And again, X, 475.

"Forc'd 14 to ride

“Th' untractable abyss.”

And II, 930.

"As in a cloudy chair, afcending rides
"Audacious."

And Shakespeare himself in Macbeth, Act IV. "Infected be the air whereon they ride."

But perhaps that expreffion of the pfalmift, civ. 7. Who walketh upon the wings of the wind: will vindicate Shakespeare in saying,

"To run upon the sharp wind of the north."

'Tis certain that Sir William Davenant and Mr. Dryden did not understand this paffage, for in their alteration of this play, they chang❜d it thus, "To run against the fharp wind of the north."

"14 To ride the Abyfs? If he rode it furely he could "not toil fo much, as he talks on. But the author gave it,

"Forc'd to TRIE

"Th' untractable Abys

"Aerias teniale vias." Dr. Bentley.

SECT.

TH

SECT. X.

HE editors often change the author's words, if they happen, which may often be the cafe, not to understand them) into others more frequently used. Some few inftances of fuch changes I fhall here give. Mr. Theobald has very learnedly proved that Shakespeare uses the word notion, in the fame fenfe as Cicero does, for idea, conception of things, &c. Methinks he should have alter'd fome other pasfages as in Julius Caefar, Act III.

I

"Yet in the number, I do know but one,
"That unaffailable holds on his rank
"Unfhak'd of motion."

Read, Unshak'd of notion. i. e, animi et propofiti

tenax.

In All's well that ends well, A& II.

2. Lord. The reafons of our ftate I cannot

yield,

"But like a common and an outward man, "That the great figure of a council frames By felf unable motion.”

1 See his note in Antony and Cleopatra, vol. 6. p. 244. and in Othello. vol. 7. p. 384.

I

Read,

Read, notion. i. e. from his own ideas, and conception of things.

The fame word I would restore to Milton.

B. II, 151.

"Who would lofe

"Tho' full of pain, this intellectual being; "Those thoughts that wander thro' eternity; "To perish, rather, fwallow'd up and loft "In the wide womb of uncreated night, "Devoid of fenfe and motion ?"

Read, notion, i. e. devoid of all external and in ternal fenfe.

In Much Adoe about Nothing. A& III.

"Pedro. I will only be bold with Benedick "for his company; for from the crown of his "head to the foale of his foot, he is all mirth; "he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow

1 Who, fays he, would be annihilated, lofe his intel"lectual being and all his thoughts? Motion therefore is "an improper word here, that's no part of thought, nor "abstracted has any excellence in it. I am perfuaded, he gave it,

Devoid of fenfe and ACTION.

"Deprived of our faculties, to perceive and to act.” Dr. Bentley. A printer might easily mistake motion, for notion; but hardly for action.

"ftring, and the little HANGMAN dare not "shoot at him."

I scarce doubt but Shakespeare wrote HENCHMAN, i. e. a page pufio. And, this word feeming too hard for the printer, he translated this little urchin into a HANGMAN, a character no way belonging to him; but the other highly fo, as well from his boyish and little ftature, as his being a conftant attendant of his mother Venus. This word too he uses in the Midfummer's Night's Dream. A& II.

I do but beg a little changling boy,
To be my HENCHMAN.

Cupid is thus characterized in Love's Labour loft. Act II.

"This whimpled, whining, purblind, way"ward boy,

This SIGNIOR JUNIO's giant-dwarf, Dan "Cupid."

Now one stroke of the pen will fet to rights this intricate paffage :

"This SIGNIOR JULIO's giant-dwarf, Dan

"Cupid."

Perhaps

Perhaps this place. and fome few others of this play were touched by Shakespeare's hand; for I cannot perfuade myself that the play is altogether his own; and he intended to complement Signior Julio Romano, Raphael's most renowned Scholar, who drew Cupid in the Character of a Giant-dwarf. This great artist our poet mentions in The Winter's Tale. Act V. "That "rare Italian master Julio Romano, who had he "himself eternity, and could put breath into "his works, would beguile Nature of her Cuf"tom, fo perfectly he is her ape."

In Troilus and Creffida. Act I.

"They fay he is a very MAN PER SE "And ftands alone."

As plaufible as this reading appears, it seems to me originally to come from the corrector of the prefs. For our poet I imagine made ufe of Chaucer's expreffion, from whom he borrowed so many circumstances in this play.

"Among these othir folke was Crefeida,

"In Widowe's habite black: but nathlefs

"Right as our first lettir is now an A

"In beaute firft fo ftode the makeless."

And