_Shakespear_’s Works, when they escaped the Players, did not fall into much better Hands when they came amongst Printers and Booksellers: who, to say the Truth, had, at first, but small Encouragement for putting him into a better Condition. The stubborn Nonsense, with which he was incrusted, occasioned his lying long neglected amongst the common Lumber of the Stage. And when that resistless Splendor, which now shoots all around him, had, by degrees, broke thro’ the Shell of those Impurities, his dazzled Admirers became as suddenly insensible to the extraneous Scurf that still stuck upon him, as they had been before to the native Beauties that lay under it. So that, as then he was thought not to deserve a Cure, he was now supposed not to need any. His growing Eminence, however, required that he should be used with Ceremony: And he soon had his Appointment of an _Editor_ in form. But the Bookseller, whose dealing was with Wits, having learnt of them, I know not what silly Maxim, that _none but a Poet should presume to meddle with a Poet_, engaged the ingenious Mr. _Rowe_ to undertake this Employment. A Wit indeed he was; but so utterly unacquainted with the whole Business of Criticism, that he did not even collate or consult the first Editions of the Work he undertook to publish; but contented himself with giving us a meagre Account of the Author’s Life, interlarded with some common-place Scraps from his Writings. The Truth is, _Shakespear_’s Condition was yet but ill understood. The Nonsense, now, by consent, received for his own, was held in a kind of Reverence for its Age and Author: and thus it continued, till another great _Poet_ broke the Charm; by shewing us, that the higher we went, the less of it was still to be found.