56 THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH,” LONDON, PRINTED BY ELLERTON AND BYWORTH, JOHNSON'S COURT, FOR THOMAS GODDARD, CORNER OF PALL MALL AND 1805. (Price, s. 6d. in Boards.) PREFACE. IN the year 1796 I gave to the world a concise pamphlet, in which I avowed my, self the fabricator of the manuscripts attributed by me to Shakspeare. The papers themselves, and the cir cumstances attending their production, had so highly excited the public curiosity that the whole edition was disposed of in a few hours and so great has since been the eagerness to procure a copy, that, though originally published at one shilling, a single impression has been sold, in a public auction-room, at the extravagant price of a guinea. This fact was known to many of my friends, who in consequence have often expressed surprise that I did not republish the pamphlet, and have frequently importuned me to do so: but the revival of the subject, I conceived, might rather tend to injure than benefit me as a literary character: besides, I had already suffered much from the agitation of the question, and had reason to wish it might for ever rest in peace. The consideration, however, that I do but injure my own reputation by silently bearing a more than merited portion of obloquy has at length incited me to give a narrative of the facts in the order in which they occurred, and a simple relation of the motives as they arose and operated on my conduct, that the world may be enabled to judge between my contemners and me, and that |