Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/15

Rh The reverence due to writings that have long ubited aries therefore not from any credulous confidence in the uperior widom of pat ages, or gloomy peruaion of the degeneracy of mankind, but is the conequence of acknowledged and indubitable poitions, that what has been longet known has been mot conidered, and what is mot conidered is bet undertood.

The poet, of whoe works I have undertaken the reviion, may now begin to aume the dignity of an ancient, and claim the privilege of etablihed fame and precriptive veneration. He has long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the tet of literary merit. Whatever advantages he might once derive from peronal alluions, local cutoms, or temporary opinions, have for many years been lot; and every topick of merriment, or motive of orrow, which the modes of artificial life afforded him, now only obcure the cenes which they once illuminated. The effects of favour and competition are at an end; the tradition of his friendhips and his enmities has perihed; his works upport no opinion with arguments, nor upply any faction with invectives; they can neither indulge vanity, nor gratify malignity; but are read without any other reaon than the deire of pleaure, and are therefore praied only as pleaure is obtained; yet, thus unaited by interet or paion, they have pat through variations of tate and changes of manners, and, as they devolved from one generation to another, have received new honours at every tranmiion. Rh