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Page 19
The same liberty has been taken with a few particles, or other words
of slight effect. I have sometimes inserted or omitted them without
notice. I have done that sometimes, which the other editors have
done always, and which indeed the state of the text may sufficiently
justify.
The greater part of readers, instead of blaming us for passing trifles,
will wonder that on mere trifles so much labour is expended, with
such importance of debate, and such solemnity of diction. To these
I answer with confidence, that they are judging of an art which
they do not understand; yet cannot much reproach them with their
ignorance, nor promise that they would become in general, by learning
criticism, more useful, happier or wiser.
As I practised conjecture more, I learned to trust it less; and
after I had printed a few plays, resolved to insert none of my own
readings in the text. Upon this caution I now congratulate myself,
for every day encreases my doubt of my emendations.
Since I have confined my imagination to the margin, it must not
be considered as very reprehensible, if I have suffered it to play
some freaks in its own dominion. There is no danger in conjecture,
if it be proposed as conjecture; and while the text remains uninjured,
those changes may be safely offered, which are not considered even
by him that offers them as necessary or safe.
If my readings are of little value, they have not been ostentatiously
displayed or importunately obtruded. I could have written longer
notes, for the art of writing notes is not of difficult attainment.
The work is performed, first by railing at the stupidity, negligence,
ignorance, and asinine tastelessness of the former editors,
and shewing, from all that goes before and all that follows, the
inelegance and absurdity of the old reading; then by proposing
something, which to superficial readers would seem specious, but
which the editor rejects with indignation; then by producing the
true reading, with a long paraphrase, and concluding with loud
acclamations on the discovery, and a sober wish for the advancement
and prosperity of genuine criticism.
All this may be done, and perhaps done sometimes without impropriety. But
I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires
many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot
without so much labour appear to be right. The justness of a happy
restoration strikes at once, and the moral precept may be well
applied to criticism, quod dubitas ne feceris.
To dread the shore which he sees spread with wrecks, is natural to
the sailor. I had before my eye, so many critical adventures ended
in miscarriage, that caution was forced upon me. I encountered
in every page Wit struggling with its own sophistry, and Learning
confused by the multiplicity of its views. I was forced to censure
those whom I admired, and could not but reflect, while I was
dispossessing their emenations, how soon the same fate might happen
to my own, and how many of the readings which I have corrected may
be some other editor defended and established.
Criticks, I saw, that other's names efface,
And fix their own, with labour, in the place;
Their own, like others, soon their place resign'd,
Or disappear'd, and left the first behind.--Pope.
That a conjectural critick should often be mistaken, cannot be
wonderful, either to others or himself, if it be considered that
in his art there is no system, no principal and axiomatical truth
that regulates subordinate positions. His chance of errour is renewed
at every attempt; an oblique view of the passage a slight misapprehension
of a phrase, a casual inattention to the parts connected, is sufficient
to make him not only fail but fail ridiculously; and when he succeeds
best, he produces perhaps but one reading of many probable, and he
that suggests another will always be able to dispute his claims.
It is an unhappy state, in which danger is hid under pleasure. The
allurements of emendation are scarcely resistible. Conjecture has
all the joy and all the pride of invention, and he that has once
started a happy change, is too much delighted to consider what
objections may rise against it.
Yet conjectural criticism has been of great use in the learned world;
nor is it my intention to depreciate a study, that has exercised
so many mighty minds, from the revival of learning to our own age,
from the Bishop of Aleria to English Bentley. The criticks on ancient
authours have, in the exercise of their sagacity, many assistances,
which the editor of Shakespeare is condemned to want. They are
employed upon grammatical and settled languages, whose construction
contributes so much to perspicuity, that Homer has fewer passages
unintelligible than Chaucer. The words have not only a known
regimen, but invariable quantities, which direct and confine the
choice. There are commonly more manuscripts than one; and they do
not often conspire in the same mistakes. Yet Scaliger could confess
to Salmasius how little satisfaction his emendations gave him.
Illudunt nobis conjecturae nostrae, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam
in meliores cofices incidimus. And Lipsius could complain, that
criticks were making faults, by trying to remove them, Ut olim
vitiis, ita nunc remediis laboratur. And indeed, where mere
conjecture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and Lipsius,
notwithstanding their wonderful sagacity and erudition, are often
vague and disputable, like mine or Theobald's.
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