Thomas Davies, accompanied by an Essay on the Old English Dramatic Writers, furnished by Mr. Colman, and addressed to David Garrick, Esq. to whom Dell's edition was also inscribed.

It may tend to mortify those, who, after bestowing unwearied pains on a work, look for some trifling return of praise, to find the approbation, which should be reserved for themselves, thoughtlessly lavished on the most worthless productions. Of this publication, the most ignorant and incorrect (if we except that of Mr. M. Mason, to which we shall speedily arrive) that ever issued from the press, bishop Percy thus speaks: "Mr. Coxeter's VERY CORRECT EDITION of Massinger's Plays has lately been published in 4 vols. 8vo. by Mr. T. Davies, (which T. Davies was many years an actor on Drury-lane stage, and I believe still continues so, notwithstanding his shop.) To this edition is prefixed a superficial letter to Mr. Garrick, written by Mr. Colman, but giving not the least account of Massinger, or of the old editions from whence this was composed. 'Tis great pity Mr. Coxeter did not live to finish it himself." It is manifest that his lordship never compared a

single page of this "correct edition," with the old copies and I mention the circumstance, to point out to writers of eminence the folly, as well as the danger, of deciding at random on any subject which they have not previously considered.

It will readily be supposed that a publication like this was not much calculated to extend the celebrity, or raise the reputation, of the Poet; it found, however, a certain quantity of readers, and was now growing scarce, when it fell by accident into the hands of John Monck Mason, Esq.

In 1777 he was favoured by a friend, as he tells the story, with a copy of Massinger. He received from it a high degree of pleasure, and having contracted a habit of rectifying, in the margin, the mistakes of such books as he read, he proceeded in this manner with those before him; his emendations were accidentally discovered by two of his acquaintance, who expressed their approbation of them in very flattering terms, and requested the author to give them to the publick."

Mr. M. Mason was unfortunate in his friends: they should have considered (a mat• Preface to Mr. M. Mason's edition, P. ii.

ter which had completely escaped him) that the great duty of an editor is fidelity: that the ignorance of Coxeter in admitting so many gross faults could give no reasonable mind the slightest plea for relying on his general accuracy, and that however high they might rate their friend's sagacity, it was not morally certain that when he displaced his predecessor's words to make room for his own, he fell upon the genuine text. Nothing of this, however, occurred to them, and Mr. M. Mason was prevailed upon, in evil hour, to send his corrected Coxeter to the press.

1

In a preface which accords but too well with the rest of the work, he observes, that he had "never heard of Massinger till about two years before he reprinted him." It must be confessed that he lost no time in boasting of his

7 Yet it is strange (he adds) that a writer of such evident excellence should be so little known. Preface, p. i. As some alleviation of Mr. M. Mason's amazement, I will tell him a short story: "Tradition says, that on a certain time, a man, who had occasion to rise very early, was met by another person, who expressed his astonishment at his getting up at so unseasonable an hour: the man answered, O master wonder-monger! as you have done the same thing, what reason have you to be surprised?"

acquaintance :-it appears, however, to have been but superficial. In the second page he asserts, that the whole of Massinger's plays were published while the author was living! This is a specimen of the care with which he usually proceeds: the life of the Author, prefixed to his own edition, tells that he died in 1640, and in the list which immediately follows it, no less than four plays are given in succession, which were not published till near twenty years after that period!

The oscitancy of Mr. M. Mason is so great, that it is impossible to say whether he supposed there was any older edition than that before him. He talks indeed of Massinger, but he always means Coxeter; and it is beyond any common powers of face to hear him discourse of the verbal and grammatical inaccuracies of an author whose works he probably never saw, without a smile of pity or contempt.

He says, "I have admitted into the text all my own amendments, in order that those who may wish to give free scope to their fancy and their feelings, and without turning aside to verbal criticism, may read these plays in that which appears to me the most perfect state;" (what intolerable conceit !) “but for

the satisfaction of more critical readers, I have directed that the words rejected by me should be inserted in the margin." This is not the case; and I cannot account, on any common principles of prudence, for the gratuitous temerity with which so strange an assertion is advanced not one in twenty is noticed, and the reader is misled on almost every occasion,

I do not wish to examine the preface further; and shall therefore conclude with observing, that Mr. M. Mason's edition is infinitely worse than Coxeter's. It rectifies a few mistakes, and suggests a few improvements; but, on the other hand, it abounds in errours and omissions, not only beyond that, but, perhaps, beyond any other work that ever appeared in print. Nor is this all: the ignorant fidelity of Coxeter has certainly given us many absurd readings of the old printers or transcribers; this, however, is far more tolerable than the mischievous ingenuity of Mr. M. Mason: the words he has silently introduced bear a specious appearance of truth, and are therefore calculated to elude the vigilance of many readers, whom the text of Coxeter would have startled, and compelled