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 both Sense and Sentiment, such Corrections, I am persuaded, will need no Indulgence.

And whenever I have taken a greater Latitude and Liberty in amending, I have constantly endeavoured to support my Corrections and Conjectures by parallel Passages and Authorities from himself, the surest Means of expounding any Author whatsoever. Cette voie d’interpreter un Autheur par lui-meme est plus sure que tous les Commentaires, says a very learned French Critick.

As to my Notes, (from which the common and learned Readers of our Author, I hope, will derive some Pleasure;) I have endeavour’d to give them a Variety in some Proportion to their Number.  Where-ever I have ventur’d at an Emendation, a Note is constantly subjoin’d to justify and assert the Reason of it.  Where I only offer a Conjecture, and do not disturb the Text, I fairly set forth my Grounds for such Conjecture, and submit it to Judgment.  Some Remarks are spent in explaining Passages, Where the Wit or Satire depends on an obscure Point of History:  Others, where Allusions are to Divinity, Philosophy, or other Branches of Science.  Some are added to shew, where there is a Suspicion of our Author having borrowed from the Antients:  Others, to shew where he is rallying his Contemporaries; or where He himself is rallied by them.  And some are necessarily thrown in, to explain an obscure and obsolete Term, Phrase, or Idea.  I once intended to have added a complete and copious Glossary; but as I have been importun’d, and am prepar’d, to give a correct Edition of our Author’s POEMS, (in which many Terms occur that are not to be met with in his Plays,) I thought a Glossary to all Shakespeare’s Works more proper to attend that Volume.

In reforming an infinite Number of Passages in the Pointing, where the Sense was before quite lost, I have frequently subjoin’d Notes to shew the deprav’d, and to prove the reform’d, Pointing:  a Part of Labour in this Work which I could very willingly have spared myself.  May it not be objected, why then have you burthen’d us with these Notes?  The Answer is obvious, and, if I mistake not, very material.  Without such Notes, these Passages in subsequent Editions would be liable, thro’ the Ignorance of Printers and Correctors, to fall into the old Confusion:  Whereas, a Note on every one hinders all possible Return to Depravity; and for ever secures them in a State of Purity and Integrity not to be lost or forfeited.