• "The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rowling, "Doth glance from heav'n to earth, from earth "to heav'n:

"And, as imagination bodies forth

"The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen "Turns them to fhape, and gives to aiery no

"thing

"A local habitation, and a name."

;

'Twere well therefore if a careful and critical reader would first form to himself some plan, when he enters upon an author deferving a ftricter inquiry if he would confider that originals have a manner always peculiar to themfelves; and not only a manner, but a language: if he would compare one paffage with another for fuch authors are the best interpreters of their own meaning: and would reflect, not only what allowances may be given for obfolete modes of fpeech, but what a venerable caft this alone often gives a writer. I omit the previous knowledge in ancient customs and manners, in grammar and construction; the knowledge of these is presupposed; to be caught tripping here is an ominous stumble at the very threshold and entrance upon criticism; 'tis ignorance, which no

6 A Midfummer-Night's Dream, Act V.

guefs

guefs-work, no divining faculty, however ingenious, can atone and commute for.

A learned wit of France mentions a certain giant, who could easily swallow windmills, but was at last choak'd with a lump of fresh butter. Was not this exactly the case of Bentley, that giant in criticism, who having at one mouthful fwallowed his learned antagonists, yet could not digeft an English author, but exposed himself to the cenfure of boys and girls? Indeed 'tis but a filly figure the best make, when they get beyond their sphere; or when with no fettled fcheme in view, with no compass or card to direct their little skiff, they launch forth on the immenfe ocean of criticism.

7 Rabelais, B. IV. c. xvii.

SECT. II.

apt

F all the various tribes of critics and commentators, there are none who are fo to be led into errors, as those who, quitting the plain road of common fense, will be continually hunting after paradoxes, and spinning cobwebs out of their own brains. To país over the caba

139 liftic doctors, and the profound Jacob Behmen with his fucceffors; how in a trivial inftance did both Scaliger and Voffius fling away a deal of pains in mifinterpreting a line of Martial, that would not puzzle a school-boy tolerably taught? Among the ancients 'twas customary to swear by what they esteemed moft dear; to this custom the poet alludes, not without fome malicious wit, in an epigram, where the Jew fwears by the temple of the Thunderer; (the word Jehovah did not fuit a Roman mouth;) "I don't believe σε you, fays Martial, fwear by your pathic, your boy Anchialus, who is dearer to you, than "the God you pretend to adore."

"Ecce negas, jurafque mihi per templa tonantis. "Non credo: jura, verpe, per Anchialum.

I knew an ingenious man who, having thoroughly perfuaded himself that Virgil's Aeneid was a hiftory of the times, apply'd the feveral characters there drawn to perfons of the Auguftan age. Who could Drances represent but Cicero ?

1 Mart. ep. XI, 95. vid. Scalig. in prolegom. ad libros de emendatione temporum. Et Voff. in notis ad Catullum. And our learned Spencer, who has examin'd the corrections of thefe critics.

66 2

Lingua melior, fed frigida beilo

"Dextera.

"Genus huic materna fuperbum "Nobilitas dabat, incertum de patre ferebat,

Nor could any thing be more like, than Sergefthus and Catiline of the Sergian family. In the description of the games, he dashes his ship thro' over eagerness against the rock. And the rock that Catiline split on was his unbridled, licentious temper.

These and fome other obfervations, too numerous to be mention'd here, passed off very well; they carried an air of ingenuity with them, if not of truth. But when Iopas was Virgil, Dido Cleopatra, Achates Maecenas or Agrippa, Iapis Antonius Mufa, &c. what was this but playing the Procruftes with historical facts?

SUPPOSE, in like manner, one had a mind to try the fame experiment on Milton, and to imagine that frequently he hinted at those times, in which he himself had fo great a share both as a writer, and an actor. Thus, for instance, Abdiel may be the poet himself:

2 Virg. Aen. XI, 358. &c. What he adds-incertum de patre ferebat, is exactly agreeable to what Plutarch relates of the accounts of Cicero's father. His mother's name was Helvia, one of the most honorable families of Rome.

"Nor

"Nor number nor example with him wrought "To fwerve from truth, or change his conftant "mind

"Tho' fingle.

"This was all thy care,

"To ftand approv'd in fight of God, tho' "worlds

'Tis not to be fuppofed that the commonwealthfman Milton could bear to fee an earthly monarch idolized, deified, called the lord, the anointed, the reprefentative of God: no, that fight he endured not; he drew his pen, and anfwer'd himself the royal writer,

3 ΩΣ ΕΙΠΩΝ ΠΡΟΣ ΟΝ ΜΕΓΑΛΗΤΟΡΑ ΘΥΜΟΝ,

thus exploring his own undaunted heart,

"O heav'n, that such resemblance of the highest "Should yet remain, where faith and realty "Remain not !"

Who cannot fee whom he meant, and what particular facts he pointed at in these lines? "So fpake the fiend, and with Neceffity "The Tyrant's plea, excus'd his devilish deeds."

3 Hom. II. λ. 403.

Nor