66 "To give thee being I lent "Out of my fide to thee nearest my heart Again, B. X, 85. "Thus faying from his radiant feat be rofe i. e. placed fide by fide, on the right hand of glory : [not reflected as our Critic thinks; for it might just as well fignify any thing else, that he is pleased to make it.] And the meaning of this place is exactly the fame as in B. VI, 679. "Whence to his fon, "Th' affeffor of his throne, He thus began." This expreffion," th' affeffor of his throne," is literally from Irenæus. L. I. c. 14. N wágedge Jer, ô dei affeffor. So Nonnus in bis paraphrafe of St. John's Gospel, ατέρμονι σύνθρονος ἕδρη, Aeternâ una fedens in fede. I omit other passages where Пágsdgos Deòs, occur. Let us now read the words of our poet : "It were all one, "That I should love a bright partic'lar ftar, i. e. I, not in his fphere, one of a lower degree, must be comforted, in his bright radiance and collateral light: Shakespeare does not fay collateral love, as Milton, but collateral light, perfuing his idea of the bright particular ftar: and not without fome allufion, perhaps, to that faying, Uxor fulget radiis Mariti: which for the fake of the female reader I tranflate in Shakespeare's words, The wife only shines in her husband's bright radiance and collateral light. VII. 1 To The above mentioned learned gloffaries overcome, for deceive; collateral, for reflected, &c. put me in mind of the generality of Mr. W's compendious comments: which whether intended, " "give the unlearned reader a juft idea, and confequently a better opinion of the art of criti"cifm, now funk very low in popular esteem, by the attempts of fome who would needs "exercise it without either natural or acquired 1 Mr. W.'s preface. p. xiv. "talents :" "talents:" or whether, To deter the unlearned "writer from wantonly trifling with an art he " is a stranger to, at the expence of his own "reputation, and the integrity of the text of "established authors."-Whatever his intentions may be, or whatever ideas he may give the unlearned reader, or writer; yet there is not one learned reader or writer, I dare fay, in the whole republic of letters, but looks on our editor as wantonly trifling with an art he is a stranger to.— Some few, among the many, of thefe ridiculous gloffes or compendious comments I shall here tranfcribe: fuch are, [vol. 8. p. 303.] where Iago calls Roderigo " a fnipe," i. e. a diminutive woodcock." which is, as if I should define a duck to be a diminutive goofe. [vol. 7. p. 84.] "A raven and a crow is the fame "bird of prey." and this is reafon fufficient for changing Shakespeare's 66 66 Ravens, crows, and kites,” Into "ravenous crows and kites." [vol. 4. p. 303.] Carraways, i. e. a comfit, or confection, fo "called in our author's days." As if children in our commentator's days did not know what carraway comfits are. [vol. 6. p. 36.] "O most fmall fault! "How ugly didst thou in Cordelia fhew? I Which, "Which, like an engine, wrencht my frame of "nature "From the fixt place." "Which like, &c.] alluding to the famous boast of "Archimedes. Mr. W. Nothing, reader, but an ordinary allufion to a lever; an engine to move any fixed or weighty thing. Vol. 6. p. 180. "Thefe bard Fractions.] an "equivocal allufion to fractions in decimal arith"metick." Mr. W. See the paffage, and you'll plainly perceive, without a commentator, that Fractions mean broken speeches : "Flav. They answer in a joint and corporate voice, "That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot "Do what they would; are forry-you are bo"nourable "But yet they could have wifht-they kno wnot— "Something hath been amifs—a noble nature "May catch a wrench-would all were well-'tis pity 66 "And fo intending other ferious malters, After diftateful looks, and these hard FRACTIONS, "With certain half-caps, and cold-moving nods, "They froze me into filence." Timon, A& II. IN the Merry Wives of Windfor, A&t III. Mrs. Ford calls Falstaff's boy, Ι 66 Eyas-musket. 66 "Eyas (Jays Mr. W.) is a young unfledged "Hawk." If so, then the learned Spencer is guilty of a blunder. [B. I. C. 11. jt. 34.] "Like Eyas Hawk up mounts into the skies." Which an unfledged hawk, by our commentator's leave, could not do. For my own part, I thought an Eyas hawk, was a full fledged hawk just taken from the nest or eyry. The etymology is plain, nidus, in the barbarous Latinity, nidafius. Ital. Nidiace. Gall. Niais. an eyas, or, a niaise. Concerning the meaning of musket, the reader may confult Junius, lately printed by a real Scholar. Thefe few inftances bere offered to the reader, among numberless that may be eafily added, will I believe fatisfy him, that our editor is fcarce to be numbered among 'the great men, who never thought themselves better employed than in cultivating their own country idiom. VIII. Never were printed, I believe, in any one book emendations, (as they are called) and remarks fo worthy each of the other; "the weight of an bair (as Falstaff fays) will turn the fcales between "their Averdupois."—In the Merry Wives of Windfor, Act II. Mrs. Page, in the height of her 66 1 Mr. W.'s preface, p. xxiv. C refentment |