every play from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence
of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let
it not stoop at correction or explanation. When his attention is
strongly engaged, let it disdain alike to turn aside to the name of
Theobald and Pope. Let him read on through brightness and obscurity,
through integrity and corruption; let him preserve his comprehension
of the dialogue and his interest in the fable. And when the pleasures
of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness; and read the
commentators.

Particular passages are cleared by notes, but the general effect
of the work is weakened. The mind is refrigerated by interruption;
the thoughts are diverted from the principal subject; the reader
is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book,
which he has too diligently studied.

Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been surveyed; there
is a kind of intellectual remoteness necessary for the comprehension
of any great work in its full design and its true proportions; a
close approach shews the smaller niceties, but the beauty of the
whole is discerned no longer.

It is not very grateful to consider how little the succession of
editors has added to this authour's power of pleasing. He was read,
admired, studied, and imitated, while he was yet deformed with all
the improprieties which ignorance and neglect could accumulate upon
him; while the reading was yet not rectified, nor his allusions
understood; yet then did Dryden pronounce "that Shakespeare was the
man, who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest
and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still