Page:A letter to the Rev. Richard Farmer.djvu/26

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

( 20 )

rous proofs which collected for this purpoſe, were given ex abundanti. If inſtead of ſhewing that the editor, not knowing that the double comparative was the common phraſeology of Shakſpeare's time, had ſubſtituted for it a more grammatical form, giving us more ſafe, more worthy and more rich, for more ſafer, more worthier and more richer; that he did not know that the double negative was the common and authorized language of that age[1]; that when the beginning of a line in the elder copy was accidentally omitted at the preſs, inſtead of attempting to cure the defect in the right place, he added ſome words at the end of the line, and by his addition made the paſſage nonſenſe[2]; that he was utterly ignorant of his author's elliptical language, as well as of his metre;—if inſtead of all theſe proofs and many others to the ſame point, I had produced only one of them, it would have been ſufficient for my purpoſe, and the old adage—ex uno diſce omnes would have ſupplied the reſt.

Notwith-
  1. As in The Comedy of Errors, Act III. ſc. ii.
    "Nor to her bed no homage do I owe;"
    inſtead of which we have in the ſecond folio,
    "Nor to her bed a homage do I owe."
  2. Pref. to the late edit. p. xxxi.