rst. But my opinion is, that very few of
his lines were difficult to his audience, and that he used such
expressions as were then common, though the paucity of contemporary
writers makes them now seem peculiar.

Authors are often praised for improvement, or blamed for innovation,
with very little justice, by those who read few other books of the same
age. Addison, himself, has been so unsuccessful in enumerating the words
with which Milton has enriched our language, as, perhaps, not to have
named one of which Milton was the author; and Bentley has yet more
unhappily praised him as the introducer of those elisions into English
poetry, which had been used from the first essays of versification among
us, and which Milton was, indeed, the last that practised.

Another impediment, not the least vexatious to the commentator, is the
exactness with which Shakespeare followed his authors. Instead of
dilating his thoughts into generalities, and expressing incidents with
poetical latitude, he often combines circumstances unnecessary to his
main design, only because he happened to find them together. Such
passages can be illustrated only by him who has read the same story, in
the very book which Shakespeare consulted.

He that undertakes an edition of Shakespeare, has all these difficulties
to encounter, and all these obstructions to remove.

The corruptions of the text will be corrected by a careful collation of
the oldest copies, by which it is hoped that many restorations may yet
be made: at least it will be necessary to collect and note the variation
as materials for future criticks; for it very often happens that a wrong
reading has affinity to the right.

In this part all the present editions are apparently and intentionally
defective. The criticks did not so much as wish to facilitate the labour
of those that followed them. The same books are still to be compared;
the work that has been done, is to be done again; and no single edition
will supply the reader with a text, on which he can rely, as the best
copy of the works of Shakespeare.

The edition now proposed will, at least, have this advantage over
others. It will exhibit all the observable varieties of all the copies
that can be found; that, if the reader is not satisfied with the
editor's determination, he may have the means of choosing better for
himself.

Where all the books are evidently vitiated, and collation can give no
assistance, then begins the task of