The BEAUTIES obferved by POPE, Together with The AUTHOR's life; A GLOSSARY; Copia READINGS.. IN EIGHT VOLUME S EDINBURGH': Printed by SANDS, MURRAY, and COCHRAN.. FOR W.SANDS, HAMILTON & BALFOUR, KINCAID & DONALD MDCCLIII. W.SANDS, HAMILTON & BALFOUR, KINCAID & DONALD- MDCCLIII. THE SCOTS EDITORS PREFACE. T HE diftinguished character of SHAKESPEAR as a dramatic writer, the great demand for his works among the learned and polite, and a laudable zeal for promoting home manufactures, were the principal motives for undertaking an edition of his works in Scotland. Before we give an account of the method used in conducting this edition, it may not be improper to take fome notice of our author's modern editors. Nor will it perhaps be a difagreeable entertainment to the reader, to see their sentiments of one another, in their own words. "Mr Rowe (the firft of thefe editors) was indeed a "wit (fays Mr Warburton); but fo utterly unacquainted "with the whole bufinefs of criticifm, that he did not 66 even collate or confult the first editions of the work. "he undertook to publifh."-"This gentleman (fays "Mr Theobald) had abilities, and a fufficient knowledge "of his author, had but his industry been equal to his "talents." The next editor was the univerfally-admired Mr Pope; "who, (fays Mr Warburton), by the mere force of an uncommon genius, without any particular ftudy or "profeffion of this art [criticifm], discharged the great parts of it fo well, as to make his edition the belt "foundation for all further improvements. He feparated the genuine from the fpurious plays; and, with VOL. I. a "equal |