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PREFACE.
ix
fore a guest.——— The generality of modern writers have a mighty trick of saying———to be sure, they themselves are sensible the performance is trivial———poor———wants merit, and all that;———but why, if they are sensible their productions are so very despicable, do they insolently think of offering them to the public?———Why do they think of printing these very poor, trivial, and contemptible performances?———Why———why———Because, because, they neither think them poor, trivial, nor contempible———their very humility is nothing but an aggravation of their arrogance, for the greatest vanity a man was ever guilty of, was to say, he had no vanity at all.
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