Page:The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare (1790) - Vol. 1a.djvu/19

Rh the first. But my opinion is, that very few of his lines were difficult to his audience, and that he used such expressions as were then common, though the paucity of contemporary writers makes them now seem peculiar.

"Authours are often praised for improvement, or blamed for innovation, with very little justice, by those who read few other books of the same age. Addison himself has been so unsuccessful in enumerating the words with which Milton has enriched our language, as perhaps not to have named one of which Milton was the authour: and Bentley has yet more unhappily praised him as the introducer of those elisions into English poetry, which had been ufed from the first essays of versification among us, and which Milton was indeed the last that practised.

"Another impediment, not the least vexatious to the commentator, is the exactness with which Shakspeare followed his authour. Instead of dilating his thoughts into generalities, and expressing incidents with poetical latitude, he often combines circumstances unnecessary to his main design, only because he happened to find them together. Such passages can be illustrated only by him who has read the fame story in the very book which Shakspeare consulted.

"He that undertakes an edition of Shakspeare, has all these difficulties to encounter, and all these obstructions to remove.

"The corruptions of the text will be corrected by a careful collation of the oldest copies, by which it is hoped that many restorations may yet be made: at least it will be necessary to collect and note the variations as