The alteration of HIGH into HIGHT, the reader will admit

at first fight, I make no doubt of.

In Ben Johnson's Volpone, A&t V. Sc. VIII.

"Volp. Methinks,

"Yet you, that are so traded in the world,

"A witty Merchant, the fine bird, Corvino,

"That have fuch MORTAL emblems on your name,

"Should not have fung your shame; and dropt your cheese "To let the Foxe laugh at your emptiness."

The true reading is MORAL emblemes.

both the Fable,

and the Moral are too well known, to want here any explanation.

Again, In Catiline, A& III.

"When what the Gaul or Moor could not effect, "Nor emulous Carthage, with their length of spight, "Shall bee the work of one, and THAT MY NIGHT.' Catiline fays he'll effect that, which Rome's most formidable enemies never could; viz. destroy it: this fhall be the work of one; and THAT'S MY RIGHT: that I claim as my right and due:

Shall bee the work of one; and THAT'S MY RIGHT."

This feems to be the true reading. But here is another mistake, which must be laid to the author's charge, who plainly had his eye on Horace, Epod. 16.

Quem neque finitimi valuerunt perdere MARSI "Aemula nec virtus Capua.

"Nec fera Caeruleâ domuit Germania pube,

"Parentibufque abominatus Hannibal ; "Impia perdemus devoti fanguinis aetas.”,

Here is no mention of the MOORS, who were by ho means a dreaded enemy. But perhaps in mentioning the MOORS he had in his thoughts the following paffage,

" Acer et MAURI peditis cruentum.

"Vultus in boftem." L. I. Od. 2.

But here the critics have judicioufly red MARSI. So that Johnson is very unlucky, in overlooking the MARSIANS, and in their room fubftituting the MOORS.

In Shakespeare's K. Henry V. A& IV. Henry thus apoftrophizes ceremony,

"And what art thou, thou idol, Ceremony ;-
"What kind of God art thou, that fuffer'ft more
"Of mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers?
"What are thy rents ? what are thy comings in ?
"O ceremony, fhew me but thy worth?

What is thy [r. the] foul of adoration ?

"Art thou ought elfe but place, degree and form, "Creating awe and fear in other men ?"

What is the foul of adoration, i. e. what real worth, what fubftantial good is there in it? The printer miftook fome ftroke of the pen at the end of the; or thy in the preceding line caught his eye, and occafioned the error in the following verfe. A very ridiculous correction is proposed in a late edition," What is thy toll, o adoration ?" Shakespeare ufes foul for what is real, fubftantial, &c. in the fame play, There is fome foul of goodnefs in things evil, "Would men obfervingly distil it out.”

Some foul of goodness, i. e. fome real good. In a Midfum. mer Night's Dream, A&t III.

" Hel.

"Hal. Can you not hate me, as I know you do, "But you must join in souls to mock me too ?”

join in fouls, i. e. unite together, heartily and in earnest. The late editor reads, join infolents: which is below all kind of notice.-In Meafure for Measure, A&t I.

"I fay bid come before us Angelo :

"What figure of us, think you, he will bear? "For you must know we have with special foul "Elected him our abfense to supply."

with Special foul, particularly and specially SPECIAMENTE. Here too the editor changes foul into roll.—But to return. The blunders above mention'd feem entirely owing to the wrong gueffes of the printer, or tranfcriber. Some ftroke of the pen occafion'd the following corrupt reading in the Medaea of Euripides, ✯ 459.

Ὅμως δὲ κακ τῶνδ ̓ ἐκ απειρηκώς ΦΙΛΟΙΣ

Ηκω, τὸ σόν γε προσκοπέμενα, γύναι.

Ego tamen ne propter haec quidem defeffus amicorum

gratiâ venio, profpecturus tibi, o mulier." What conftruction is this? píos x befide άmsgnevas is, animo concidiffe, animum defpondiffe, &c. I imagine the poet gave it, díxo xw, I come your friend: as we fay in English. But printers can blunder, as well as tranfcribers in copy after copy. In Milton's Samfon Agonistes, . 1650. the Meffenger is describing Samfon's pulling the temple on the Philiftins.

"Those two maffie pillars

"With horrible confufion to and fro

"He tugg'd, he took, 'till down they came, and drew "The whole roof after them

We must correct, he fbook. Again, in his elegant fonnet to the foldier to fpare his house :

"The great Emathian conqueror

"The houfe of Pindarus."

did Spare

We must read, bid fpare. As Mr. Theobald and Dr. Bentley often tell us, that they had the happiness to make many corrections, which they find afterwards fupported by the authority of better copies; fo with the fame vanity, I can affure the reader, I made the above emendations in Milton, and found, after all, the paffages corrupted by one J. Tonfon.

Page 268. But whatever beauty this alliteration might have, yet the affectation of it must appear ridiculous; for poems are not made by mechanical rules and it was ridiculed as long ago as the times of Ennius.

O Tite tute Tati tibi tante tyranne tulifti.

And by Shakespeare in his Midfummer-Night's dream, Act V.

"Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful "blade,

"He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast."

Perhaps the reader may not be difpleafed to fee what the learned Andreas Schottus has faid on this fubject; having cited that well-known verse of Cicero,

6 fortuNATAM, NATAM me confule Romam!

He adds, "Qua fyllabarum iteratio vocis definentis et inchoantis tantum abeft ut critici vitio dandum exiftimaverint,

utvetiam imitandum fibi duxerint, quòd pofteriores etiam "poetas mire id affectaffe obfervarint. Unus enim omnium " inftar Tibullus, eques Romanus, et cafti fermonis ac fuavis "auctor, plerumque fyllabas ftudio geminat: ut ne longius "abeam, ftatim in limine :

"ME MEA paupertas vitæ traducet inerti.

Qualia M. Ant. Muretus ibidem et Joannes Garzonius Ve« netus plura alibi in cultissimo illa poeta ad calculos revocass runt. Παρήχησιν autem voce παρήχημα Rhetorum filii « fchema nominant ἀπὸ τὸ παρηχεῖν. Budao ADNOMINA"TIONEM, nobis RESULTATIONEM nominare Latinè liceat, "ut in poetis antiquis, præfertim Marone, Jovianus Pon"tanus ALLITERATIONEM folitus eft appellare, &c." If the reader has any curiofity to see more of what he writes on this subject, he may confult his treatise, intitled, Cicero a Calumniis vindicatus. Cap. X. In the arte of English poefie, printed an. 1589. p. 213. "ye have another man"ner of compofing your metre nothing commendable, "fpecially if it be too much used, and is when our Maker "takes too much delight to fill his verse with wordes beginning all with a letter, as an English rimer that said:

"The deadly droppes of darke disdaine
"Do daily drench my due defartes.

"And as the Monke we spake of before, wrote a whole poeme to the honor of Carolus Calvus, every word in "his verse beginning with C thus:

"Carmina Clarifonæ Calvis cantate camænæ.

"Many of our English Makers use it too much, yet we "confefs it doth not ill but PRETILY BECOMES THE "MEETRE, if ye paffe not two or three words in one verfe,

"and