A LETTER, &c. SIR, OU may remember, that when lately difcourfing with you on the fubject of English poetry, we very naturally were led to talk of Spenser, who on every account fo truly deferves the name and title of poet and whilft we were on this fubject, you mentioned how much the Faery Queene required a good commentator and critic, and at the fame time too you recommended this province, which I took as a compliment, to my care. What my answer was then I cannot recollect; but when I returned to my ftudy, and, turning over an old interleaved edition of Spenfer, found I had there fcribbled many a note, and many a comment, as my cuftom is on favourite authors; it came into my mind to fend you a kind of fpecimen of what you might expect, fhould I commence an editor in form. But I can affure you I should never have entertained a thought of printing a new edition of our poet, had not the learned and anonymous author of the Remarks on Spenser's poems given up this tafk, and declared "that it required more time and application than he was willing to bestow". When men of real learning talk and act thus modeftly, what opinion can we have of fuch hafty editors, who with as little learning as application can let themfelves out to the hire of bookfellers? Poverty can be the only excufe. But this was no excufe to Mr. Hughes, nor to Mr. Pope; whom I don't compare as poets, for the interval was very wide between: but with refpect to their editorial skill, the one of Spenser, the other of Shakespeare, what Falstaff fays is applicable to them both, that the weight of an hair will turn the fcales between their aver"dupois". Methinks every reader would require that the laft editor fhould confult every former edition, and that he fhould faithfully and fairly exhibit all the various readings of even the leaft authority; he would require too, that an editor of Spenfer fhould be mafter of Spenfer's learning: for otherwise how could he know his allufions and various beauties? When and in what manner to |