Years ago some of Fadge's work was not without a certain--a certain conditional promise of--of comparative merit; but now his writing, in my opinion, is altogether beneath consideration; how Rackett could be so benighted as to give him The Study--especially after a man like Henry Hawkridge--passes my comprehension.

Did you read a paper of his, a few months back, in The Wayside, a preposterous rehabilitation of Elkanah Settle?
Ha! Ha! That's what such men are driven to.

Elkanah Settle! And he hadn't even a competent acquaintance with his paltry subject.

Will you credit that he twice or thrice referred to Settle's reply to "Absalom and Achitophel" by the title of "Absalom Transposed," when every schoolgirl knows that the thing was called "Achitophel Transposed"! This was monstrous enough, but there was something still more contemptible.

He positively, I assure you, attributed the play of "Epsom Wells" to Crowne! I should have presumed that every student of even the most trivial primer of literature was aware that "Epsom Wells" was written by Shadwell....