We have next the advertisement of another, and prior Editor, the late Mr. Steevens.-It occupies near fixteen pages!

But alas, nè verbum quidem-in these twentynine pages of Edmond's preface-to that Editor's honour!

"

There was a time when they " took fweet counfel together," when they were "twin cherries upon the fame flock."

Why they should have quarrelled, if they ever did, or if not, why Edmond should be thus cold, is a defideratum in the literary cabinet, which the furvivor can alone fupply.

Why the advertisement has been copied, and why that Editor's notes are occafionally introduced, (either to be adopted, refuted, or improved,) I could not at first ascertain. But a bookfeller (who shall be nameless) accredited the ingenuity of the expedient by the following queftion.

"Is there no policy, Mr. Felix, in making a competitor fupply you with his pages in addi"tion to your own?"

The next bonne bouche is Mr. Steevens again! SEVENTEEN pages, containing a lift of English tranflators from claffical authors in Shakspeare's time.

The Sergeant was muttering "trover and con"verfion of prefaces!"

Pope

Pope follows-and accommodates with near six

TEEN PAGES more.

Heminge and Condell, (familiar to all of us,) and Rowe's Life in a HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE

PAGES.

(The Sergeant made a note of it.)

Shakspeare's will,-his mortgage,-new anecdotes of his life,-registers at Stratford upon Avon-registers in the company of Stationers-the order of his plays, and a detected forgery of the late Charles Macklin, fill the remainder of this volume-which is NOT a VOLUME after all, but the first part of the first volume; a title which I do not the less, but the more, admire, because I have not a conception what it means.

Upon the lift of Classics in English, there is a note which has much of Edmond's livelieft cha'racter in its features.

You must know that he hates a forgery, (as the poor Irelands knew to their coft, though he gives quarter moft playfully to Macklin for a fimilar offence.)

He has introduced, in addition to the lift which he found (and has copied)

"The Golden Boke of Marcus Aurelius, emperor and eloquent orator."

For no purpose connected with Shakespeare, "but only to exclude this (devoted) book in "duodecimo, (a convenient fize for banishment)

from any future catalogue of tranflated claffics.

"It

"It was a (detected) fraud of Guevara. "Chapman, in his Gentleman Uher, speaks of "the book as Guevara's own."

First, let us pay all due homage to the importance of the news that Chapman detected Guevera's impofition, by calling the book bis, -not that of the emperor, as professed.

But let us alfo admire the unexampled ingenuity of the detection.

The paffage in Chapman being quoted verbatim, (of courfe and for obvious reasons that fhall be nameless) appears to be this:

If there are not more choice words in that letter than in any three of GUEVARA'S GOLDEN "EPISTLES, I am a very afs."

If I had not been deeply read in Malonian proofs, I fhould ask—

First, how it appears from this paffage, that Chapman, by GUEVARA'S GOLDEN EPISTLES, alludes to the GOLDEN BOKE of MARCUS AURELIUS?

And fecondly, in what logic (out of the moon) by calling them GUEVARA'S GOLDEN EPISTLES, he detects them as the verfions of a counterfeited original?

If I should say that MELMOTH'S PLINY is the moft exquifite model of elegant style in our language, I fhould fay what I thought; but I fhould be a little furprized if I could be told, "that I had converted Melmoth into the original writer of Pliny's Letters!"

In

In a note upon Rowe, Edmond (who is like me, a perfect enthufiaft for his hero, and will "bear no rival near his throne,") falls, without mercy, upon Ben Johnson-Upon his illnature he cannot be too fevere. But Abel Drugger, Bobadil, and Volpone, give themselves an air of smiling at the cenfure of his talents; and the Silent Woman affures me that he is eloquent enough to refute that cenfure.

It is a very marked feature of Edmond's character to be a Sylla in literature, love his friends and hate his enemies, which enemies are those who differ with him, or with his friends.

It is alfo in fome degree the character of the -age. I am partial, for example, to Mr. Tyrrwhit, the "amber" of Malone. But when it is required of me that I fhould therefore crufh the pifmire Dr. Warburton, I hefitate, or as the Sergeant would fay, (ur: avifare vult.

If I believe ufque ad aras the war of Troy, (by which I have fo often bled in corporal fympathies with Hector, and Achilles,) I must accufe, it feems, à toute outrance, Mr. Bryant, and accufe him of ignorance or of felf conceit, though up to the moment of this demand, I fhould have

* Apropos of the pifmire, we are told, "that Johnson com"pared Edwards to a horfe fly upon Warburton. "He may "fting the horse, but still it is a horse"-are his very fagacious words.

thought

thought him (as I really did) a most ingenious and learned man; a gentleman of the most engaging manners, and a writer, folicitous for nothing but the cause of truth.

Edmond and Minutius flourish together, and are quite at home in their notes upon Shakspeare's Life; but the WILL OF LADY BARNARD is the chef d'œuvre of fuperfluous acquifition.

"She was the daughter of Susanna Hall, who was the daughter of Shakspeare.

"She was the laft of Shakspeare's defcendants, and she died without iffue" (which is much the fame thing in other words.)

But her will is annexed!

It has not a fyllable that has the remoteft connection with him, and has not one circumstance in it, that, for any purpose, can at all intereft, in that place, any one of Edmond's readers. But there it is,—with all its formalities,—and without an omitted word.

I remember a very eloquent, but rather diffuse Barrister from Scotland, who was arguing in the Minutian way at the bar of the House of Peers. Lord Mansfield faid, "You need not "be fo particular-the Lords have the cafe be"fore them." "I thank your Lordship for the "hint, (replied the Advocate) and will confine

myfelf