Using the evidence of advertisements in the two folios and contemporary newspapers, W. B. Todd argues for the priority of the edition he calls "A," [ 2 ] reversing the order previously suggested by Iolo A. Williams on internal evidence. [ 3 ] The textual variants are slight and are confined to accidentals, except that on p. 5, line 9, "A" reads "Strife still persists" and "B" has "Strife still subsists." A copy of Todd's edition "A" is reproduced here.
[ 1 ] Although the imprint on the title page reads "London," this edition was probably printed in Edinburgh. For a reassessment of the number and order of editions of The Man of Taste, see D. F. Foxon, English Verse 1701-1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, forthcoming 1975), I, 78 (B396-401).
[ 2 ] The Library, 5th series, VIII (1953), 186-87. Todd here summarizes the evidence about publication.
[ 3 ] Points in Eighteenth-Century Verse (London: Constable, 1934), pp. 67-69.
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