tos. poetical than Virgil's 7, Inanes fufpenfae ad venBefide St. Hierome in his comment on the epiftle to the Ephefians mentions it as the opinion of the Jewish and Chriftian divines, that evil spirits have their refidence in the space between the firmament and the earth; to which Jewish opinion St. Paul alludes, calling Satan the prince of the air. This is fufficient for a poet to give what allegorical turn he pleases to fuch opinions. In the Winter's Tale. Act V. Her. You Gods, look down, "And from your facred vials pour your graces "Upon my daughter's head." If Homer's copies have not this expreffion now, we may perhaps thank Ariftarchus for this and many other alterations of the like nature. 7 Virgil's expreffion is literally from Orpheus, whom Virgil has minutely followed in his defcription of the Ægyptian initiation, as the Author of the life of Sethos learnedly informs. "In the three trials of Fire, Water "and Air, are plainly discovered the three purifications "the Souls of Men were to go thro' before they returned "to life; which the greatest of the Latin poets borrowed "from him [viz. Orpheus] in the fixth book of his Æneid; Infectum eluitur fcelus, aut exuritur igni: not to omit the "circumftance of fufpenfion in the agitated air, or in the "winds: Sufpenfa ad ventos." I Ifaiah In King John. A&t III. Couf. Nay rather turn this day out of the "week, "This day of fhame, oppreffion, perjury: "Or if it must stand still, &c.” In allufion to Job iii, 3. "Let the day perish, " &c." And . 6. "Let it not be joined unto "the days of the year, let it not come into the "number of the months." It feems likewise that Shakespeare had strongly the character and history of Job in view, when he made Othello pour forth the following most pathetical complaint, "Had it pleas'd Heaven "To try me with affliction, had he rain'd "All kind of fores and fhames on my bare head, "Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips, "Giv❜n to captivity me and my hopes; "I should have found in fome places of my foul "A drop of patience." In king Lear, A& V. "He that parts us, fhall bring a brand from "heav'n, "And fire us hence, like foxes." Alluding Alluding to the fcriptural account of Samfon's tying foxes, two and two together by the tail, and fastening a firebrand to the cord, thus let ting them loose among the standing corn of the Philiftines. Judges xv, 4. In the second part of K. Henry IV. A&IV. "And therefore will he wipe his 1° tables clean." In Hamlet, A& I. 10 "Yea from the table of my memory 10 The Pugillares or table books of the ancients were made of small leaves of wood, ivory, or skins, and covered over with wax. To which Shakespeare alludes in Timon. Act I. "My free drift "Halts not particular, but moves itself, : These verses are put in the mouth of a trifling poet.They confifted sometimes of two, three, five or more pages, and thence were called duplices, triplices, quintuplices, and multiplices and by the Greeks inluxa, rpinluxa, &c. The inftrument, with which they wrote, they called ftilus; at first made of iron, but afterwards that was forbidden at Rome, and they used ftyles of bone it was sharp at one end to cut the letters, and flat at the other to deface them; from whence the phrafe, ftylum vertere.Shakespeare's time fignified a pocket book, "tables: meet it is I fet it down." e TABLE in "Hamlet. My. Prov. Prov. ii, 3. Write them upon the table of thine heart. So Aeschylus in fuppl. 187. Aix Quáξαι τάμ' ἔπη δελλόμενο. I advise thee to keep my words written on the tables of thy memory. And in Prometh. 788. ¿ylgáÞau déxlque Opeva, which Mr. Theobald has cited. And thus the words in Macbeth are to be explained. A& I. "Kind Gentlemen, your pains "Are regiftred where every day I turn "The leaf to read them." Meaning in the table of his heart, to which he points. In Othello, A& IV. "If to preferve this veffel for my Lord." vessel 1 Theff. iv, 4. To poffefs his veffel in fanctification. In Macbeth. Act III. Put rancors in the vessel of my peace. So Lucret. V, 138. Tandem in eodem bomine, atque in eodem vafe maneret. In Cymbeline, A& I. "He fits 'mongst men, like a defcended God." There 223 There is no lefs learning than elegance in this expreffion. The Greeks call thefe defcended Gods, KATAIBATAE, and Jupiter was peculiarly worshipped as fuch, as more frequently defcending in thunder and lightning to punith guilty mortals: amongst whofe titles and infcriptions you frequently meet with, ΔΙΟΣ ΚΑΤΑΒΑΤΟΥ. In K. Henry V. A&II. "And therefore in fierce tempeft is HE COMING "In thunder, and in earthquake, like a Jove." Agreeable to this opinion Paul and Barnabas' were thought by the people of Lycaonia to be defcended Gods. Οἱ θεοὶ ὁμοιωθέντες ανθρώποις " ΚΑ ΤΕΒΗΣΑΝ πρὸς αὐτές. In the Tempeft, Act IV. cr Profp. The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, The folemn temples, the great globe itself, "Yea, all, which it inherit, fhall diffolve." This 11 Acts xiv. 2. And here give me leave to fet in a better light a paffage in the difcourfes of Epictetus. L. I. c. 29. *Ανθρωποι ανθρώπε κύριθ ἐκ ἔςι, ἀλλὰ θάνατο και ζωή, και ἡδονὴ καὶ πόνων· ἐπεὶ, χωρὶς τύτων, ἀγαγέ μοι τὸν Καίσαρα, και καὶ ὄψει πῶς εὐταθῶ· ὅταν δὲ μετὰ τέτων ΕΛΘΗ, βροντών και ἀεραπίων, ἐγὼ δὲ ταῦτα φοβᾶμαι, τί ἄλλο ἢ ἐπέγνωκα τὸν κύριον, ὡς ὁ δραπέτης ; "Man is not the master of man, but "life and death, pleasure and pain; for, exclufive of thefe, |