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refentment against Falstaff's impudent addreffes, adds,

"I'll exhibit a bill in parliament for the putting

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True woman in her anger; who, for the fake of one, would punish the whole fex: for to argue from particulars to univerfals is no unusual thing with them at all. Thus highly in character fays Diana in All's Well that ends Well, Act IV.

"Since Frenchmen are so braid,

"Marry that will, I'll live and die a maid.” Could now any one imagine, that thefe paffages fhould not pass unmolested? Yet Mr. Theobald makes Mrs. Page fhew her refentment only against FAT MEN: and Mr. W.-against what? Why, against мUM. I'll affure the reader, 'tis мUM: I took it at first for an error of the prefs; but there is a long note to vindicate the alteration; and fuch a note, as is worthy of fuch an alteration.In the other paffage, Diana they make to fay,

"Since Frenchmen are fo braid,

"Marry'EM that will, I'D live and die a maid." Could not the poets have taught our Critics better? Was it not for ONE man's guilt, that Pallas, (the goddess of Wisdom too) deftroyed a whole fleet?

"UNIUS ob noxam et furias Ajacis Oïlei?

Did not Juno deteft the whole Trojan race, because ONE Trojan flighted her beauty, in comparison of Venus? Add moreover, don't people in the height of resentment often wish things, which their cooler reason would condemn? And are not fuch Speeches agreeable to what the Critics call the To weinov, the decorum, the fuitableness of the character? An unreasonable thing itself, if spoken by an unreasonable perfon, bence becomes poetically reasonable.But as the women above have, for the fake of one, expressed their anger against all men; fo the poets bave put a more extraordinary kind of refentment in the mouths of fome men. And first Euripides in Hippolytus, . 616.

Το ζεῦ, τί δὴ κίβδηλον ἀνθρώποις κακὸν,
Γυναικας, εἰς φῶς Ηλία κατώκισας ;
Εἰ γὰρ βρότειον ἤθελες σπεῖραι γένος,
Οὐκ ἐκ γυναικῶν χρῆν παρασχέσθαι τόδε.

O Jupiter, quidnam fucatum malum homi-
nibus,

Mulieres, fub folis luce collocasti ?

Si enim volebas feminare genus humanum,
Non oportebat hoc fieri ex mulieribus.

Again in Medea, ✯. 573.

χρῆν γὰρ ἄλλοθέν ποθεν βροτες

Πᾶιδας τεκνῖσθαι, θῆλυ δ ̓ ἐκ εἶναι γένος.

Οὕτω δ ̓ ἂν ἐκ ἦν ἐδὲν ἀνθρώποις κακόν.

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oportebat autem homines aliunde Gignere liberos, neque effe genus muliebre : Sic enim homines nullum malum haberent.

As extraordinary as it may appear, yet two of the greatest poets, that ever England faw, have imitated this fentiment. For thus Pofthumus in Cymbeline, Act II. refenting the behaviour of Imogen exclaims, "Is there no way for men to be, but women "Muft be balf-workers ?"

And thus Adam, in Paradife Loft, X, 888.
"O why did God,

"Creator wife, that peopled bigbeft heav'n
"With Spirits mafculine, create at laft
"This novelty on earth, this fair defett

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Of nature? and not fill the world at once "With men, as angels, without feminine? "Or find fome other way to generate

"Mankind? this mischief had not then befal'n: "And more, that fhall befal, innumerable Disturbances on earth through female fnares, "And ftrait conjunction with this fex.

AGAIN, tho' 'tis hard to parallel this tranfformation of MEN into MUM, with any criticisms in the world, yet many inftances of the like occur in our late editor's notes.-In the Comedy of Errors,

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At IV. Dromio is ludicrously picturing the Bailiff, who arrefted his mafter." The man, Sir, that "when gentlemen are tired gives them a fob, and "refts them; be that takes pity on decayed men, "and gives 'em fuits of durance; be that fets up "bis reft to do more exploits with his mace, than "a morris-pike ?"

This quibbling wit, I should think, an ordinary reader would scarce mifapply" gives 'em fuits of “durance,” or, as the phrase is, gives them a ftone-doublet, i. e. puts them into prison: an exprefion as old as Homer, Λάϊον ἕσσο χιτῶνα. 1. γ'. 57. lapideam indutus fuiffes tunicam: tho' there it means ftoned to death." Sets up his reft, &c." The Serjeant or Bailiff carried with him a mace, as an enfign of his authority; this mace be ludicrously compares to a Morifco pike, when fet in its Reft, to run at tilt. The Morris, or Moorish pike is particularly mentioned, becaufe the Moors were famous for thefe kind of chivalrous feats. fets up

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his reft:" is too known a phrase to want a comment. Ital. metter la lancia in refta, to couch the lance. RESTA, A REST, haftæ retinaculum: à reftando. Fairfax, XX. ft. 29.

"In RESTS their lances flicke."

Taffo: e fon le lancie in resta.

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Spencer, B. 2. c. 1. ft. 26.

"And in the REST his ready fpear did stick."

With the above pallage of Shakespeare the reader may compare the following from Johnson. Every Man in his Humour, A&t IV. Sc. XI.

"Well, of all my difguifes yet, now am I most "like myfelfe being in this Serjeant's gowne. A "man of my prefent profeffion, never counterfeits, "till be lays hold upon a debtor, and says, he refts "him, for then he brings him into all manner of "unreft. A kind of little kings we are, bearing "the diminutive of a mace, made like a young "artichock, that always carries pepper and falt in itself."

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Now, reader, I defire thou wouldst get thro' the following I will give it no name, but leave it to thy own reflection.

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"Sets up his reft: Is a phrafe taken from mi«litary exercife. When gunpowder was first invented, its force was very weak compared to that in prefent ufe. This neceffarily required fire-arms to be of an extraordinary length. As "the ariifts improved the strength of their powder, "the foldiers proportionably shortened their arms "and artillery; fo that the cannon which Froiffart "tells us was once fifty feet long, was contra&ed to "less than ten. This proportion likewife held in

" their

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