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ber his page with any uſeleſs comment, and the concluſive reply in queſtion appeared to him unworthy of notice.
Mr. Tyrwhitt's remark, which I have in part recited, makes it unneceſſary for me to take any further notice of the unfounded obſervations that have been made relative to the licence which Shakſpeare has occaſionally taken in his metre. For that licence, which it ſhould be remembered he has taken in common with his contemporaries, he alone is anſwerable. If an editor in exhibiting his works has religiouſly adhered to the original and authentick copies, admitting with the greateſt caution occaſional corrections of manifeſt errors, he has done his duty, as far as concerns the text; and need give himſelf little concern about the illiberal cenſures of thoſe who, like the preſent hypercritick, from ignorance of the poet's metre arraign his editor, for not having in various inſtances "endeavoured to help it by a word of his own," or by that which would have been equally improper, an interpolation of Pope or Hanmer, or the editor of the ſecond folio.
The anonymous writer, who has occaſioned my preſent addreſs to you, ſeems to think that
he
