orm you who it is speaks."
Cf. also Addison's criticism of Homer, _Spectator_, No. 273: "There is
scarce a speech or action in the _Iliad_, which the reader may not ascribe
to the person that speaks or acts, without seeing his name at the head of
it."

50. _To judge of Shakespear by Aristotle's rules._ This comparison had
appeared in Farquhar's _Discourse upon Comedy_: "The rules of English
Comedy don't lie in the compass of Aristotle, or his followers, but in the
Pit, Box, and Galleries. And to examine into the humour of an English
audience, let us see by what means our own English poets have succeeded in
this point. To determine a suit at law we don't look into the archives of
Greece or Rome, but inspect the reports of our own lawyers, and the acts
and statutes of our Parliaments; and by the same rule we have nothing to
do with the models of Menander or Plautus, but must consult Shakespear,
Johnson, Fletcher, and others, who by methods much different from the
Ancients have supported the English Stage, and made themselves famous to
posterity." Cf. also Rowe, p. 15: "it would be hard to judge him by a law
he knew nothing of."--Is it unnecessary to point out that there are no
"rules" in Aristotle? The term "Aristotle's rules" was commonly used to
denote the "rules of the classical drama," which, though based on the
_Poetics_, were formulated by Italian and French critics of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries.

51. _The Dates of his plays._ Pope here controverts Rowe's statement, p.
4.

_blotted a line._ See note, p. 43. Though Pope here controverts the
traditional opinion, he found it to his purpose to accept it in the
_Epistle to Augustus_, ll. 279-281:

And fluent Shakespear scarce effac'd a line.
Ev'n copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art, the art to blot.

52. Pope's references to the early editions of the _Merry Wives_ and other
plays do not prove his assertions. Though an imperfect edition of the
_Merry Wives_ appeared in 1602, it does not follow that this was "entirely
new writ" and transformed into the play in the Folio of 1623. The same
criticism applies to what he says of _Henry V._, of which pirated copies
appeared in 1600, 1602, and 1608. And he is apparently under the
impression that the _Contention of York and Lancaster_ and the early play
of _Hamlet_ were Shakespeare's own work.

53. _Coriolanus and Julius Caesar._ Pope replies tacitly to Dennis's
criticis