rv'd, that where
the Assistance of Manuscripts is wanting to set an Author's Meaning
right, and rescue him from those Errors which have been transmitted
down thro' a Series of incorrect Editions, and a long Intervention
of Time, many Passages must be desperate, and past a Cure; and
their true Sense irretrievable either to Care or the Sagacity of
Conjecture. But is there any Reason therefore to say, That because
All cannot be retriev'd, All ought to be left desperate? We should
shew very little Honesty, or Wisdom, to play the Tyrants with an
Author's Text; to raze, alter, innovate, and overturn, at all
Adventures, and to the utter Detriment of his Sense and Meaning:
But to be so very reserved and cautious, as to interpose no Relief
or Conjecture, where it manifestly labours and cries out for
Assistance, seems, on the other hand, an indolent Absurdity.

But because the Art of Criticism, both by Those who cannot form a
true Judgment of its Effects, nor can penetrate into its Causes,
(which takes in a great Number besides the Ladies;) is esteem'd only
an arbitrary capricious Tyranny exercis'd on Books; I think
proper to subjoin a Word or two about those Rules on which I have
proceeded, and by which I have regulated myself in this Edition. By
This, I flatter myself, it will appear, my Emendations are so far
from being arbitrary or capricious, that They are establish'd with
a very high Degree of moral Certainty.

As there are very few Pages in _Shakespeare_, upon which some
Suspicions of Depravity do not reasonably arise; I have thought it
my Duty, in the first place, by a diligent and laborious Collation
to take in the Assistances of all the older Copies.

In his _Historical Plays_, whenever our _English_ Chronicles, and in
his Tragedies when _Greek_ or _Roman_ Story, could give any Light;
no Pains have been omitted to set Passages right by comparing my
Author with his Originals: for, as I have frequently observed, he
was a close and accurate Copier where-ever his _Fable_ was founded
on _History_.

Where-ever the Author's Sense is clear and discoverable, (tho',
perchance, low and trivial;) I have not by any Innovation tamper'd
with his Text; out of an Ostentation of endeavouring to make him
speak better than the Old Copies have done.

Where, thro' all the former Editions, a Passage has labour'd under
flat Nonsense and invincible Darkness, if, by the Addition or
Alteration of a Letter or two, I have restored to Him bot