EXAMP. XXX. Ibid. p. 67. a.

touch me with noble anger."

Here our Profess'd Critic, in order to introduce a fuperfubtle and forced explanation of his own, is fearching after knots in a bulrush.

Can any thing be more intelligible, more pertinent, or finer, than this fentiment of Lear's?

"If you, ye gods, have stirred my daughters' hearts against me; at left let me not bear it with any unworthy tamenefs! but touch me with noble "anger; let me refent it with fuch refolution, as becomes a man;

"and let not woman's weapons, water-drops, "Stain my man's cheeks."

What need is here for Mr. Warburton's recondite learning, about what the antient poets faid concerning the misfortunes of particular families?

EXAMP. XXXI. Vol. 7. P. 117. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

"And foberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed] “i. e. his steed worn lean and thin by much fer"vice in war. So Farefax,

"His fall-worn fteed the champion ftout be"ftrode." WARB.

Mr. Warburton here seems to have ftolen Don Quixote's Rofinante, to mount the demy Atlas of this earth; as Cleopatra calls him just before. Where

+ I have sometimes thought; that the meaning may poffibly be, thin-fbouldered; by a ftrange compofition of Latin and English: gaunt quoad armos- and I have been fince told; that Mr. Seward makes the fame conjecture occafionally, on a paffage in Beaumont and Fletcher.

is the propriety of this; that a man, who commanded fo large a part of the world, should have only a lean, thin, worn-out horfe, to carry him to a battle; which was to decide, whether he should be master of the reft or not? However, he feems to have matched him well; with one from Farefax, who is ftall-worn.

"A different cause, fays parfon Sly,

"The fame effect may give." PRIOR.

One is worn-out with too much action, the other with standing still. They feem neither of them to have been troubled with the diftemper called OATS*; and one may reasonably suspect, that their grooms gave them foul play.

But Mr. Warburton, who made this match, has played us a Yorkshire trick; and the odds are prodigiously on old Fairfax's fide: for when I come to look upon him in his ftable, he is really not a ftallworn, but a ftalworth fteed; now STALWORTH, or STALWART, for it is written both ways, fignifies bold, courageous, strong.

"Wherefore this worthy ftalwart Hercules," Gawin Douglas's neis, p. 249. 1. 45. & alibi; and in his Gloffary he explanes it, Chalybei animi, ftabilis et firmi animi, &c.

EXAMP. XXXII. Vol. 8. P. 191. HAMLET.

"Nay, then let the Devil wear black; FOR I'll "have a fuit of fables] The conceit of these words "is not taken. They are an ironical apology for "his mother's chearful looks: Two months were "long enough in confcience to make any dead huf"band forgotten. But the editors, in their non

See the Gloffary, at the word Oats.

❝fenfical

fenfical blunder, have made Hamlet fay just the contrary. That the Devil and he would both go into mourning though his mother did not. The true reading is this; Nay, then let the Devil wear black, 'FORE I'll have a fuit of fable. As much as to fay, Let the Devil wear black for me; I'll have none. The Oxford editor despises an emendation "fo eafy, and reads it thus; Nay, then let the Devil "wear black; for I'll have a fuit of ermine. And you "could expect no lefs; when fuch a critic had the "dreffing of him. But the blunder was a pleasant 66 one. The fenfelefs editors had wrote fables, the "fur fo called, for fable, black; and the critic only changed this for that: by a like figure, the common people say, You rejoice the COCKLES of my "beart, for MUSCLES of my heart; an unlucky milstake of one fhell-fifh for another." WARB.

This is, as Mr. Warburton fays of Sir Thomas Hanmer, Vol. 2. p. 346. amending with a vengeance. If every paffage, which our profeffed Critic does not understand, must thus be altered; we shall have, indeed, a complete edition of Shakespear. In this note, which I have quoted at length, that the reader may see the whole ftrength of Mr. Warburton's reasoning; I know not which to admire most: the confiftency of his argument, the decency of his language, or the wit of his lenten jeft about shellfish, which makes fo proper a conclufion.

The original reading is,

-"Nay, then let the Devil wear black; for I'll "bave a fuit of fables." Mr. Warburton acknowledges, that the word fables fignifies a fur fo called; and every body knows, that they are worn by way of finery in that country. Nay, he himself, in this

very play, p. 236. fpeaking of these fame fables, fays; they import, that the wearers are rich burghers "and magiftrates." He fays, moreover, that the true reading (whatever it be) is "as much as to fay, Let the Devil wear black for me; I'll have "none." Now I will leave it to any body to judge, whether this true meaning be not expreffed in the common reading; and then to determine, whofe is the nonfenfical blunder, and who is the fenfelefs editor.

EXAMP. XXXIII. Vol. 3. P. 25. ALL'S WELL

THAT ENDS WELL.

-"How shall they credit

"A poor unlearned virgin; when the schools,
"Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left-off
"The danger to itself?"

This plainly means, that the physicians had exhaufted all their fkill. But Mr. Warburton must refine, as follows;

"Embowell'd of their doctrine] The expreffion "is beautifully fatirical; and implies, that the theo"ries of the school are spun out of the bowels of "the profeffors; like the cobwebs of the spider." WARB.

One would think, our critic's brains were in his bowels; when he spun this note.

EXAMP. XXXIV. Vol. 1. P. 348. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

Falft. "Well, I am your theme; you have the "start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to an"fwer the Welch flannel," &c.

-"the Welch flannel] Shakespear poffibly wrote "flamen. As Sir Hugh was a choleric priest, and "apt

66

apt to take fire, flamen was a very proper name;" "it being given to that order of Latin priests, from "the flame-coloured habit." WARB.

Bene qui conjiciet, vatem hunc perhibebo optimum, fays Dr. Newton; in laud of that happy skill in divination, which Mr. Warburton boafts of in his motto*; and of which he gives us fo extraordinary a fample in this learned note.

Flannel is the chief manufacture of Wales, and probably might make part of Sir Hugh's drefs; and it is in allufion to this, that Falstaff calls him Welch flannel. But the reafon Mr. Warburton gives for his correction, is as good as the correction itself; "the name flamen being given to that order of La"tin priests, from the flame-coloured habit." But Feftus, de verborum fignificatione, would have told: him; "Flamen dialis dictus, quod filo affidue ve"letur; indeque appellatur flamen, quafi filamen.” And Varro De linguâ Latina 66 quòd caput "cinctum habebant filo, flamines dicti." The fame faith old Bishop Ifidore, in his chapter of Clerks.

EXAMP. XXXV. Vol. 7. P. 51. JULIUS CAESAR. "here thy hunters stand

Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimfon'd in thy lethe. "Mr.Theobald fays, the Dictionaries acknowledge "no fuch word as letbe After all this pother, "letbe was a common French word, fignifying death "or deftruction; from the Latin lethum." WAR B.

A very common word indeed, which the Dictionaries do not acknowledge; for this Mr. Warbur

Quorum omnium interpretes, ut Grammatici, Poetarum proximè ad eorum quos interpretantur divinationem videntur accedere. Cic. de Divin.