-but that methinks, already

There's life and motion in it.

Directly contrary to Dr. W. conjecture.

REVI.*

P. 203. 1. 6. The FIXURE of her eye has motion in't.] This is fad nonfenfe. We should read,

The FISSURE of ber eye-

i. e. the focket, the place where the eye is.

WARB.

Ibid.] Fixure is right. The meaning is, that her eye, though fixed, as in an earnest gaze, has motion in it. EDWARDS and JOHNS. P. 206. This play, as Dr. Warburton justly observes, is, with all its abfurdities, very entertaining. The character of Autolycus is very naturally conceived, and strongly repre

fented.

JOHNS

VOL. II. PART. I.

O N

TWELFTH-NIGHT:

O R,

WHAT YOU WILL.

A

Nother of Belleforest's novels is thus intitl'd:

Com

me une fille Romaine fe veftant en page fervift long temps un fien amy fans eftre cogneue, & depuis l'eut a mary avec autres divers difcours." Hiftoires tragiques; Tom. 4. Hift. 7. This novel, which is itself taken from one of Bandillo's (v. Tom. 2. Nov. 36.) is, to all appearance, the foundation of the ferious part of "Tw lfth-night:" and must be fo accounted, 'till fome English novel appears, built (perhaps) upon that French one, but approaching nearer to Shakespeare's comedy. CAPELL.*

P. 209. 1. 2.

-that, furfeiting,

The appetite may ficken, and fo die.] There is an impropriety of expreflion in the prefent reading of this fine paffage. We do not fay, that the appetite fickens and dies thro furfeit; but the fubject of that appetite. I am perfuaded, a word is accidentally drept; and that we should read, and point the paffage thus,

-that, furfeiting

The app'tite, LOVE may ficken and so die.

WARB.

Ibid.] It is true, we do not talk of the death of appetite, because we do not ordinarily speak in the figurative language of poetry; but that appetite fickens by a furfeit is true, and therefore proper.

That firain again; -it had a dying fall:
O! it came o'er my ear, like the fweet jeuth,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,

JOHNS.

Stealing and giving odour. -] Amongst the beauties of this charming fimilitude, its exact propriety is not the leaft. For, as a fouth wind, while blowing over a violetbank, wafts away the odour of the flowers, it, at the fame time, communicates its own fweetness to it; fo the foft affecting mufick, here defcribed, tho' it takes away the natural, fweet, tranquillity of the mind, yet, at the same time, it communicates a new pleasure to it. Or, it may allude to another property of mufick, where the fame trains have a power to excite pain or pleasure, as the state is, in which it finds the hearer. Hence Milton makes the felf-fame strains of Orpheus proper to excite both the affections of mirth and melancholy, just as the mind is then difpofed. If to mirth, He calls for fuch mufick,

That Orpheus' felf may heave his bead
From golten flumbers on a bed

Of beapt Elyfian flowers, and hear

Such ftrains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto, to bave quite fet free
His balf regain'd Eurydice.

If to melancholy

Or lid the foul of Orpheus fing
Such notes as warbled to the firing,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made bell grant what love did feek.

L'allegro.

Il penferofo.

WARB.

Ibid.] Dr. Warburton is a little unlucky in his examples from Milton, for these felf-fame ftrains, are in the first inflance, what are performed by another perfon, and Orpheus is only a hearer of; in the other Orpheus fings himself. CANONS

L. 14.

-fo full of shapes is fancy,

That it alone is HIGH fantaftical.] This complicated nonfenfe fhould be rectified thus,

-fo full of shapes IN fancy,

That it alone is HIGHT fantastical,

i. e. love is fo full of fhapes in fancy, that the name of fantaftical is peculiarly given to it alone.

But, for the old nonsense, the Oxford editor gives us his

new.

fo full of foapes is fancy

And thou all o'er art high fantaflical, says the critic.

WARB.

P. 210. 1. 4. That inftant I was turn'd into a hart.] This image evidently alludes to the story of Aten, by which. Shakespeare feems to think men cautioned against too great familiarity with forbidden beauty. Acteon, who faw Diana naked, and was torn in pieces by his hounds, reprefents a man, who indulging his eyes, or his imagination, with the view of a woman that he cannot gain, has his heart torn with inceffant longing. An interpretation far more elegant and natural than that of Sir Francis Bacon, who, in his Wif dom of the Antients, fuppofes this story to warn us against enquiring into the fecrets of princes, by fhowing, that those who know that which for reafons of flate is to be concealed, will be detected and destroyed by their own fervants.

L. 21.

JOHNS THESE foreign thrones- -] We should read THREE foreign thrones. This is exactly in the manner of Shakspeare, So, afterwards, in this play, Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit, do give thee fivefold blaz.

WARB.

-] We fhould read, and

WARE.

L. 22. HER Sweet perfections, point it thus, (0 faveet perfection!) P. 211. 1. 22. A noble duke in nature, as in name.] I know not whether the nobility of the name is comprised in Duke, or in Orfino, which is, I think, the name of a great Italian family. JOHNS.

P. 212. 1. 8. And might not be deliver'd, &c.] I with I might not be made publick to the world, with regard to the State of my birth and fortune, till I have gained a ripe oppor tunity for my defign.

Viola feems to have formed a very deep defign with very little premeditation: fhe is thrown by shipwreck on an unknown coaft, hears that the prince is a batchelor, and refolves to fupplant the lady whom he courts. JOHNS. L. 22. -SM, -I'll ferve this duke;] Viola is an excellent