the collations which Edmond has not only dif patched, but copied in a fiftieth part of the time.

I am forry to obferve that Addison is not fond of those who collate various readings. It is in one of his papers that we find them illiberally accused of taking up the time of the learned and puzzling the ignorant by their collection of twenty or thirty varieties in a paffage tranfcribed. His ridicule upon them in the note upon the fong, is really fo flippant, that he deferves to be edited, interpreted, and enlarged by them.

*

I would beg leave to bind up this restorative Canon with a Minutian counterpart of Malonian candour, by recommending, in Edmond's name, and with his love to the reader, that we fhould cling to his profeffions, and make his conduct the example of capricious innovation; in fhort, by faying for him (as I have no doubt that he has often faid for himself, though, perhaps, " metuens qudiri, at his midnight orisons in Queen-Ann Street, Eaft.)

"Truft not my readings nor my obfervations!
[MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

* Effence, &c. page 139.

* N

APPENDIX.

Milton's Maid Servant.

As the laft proof fheet was going to my in

valuable friend Mr. Smeeton of St. Martin's Lane, a young woman called upon me, whose age I guess to be near twenty-five, but I was not ill-bred enough to ask her:-she had a very interesting figure and countenance, but was dreffed à la fille de chambre.

She told me at once-in medias res-that fle was a lineal defcendant from the maid-servant of Milton the poet, whofe memory had been fo defamed by Edmond; and fhe could affure me that her line of defcent was legitimate-I told her there could be no doubt of it from the modesty of her own appearance. Having thanked me for this compliment, in a very animated blush, accompanied with a gentle smile, she added, that a gentleman who had chambers in the Temple, was her mistress's brother, and had been fo good as to vindicate her in the paper that she had the honor to lay before me-that he was extremely amiable and clever, but she was not at liberty then to give me his name, though fhe could affure me that nothing but his goodness of heart could have interested him for her.

I was charmed with her delicacy, and gave her a difh of coffee-took the manuscript, and promised, "upon the faith of a Templar," that I would make her family's welfare (infeparable from its honor) an immediate object of my care-fhe curtfied. I told her of Ariel's injunction to her playfellows, and read the kiffing note-we parted..

When I examined the manufcript I was delighted with it; and except in fuperadding the dot of an i, which the young Templar had omitted, I give the manufcript as pure as I received it from his protégée.

If I am asked what analogy there is between Milton's maid-fervant and the Malone edition of Shakspeare? I answer," the fame that, happily for the world, united the supposed author of Junius to the unqueftioned writer of Abfalom and Achitophel."

Milton wrote an epitaph upon Shakespeare (as he wrote the word). This; by a natural episode, lets-in the apropos of the Templar, and the manufcript.

About it, Goddefs, and about it.

Pope.

Here follows the Manufcript.

Axiom.

In trifles we are to affume an error, whether it has any or no existence.

If the inaccuracy, being our own, is of confequence enough to be detected, (which ex conceffis it cannot be) no harm is done, or we may be felf-accufers at the worst, after being detected by others, which, being ingenuous, makes the fault becoming. But there is a hope that we shall escape the deprendi miferum by the infignificance of the facts.

Hæc inter

Occafion is given to fay more of the real and of the only fubject "fic fit, avite, liber:

Un livre fait tout, & fans Ariftote

La raison ne voit goute & le bon sens radote.

Boileau.

Problem

Note, p. 109, of Dryden's life, Malone fays, "that a fervant-maid who had lived with Milton, represents him in her depofition, to have died late at night on a Sunday, about a month preceding her evidence in that caufe, which was, Sunday the 15th of November.

"But that Milton was buried on the 12th.

"That fhe evidently therefore mistook a week in her reckoning."

*Enter Grammar-one of Edmond's Univerfity-laureats.t

* This transition from axioms and problems to theatrical images, has the carelefs inaccuracy of tafte which characterizes youth; and one cannot be angry with it in a Temple student, who is the champion of a fister's maid.

+ See the Effence, &c. page 67.

Grammar.

Grammar. If you should read this paffage as the ordo verborum imperiously demands that it should, and must be read, you will understand that Sunday the 15th of November was the day on which the maid-fervant gave her evidence.

Enter the Bishop of London.

Whatever becomes of Prifcian's head, you must not harbour a thought fo profane as that bufinefs was done by an Ecclefiaftical Court on a funday in fo exemplary an age.

You must, therefore, in the forum of conscience, if not in grammar, take the other alternative, and suppose that Sunday here was the day on which her mafter died.

Burgerfdicius.

Perhaps "the nurse of all the Capulets" will tell us by what procefs of Du Cange's almanack, we fo "evidently" make out the maid's false fo" reckoning; the depofes "that it was upon a Sunday, about a month before," fpeaking indefinitely of the time as more or less than a month, but with precifion as to the day of the week. It was added," which was the 15th day of the preceding month.”

This addition must have been a rapid corollary from the almanack, introduced by the ingenious officer of the Court who wrote the depofition, (had any fuch part of the document ever exifted)

not