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is, that in his preface he has proved the editor of the ſecond folio, printed in 1632, to have been entirely ignorant of Shakſpeare's phraſeology and metre, and the book itſelf of no authority whatſoever; yet moſt ſtrangely and inconſiſtently he has adopted ſome emendations of the text from that corrupted copy. To the firſt part of this charge I plead guilty, but am at a loſs to know under what penal ſtatute it ſhould be claſſed. To this minute critic indeed, who alſo publiſhed in 1783 ſome remarks on Mr. Steevens's edition of Shakſpeare, (in which that gentleman, Dr. Johnſon, and others, were treated with juſt as much decency and reſpect, as our late ingenious and learned friend Mr. Warton had been in another forgotten pamphlet,) to him it was a very ſerious grievance; for he appears to have ſet up for a hypercritick on Mr. Steevens, without a ſingle quarto copy of our author's plays, and, I ſuſpect, without being poſſeſſed of the only authentick folio edition. If that was the caſe, to depreciate the vitiated folio on which he was generally obliged to depend, was to rob him of the only tool with which he could carry on his trade, and to place him in the ſtate in which poor Parſon Adams would have found himſelf, if his hoſt had convinced him that his ſolitary half-guinea was a counterfeit.
