Here let us recapitulate!

Three negatives (though in a courteous mode) are ftamped upon three direct affertions of the Editor preferred-and fuch is the difcovery of EIGHT YEARS!

1. Shakspeare's Plays were not printed more inaccurately than other plays in that age.

2. Shakspeare's age was not the most careless of any in the art of printing.

3. THIRTEEN of Shakspeare's Plays were NOT printed out of the feparate parts-written for his theatre. Two of them were.

Did not I tell you (in the Effence of Malone,) that NEGATIVE ILLUSTRATION Was Edmond's fort? -and am I “ an IDLE BABBLER?"

EXAMPLE IV.

Edmond proceeds;—and condemns, for its crimen læfæ veritatis, (though with a little change of the expreffion) another of the oracles delivered in Bolt Court.

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" HE DOES NOT BELIEVE that words in Shakspeare's time, were adopted at pleasure from the neighbouring languages;" or "that an an"tiquated diction was then employed,-with an "exception of Spencer alone:" thus (again) difputing the veracity of his favorite.

EXAMPLE V.

Upon the fame line of imputation, he announces the INDISPUTABLE EVIDENCE of his own

edition,

edition, "that Shakspeare's observations do not "refult from the paucity of contemporary au"thors ;"-in direct oppofition to the affirmative afferted by the author of that " EXCELLENT "SCHEME."

EXAMPLE VI.

He denies, with equal fpirit, (but with fuperior addrefs,) the affertion (by this EXCELLENT SCHEMER,)" that few of Shakspeare's lines were of difficult access to his audience, and that he had expreffions which then were common."

With infinite beauty of rhetoric, he appeals to Philip against Philip ;-he puts one of Samuel's own affertions in battle array against the other, and leaves them to fight it out as they

can.

If (fays Edmond) few of thofe lines were to "his audience difficult, and if he used expreffions "which then were common, it cannot be also true "that his reader is embarraffed with dead and foreign languages, with obfoleteness and with " innovation."

N. B. I have recommended the rhetoric of this if;-it is also a chef d'œuvre of fatyrical wit; but as to its logic-c'est un autre pair de manchons; not that I can difpute the fyllogifm, or any other which is the armour of Edmond, -except when he defcends to the anagram.

But the Cynic's cudgels for " poor Sam" (as be calls him,) have some dexterity in them, I shall

again be his Editor, as well as that of Edmond; but fhall give the palm to my hero, when I have parted them.

Says the Cynic-" nego confequentiam"-" If "the audience understood him, non fequitur, that "he would be as well understood by the reader, "i. e. by the modern reader, who might be " em"barraffed by dead and foreign languages, by obfoleteness, and by innovation; which yet, in Shakspeare's age, the common use of them, by "him, and others, in plays, might have rendered "familiar to their audience."

But I answer, that although in fubftance this argument may have fome potency and weight, the verbal advantage is upon the fide of Edmond's dilemma; which is also the more ingenious, because it seems to correct others, and is itfelf inaccurate. This indicates a master of his polemical tools.

We have thus far in the "achorie,*" or negative region, deftroyed fix Giants, by disproving that number of confident affertions made by the ablest of all the Editors; and it is to Edmond alone (that is, to affertions equally confident on his part) that we owe the discovery of fix negative propofitions.

Here they are!—

1. Shakspeare was not worse printed than his neighbours.

* Effence of Malone, (2d ed.) pag. 41.

2. The art of printing was not the most unfkilfully conducted in his time.

3. Shakspeare's Plays were not in general printed by chance or stealth.

4. Words in his time were not adopted at pleafure from the neighbouring languages.

5. His obfcurities do not arife from the paucity of cotemporary authors.

6. His lines were not familiar to his audience, or his expreffions common.

"But is this all that his EIGHT YEARS have "done for us?" interrogates Orfino.

Nothing like it! we have precious, and affirmative truths to come.

CANON

CANON II.

AN Editor fhould be the Columbus of truisms, or felf-evident propofitions.

EXAMPLE I.

I perfectly agree with "a Daniel come to judgement," when he tells me, in Edmond's name, that because a paffage is anomalous, to my conception, I am not therefore to eject, (as he elegantly expreffes himself;) or to extrude it, (which is Johnson's word,) as an error and corruption which I may alter at pleasure.

I am also happy to find him affert, (though it is a death's blow to fome who have preceded him and occafionally to himself,†) that other Editors, in the early part of this prefent century,

Jeem never to have looked behind them," (a figure of infinite humour,) and that alterations of Shakspeare, till thirty years before he wrote (but fince the edition by Pope) have been confidered as terms that were fynonymous to refloration.

By the way

Happy would it have been for us, if those who refored (as it was called) Charles the Second, could, by reftoring him, have altered him too!

*This image was prompted by a new member of the Imperial Parliament.

† Edmond (as it will appear by his conduct,) reserves to himfelf alone, the liberty of reftoring or of amending-as it fuits him.

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