FOOTNOTES: 

[1] It is not true, that the plays of this author were more incorrectly
    printed than those of any of his contemporaries:  for in the plays of
    Massinger, Marlowe, Marston, Fletcher, and others, as many errors
    may be found.  It is not true, that the art of printing was in no
    other age in such unskilful hands.  Nor is it true, in the latitude
    in which it is stated, that “these plays were printed from
    compilations made by chance or by stealth, out of the separate parts
    written for the theatre:”  two only of all his dramas, The Merry
    Wives of Windsor, and King Henry V. appear to have been thus thrust
    into the world; and of the former it is yet a doubt, whether it is a
    first sketch, or an imperfect copy.  See Malone’s Preface throughout. 
   —­Ed.

[2] See how this respectful reference to his labours was rewarded by
    this “meek and modest ecclesiastic” in his Letters, 410, 272, 273. 
    Also Edinburgh Review for January, 1809.

PREFACE
TO
SHAKESPEARE.

PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1768[1].

That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard, which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time.

Antiquity, like every other quality that attracts the notice of mankind, has undoubtedly votaries that reverence it, not from reason, but from prejudice.  Some seem to admire indiscriminately whatever has been long preserved, without considering that time has sometimes co-operated with chance; all, perhaps, are more willing to honour past than present excellence; and the mind contemplates genius through the shades of age, as the eye surveys the sun through artificial opacity.  The great contention of criticism is to find the faults of the moderns, and the beauties of the ancients.  While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best.

To works, however, of which the excellence is not absolute and definite, but gradual and comparative; to works not raised upon principles demonstrative and scientifick, but appealing wholly to observation and experience, no other test can be applied than length of duration and continuance of esteem.  What mankind have long possessed they have often examined and compared; and if they persist to value the possession, it is because frequent comparisons have confirmed opinion in its favour.  As, among the works of nature, no man can properly call a river deep, or