Here studious I unlucky Moderns save, Nor sleeps one error in its father’s grave, Old puns restore, lost blunders nicely seek, And crucify poor Shakespear once a week. For thee I dim these eyes, and stuff this head, With all such reading as was never read; For the supplying, in the worst of days, Notes to dull books, and prologues to dull plays; For thee explain a thing ’till all men doubt it, And write about it, Goddess, and about it. Theobald is introduced also in the _Art of Sinking in Poetry_ among the classes of authors described as swallows and eels: the former “are eternally skimming and fluttering up and down, but all their agility is employed to catch flies,” the latter “wrap themselves up in their own mud, but are mighty nimble and pert.” About the same time, however, Pope brought out the second edition (1728) of his Shakespeare, and in it he incorporated some of Theobald’s conjectures, though his recognition of their merit was grudging and even dishonestly inadequate. (See the preface to the various readings at the end of the eighth volume, 1728.) Yet one’s sympathies with Theobald are prejudiced by his ascription to Shakespeare of the _Double Falshood, or the Distrest Lovers_, a play which was acted in 1727 and printed in the following year. Theobald professed to have revised it and adapted it to the stage. The question of authorship has not been settled, but if Theobald is relieved from the imputation of forgery, he must at least stand convicted of ignorance of the Shakespearian manner. Pope at once recognised that the play was not Shakespeare’s, and added a contemptuous reference to it in the second edition of his Preface. It was the opinion of Farmer that the groundwork of the play was by Shirley (see the _Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare_, p. 181).