Page:A letter to the Rev. Richard Farmer.djvu/7

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A


L E T T E R


T O


The Rev. Dr. FARMER, &c.


MY DEAR SIR,

THOUGH you have long left the primroſe path of poetry and criticiſm, for more grave and important ſtudies, you will, I am confident, very cheerfully ſpend an hour with me in traverſing the old Shakſpearian field, where we have ſo often expatiated on "the ever-fruitful ſubject" of our great dramatick poet and his Commentators.


When I firſt undertook to give an edition of his Works, it did not appear to me ſo arduous a taſk as I found it. After devoting ſeveral years to their reviſal and elucidation, I had the honour to preſent my edition to the publick in November, 1790, and immediately afterwards ſet

out