Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/61

Rh the offered reading in the text; part I have left to the judgment of the reader, as doubtful, though pecious; and part I have cenured without reerve, but I am ure without bitternes of malice, and, I hope, without wantonnes of inult.

It is no pleaure to me, in reviing my volumes, to oberve how much paper is wated in confutation. Whoever coniders the revolutions of learning, and the various quetions of greater or les importance, upon which wit and reaon have exercied their powers, mut lament the unuccesfulnes of enquiry, and the low advances of truth, when he reflects, that great part of the labour of every writer is only the detruction of thoe that went before him. The firt care of the builder of a new ytem, is to demolih the fabricks which are tanding. The chief deire of him that comments an author, is to hew how much other commentators have corrupted and obcured him. The opinions prevalent in one age, as truths above the reach of controvery, are confuted and rejected in another, and rie again to reception in remoter times. Thus the human mind is kept in motion without progres. Thus ometimes truth and error, and ometimes contrarieties of error, take each other’s place by reciprocal invaion. The tide of eeming knowledge which is poured over one generation, retires and leaves another naked and barren; the udden meteors of intelligence, which for a while appear to hoot their beams into the regions of obcurity, on a udden withdraw their lutre, and leave mortals again to grope their way. Rh