Of what has been performed in this revisal, an account is given in the following pages by Mr. Steevens, who might have spoken both of his own diligence and sagacity, in terms of greater self-approbation, without deviating from modesty or truth.

JOHNSON.

MR.

MR. STEEVENS's

ADVERTISEMENT

PREFIXED TO

THE SECOND EDITION.

THE want of adherence to the old copies, which has been complained of, in the text of every modern republication of Shaks pere, is fairly deducible from Mr. Rowe's inattention to one of the first duties of an editor*. Mr. Rowe did not print from the earliest

"I must not (says Mr. Rowe in his dedication to the duke of Somerset) pretend to have restored this work to the exactness of the author's original manuscripts; those are lost, or, at least, are gone beyond any inquiry I could make; so that there was nothing left, but to compare the several editions, and give the true reading, as well as I could, from thence. This I have endeavoured to do pretty carefully, and rendered very many places intelligible, that were not so before. In some of the editions, especially the last, there were many lines (and in Hamlet one whole scene) left out together; these are now all supplied. I fear your grace will find some faults, but, I hope, they are mostly literal, and the errors of the press." Would not any one, from this declaration, suppose that Mr. Rowe (who does not appear to have consulted a single quarto) had at least compared the folios with each other?

and

and most correct, but from the most remote and inaccurate of the four folios. Between the years 1623 and 1685 (the dates of the first and last) the errors in every play, at least, were trebled. Several pages in each of these ancient editions have been examined, that the assertion might come more fully supported. It may be added, that as every fresh editor continued to make the text of his predecessor the ground-work of his own (never collating but where difficulties occurred) some deviations from the originals had been handed down, the number of which are lessened in the impression before us, as it has been constantly compared with the most authentick copies, whether collation was absolutely necessary for the recovery of sense, or not. The person who undertook this task, may have failed by inadvertency, as well as those who' preceded him; but the reader may be assured, that he, who thought it his duty to free an author from such modern and unnecessary innovations, as had been. censured in others, has not ventured to introduce anyof his own.

It is not pretended, that a complete body of various readings is here collected; or that all the diversities which the copies exhibit, are pointed out; as near two-thirds of them are typographical mistakes, or such a change of insignificant particles, as would: crowd the bottom of the page with an ostentation of materials, from which, at last, nothing useful could, be selected,

The

The dialogue might, indeed, sometimes be length. ened by other insertions than have hitherto been made, but without advantage either to its spirit or beauty; as in the following instance:

Lear. No.

Kent. Yes.

Lear. No, I say.

Kent. I say, yea.

Here the quartos add :

Lear. No, no, they would not.

Kent. Yes, they have.

By the admission of this negation and affirmation, has any new idea been gained?

The labours of preceding editors have not left room for a boast, that many valuable readings have been retrieved; though it may be fairly asserted, that the text of Shakspere is restored to the condition in which the author, or rather his first publishers, appear to have left it, such emendations as were absolutely necessary, alone admitted: for where a particle, indispensably necessary to the sense, was wanting, such a supply has been silently adopted from other editions ; but where a syllable, or more, had been added for the sake of the metre only, which, at first, might have been irregular, such interpolations are here constantly retrenched, sometimes with, and sometimes without

notice.

notice. Those speeches, which in the older editions are printed as prose, and from their own construction are incapable of being compressed into verse, without the aid of supplemental syllables, are restored to prose again; and the measure is divided afresh in others, where the mass of words had been inharmoniously separated into lines.

The scenery, throughout all the plays, is regulated in conformity to a rule, which the poet, by his general practice, seems to have proposed to himself. Several of his pieces are come down to us, divided into scenes as well as acts. These divisions were probably his own, as they are made on settled principles, which would hardly have been the case, had the task been executed by the players. A change of scene, with Shakspere, most commonly implies a change of place, but always an entire evacuation of the stage. The custom of distinguishing every entrance or exit by a fresh scene, was adopted, perhaps very idly, from the French theatre.

For the length of many notes, and the accumulation of examples in others, some apology may be likewise expected. An attempt at brevity is often found to be the source of an imperfect explanation. Where a passage has been constantly misunderstood, or where the jest or pleasantry has been suffered to remain long in obscurity, more instances have been brought to clear the one, or elucidate the other, than appear at first sight to have been necessary. For these, it can only be said, that when they prove that phraseology

or