Page:An Inquiry into the Authenticity of certain Papers and Instruments attributed to Shakspeare.djvu/42

Rh other words that unnatural and licentious extravagance and irregularity, which would not have been found, had any model whatever been followed, however clumsily it might have been imitated.

it is now time to examine more particularly this gracious and condescending epistle of our virgin Queen. According therefore to the method I have laid down, I proceed to prove from the orthography, the phraseology, the date, and the total dissimilitude of the hand-writing, that it is a forgery. You will perhaps smile at my reserving the hand-writing for my last topick; as, if I am able to shew that it has not the smallest resemblance to the Queen’s hand-writing, the question is at an end.—When a certain Potentate of Spain happened to pass through a town in his dominions which he had not visited for a long time, it was thought proper by the magistracy of the place to congratulate him on his arrival into that part of his kingdom. The deputy-bailiff, as I remember, being introduced, began an harangue, which he had conned with much care, lamenting in the first place his own insufficiency, which he trusted his Majesty