Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/150

 The indignation, perhaps, for being represented a blockhead, may be as strong in us, as it is in the ladies for a reflexion on their beauties. It is certain, I am indebted to him for some flagrant civilities; and I shall willingly devote a part of my life to the honest endeavour of quitting scores: with this exception however, that I will not return those civilities in his peculiar strain, but confine myself, at least, to the limits of common decency. I shall ever think it better to want wit, than to want humanity: and impartial posterity may, perhaps, be of my opinion.

But to return to my subject, which now calls upon me to enquire into those causes, to which the depravations of my author originally may be assigned. We are to consider him as a writer, of whom no authentick manuscript was left extant; as a writer, whose pieces were dispersedly performed on the several stages then in being. And it was the custom of those days for the poets to take a price of the players for the pieces they from time to time furnished; and thereupon it was supposed they had no farther right to print them without the consent of the players. As it was the interest of the companies to keep their plays unpublished, when any one succeeded, there was a contest betwixt the curiosity of the town, who demanded to see it in print, and the policy of the stagers, who wished to secrete it within their own walls. Hence, many pieces were taken down in short-hand, and imperfectly copied by ear from a representation: others were printed from piece-meal parts surreptitiously obtained from the theatres, uncorrect, and without the poet’s knowledge. To some of these causes we owe the train of blemishes, that deform those pieces which stole singly into the world in our author’s life-time.

There are still other reasons, which may be supposed to have affected the whole set. When the players took upon them to publish his works entire, every theatre was ransacked to supply the copy; and parts collected, which had gone through as many changes as performers, either from mutilations or additions made to them. Hence we derive many chasms and incoherences in the sense and matter. scenes were frequently transposed, and shuffled out of their true place, to humour the caprice, or supposed convenience of some particular actor. Hence much confusion and impropriety has attended, and embarrassed the business and fable. To these obvious causes of corruption it must be added, that our author has lain under the disadvantage of having his er-