se productions were wholly new, and of
their own. The case is not the same in England; though the
difficulties of altering are greater, and our reverence for
Shakespeare much more just, than that of the Grecians for AEschylus. In
the age of that poet, the Greek tongue was arrived to its full
perfection; they had then amongst them an exact standard of writing
and of speaking: the English language is not capable of such a
certainty; and we are at present so far from it, that we are wanting
in the very foundation of it, a perfect grammar. Yet it must be
allowed to the present age, that the tongue in general is so much
refined since Shakespeare's time, that many of his words, and more of
his phrases, are scarce intelligible. And of those which we
understand, some are ungrammatical, others coarse; and his whole style
is so pestered with figurative expressions, that it is as affected as
it is obscure. It is true, that in his latter plays he had worn off
somewhat of the rust; but the tragedy, which I have undertaken to
correct, was in all probability one of his first endeavours on the
stage.

The original story was written by one Lollius a Lombard, in Latin
verse, and translated by Chaucer into English; intended, I suppose, a
satire on the inconstancy of women: I find nothing of it among the
ancients; not so much as the name Cressida once mentioned.
Shakespeare, (as I hinted) in the apprenticeship of his writing,
modelled it into that play, which is now called by the name of
"Troilus and Cressida," but so lamely is it left to us, that it is not
divided into acts; which fault I ascribe to the actors who printed it
after Shakespeare's death; and that too so carelessly, that a more
uncorrected copy I never saw. For the play itself, the author seems to
have begun it with some fire; the characters of Pandarus and
Thersites, are promising enough; but as if he grew weary of his task,
after an entrance or two, he lets them fall: and the latter part of
the tragedy is nothing but a confusion of drums and trumpets,
excursions and alarms. The chief persons, who give name to the
tragedy, are left alive; Cressida is false, and is not punished. Yet,
after all, because the play was Shakespeare's, and that there appeared
in some places of it the admirable genius of the author, I undertook
to remove that heap of rubbish under which many excellent thoughts lay
wholly buried. Accordingly, I new modelled the plot, threw out many
unnecessary pers