蹲

A Perfon in Defpair, compared to one
Rock, &c.

For now I ftand, as one upon a rock,
Environ'd with a wilderness of fea,
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave;
Expecting ever when fome envious furge
Will in his brinifh bowels fwallow him.

on a

Tears compar'd to Dew on a Lilly.

(5) When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears Stood on her cheeks; as doth the honey-dew Upon a gather'd lilly almoft 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

Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny:
A deed of death done on the innocent
Becomes not Titus' brother.

(5) See Vol. I. p. 86. n. 13.

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

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

And he further reflects upon it, and brings him to himself : "How, fays he, if this poor fly, had a father and motherhow? 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? So that doubtless we should read,

For the fly after being kill'd, could not hang his wings himself, nor buz-lamenting doings; which word, though perhaps not al

together

How would he hang his slender gilded wings,
And buz-lamenting doings 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 foot-man all day long;
Even from Hyperion's rifing in the east,
Until his very downfal in the fea.

together fo expreffive, feems to me the true one; it is frequently ufed for an action, a thing done: Mr. Theobald propofes,

Lamenting dolings,

Though he was confcious of the fimilarity between the word and the epithet; notwithstanding which the Oxford editor gives us, Laments and Dolings.

cp

Troilus

Troilus and Creffida.

(*) C

ACT I

SCENE I.

Love, in a brave young Soldier.

ALL here my varlet: I'll un-arm again.
Why fhould I war without the walls of
Troy,

That find fuch cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan, that is mafter of his heart,
Let him to field: Troilus alas! hath none.

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

Volpone. O I am wounded!.
Mef. Where, Sir?

Vol. Not without.

Those blows were nothing; I could bear them ever,
But angry Cupid, bolting from her eyes,
Hath hot 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 A& 2. S. 34

De'nde

The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant. But I am weaker than a woman's tear, Tamer than fleep, fonder than ignorance; Lefs valiant than the virgin in the night, And fkill-lefs as unpractis'd infancy.

O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus
When I do tell thee, there my hopes lye drown'd,
Reply not, in how many fathoms deep,

They lye indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad
In Creffid's love. Thou answer'st, she is fair;
Pour'ft in the open ulcer of my heart,

Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gate, her voice;
Handleft in thy difcourfe O that (2) her hand!
In whofe comparison, all whites are ink,

Deinde feipfum projecit in modum teli: mediufque cordis mei penetravit & me folvit. Fruftra itaque habeo fcutum: quid enim muniamur extra, bello intus me exercente. Mr. Upton, speaking of the feveral translations of the laft line but one, adds "Now I will fet Shakespear's tranflation against them them all: Why fhould I war without. Tyag Barwe - For this is the meaning of the phrase, quid hoftem petam, vel quid bostem ferire aggrediar extra ; cum hoftis intus eft? &c. See Remarks on three plays of Ben Johnson, p. 28.

(2) Her hand, &c.] In the Midfummer night's Dream, speak. ing of a white hand, he fays;

And (fpite of fenfe.)

That pure congealed white high Taurus' fnow,
Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow
When thou hold'st up thy hand.

A 3. 1.6.

I don't know what to make of the words and fpirit of sense, nor do any of the critics fatisfy me: the Oxford editor reads

To th' fpirit of fenfe.

Mr. Warburton,

Neither of which appear to me as from the hand of Shakespear: whether by the fpirit of fenfe, he means the fenfe of touching, I can not tell; that feems the most probable," to the feifure of her hand the down of the cignet is harth, and its fpirit of fenfe [the foft and delicate fenfe, its touch gives us hard as the the plowman's palm.'

33

Writing

T

Writing their own reproach: to whofe foft feizure
The cignet's down is harfh, and spirit of fenfe
Hard as the palm of plowman. This thou tell'st me;
(As true thou tell'ft me) when I fay I love her:
But faying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay'ft in every gash that love hath given me,
The knife that made it.

SCENE V. Succefs, not equal to our Hopes.

The ample propofition that hope.makes,
In all defigns begun on earth below,

Fails in the promis'd largeness: checks and difafters
Grow in the veins of action, highest rear'd;
As knots, by the conflux of meeting fap,
Infect the found pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his courfe of growth.

On Degree.

Take but degree away; untune that string,
And hark what difcord follows; each thing meets
In meer oppugnancy. The bounded waters
Would lift their bofoms higher than the shores,
And make a fop of all this folid globe:
Strength would be lord of imbecillity,

And the rude fon would ftrike his father dead :
Force would be right; or rather, right and wrong
(Between whofe endless jar Juftice (3) refides)
M 2

Would

(3) Refides] The thought here is beautiful and fublime: Right and wrong are fuppofed as enemies, who are perpetually at war, between whom Justice hath her place of refidence, and fits as an umpire; for 'tis the endless jar of right and wrong, that only gives occafion for the interpofition of justice. Mr. Warburton hath, in this place, been too fevere on poor Theobald, the critic, (as he calls him) for dropping a flight remark, which, were it not defenfible, fhould rather be excus'd than cenfur'd; and introduc'd an alteration of his own, which an ill-natur'd remarker might poffibly find pleaLure in retorting upon him, But, as the only bufinels of a com

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