use him as he pleas’d?_ These Things are very true: and to see What
a good Memory, and sound Judgment in Conjunction can atchieve! Tho’
_Homer_’s Date is not determin’d down to a single Year, yet ’tis
pretty generally agreed that he liv’d above 300 Years before _Draco_
and _Solon_: And That, it seems, has made him _seem_ to allude to
the very Laws, which these Two Legislators propounded above 300
Years after. If this Inference be not something like an _Anachronism_
or _Prolepsis_, I’ll look once more into my Lexicons for the true
Meaning of the Words. It appears to me, that somebody besides _Mars_
and _Venus_ has been caught in a Net by this Episode: and I could
call in other Instances to confirm what treacherous Tackle this
Network is, if not cautiously handled.

How just, notwithstanding, I have been in detecting the Anachronisms
of my Author, and in defending him for the Use of them, Our late
Editor seems to think, They should rather have slept in Obscurity:
and the having discovered them is sneer’d at, as a sort of
wrong-headed Sagacity.

The numerous Corrections, which I made of the Poet’s Text in my
SHAKESPEARE _Restor’d_, and which the Publick have been so kind to
think well of, are, in the Appendix of Mr. _Pope_’s last Edition,
slightingly call’d _Various Readings_, _Guesses_, &c. He confesses
to have inserted as many of them as he judg’d of any the least
Advantage to the Poet; but says, that the Whole amounted to about
25 Words: and pretends to have annexed a compleat List of the Rest,
which were not worth his embracing. Whoever has read my Book will at
one glance see, how in both these Points Veracity is strain’d, so an
Injury might but be done. _Malus etsi obesse non pote, tamen cogitat_.