I had not mentioned the modest Liberty I have here and there taken of animadverting on my Author, but that I was willing to obviate in time the splenetick Exaggerations of my Adversaries on this Head. From past Experiments I have Reason to be conscious, in what Light this Attempt may be placed: and that what I call a _modest Liberty_, will, by a little of their Dexterity, be inverted into downright _Impudence_. From a hundred mean and dishonest Artifices employ’d to discredit this Edition, and to cry down its Editor, I have all the Grounds in Nature to be aware of Attacks. But tho’ the Malice of Wit join’d to the Smoothness of Versification may furnish some Ridicule; Fact, I hope, will be able to stand its Ground against Banter and Gaiety. [Sidenote: _Shakespeare_’s Anachronisms defended.] [Sidenote*: Mr. _Pope_’s Anachronisms examin’d.] It has been my Fate, it seems, as I thought it my Duty, to discover some _Anachronisms_ in our Author; which might have slept in Obscurity but for _this Restorer_, as Mr. _Pope_ is pleas’d affectionately to style me; as, for Instance, where _Aristotle_ is mentioned by _Hector_ in _Troilus_ and _Cressida_: and _Galen_, _Cato_, and _Alexander_ the Great, in _Coriolanus_. These, in Mr. _Pope_’s Opinion, are Blunders, which the Illiteracy of the first Publishers of his Works has father’d upon the Poet’s Memory: _it not being at all credible, that These could be the Errors of any Man who had the least Tincture of a School, or the least Conversation with_ _such as had._ But I have sufficiently proved, in the Course of my _Notes_, that such Anachronisms were the Effect of poetic Licence, rather than of Ignorance in our Poet. And if I may be permitted to ask a modest Question by the way, *Why may not I restore an Anachronism really made by our Author, as well as Mr. _Pope_ take the Privilege to fix others upon him, which he never had it in his Head to make; as I may venture to affirm He had not, in the Instance of Sir _Francis Drake_, to which I have spoke in the proper Place? But who shall dare make any Words about this Freedom of Mr. _Pope_’s towards _Shakespeare_, if it can be prov’d, that, in his Fits of Criticism, he makes no more Ceremony with good _Homer_ himself? To try, then, a Criticism of his own advancing; In the 8th Book of the _Odyssey_, where _Demodocus_ sings the Episode of the Loves of _Mars_ and _Venus_; and that, upon their being taken in the Net by _Vulcan_, ----the God of Arms Must pay the Penalty for lawless Charms;