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for the editor of the ſecond folio, as ſoon as his book is proved not to be authentick, can rank only by the ſide of any other conjecturer, commentator, or verbal critick. And on the ſame ground, if the moſt obſcure and contemptible pamphleteer ſhould ſuggeſt a happy correction of any deſperate paſſage, manifeſtly corrupt, to the propriety and rectitude of which every intelligent reader muſt at once aſſent, it would have a claim to attention, however little reſpect ſhould be due to the quarter from whence it came. With how much caution however I have proceeded in this reſpect, my book will ſhew.
If the ſecond folio had been of any authority, then all the capricious innovations of that copy (in which deſcription I do not include the innumerable errors of the preſs) muſt have been adopted; but being once proved not to be authentick, then in the caſe of a paſſage undoubtedly corrupt in the original and authentick copie, we are at liberty to admit an emendation ſuggeſted by any later editor or commentator, if a neater and more plauſible correction than that furniſhed by the ſecond folio; and this I have done more than once.
