rd 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 name of Theobald and of Pope. Let him read on through
brightness and obscurity, through integrity and corruption; let him
preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his interest in the fable.
And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness,
and read the commentators.

Particular passages are cleared by notes, but the general effect of the
work is weakened. The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts
are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is weary, he suspects
not why; and at last throws away the book which he has too diligently
studied.

Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been surveyed; there is a
kind of intellectual remoteness necessary for the comprehension of any
great work in its full design and in its true proportions; a close
approach shews the smaller niceties, but the beauty of the whole is
discerned no longer.

It is not very grateful to consider how little the succession of editors
has added to this author's power of pleasing. He was read, admired,
studied, and imitated, while he