And hath bereft thee of thy life too late] i. e. "he fhould have done it, by not bringing thee into being; to make both father and fon thus mi"ferable. This is the fenfe; fuch as it is."

WARB.

The Liv Such as it is, indeed! He fhould have taken away life, before he had given it!

The father, having killed his fon, is lamenting those times of mifery and confufion, occafioned by the civil war: the general purport of these lines, therefore, feems to be no more than this; That, in fuch difaftrous times, a short life is the most defirable; and, the fooner one is out of them, the better. There is a paffage much of the fame caft, in Tarquin and Lucrece. Stanz. 258.

O! quoth Lucretius, I did give that life; Which the too early and too late hath spilled.

EXAMP. XXV. Vol. 5. P. 165. 3 HENRY VI.

"O but impatience waiteth on true forrow. "And fee, where comes the breeder of my forrow."

"How does impatience more particularly wait on "true forrow? On the contrary, fuch forrows as "the Queen's, which came gradually on through a "long courfe of misfortunes, is generally lefs im

patient; than that of those, who have fallen into "fudden miferies. The true reading feems to be, "O but impatience WAITING RUES TO-MORROW," &c.

"i. e. when impatience waits and follicits for re"drefs, there is nothing fhe fo much dreads, as be"ing put-off till to-morrow: (a proverbial expref"fion for procraftination)" &c. WARB.

And

And fo-Face about, and as you were before; for it appears at laft, that impatience did particularly wait on the Queen's forrow. And we learn alfo; that putting-off till to-morrow, which is the Englifh of procrastination, is a proverbial Expreffion for it.

.

EXAMP. XXVI. Vol. 1. P. 119. MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

Then, for the third part of a minute, hence." "We fhould read, the third part of the midnight. "The common reading is nonfenfe. Poffibly Shakespear might have used the French word "minuit."... WARB.

ચંદ

The common reading, fays Mr. Warburton, is nonfenfe. And fo, because he does not think the third part of a minute long enough, he would read midnight; i. e. for the third part of an inftant, an indivifible point of time. But his fatal French led him into this blunder. 66 Poffibly Shakespear "might have used the French word minuit." He feems to be very little acquainted with Shakespear; who could make fuch a nonfenfical conjecture.

EXAMP. XXVII. Vol. 6. P. 116. KING Lear. "Whofe face 'tween her forks prefages fnow," &c.

"Whofe face 'tween her forks] i. e. her hand "held before her face, in fign of modefty, with "the fingers fpread-out, forky." WARB.

The construction is not, "whofe face between her "forks," &c. but," whose face prefages fnow, "&c. the following expreffion, I believe, every body but

Mr.

Mr. Warburton understands; and He might, if he had read a little farther; which would have faved him this ingenious note. See in TIMON, Vol. 6. P. 222. "Whose blush doth thaw the confecrated fnow, "That lies on Dian's lap

f

EXAMP. XXVIII. Vol. 2. P. 417. TAMING OF THE SHREW.

"Please ye we may CONTRIVE this afternoon."

"Mr.Theobald afks, what they were to contrive? "and then says, a foolish corruption poffeffes the "place; and fo alters it to convive.-But the com"mon reading is right; and the critic was only "ignorant of the meaning of it. Contrive does not "fignify here to project, but to spend and wear-out. "As in this paffage of Spenfer,

“Three ages, fuch as mortal men CONTRIVE.”. WARB.

I should think; there is no need either of Mr. Theobald's convivé, or of Mr. Warburton's new explication of contrive; if indeed it be not more properly a new word. If he had attended to the context, he might have answered his brother Critic's queftion; what they were to contrive? They were to contrive means jointly to gratify Petruchio, for making room for their courtship, by taking-off the elder fifter Catherine.

66

But, fays Mr. Warburton, contrive does not fignify here to project; but to spend, and wear "out. As in this paffage of Spenfer,

"Three ages, fuch as mortal men CONTRIVE."

Con

Contrive, Skinner fays, comes from controuver* and he renders it excogitare, fingere. In which fense, if I am not mistaken, Spenfer ufes it in the paffage quoted; "Three ages, fuch as men gene"rally compute or reckon them."

If it did fignify to spend or wear-out, which will require more proof than this paffage; it must be formed from the verb contero, and from the preterperfect tense of that verb, contrivi; and I do not at present recollect any English verbs, formed from the preterperfect tenfe of the Latin; except fuch as have come to us through French words fo formed, as propofe, impofe, &c. But here is a difcovery, which if Mr. Warburton will make good, I will even forgive him all the injuries he has done to Shakespear. This paffage is quoted from the ELEVENTH book of Spenfer; fo that he has recovered, I hope, the fix books, which have been fo long lamented as loft in the Irish fea: for thus he quotes it-"FAIRY QUEEN, Book xi. Chap. 9.' Now, notwithstanding that unfortunate chapter, which fhocks one a little; no body will imagine, that Mr. Warburton, who is fo accurate a collater, and makes ufe of no indexes, or fecond hand quotations; though in an outlandish Italian book he might take Decade and Novel for December and No-, vember: yet in one of our own poets, whom he has so much studied, could mistake B. II. C. 9. for BOOK the ELEVENTH, CHAPTER the NINTH. Perhaps, the latter books may be written in Chapters, not Cantos, as thofe printed are; but he fhould have quoted VERSE 48 too,

* As Retrieve alfo, which he fpells Retrive, does from Re

trouver.

a

EXAMP. XXIX. Vol. 6. P. 62. K. LEAR.
"if your sweet sway

"Allow obedience] Could it be a queftion, "whether heaven allowed obedience? The poet

"Hallow obedience," &c. WARB."

But furely one may as well queftion, whether heaven allows obedience; as whether it hallows, i. e. fanctifies, it. It is ftrange, that a man of learning fhould imagine; that the word IF here implies doubting or queftioning. The form of the expreffion is elliptical, but, when the words left-out are fupplied, it implies not doubting, but ftrong affirmation.

"If you do love old men-(which you furely do) "If your fweet fway allow obedience (which it "undoubtedly does; nay more, it commands it) "If you yourselves are old-(which you certain"ly are)

"Make it your

cause."

Does Mr. Warburton imagine; that, when Nifus fays,

"Si qua tuis unquam pro me pater Hirtacus aris "Dona tulit, fique ipfe meis venatibus auxi¿;" when Calchas makes the fame fort of addrefs to Apollo, in the first book of Homer's Iliad,

Or, when Anchifes fays,"

"Jupiter omnipotens, precibus fi flecteris ullis”— That the one had the left doubt, whether Jupiter was ever moved by prayer; or that the others queftioned, whether or no they themselves had ever facrificed to Diána or Apollo?