IN Troy, there lyes the fcene; from ifles of Greece
The Princes orgillous, their high blood chafed,
Have to the port of Athens fent their fhips,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Sixty and nine that wore
Their crownets regal, from th' Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia, and their vow is made
To ranfack Troy; within whose strong immures,
The ravished Helen, Menelaus' Queen,

Of cruel war.

With wanton Paris fleeps, and that's the quarrel. To Tenedos they come------

And the deep-drawing barks do there difgorge Their warlike fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains, The fresh, and yet unbruifed Greeks do pitch Their brave pavillions. Priam's fix gates i' th' city, (1)

(1)-Priam's fix-gated city

Dardan, and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Trojan,
And Antenoridan, with messy staples

And correfponfive and fulfilling bolts

Stirre up the fons of Troy.] This has been a most miferably mangled pallage, through all the editions; corrupted at once into falfe concord, and falfe reafoning. Priam's fixgated city irre up the fons of Troy? Here's a verb plural governed of a nominative fingular. But that is calily re medied. The next question to be afked is, in what sense a city having fix ftrong gates, and thofe well barred and bolted, can be faid to fir up its inhabitants ? unless they may be fuppofed to derive fome spirit from the strength of their for tifications. But this could not be the Poet's thought. must mean, I take it, that the Greeks had pitched their tents upon the plains before Troy; and that the Trojans were fecurely barricaded within the walls and gates of their city. This fenfe my correction restores:

-Priam's fix gates i' th' city,

Sperre up the fons of Troy.

He

(Dardan and Thymbria, Ilia, Scæa, Troian
And Antenorides,) with maffy staples
And corresponfive and fulfilling bolts,
Spere up the fons of Troy.----

Why they might be called Priam's fix gates, will be seen in the fequel of this note. To fperre, or Spar, (from the old Teutonic word fperren) fignifies to shut up, defend by bars, &c. And in this very fenfe has Chaucer used the term in the fifth book of his Troilus and Creffida;

For when he faw her doores Sperred alt,

Well nigh for forrow' adown he 'gan to fall.

But now for the fix gates, the very names of which our editors have barbarously demolished, and which Mr Popé, though the tranflator of Homer, had not the skill to re-edify, till chalked out the materials for him; we find them cnumerated by La Cerda (from Dares Phrygius, as he informs us) in his note upon this paffage of Virgil;

-Hic Juno Scaas favissima portas

Prima tenet.

Eneid. ii. v. 612Trojane urbis portas fex enumerat dares; Antenoridem, Dardanien, Iliam, Sceam, Catumbriam, Trojanam. This lift is again given us by Tiraquellus, in a note upon Alexander ab Alexansro, (lib. iv. cap. 23.) and from these two copied by Sir Edward Sherburne in his commentary upon the Troades of Seneca tranflated by him. But even in these three paffages we have to deal with error; Catumbria is a very odd word; and, I am well fatisfied, a depraved one. I'll endeavour to account for the blunder, and give the true reading We are to remember there was near old Troy a plain called Thymbra, a river that run through it, called Thymbrius, and a temple. to Apollo Thymbræus. The gate that we are speaking of, was probably described in the Greek author (fuppofed to be Dares Phrygius, and now long fince loft) to be xala Osμbpior: the gate that faced, or was in the neighbourhood of, the aforefaid plain and river. And from thence, as I fufpect, by the negligence or ignorance of the tranflator, the two Greek words were joined, and corrupted into Catumbra, The correcter editions of Dares Phrygius (I mean the Latin verfion, which goes under that name) neither read as Cerda, Tiraquellus or Sir Edward Sheburne have given us this paffage; but thus:lio portas fecet (feil. Priamus) quarum nomina bac funt, Antenorida, Dardanie, Ilia, Scaa, Thymbrea, Trojana,

Now expectation tickling fkittish fpirits
On one and other fide, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come
A prologue armed, (but not in confidence
Of author's pen, or actor's voice; but fuited
In like condition as our argument)

To tell you, (fair beholders) that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firftlings of thefe broils,
'Ginning i' th' middle; ftarting thence away, (2)
To what may be digefted in a play.

Like, or find fault,---do as your pleasures are;
Now good, or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.

This exactly fquares with my emendation, as well as affigns the caufe why our Poet might call the fix gates Priam's, who was the builder of them,

(2) Beginning in the middle, starting thence away,] Thus all the editions, before Mr Pope's. He, in the purity of his ear, has cahiered the laft word, because the verfe was longer than its fellows. I have chofe to retain it, (because, I am perfuaded, the Poet intended a rhyme) and reduce the line to measure by an apocope fo frequent in his writings.

Helen, Wife to Menelaus, in love with Paris.
Andromache, Wife to Hector.

Caffandra, Daughter to Priam, a Prophetess.
Creffida, Daughter to Calchas, in love with Troilus.

Alexander, Creffida's Man.

Boy, Page to Troilus.

Trojan and Greek Soldiers, with other Attendants.

SCENE, Troy; and the Grecian Camp before it