Mr. WARBURTON.

SIR,

F Fame is one of the ingredients,

IF

or, as you elegantly call them, Entremes of happiness; I am more obliged to You, whom I do not know; than to any person whom I do. Had not you called him forth to the public notice, the OTHER Gentleman of Lincoln's-Inn might have died in the obfcurity, which, You say, his modesty affected; and the few people, who had read the last Edition of Shakespear, and the Supplement to it, after having fighed over the one, and laughed at the other, would foon have forgotten both.

As I have no reafon to repent the effects of that Curiofity, which you

The Dedication and the Preface were added to the later editions of the Canons, on occafion of a Note on the Dunciad B. IV. 1. 567.

a

MACBETH, Vol. VI. Page 392.

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have

have raised on my Subject; to borrow another expreffion of yours; I take this opportunity of thanking You for that civil treatment, fo becoming a Gentleman and a Clergyman, which I have received at your Hands; and offer to your protection a work, from " which, if Shakespear, or good Let"ters, have received any advantage, "and the Public any benefit or en"tertainment; the thanks are due to "Mr. Warburton."

I am, Sir,

b

Not your enemy; though you have given me no great reason to be

Your very humble Servant;

Thomas Edwards,

See Mr. Warburton's Preface, Page 20.

I

PREFACE.

Now appear in public, not a little against my inclination; for I thought, I had been quit of the talk of reading the laft edition of Shakespear any more; at left till thofe, who difapprove of what I have published concerning it, fhould be as well acquainted with it as I am; and that perhaps might have been a reprieve for life: but Mr. Warburton has dragged me from my obfcurity; and by infinuating that I have written a libel against him, (by which he must mean the CANONS of CRITICISM, because it is the only book I have written; I fay, by this unfair infinuation) he has obliged me to fet my name to a pamphlet; which if I did not in this manner own before, it was I must confefs owing to that fault Mr. Warburton accuses me of; a fault, which He, who like Cato can have no remorfe for weakneffes in others, which his upright foul was never guilty of, thinks utterly unpardonable; and that is Modely: Not that I was either afhamed of the pamphlet, or afraid of my adverfary; for I knew, that my caufe was just; and that truth would fupport me even against a more tremendous antagonist, if fuch there be;

but I thought it a work, which though not unbecoming a man who has more serious studies, yet was not of that confequence as to found any great matter of reputation upon.

Since then I am thus obliged to appear in public, I the more readily fubmit; that I may have an opportunity of anfwering, not what Mr. Warburton has written against me, for that is unanswerable; but fome objections which I hear have been made against the Canons, by fome of his friends.

It is my misfortune in this controversy to be engaged with a perfon, who is better known by his name than his works; or, to speak more properly, whofe works are more known than read; which will oblige me to use several explanations and references, unneceffary indeed to those who are well read in him; but of confequence towards clearing myfelf from the imputation of dealing hardly by him; and saving my readers a task, which I confefs I did not find a very pleafing one.

Mr. Warburton had promifed the world a most complete edition of Shakespear; and, long before it came out, raifed our expectations of it by a pompous account of what he would do, in the General Dictionary. He was very handfomely paid for what he promised, The expected edition at length comes out; with a title-page importing that the Genuine Text, coltated with all the former editions, and then corrected and emended, is there fettled. His pre

face

face is taken-up with defcribing the great difficulties of his work, and the great qualifications requifite to a due performance of it; yet at the fame time he very cavalierly tells us, that these notes were among the amufements of his younger years: and as for the Canons of Criticism and the Gloffary which he promised, he abfolves himself, and leaves his readers to collect them out of his notes.

I defire to know, by what name such a behaviour in any other commerce or intercourfe of life would be called? and whether a man is not dealt gently with, who is only laughed at for it? I thought then, I had a right to laugh; and when I found fo many hafty, crude, and to say no worse, unedifying notes supported by fuch magifterial pride, I took the liberty he gave me; and extracted fome Canons and an effay towards a Gloffary from his work. If He had done it, he had faved me the labor: it is poffible indeed, that he might not have pitched upon all the fame paffages as I did to collect them from; as perhaps no two people, who did not confult together, would; but I defie him to fay, that these are not fairly collected; or that he is unfairly quoted for the examples: if Mr. Warburton would have been more grave upon the occafion, yet I did not laugh so much as I might have done; and I used him with better manners, than he ever did any person whom he had a controversy with; except one gentleman, whom he is afraid of; if I may except even him,

But