And draw her home with mufick."

JES. I am never merry, when I hear sweet mufick.,

[Mufick LOR. The reafon is, your fpirits are attentive: For do but note a wild and wanton herd, Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,

Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud,

Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear perchance a trumpet found,
Or any air of mufick touch their ears,

You fhall perceive them make a mutual stand,"
Their favage eyes turn'd to a modeft gaze,

By the sweet power of mufick: Therefore, the poet

Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, ftones, and floods;

Since naught fo ftockish, hard, and full of rage,
But mufick for the time doth change his nature:

And draw her home with mufick.] Shak fpeare was, I believe, here thinking of the custom of accompanying the laft waggon-load, at the end of harvest, with ruftick mufick. He again alludes to this yet common practice, in As you like it. MALONE.

7 do but note a vild and wanton herd,

Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,

Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing lend,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;

If they but hear perchance a trumpet jound,

Or any air of mufick touch their ears,

You fhall perceive them make a mutual fland, &c.] We find the fame thought in The Tempeft:

Then I beat my tabor,

"At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears,
"Advanc'd their eye-lids, lifted up their nofes,

"As they fmelt mufick." MALONE.

The man that hath no mufick in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of fweet founds,

8 The man that hath no mufick in himself,

Nor is not mov'd with concord of fweet founds,] The thought here is extremely fine; as if the being affected with mufick was only the harmony between the internal [mufick in himself] and the external mufick [concord of fweet founds;] which were mutually affected like unifon ftrings. This whole fpeech could not choose but please an English audience, whofe great paffion, as well then as now, was love of mufick. Jam verò video naturam (fays Erafmus in praise of Folly) ut fingulis nationibus, ac pene civitatibus, communem quandam infeviffe Philautiam: atque hinc fieri, ut Britanni, præter alia, Formam, Muficam, & lautas Menfas propriè fibi vindicent.

WARBURTON.

This paffage, which is neither pregnant with phyfical or moral truth, nor poetically beautiful in an eminent degree, has conftantly enjoyed the good fortune to be repeated by those whofe inhospitable memories would have refused to admit or retain any other fentiment or defcription of the fame author, however exalted or just. The truth is, that it furnishes the vacant fiddler with fomething to fay in defence of his profeffion, and fupplies the coxcomb in mufick with an invective against fuch as do not pretend to discover all the various powers of language in inarticulate founds.

Our ancient statutes have often received their best comment by means of reference to the particular occafion on which they were framed. Dr. Warburton has therefore properly accounted for Shakspeare's feeming partiality to this amufement. He might have added, that Peacham requires of his Gentleman ONLY to be able "to fing his part sure, and at first fight, and withal to play the fame on a viol or lute.'

Let not, however, this capricious fentiment of Shakspeare defcend to pofterity, unattended by the opinion of the late lord Chesterfield on the fame fubject. In his 148th letter to his fon, who was then at Venice, his lordship, after having enumerated mufick among the illiberal pleasures, adds- "if you love musick, hear it; go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you; but I muft infift upon your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentleman in a very frivolous contemptible light; brings him into a great deal of bad company, and takes up a great deal of time, which might be much better employed. Few things would mortify me more, than to see you bearing a part in a concert, with a fiddle under your chin, or a pipe in your mouth." Again, Letter 153, "A taste of fculpture and painting is, in my mind, as be

Is fit for treafons, ftratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his fpirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no fuch man be trufted.-Mark the mufick.

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA, at a distance.

POR. That light we fee, is burning in my hall, How far that little candle throws his beams! So fhines a good deed in a naughty world.

NER. When the moon fhone, we did not fee the candle.

POR. So doth the greater glory dim the less:
A fubftitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters. Mufick! hark!

NER. It is your mufick, madam, of the house. POR. Nothing is good, I fee, without refpect; Methinks, it founds much fweeter than by day. NER. Silence beftows that virtue on it, madam. POR. The crow doth fing as fweetly as the lark, When neither is attended; and, I think,

coming as a tafte of fiddling and piping is unbecoming a man of fashion. The former is connected with hiftory and poetry, the latter with nothing that I know of, but bad company." Again,"Painting and sculpture are very juftly called liberal arts; a lively and ftrong imagination, together with a juft obfervation, being abfolutely neceffary to excel in either; which, in my opinion, is by no means the cafe of mufick, though called a liberal art, and now in Italy placed above the other two; a proof of the decline of that country." Ibidem. STEEVENS.

9 without refpe&t;] Not abfolutely good, but relatively good as it is modified by circumstances. JOHNSON.

The nightingale, if she should fing by day,
When every goofe is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.

How many things by season season❜d are
To their right praife, and true perfection!-
Peace, hoa! the moon fleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awak'd!3

[Mufick ceafes.

"The nightingale, &c.] So, in our author's 102d Sonnet: "Our love was new, and then but in the spring,

"When I was wont to greet it with my lays;

"As Philomel in fummer's front doth fing,

"And ftops his pipe in growth of riper days;

"Not that the fummer is lefs pleasant now,

"Than when her mournful hymns did hufh the night; "But that wild mufick burdens every bough,

"And fweets grown common lofe their dear delight."

3 Peace, hoa! the moon fleeps with Endymion,

MALONE.

And would not be awak'd!] The old copies read-Peace! how, &c. For the emendation now made I am anfwerable.. The oddnefs of the phrafe, "How the moon would not be awak'd!" first made me fufpect the paffage to be corrupt; and the following lines in Romeo and Juliet fuggefted the emendation, and appear to me to put it beyond a doubt:

"Peace, hoa, for fhame! confufion's cure lives not
"In these confufions."

Again, in As you like it, A& I.

"Peace, boa! I bar confufion."

Again, in Measure for Measure:

"Hoa! peace be in this place!"

Again, ibid:

"Peace, boa, be here!"

In Antony and Cleopatra the fame mistake, I think, has happened. In the paffage before us, as exhibited in the old copies, there is not a note of admiration after the word awak'd. Portia firft enjoins the mufick to ceafe, "Peace, hoa!" and then fubjoins the reason for her injunction; "The moon," &c.

Mr. Tyrwhitt feems to be of opinion that the interjection Ho was formerly used to command a ceflation of noife, as well as of fighting. See Cant. Tales of Chaucer, Vol. IV. p. 230.

MALONE.

Lor.

That is the voice,

Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.

POR. He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo,

By the bad voice.

LOR.

Dear lady, welcome home.

POR. We have been praying for our husbands'

welfare,

Which speed, we hope, the better for our words. Are they return'd?

Give order to my fervants, that they take
No note at all of our being absent hence ;-
Nor you, Lorenzo;-Jeffica, nor you.

[A tucket founds.

LOR. Your husband is at hand, I hear his trumpet: We are no telltales, madam; fear you not.

POR. This night, methinks, is but the daylight fick,

It looks a little paler; 'tis a day,

Such as the day is when the fun is hid.

A tucket-] Toccata, Ital, a flourish on a trumpet.

STEEVENS,