self, trusting neither to the
opinions of writers nor in the fashions of the day. Having been told by
DR. BLAIR, in his lectures on Rhetoric, that, if I meant to write
correctly, I must 'give my days and nights to ADDISON,' I read a few
numbers of the Spectator at the time I was writing my English Grammar: I
gave neither my nights nor my days to him; but I found an abundance of
matter to afford examples _of false grammar_; and, upon a reperusal, I
found that the criticisms of DENNIS might have been extended to this
book too.

77. But that which never ought to have been forgotten by those who were
men at the time, and that which ought to be _made known to every young
man of the present day_, in order that he may be induced to exercise his
own judgment with regard to books, is, the transactions relative to the
writings of SHAKSPEARE, which transactions took place about thirty years
ago. It is still, and it was then much more, the practice to extol every
line of SHAKSPEARE to the skies: not to admire SHAKSPEARE has been
deemed to be a proof of want of understanding and taste. MR. GARRICK,
and some others after him, had their own good and profitable reasons for
crying up the works of this poet. When I was a very little boy, there
was a _jubilee_ in honour of SHAKSPEARE, and as he was said to have
planted a _Mulberry tree_, boxes, and other little ornamental things in
wood, were sold all over the country, as having been made out of the
trunk or limbs of this ancient and sacred tree. We Protestants laugh at
the _relics_ so highly prized by Catholics; but never was a Catholic
people half so much duped by the relics of saints, as this nation was by
the mulberry tree, of which, probably, more wood was sold than would
have been sufficient in quantity to build a ship of war, or a large
house. This madness abated for some years; but, towards the end of the
last century it broke out again with more fury than ever. SHAKSPEARE'S
works were published by BOYDELL, an Alderman of London, at a
subscription of _five hundred pounds for each copy_, accompanied by
plates, each forming a large picture. Amongst the mad men of the day was
a MR. IRELAND, who seemed to be more mad than any of the rest. His
adoration of the poet led him to perform a pilgrimage to an old
farm-house, near Stratford-upon-Avon, said to have been the birth-place
of the poet. Arrived at the spot, he requested the farmer and his wife
to let him search the house for papers,