(5) Or had he heard the heav'nly harmony,
Which that fweet tongue hath made :
He would have dropt his knife, and fell asleep,
As Cerverus at the Thracian poet's feet.

ACT III. SCENE II.

A Lady's Tongue cut out.

O, that delightful engine of her thoughts,
That blabb'd them with fuch pleafing eloquence,
Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage,
Where, like a sweet melodious bird, it fung
Sweet various notes, inchanting every ear!

A Perfon

(5) Or, &c.] This puts me in mind of that most excellent paffage in Milton's Comus, where upon the lady's finging, Comus obferves,

Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe fuch divine inchanting ravishment?
Sure fomething holy lodges in that breast,
And with these rapturès moves the vocal air
To teftify his hidden refidence:

How fweetly did they float upon the wings
Of filence, thro' the empty vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness, till it fmil'd! I have oft heard
My mother Circe, with the Syrens three
Amidst the flow'ry-kirtled Naiades
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs,
Who, as they fung, would take the prifon'd foul
And lap it in Elyfium: Scylla wept,

And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charibdis murmur'd foft applaufe:
Yet they in pleafing flumber lull'd the fenfe
And in fweet madness robb'd it of itself.
But fuch a facred and home-felt delight,
Such fober certainty of waking blifs,
1 never heard till now.

A Perfon in Defpair, compar'd to one on a Rock, &c.

For now I ftand as one upon a rock,
Environ'd with a wilderness of sea,

Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave;
Expecting ever when fome envious furge

Will in his brinifh bowels fwallow him.

Tears compar'd to Dew on a Lily.

When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears Stood on her cheeks; as doth the honey-dew Upon a gather'd lily almost wither'd.

Reflections on killing a Fly.

Mar. (6) Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly!
Tit. But-how if that fly had a father and mother?

How

(6) Alas.] The mind of Titus is wholly taken up with a reflection on his misfortunes, and his miferics as a parent His brother Marcus killing a fly, he reprehends him for his cruelty; for, fays he,

Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny:

A deed of death done on the innocent

Becomes not Titus' brother.

And he further reflects upon it, and brings it to himself: "How,. (fays he,) if this poor fly had a father and mother----how? what would be hang, &c. The Reader muft fee the impropriety; for furely, he would add, "how would they, [the father and the mother,] for the lofs, hang their flender, gilded wings, and buz-lamenting doings in the air?" fo that doubtless we fhould read,

How wou'd they hang their flender, gilded wings,
And buz-lamenting doings in the air?.

For the fly after being kill'd, could not hang his wings himself, nor buz-lamenting doings; which word, though perhaps not altogether fo expreffive, feems to me the true one; it is frequently

How would they hang their flender, gilded wings,
And buz-lamenting dolings in the air?
Poor harmless fly,

That with his pretty buzzing melody,
Came here to make us merry ;

And thou haft kill'd him.

Revenge.

Lo, by thy fide where rape and murder stands;
Now give fome furance that thou art revenge:
Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels;
And then I'll come and be thy waggoner,
And whirl along with thee about the globe;
Provide two proper palfries black as jet,
To hale thy vengeful waggon fwift away,
And find out murders in their guilty caves.
And when thy car is loaden with their heads,
I will difmount, and by thy waggon-wheel
Trot like a fervile footman all day long;
Even from Hyperion's rifing in the east,
Until his very downfal in the fea,

used for an action, a thing done: Mr. Theobald proposes,

Lamenting delings.

Though he was confcious of the fimilarity between the word and the epithet; notwithstanding which the Oxford editor gives mis,

Laments and doings.

General Obfervation.

THIS is one of thofe plays (fays Theobald) which I have always thought, with the better judges, ought not to be acknowledged in the lift of Shakespear's genuine pieces. And, perhaps, I may give a proof to ftrengthen this opinion, that may put the matter out of queftion, Ben Jonfon, in the introduction

to his Bartholomew-Fair, which made its first appearance in the year 1614, couples Feronymo and Andronicus together in reputation, and fpeaks of them as plays then of twenty-five or thirty years ftanding. Confequently Andronicus muft have been on the ftage before Shakespear left Warwickshire, to come and refide in London: and I never heard it fo much as intimated, that he had turned his genius to ftage-writing before he affociated with the players, and became one of their body. However, that he afterwards introduced it anew on the ftage, with the addition of his own masterly touches, is inconteftible; and thence, I prefume, grew his title to it. The diction in general, where he has not taken the pains to raife it, is even beneath that of the Three Parts of Henry VI. The ftory, we are to fuppofe merely fictitious. Andronicus is a fur-name of pure Greek derivation. Tamora is neither mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus, nor any body elfe that I can find. Nor had Rome, in the time of her emperors, any wars with the Goths that I know of: not till after the tranflation of the empire, I mean to Byzantium. And yet the scene of our play is laid at Rome, and Saturnius is elected to the empire at the capitol.

40000

XXII.

TROILUS and CRESSIDA.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

Love in a brave young Soldier.

ALL here my varlet: I'll unarm again.

(1) Why should I war without the walls of Troy,

That find fuch eruel battle here within ?

Each Trojan, that is mafter of his heart,
Let him to field: Troilus, alas! hath none.

The

(1) Call, &c.] Mr. Theobald and Mr. Upton both perceived our author's alluffon here to an ode of Anacreon, (or, as the latter fays, "to a thought printed among thofe poems, which are afcribed to Anacreon.") Ben Jonfon, as well as our author, alludes to it in the following paffage :

Volpone. O I am wounded!

Mef. Where, Sir,

Volpone. Not without;

Those blows were nothing; I could bear them ever.

But angry Cupid bolting from her eyes,

Hath fhot himself into me, like a flame;

Where now he flings about his burning heat,
As in a furnace fome ambitious fire

Whofe vent is stopt. The fight is all within me.

Volpone, Act. 2. S. 3