Note 6 — HORACE AND JAMES SMITH
Reading edition
Jack and Nancy, as it was afterwards remarked to the Authors, are here made to come into the world at periods not sufficiently remote. The writers were then bachelors. One of them, unfortunately, still continues so, as he has thus recorded in his niece's album:
'Should I seek Hymen's tie, As a poet I die— Ye Benedicks, mourn my distresses! For what little fame Is annexed to my name Is derived from Rejected Addresses.'
The blunder, notwithstanding, remains unrectified. The reader of poetry is always dissatisfied with emendations: they sound discordantly upon the ear, like a modern song, by Bishop or Braham, introduced in Love in a Village.