rt strictures, containing a
general censure of faults, or praise of excellence; in which I know not
how much I have concurred with the current opinion; but I have not, by any
affectation of singularity, deviated from it. Nothing is minutely and
particularly examined, and therefore it is to be supposed that in the
plays which are condemned there is much to be praised, and in these which
are praised much to be condemned.

The part of criticism in which the whole succession of editors has
laboured with the greatest diligence, which has occasioned the most
arrogant ostentation, and excited the keenest acrimony, is the emendation
of corrupted passages, to which the publick attention having been first
drawn by the violence of the contention between Pope and Theobald, has
been continued by the persecution, which, with a kind of conspiracy, has
been since raised against all the publishers of Shakespeare.

That many passages have passed in a state of depravation through all the
editions is indubitably certain; of these the restoration is only to be
attempted by collation of copies, or sagacity of conjecture. The
collator's province is safe and easy, the conjecturer's perilous and
difficult. Yet as the greater part of the plays are extant only in one
copy, the peril must not be avoided, nor the difficulty refused.

Of the readings which this emulation of amendment has hitherto produced,
some from the labours of every publisher I have advanced into the text;
those are to be considered as in my opinion sufficiently supported; some I
have rejected without mention, as evidently erroneous; some I have left in
the notes without censure or approbation, as resting in equipoise between
objection and defence; and some, which seemed specious but not right, I
have inserted with a subsequent animadversion.

Having classed the observations of others, I was at last to try what I
could substitute for their mistakes, and how I could supply their
omissions. I collated such copies as I could procure, and wished for more,
but have not found the collectors of these rarities very communicative. Of
the editions which chance or kindness put into my hands I have given an
enumeration, that I may not be blamed for neglecting what I had not the
power to do.

By examining the old copies, I soon found that the later publishers, with
all their boasts of diligence, suffered many passages to stand
unauthorized, and contented themselves with Rowe's regulation