revenge on poor Prifcian, as to change fadoms plur. for fa dom fing, at the inftant he is telling you, Shakespeare meant many fadoms: unless perhaps he did it for the fake of uniformity of ftyle. Then indeed, to fay-two, three, twenty fadom, instead of fadoms, is just such a piece of vulgarity M fpeech; as to faya many for a great many. One may fay, that Mr. W. has written certain obfervations and emendations on Shakespeare: but nobody, that ever read them, except ONE, would imagine; that it was, of could be intended hereby to predicate, that the obfervations were precife and determinate; or the emendations certain. I fuppofe, Shakespeare intended by this expreffion to fig nify; that there was a certain precife determinate number of fadems, which Profpero by his art knew of; at which depth if he buried his ftaff, it would never more be difcovered, fo as to be used in enchantments. CAN. OF CRIT.* L. 20. Ign'rant fumes.] Ignorant, for hurtful to rea fon. WARE. P. 72. 1. 4. Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebaftian. Flesh and blood, I by no means think, this was our Anthor's pointing; or that it gives us his meaning. He would say, that Sebaftian now was pinch'd thro' and thro' for his trefpafs; felt the punishment of it all over his body; a like manner of expreffion we meet with in King Lear ; wipe thine eve; The good-jers fhall devour them, flesh and fell, And fo our CHAUCER, in the first book of his Troilus and that he and all his kinne at ones Were worthy to be brent, both fell and bones. TarƠE.* P. 72. 1. 18. Where the bee fucks, there fuck 1;] I have ventur'd to vary from the printed copies here. Could Ariel, a fpirit of a refin'd ætherial effence, be intended to want food? Befides the fequent lines rather countenance lurk. THEGB. Ibid.] Mr. Theobald tells us, he has here ventured to vary from the printed copies, and read lurk 1: Becaufe a Spirit cannot be intended, as he expreffes it, to want food. How Shakespeare, or any other good metaphyfician would have intended to fupport these spirits, had they been of their own making, I do not know, but the people who gave them birth brought them up to good eating and drinking. WARB. L. 22. After fummer merrily] Why, after fummer? Unless we must fuppofe, our Author alluded to that mistaken notion of bats, fwallows, &c. croffing the feas in pursuit of hot weather. I conjectured, in my SHAKESPEARE reftor'd, that sunset was our Author's word: And this conjecture Mr. Pope, in his last edition, thinks probably should be espoused. My reafons for the change were from the known nature of the bat. The boup fleeps during the winter, fay the Naturalifts; and fo does the bat too. (Upupa dormit hyeme, ficut vefpertilio. Albert. Magn.) Again, flies and gnats are the favourite food of the bat, which he procures by flying about in the night. (Cibus ejus funt mufcæ & culices: quem nocte volans inquirit. Idem, e Plinio.) But this is a diet, which, I prefume, he can only come at in the fummer feafon. Another obfervation has been made, that when bats fly either earlier, or in greater number than usual, it is a fign the next day will be bot and ferene. (Vefpertiliones, fi vefperi citius & plures folito volarint, fignum eft calorem ferenitatem poftridie fore. Gratarolus apud Gefner de avibus.) This prognoftick likewife only fuits with fummer. Again, the bat was call'd vefpertilio by the Latins, as it was vunlɛçiç by the Greeks, because this bird is not vifible by day ; but appears firft about the twilight of the evening, and fo continues to fly during the dark hours. And the Poets, whenever they mention this bird, do it without any allufion to the season of the year; but conftantly have an eye to the accustom'd hour of its flight. In the fecond act of this play, where Gonzalo tells Anthonio and Sebaftian, that they would lift the moon out of her sphere, Sebaftian replies; We would fo, and then go a bat-fowling. THEOBALD." Ibid. Summer merrily.] This is the reading of all the editions. Yet Mr. Theobald has fubftituted fun-fet, because Ariel talks of riding on the bat in this expedition. An idle fancy. That circumftance is given only to defign the time of night in which fairies travel. One would think the confideration of the circumstances fhould have fet him right. Ariel was a spirit of delicacy, bound by the charms of Profpero, to a conftant attendance on his occafions. So that he was confined to the island winter and fummer. But the roughness of winter is represented by Shakespeare as difagreeable to fairies, and fuch like delicate fpirits, who on this account conftantly follow fummir. Was not this then the most agreeable circumftance of Ariel's new recovered liberty, that he could now avoid winter, and follow fummer quite round the globe. But to put the matter out of question, let us confider the meaning of this line. There I couch, when Owls do cry. Where? in the Cowflip's bell, and where the Bee fucks, he tells us: this must needs be in fummer. When? when Owls do cry, and this is in Winter. When blood is nipt, and ways be foul Then nightly fings the ftaring owl. The fong of Winter in Love's Labour Loft. The confequence is, that Ariel flies After-Summer. Yet the Oxford Editor has adopted this judicious emendation of Mr. Theobald. WARB. Ibid.] I would read lurk with Mr, Theobald, as more elegant, and for this reason, that though Ariel should even be fuppofed to have occafion for more fubftantial food than the cameleon; yet he cannot mean to compare himself to a bee or fuckling of any kind.