Page:A letter to the Rev. Richard Farmer.djvu/42

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he has an excluſive privilege to all the nonſenſe to which the commentaries produced by the late editors of Shakſpeare have given riſe. On this ground, a remark in anſwer to one of Dr. Johnſon's in the firſt act of Troilus and Creſſida, having been ſlightly noticed in the late edition, this monopolizer will have it that he muſt have been meant; and no ſuch remark being in fact found in his book, with his wonted decorum he charges the editor with forgery. But ſtrange as it may appear, moſt true it is, that there are others now living capable of writing remarks on Shakſpeare and his editors, beſide himſelf, though not with ſuch a total diſregard of decency; and that the obſervation in queſtion appeared among ſome Remarks on Mr. Steevens's edition, which were publiſhed in a miſcellaneous volume, in 1785.

One other paſſage only of this elegant and modeſt performance remains to be noticed. In the firſt volume of the late edition of Shakſpeare I have mentioned that a pamphlet, which is now avowed by this writer as his production, was ſuppreſſed after its original publication, from modeſty as it ſhould ſeem; and that afterwards it was once more given to the world by its author. Nothing, ſays the fond

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