ABSTRACT
Shakespeare above all writers since the days of Homer, has excited this curiosity in the highest degree; as perhaps no poet of
any nation was ever more idolized by his countrymen. An ardent desire to understand and explain his works has, to the honour of the present age, so much encreased within these last thirty years, that more has been done towards their elucidation during that period than perhaps in a century before. All the ancient copies of his plays hitherto discovered have been collated with the most scrupulous accuracy. The meanest books have been carefully examined only because they were of the age in which he lived, and might happily throw a light on some forgotten custom, or obsolete phraseology: and this object being still kept in view, the toil of wading through all such reading as was never read has been chearfully endured, because no labour was thought too great that might enable us to add one new laurel to the father of our drama. Almost every circumstance that tradition or history has preserved relative to him or his works has been investigated, and laid before the publick; and the avidity with which all communications of this kind have been received sufficiently proves that the time expended in the pursuit has not been wholly misemployed.
