Illudunt nobis conjecturae nostrae, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam
in meliores cofices incidimus. And Lipsius could complain, that
criticks were making faults, by trying to remove them, Ut olim
vitiis, ita nunc remediis laboratur. And indeed, where mere
conjecture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and Lipsius,
notwithstanding their wonderful sagacity and erudition, are often
vague and disputable, like mine or Theobald's.

Perhaps I may not be more censured for doing wrong, than for doing
little; for raising in the publick expectations, which at last I
have not answered. The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and
that of knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to satisfy those
who know not what to demand, or those who demand by design what
they think impossible to be done. I have indeed disappointed no
opinion more than my own; yet I have endeavoured to perform my task
with no slight solicitude. Not a single passage in the whole work
has appeared to me corrupt, which I have not attempted to restore;
or obscure, which I have not endeavoured to illustrate. In many
I have failed like others; and from many, after all my efforts, I
have retreated, and confessed the repulse. I have not passed over,
with affected superiority, what is equally difficult to the reader
and to myself, but where I could not instruct him, have owned my
ignorance. I might easily have accumulated a mass of seeming learning
upon easy scenes; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence,
that, where nothing was necessary, nothing has been done, or that,
where others have said enough, I have said no more.

Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him,
that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who
desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read