Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/68

56 as may enable the candidate of criticim to dicover the ret.

To the end of mot plays I have added hort trictures, containing a general cenure of faults, or praie of excellence; in which I know not how much I have concurred with the current opinion; but I have not, by any affectation of ingularity, deviated from it. Nothing is minutely and particularly examined, and therefore it is to be uppoed, that in the plays which are condemned there is much to be praied, and in thee which are praied much to be condemned.

The part of criticim in which the whole ucceion of editors has laboured with the greatet diligence, which has occaioned the mot arrogant otentation, and excited the keenet acrimony, is the emendation of corrupted paages, to which the publick attention having been firt drawn by the violence of the contention between Pope and Theobald, has been continued by the perecution, which, with a kind of conpiracy, has been ince raied againt all the publihers of Shakepeare.

That many paages have paed in a tate of depravation through all the editions is indubitably certain; of thee the retoration is only to be attempted by collation of copies, or agacity of conjecture. The collator’s province is afe and eay, the conjecturer’s perilous and difficult. Yet as the greater part of the plays are extant only in one copy, the peril mut not be avoided, nor the difficulty refued. Of