word in it.

But should any error of my pen awaken Clariss. Bentleium to enlighten
the world with his annotations on our author, I shall not think that
the least reward or happiness arising to me from these my endeavours.

I shall waive at present what hath caused such feuds in the learned
world, whether this piece was originally written by Shakspeare, though
certainly that, were it true, must add a considerable share to its
merit, especially with such who are so generous as to buy and commend
what they never read, from an implicit faith in the author only: a
faith which our age abounds in as much as it can be called deficient
in any other.

Let it suffice, that THE TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES; or, THE LIFE AND DEATH
OF TOM THUMB, was written in the reign of queen Elizabeth. Nor can the
objection made by Mr D----, that the tragedy must then have been
antecedent to the history, have any weight, when we consider that,
though the HISTORY OF TOM THUMB, printed by and for Edward M----r, at
the Looking-glass on London-bridge, be of a later date, still must we
suppose this history to have been transcribed from some other, unless
we suppose the writer thereof to be inspired: a gift very faintly
contended for by the writers of our age. As to this history's not
bearing the stamp of second, third, or fourth edition, I see but
little in that objection; editions being very uncertain lights to
judge of books by; and perhaps Mr M----r may have joined twenty
editions in one, as Mr C----l hath ere now divided one into twenty.

Nor doth the other argument, drawn from the little care our author
hath taken to keep up to the letter of this history, carry any greater