"O Heav'ns

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway " ALLOW OBEDIENCE, if yourselves are old, "Make it your caufe."

"ALLOW obedience.] Could it be a question whe"ther beaven ALLOWED obedience? the poet

" wrote,

"HALLOW obedience." Mr. W.

But does not our Critic forget his Bible? For thus our tranflators, Luke XI, 48. "Truly ye bear "witness that ye ALLOW the deeds of your fathers." Thus they exprefs the force of the original cuveudoXEITɛ, i. e. are well pleased with, like well of, approve, &c. Again, Pfalm XI, 6. “ The Lord "ALLOWETH the righteous: but the ungodly, and "bim that delighteth in wickedness doth his foul " abbor." I will add too the teftimony of a poet. Fairfax. IX. ft. 13.

"Reprov'd the cowards, and ALLOW'D the "bould."

And in this fenfe it anfwers to its original, allouër, à louer, laudare.

II.

Fairfax perhaps may be of fome authority with our commentator, for I find his name used to au

thorize

thorize an interpretation of a passage in Antony

and Cleopatra, AЯ I.

"So He [Antony] nodded,

"And foberly did mount an ARM-GAUNT fteed. "An ARM-GAUNT steed.] i. e. his fteed worn "lean and thin by much fervice in war. So "Fairfax,

"His STALL-WORN fteed the champion ftout beAtrode." Mr. W.

What will the reader fay when he turns to Fairfax, [B. VII. ft. 27.] and finds the verse thus printed, "His1 STALWORTH fteed the champion fout "bestrode."

And what will be think of a commentator, that either has not learning to read authors, or corrupts them to vindicate his ill-digefted whims and reveries? III.

To match this STALL-WORN fteed, with another learned citation of the like kind, among many others, I think the foliowing offers itself, where Iago tells Othello that Brabantio, father of Def demona, was a man of power and authority,

1 Concerning the meaning of this word fee Dr. Hickes, in Grammat. Anglo-S. p. 128.

"Be

"Be fure of this

"That the Magnifico is much belov'd
"And bath in his effect a voice potential
"As double as the Duke's.

"As double as the Duke's.] Rymer seems to have "bad bis eye on this paffage, amongst others, "where he talks fo much of the impropriety and "barbarity in the style of this play. But it is an

elegant Grecifm. As double, fignifies as large, "as extensive, for thus the Greeks use dinλšs. "Diofc. L. 2. c. 213. And in the fame manner " and conftruction, the Latins fometimes used du"plex. And the old French writers fay, La plus "double. Dr. Bentley has been as fevere on "Milton for as ELEGANT A GRECISM,

"Yet virgin of Proferpina from Jove.

Lib. 9. ver. 396.

« Tis an imitaton of the Παρθένον ἐκ θαλάμε of "Theocritus, for an unmarried virgin." Mr.W.

I fhall take no notice at all of the reafoning, by which Mr. W. would have us think that Rymer had his eye on THIS paffage of Othello, nor of the citation from Diofcorides, [L. 2. c. 213.] which Mr. W. never red there, for this very good reason, because 'tis not there: be bad it from H. Stephens in V. Aπλs. But all this I omit, to come to Milton and Theocritus: "Yet

« Yet Virgin of Proferpina from Jove. "This (he fays) is an ELEGANT GRECISM, and s an imitation of the ΠΑΡΘΕΝΟΝ ΕΚ ΘΑΛΑΜΟΥ of Theocritus, for an unmarried Virgin."

As Strange as this citation may appear to the learned reader, yet I think I can give fome account of it. Daniel Heinfius wrote fome cursory notes on Theocritus, in which these words, ΠΑΡΘΕΝΟΝ ΕΚ ΘΑΛΑΜΟΥ, be renders virginem intactam. Becaufe, it feems, Θύρσις ἐξ Αἴτνας wας Θύρσις ὁ Αίτναῖος. So here Heinfius would have παρθένος ἐκ θαλάμε the fame as, ἡ ἔτι ἐν τῷ θαλάμῳ αναςρεφομένη. But there is no analogy at all in the confruction, especially if we confider them with the context and the Scholiaft here is doubtless right who thus interprets, καὶ παρθένον δὲ ἐκ τῶ δωματία ἐφόβησεν· ἀντὶ τῇ φυγεῖν ἐποίησεν. As will fill be more manifeft to any one that reads the verses here cited from the ΦΑΡΜΑΚΕΥΤΡΙΑ.

Σὺν δὲ κακαῖς μανίαις καὶ παρθένον ἐκ θαλάμοιο,
Καὶ νύμφαν ἐφόβησ ̓ ἔτι δέσμια θερμα λιποῖσαν
Ανέρος.

This is their verfion, as I find it,

Ille enim objecto furore malo, virginem ex thalamo,

Et fponfam expulit ex thoro tepido adhuc

relicto

Viri:

But

But for argument's fake we will allow Heinfius explanation, viz. Παρθένος ἐκ θαλάμε, means a virgin who lives in ber chamber ; 4s Θύρσις ἐξ Αἴτνας, means Thyrfis who lives at the foot of mount Etna: and in Virgil [Georg. III, 2.] Paftor ab Amphryfo, is the Shepherd who refided near the river Amphryfus. Many other inftances there are of the like nature; fo that by the fame analogy, when Milton calls Ceres VIRGIN OF PROSERPINA, (according to our Critic, Παρθένος ἐκ Περσεφόνης] Milton must mean Ceres the Virgin who dwells in Proferpina, or, formerly refided there.Wonderful Grecian!

IV.

Another citation of like kind I find in a note on Julius Cæfar, A III.

Antony. "You all do know this mantle; I
"remember

The first time ever Cæfar put it on,.
" 'Twas on a fummer's evening in his tent
"That day be overcame the Nervii-

"Look! in this place, ran Caffius' dagger

66

« through;

"See, what a rent the envious Cafca made.

"Through this, the well-beloved Brutus ftabb'd."

" And