Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/75

Rh him not only fail, but fail ridiculouly; and when he ucceeds bet, he produces perhaps but one reading of many probable, and he that uggets another will always be able to dipute his claims.

It is an unhappy tate, in which danger is hid under pleaure. The allurements of emendation are carcely reitible. Conjecture has all the joy and all the pride of invention, and he that has once tarted a happy change, is too much delighted to conider what objections may rie againt it.

Yet conjectural criticim has been of great ue in the learned world; nor is it my intention to depreciate a tudy, that has exercied o many mighty minds, from the revival of learning to our own age, from the bihop of Aleria to Englih Bentley. The criticks on ancient authors have, in the exercie of their agacity, many aitances, which the editor of Shakepeare is condemned to want. They are employed upon grammatical and ettled languages, whoe contruction contributes o murch to perpicuity, that Homer has fewer paages unintelligible than Chaucer. The words have not only a known regimen, but invariable quantities, which direct and confine the choice. There are commonly more manucripts than one; and they do not often conpire in the ame mitakes. Yet Scaliger could confes to Salmaius how little atisfaction his emendations gave him. Illudunt nobis conjecturæ notræ, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam in meliores codices incidimus. And Lipius could complain, that criticks were making faults, by trying to remove them, Ut olim vitiis, ita nunc remediis