obſolete papers, peruſed commonly with ſome other view. Of this knowledge every man has ſome, and none has much; but when an author has engaged the publick attention, thoſe who can add any thing to his illuſtration, communicate their diſcoveries, and time produces what had eluded diligence.
To time I have been obliged to reſign many paſſeges, which, though I did not underſtand them, will perhaps hereafter be explained, having, I hope, illuſtrated ſome, which others have neglected or miſtaken, ſometimes by ſhort remarks, or marginal directions, ſuch as every editor has added at his will, and often by comments more laborious than the matter will ſeem to deſerve; but that which is moſt difficult is not always moſt important, and to an editor nothing is a trifle by which his author is obſcured.
The poetical beauties or defects I have not been very diligent to obſerve. Some plays have more, and ſome fewer judicial obſervations, not in proportion to their difference of merit, but becauſe I gave this part of my deſign to chance and to caprice. The reader, I believe, is ſeldom pleaſed to find his opinion anticipated; it is natural to delight more in what we find or make, than in what we receive. Judgment, like other faculties, is improved by practice, and its advancement is hindered by ſubmiſſion to dictatorial deciſions, as the memory grows torpid by the uſe of a table-book. Some initiation is however neceſſary; of all ſkill, part is infuſed by precept, and part is obtained by habit; I have therefore ſhewn ſo much
