided, nor the difficulty refuſed.
