Ashamed, however, of the public detection of his falsehood, he meanly omitted it in the next edition, without having a single word to allege in his defence: though he had still the confidence to represent it as "a misfortune to the commentators of Shakspeare, that so much of their [invaluable] time is obliged [for the sake of money] to be employed in explaining [by absurdity] and contradicting [by falsehood] unfounded conjectures and assertions;" which, in fact, (unfounded if they were, as is by no means true), though he was hardy enough to contradict, he was unable to explain, and did not, in reality, understand, contenting himself with an extract altogether foreign to the purpose, at second hand.
The fact, after all, is so positively proved, that no editor, or commentator, of Shakspeare, present or future, will ever have the folly or impudence to assert "that in Shakspeare's time the notion of fairies dying was generally known."
Ariosto informs us (in Haringtons translation, b. 10, s. 47) that
and, again (b. 43, s. 92):
