not stop to enquire whether he might not have found a better model; but
proceed to the body of the work. As we feel a warm interest in
everything which regards our ancient literature, on the sober
cultivation of which the purity, copiousness, and even harmony of the
English language must, in no small degree, depend, we shall notice some
of the peculiarities of the volumes before us, in the earnest hope that
while we relieve Ford from a few of the errors and misrepresentations
with which he is here encumbered, we may convince Mr. Weber that
something more is necessary to a faithful editor than the copying of
printers' blunders, and to a judicious commentator, than a blind
confidence in the notes of every collection of old plays.

Mr. Weber's attempts at explanation (for explanations it seems, there
must be) are sometimes sufficiently humble. "Carriage," he tells us, "is
behaviour." It is so; we remember it in our spelling-book, among the
words of three syllables, we have therefore no doubt of it. But you must
have, rejoins the editor; and accordingly, in every third or fourth
page, he persists in affirming that "carriage is behaviour." In the same
strain of thankless kindness, he assures us that "fond is foolish,"
"but, except," "content, contentment," and _vice versa_, "period
[Transcriber's note: 'peroid' in original], end," "demur, delay," "ever,
always," "sudden, quickly," "quick, suddenly," and so on through a long
vocabulary of words of which a girl of six years old would blush to ask
the meaning....

The confidence which Mr. Weber reposes in Steevens, not only on one but
on every occasion, is quite exemplary: the name alone operates as a
charm, and supersedes all necessity of examining into the truth of his
assertions; and he gently reminds those who occasionally venture to
question it, that "they are ignorant and superficial critics." Vol. ii,