-After fummer merrily. Dr. Warburton's arguments against Mr. Theobald's propofed reading, after fun-fet, are egregiously wrong. Though it be admitted that Ariel here fpeaks of himself as a kind of fairy, Shakespeare hath no where reprefented winter as fo exceffively disagreeable to fairies, as to oblige them, like swallows, to expatriate on its arrival. Nor do the lines from Love's Labour Loft put the matter out of queftion, that owls cry only in winter; for the queen of the fairies in the Midfummernight's Dream, fays to her attendants, Keep back The clamorous owl, that nightly boots It is affo remarkable that in the Song of Winter, the owl is reprefented as finging a merry note; whereas, in the other paffages, he is faid to cry, to be clamorous; which, with great propriety, may be faid of her in fummer, when her hooting is contrafted with the notes of other birds. That the bat is only introduced to defign the time of night in which fairies travel is not to the purpose here, for Ariel is one of thofe kind of fairies who execute the commands of Profpero by day light. KENRICK. P. 73.1.4.] To drink the air is an expreffion of fwiftness of the fame kind as to devour the way in Henry IV. JOHNS. P. 74. 1. 26. As great to me, as late.] My lofs is as great as yours, and has as lately happened to me. JOHNS. P. 76. 1. 1. Yes, for a score of kingdoms.] i. e. If the fubject or bet were kingdoms: fcore here not fignifying the number twenty, but account. WARE.* Ibid.] I take the fenfe to be only this: Ferdinand would not, he fays, play her falfe for the world. Yes, answers fhe, I would allow you to do it for fomething less than the world, for twenty kingdoms; and I wish you well enough to allow you, after a little wrangle, that your play was fair. So likewife Dr. Gray. JORNS. P. 77. 1. 18.] For when fhould perhaps be read where. JOHNS. P. 78. 1. 32. fingle I'll refolve you.] Because the confpiracy against him, of his brother Sebaftian and his own brother Anthonio, would make part of the relation. WARB.* P. 79, 1. 1. Which to you fhall feem probable.] Thefe words feem, at first view, to have no ufe; fome lines are perhaps loft with which they were connected. Or we may explain them thus: I will refolve you by yourself; which method, when you hear the ftory, [of Antonio's and Sebaftian's plot] fball feem probable, that is, shall deserve your approbation. JOHNS. L. 22. true,] That is, boneft. A true man is, in the language of that time, oppofed to a thief. The fenfe is, Mark what these men wear, and fee if they are boneft. JOHNS. P. 80. 1. 8. And Trinculo is reeling ripe; where fhould they Find this grand liquor that bath gilded 'em ?] Shakespeare, to be fure, wrote- -grand 'lixir, alluding to the grand elixir of the alchymifts, which they pretend would restore youth, and confer immortality. This, as they faid, being a preparation of gold, they called aurum potabile; which Shakespeare alluded to in the word gilded; as he does again in Anthony and Cleopatra. How much art thou unlike Mark Anthony? Yet coming from him, that great med'cine hath, But the joke here is to infinuate that, notwithstanding all the boasts of the chymifts, fack was the only restorer of youth, and bestower of immortality. So Ben Jonfon, in his Every Man out of his Humour.- "Canarie the very elixir and fpirit of wine." -This feems to have been the cant name for fack, of which the English were at that time immoderately fond. Randolf, in his Jealous Lovers, speaking of it, fays, "A pottle of elixir at the Pegasus bravely caroused. So again in Fletcher's Monfieur Thomas, act III. -Old reverend fack, which, for aught that I can read yet, Was that philofopher's ftone the wife king Ptolomeus Did all his wonders by The phrafe too of being gilded was a trite one on this occafon. Flet her in his Chances DUKE. Is the not drunk too? WHORE. A little gilded o'er, fir; old fack, old fack, boys! WARB. & CAP.* P. 8o. 1. 14. O, touch me not: I am not Stephano, but a ramp.] In reading this play, I all along fufpected that Shakespeare had taken it from fome Italian writer; the unities being all fo regularly obferved, and the perfons of the drama being all Italians. I was much confirmed in my fufpicion when I came to this place. It is plain a joke was intended; but where it lies is hard to fay. I fufpect there was a quibble in the original that would not bear to be tranflated, which ran thus, "I am not Stephano, but Staffilato." Staffilato fignifying, in Italian, a man well lashed or flayed, which was the real cafe of thefe varlets. |