tributes so
much to perspicuity, that Homer has fewer passages unintelligible than
Chaucer. The words have not only a known regimen, but invariable
quantities, which direct and confine the choice. There are commonly more
manuscripts than one; and they do not often conspire in the same
mistakes. Yet Scaliger could confess to Salmasius how little
satisfaction his emendations gave him: "Illudunt nobis conjecturae
nostrae, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam in meliores codices incidimus." And
Lipsius could complain that criticks were making faults, by trying to
remove them: "Ut olim vitiis, ita nunc remediis laboratur." And, indeed,
where mere conjecture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and
Lipsius, notwithstanding their wonderful sagacity and erudition, are
often vague and disputable, like mine or Theobald's.

Perhaps I may not be more censured for doing wrong, than for doing
little; for raising in the publick expectations which at last I have not
answered. The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that of
knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to satisfy those who know not
what to demand, or those who demand by design what they think impossible
to be done. I have, indeed, disappointed no opinion more than my own;
yet I have endeavoured to perform my task with no slight solicitude. Not
a single passage in the whole work has appeared to me corrupt, which I
have not attempted to restore; or obscure, which I have not endeavoured
to illustrate. In many I have failed, like others; and from many, after
all my efforts, I have retreated, and confessed the repulse. I have not
passed over, with affected superiority, what is equally difficult to the
reader and to myself, but, where I could not instruct him, have owned my
ignorance. I might easily have accumulated a mass of seeming learning
upon easy scenes; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence, that,
where nothing was necessary, nothing has been done, or that, where
others have said enough, I have said no more.

Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him, that
is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to
feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play, from
the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his
commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at
correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged, let
it disdain alike to turn aside to the na