he
owes something to us; that, if much of his praise is paid by perception
and judgment, much is likewise given by custom and veneration. We fix our
eyes upon his graces, and turn them from his deformities, and endure in
him what we should in another loath or despise. If we endured without
praising, respect for the father of our drama might excuse us; but I have
seen, in the book of some modern critick, a collection of anomalies which
shew that he has corrupted language by every mode of depravation, but
which his admirer has accumulated as a monument of honour.

He has scenes of undoubted and perpetual excellence, but perhaps not one
play, which, if it were now exhibited as the work of a contemporary
writer, would be heard to the conclusion. I am indeed far from thinking
that his works were wrought to his own ideas of perfection; when they were
such as would satisfy the audience, they satisfied the writer. It is
seldom that authors, though more studious of fame than Shakespeare, rise
much above the standard of their own age; to add a little to what is best
will always be sufficient for present praise, and those who find
themselves exalted into fame, are willing to credit their encomiasts, and
to spare the labour of contending with themselves.

It does not appear that Shakespeare thought his works worthy of posterity,
that he levied any ideal tribute upon future times, or had any further
prospect than of present popularity and present profit. When his plays had
been acted, his hope was at an end; he solicited no addition of honour
from the reader. He therefore made no scruple to repeat the same jests in
many dialogues, or to entangle different plots by the same knot of
perplexity, which may be at least forgiven him, by those who recollect,
that of Congreve's four comedies two are concluded by a marriage in a
mask, by a deception which perhaps never happened, and which, whether
likely or not, he did not invent.

So careless was this great poet of future fame, that, though he retired to
ease and plenty, while he was yet little _declined into the vale of
years_, before he could be disgusted with fatigue, or disabled by
infirmity, he made no collection of his works, nor desired to rescue those
that had been already published from the depravations that obscured them,
or secure to the rest a better destiny, by giving them to the world in
their genuine state.

Of the plays which bear the name of Shakespeare in the late edit