adds unexpectedly, frailty, with an emphasis, as in Hamlet, A& I.

Frailty, thy name is woman.

This well spoken gives furprize to the audience; part of wit.

and furprize is no small

In Othello, A& I.

"Brab. Thou art a villain.

"Iago. Thou art a

fenator."

A fenator is added beyond expectation; any one would think Iago was going to call him as bad names, as he himself was called by the fenator Brabantio.

First part of Henry IV. A& I.

Hotfp. Revolted Mortimer!

"He never did fall off, my fovereign liege. "But by the chance of war-To prove that true, "Needs no more but one tongue.'

"

So this paffage fhould be pointed; but not a fyllable altered. Hotspur is going to speak only not treason; but corrects himself by a beautiful apofiopefis.

In Coriolanus, Act II. Menenius fpeaking of Coriolanus,

"Where

"Where is he wounded? Vol. I'th' fhoulder, "and i'th' left arm: there will be large cicatrices "to fhew the people, when he shall stand for "his place. He received in the repulfe of "Tarquin feven hurts i'th' body. Men. One "i'th' neck, and 3 two i'th' thigh-there's "nine that I know."

The old man, agreeable to his character, is minutely particular: Seven wounds? let me fee; one in the neck, two in the thigh-Nay I am fure there are more; there are nine that I know of.

In the Merchant of Venice. A& II.

"Launcelot. I cannot get a fervice, No! I "have ne'er a tongue in my head! Well, If 66 any man in Italy have a fairer table, which "doth offer to fwear upon a book-I fhall "have good fortune; go to, here's a fimple " line of life, &c. Launcelot speaks this, looking on his hand: [a fairer table which doth offer to fwear upon a book,] for the hand must be uncovered when a person takes his oath on the Bible. The break is eafy to be fupplied, and inftances of the like nature frequently occur.

3 They have printed it, And one too i’thì thigh.

In Macbeth, A& II.

"Macb. To know my deed-'twere best "not know myself."

To know my deed! No, rather than so, 'twere best not know myself.

In Othello, Ac V.

Put out the light, and then-put out the light! "If I quench thee, &c."

Othello enters with a taper (not with a sword, for he intended all along to ftrangle his wife in her bed) and in the utmost agony of mind says, he has a cause for his cruelty, a cause not to be named to the chaft ftars: 'tis fit therefore Defdemona should die. I'll put out the light and thenftrangle her, he was going to fay: but this recalls a thousand tender ideas in his troubled foul: he ftops fhortIf I quench the taper, how eafy 'tis to restore its former light; but, ô Desdemona, if once I put out thy light, &c.

I

SECT. V.

HAVE often thought, in examining the va rious corrections of critics, that if they had taken more care of commas and points, and had

been

been lefs fond of their own whims and conceits, they might oftener have retrieved the author's words and sense. As trifling as this may appear, yet trifles fhould not be always overlook'd. Suppofing fome paffages in Horace and Milton had been better pointed and less changed, would Dr. Bentley's editions have been lefs learned? For inftance, the lyric poet in ridicule of the vulgar opinion of the tranfmigration of fouls, as well as to fhew the inhumanity of failors, feigns a dialogue between the ghost of Archytas and a mariner, who finds Archytas' body on the fhore. The mariner tauntingly asks him what availed all his aftrology and geometry, fince he was to die fo fhortly; [MORITURO: on this word depends most of what follows] The ghoft replies, "Oc"cidit & Pelopis genitor, &c. What wonder, fince demigods and heroes have died? Ay, anfwers the mariner quickly, and your Pythagoras too, for all his ridiculous talk of the tranfmigration of fouls,

"Naut. Habentque

"Tartara Panthoiden, &c."

Archytas takes him up with great gravity,

"Judice te, non fordidus auctor

"Naturae verique."

Then he goes on, letting him know how all mankind must come to their long home by various ways; and gives his trade a touch of satyre, "Exitio eft avidis mare nautis.

Dr. Bentley here by reading avidum destroys the poinancy. However the inhuman failor leaves the body unburied on the shore, deaf to the intreaties of Archytas.

Of all the odes in Horace the thirteenth of the fecond book feems to be written in the trueft fpirit. It must be supposed to be uttered immediately, when he just escaped the fall of a tree he scarcely recovers himself, but pours out this imprecation,

«・ Ille et nefasto te posuit die,

" (Quicunque primùm) et facrilega manu "Produxit, Arbos, &c.

"Ille venena colchica,

"Et quicquid ufquam concipitur nefas "Tractavit."

The sentence is defignedly embarraffed, and the verfes are broken, and run one into the other

1 Illum, 6, nefaflo te pofuit die

Quicunque primum, &c.

Ille venena Colcha,

Et quicquid, &c. So Dr. Bentley corrects.