Page:The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare (1790) - Vol. 1a.djvu/24

x exhibit whatever is hitherto known of the great father of the English drama.”

Though Dr. Johnson has here pointed out with his usual perspicuity and vigour the true course to be taken by an editor of Shakspeare, some of the positions which he has laid down may be controverted, and some are indubitably not true. It is not true that the plays of this authour were more incorrectly printed than those of any of his contemporaries: for in the plays of Marlowe, Marston, Fletcher, Massinger, and others, as many errours may be found. It is not true that the art of printing was in no other age in so unskilful hands. Nor is it true, in the latitude in which it is stated, that "these plays were printed from compilations made by chance or by stealth out of the separate parts written for the theatre:”’ two only of all his dramas, The Merry Wives of Windsor and K. Henry V. appear to have been thus thrust into the world, and of the former it is yet a doubt whether it is a first sketch or an imperfect copy. I do not believe that words were then adopted at pleasure from the neighbouring languages, or that an antiquated diction was then employed by any poet but Spenser. That the obscurities of our authour, to whatever cause they may be referred, do not arise from the paucity of contemporary writers, the present edition may furnish indisputable evidence. And lastly, if it be true, that "very few of Shakspeare’s lines were difficult to his audience, and that he used such expressions as were then common,” (a position of which I have not the smalleft doubt,) it cannot be true, that 'his reader is embarrassed at once with dead and with foreign languages, with obsoleteness and innovation."