Page:A letter to the Rev. Richard Farmer.djvu/29

( 23 ) for the editor of the econd folio, as oon as his book is proved not to be authentick, can rank only by the ide of any other conjecturer, commentator, or verbal critick. And on the ame ground, if the mot obcure and contemptible pamphleteer hould ugget a happy correction of any deperate paage, manifetly corrupt, to the propriety and rectitude of which every intelligent reader mut at once aent, it would have a claim to attention, however little repect hould be due to the quarter from whence it came. With how much caution however I have proceeded in this repect, my book will hew.

If the econd folio had been of any authority, then all the capricious innovations of that copy (in which decription I do not include the innumerable errors of the pres) mut have been adopted; but being once proved not to be authentick, then in the cae of a paage undoubtedly corrupt in the original and authentick copie, we are at liberty to admit an emendation uggeted by any later editor or commentator, if a neater and more plauible correction than that furnihed by the econd folio; and this I have done more than once. On