the panegyrick in which he celebrated himſelf for his atchievement. The exuberant excreſcence of his diction I have often lopped, his triumphant exultations over Pope and Rowe I have ſometimes ſuppreſſed, and his contemptible oſtentation I have frequently concealed; but I have in ſome places ſhewn him, as he would have ſhewn himſelf, for the reader’s diverſion, that the inflated emptineſs of ſome notes may juſtify or excuſe the contraction of the reſt.
Theobald, thus weak and ignorant, thus mean and ſaithleſs, thus petulant and oſtentatious, by the good luck of having Pope for his enemy, has eſcaped, and eſcaped alone, with reputation, from this undertaking. So willingly does the world ſupport thoſe who ſolicit favour, againſt thoſe who command reverence; and ſo eaſily is he praiſed, whom no man can envy.
Our author fell then into the hands of Sir Thomas Hanmer, the Oxford editor, a man, in my opinion, eminently qualified by nature for ſuch ſtudies. He had, what is the firſt requiſite to emendatory criticiſm, that intuition by which the poet’s intention is immediately diſcovered, and that dexterity of intellect which diſpatches its work by the eaſieſt means. He had undoubtedly read much; his acquaintance with cuſtoms, opinions, and traditions, ſeems to have been large; and he is often learned without ſhew. He ſeldom paſſes what he does not underſtand, without an attempt to find or to make a meaning, and ſometimes haſtily makes what a little more attention would have found. He is ſolicitous to reduce to grammar, what he could not be ſure that his author intended
