placed and that what I call a modest liberty, will, by a little of their dexterity, be inverted into downright impudence. From a hundred mean and dishonest artifices employed to difcredit this edition, and to cry down its Editor, I have all the grounds in nature to be aware of attacks. But though the malice of wit joined to the fmoothnefs of verfification may furnish some ridicule; fact, I hope, will be able to fland its ground against banter and gaiety.. It has been my fate, it seems, as I thought it my duty, to discover some Anachronisms in our Author; which might have slept in obscurity but for this Reftorer, as Mr. Pope is pleased affectionately to style me; as, for inftance, where Arifotle is mentioned by Hector in Troilus and Creffida: and Galen, Cato, and Alexander the Great, in Coriolanus. Thefe, in Mr. Pope's opinion, are blunders, with the illiteracy of the first publishers of his works has fathered upon the Poet's memory: It not being at all credible, that these could be the errors of any man who had the least tincture of a fchool, or the leaft converfation with fuch as had.' But I have fufficiently proved, in the course of my notes, that fuch anachronisms were the effect of poetic licence, rather than of ignorance in our Poet. And if I may be permitted to afk a modeft question by the way,why may not I restore an anachrorism really made by our Author, as well as Mr. Pope take the privilege to fix others upon him, which, he never had it in his head to make; as I may venture to affirm he had not, in the inftance of Sir Francis Drake, to which I have spoke in the proper place? How juft, notwithstanding, I have been in de tecting the anachronisms of my Author, and in defending him for the use of them, our late Editor seems to think, they should rather have slept in obfcurity and the having difcovered them is fneered at, as a fort of wrong-headed fagacity. The numerous corrections, which I made of the Poet's text in my SHAKESPEARE Reftor'd, and which the public have been fo kind to think well of, are, in the appendix of Mr. Pope's laft ediation, flightingly call'd Various Readings, Gueffes, &c. He confeffes to have inferted as many of them as he judged of any the least advantage to the Poet; but fays, that the whole amounted to about twenty-five words: and pretends to have annexed a compleat lift of the reft, which were not worth his embracing. Whoever has read my book will at one glance fee, how in both these points veracity is strained, so an injury might but be done. Malus etfi obesse non pote, tamen cogitat. Another expedient, to make my work appear of a trifling nature, has been an attempt to de-preciate literal criticifm. To this end, and to pay a fervile compliment to Mr. Pope, an anonyinous writer has, like a Scotch pedlar in wit, unbraced his pack on the fubject. But, that his virulence might not feem to be levelled fingly at me, he has done me the honour to join Dr. Bentley in the libel. I was in hopes, we should have been C both both abused with smartness of fatire, at leaft; though not with folidity of argument: that it might have been worth fome reply in defence of the fcience attacked. But I may fairly say of this author, as Falstaff does of Poins; Hang him, baboon! his wit is as thick as Tewkfbury mustard; there is no more conceit in him, than is in a MALLET. If it be not prophanation to fet the opinion of the divine Longinus against such a scribler, he tells us exprefly, "That -❝to make a judgment upon Words (and Writings) -" is the most confummate fruit of much experi" ence.” ἡ γὰρ τῶν λόγων κρίσις πολλῆς ἐςὶ πείρας τελευταῖον ἐπιγέννημα. Whenever Words are depraved, the fenfe of course must be corrupted; and thence the readers betrayed into a false meaning. If the Latin and Greek languages have received the greatest advantages imaginable from the labours of the Editors and Criticks of the two laft ages; by whofe aid and affiftance the Grammarians have been enabled to write infinitely better in that art than even the preceding Grammarians, "who wrote when thofe tongues flourished as living languages: I should account it a peculiar happiness, that, by the faint affay I have made in this work, a path might be chalked out, for abler hands, by which to derive the fame advantages to our own tongue: a tongue, which tho' it wants none of the fundamental qualities of an univerfal language, yet as a noble Writer fays, lifps and ftam. frammers as in its cradle; and has produced Jittle more towards its polishing than complaints of its barbarity. Having now run through all those points, which I intended should make any part of this dissertation, and having in my former edition made publick acknowledgments of the affiftances lent me, I fhall conclude with a brief account of the methods taken in this. The few literal errors, which had escaped notice, for want of revifals, in the former edition, are here reformed: and the pointing of innumerable passages is regulated, with all the accuracy I am capable of.. I shall decline making any farther declaration of the pains I have taken upon my Author, be cause it was my duty, as his Editor, to publish him with my best care and judgment; and becaufe, I am fenfible, all fuch declarations are construed to be laying a sort of a debt on the public. As the former edition has been received with much indulgence, I ought to make my acknowledgments to the town for their favourable opinion of it and I fhall always be proud to think that encouragement the best payment. I cam hope to receive from my poor ftudies.. SHAKE |