After the foregoing pages were printed, the late edition of Shakespeare, ascribed to Sir Thomas Hanmer, fell into my hands; and it was, therefore, convenient for me to delay the publication of my remarks, till I had examined whether they were not anticipated by similar observations, or precluded by better.  I, therefore, read over this tragedy, but found that the editor’s apprehension is of a cast so different from mine, that he appears to find no difficulty in most of those passages which I have represented as unintelligible, and has, therefore, passed smoothly over them, without any attempt to alter or explain them.

Some of the lines with which I had been perplexed, have been, indeed, so fortunate as to attract his regard; and it is not without all the satisfaction which it is usual to express on such occasions, that I find an entire agreement between us in substituting [see Note II.] quarrel for quarry, and in explaining the adage of the cat, [Note XVII.] But this pleasure is, like most others, known only to be regretted; for I have the unhappiness to find no such conformity with regard to any other passage.

The line which I have endeavoured to amend, Note XI. is, likewise, attempted by the new editor, and is, perhaps, the only passage in the play in which he has not submissively admitted the emendations of foregoing criticks.  Instead of the common reading,

 —­Doing every thing
  Safe towards your love and honour,

he has published,

 —­Doing every thing
  Shap’d towards your love and honour.

This alteration, which, like all the rest attempted by him, the reader is expected to admit, without any reason alleged in its defence, is, in my opinion, more plausible than that of Mr. Theobald:  whether it is right, I am not to determine.

In the passage which I have altered in Note XL. an emendation is, likewise, attempted in the late edition, where, for,

 —­and the chance of goodness
  Be like our warranted quarrel,

is substituted—­and the chance in goodness—­whether with more or less elegance, dignity, and propriety, than the reading which I have offered, I must again decline the province of deciding.

Most of the other emendations which he has endeavoured, whether with good or bad fortune, are too trivial to deserve mention.  For surely the weapons of criticism ought not to be blunted against an editor, who can imagine that he is restoring poetry, while he is amusing himself with alterations like these:  for,

 —­This is the sergeant,
  Who like a good and hardy soldier fought;
 —­This is the sergeant, who
  Like a right good and hardy soldier fought.

For,

 —­Dismay’d not this
  Our captains Macbeth and Banquo?—­Yes;

 —­Dismay’d not this
  Our captains brave Macbeth and Banquo?—­Yes.

Such harmless industry may, surely, be forgiven, if it cannot be praised:  may he, therefore, never want a monosyllable, who can use it with such wonderful dexterity.