Page images
PDF
EPUB

A Perfon in Defpair, compared to one on a Rock, &c.

For now I ftand, as one upon a rock,
Environ'd with a wilderness of fea,

Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave;
Expecting ever when fome envious furge

Will in his brinifh bowels fwallow him.

Tears compar'd to Dew on a Lilly.

(5) When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears Stood on her cheeks; as doth the honey-dew Upon a gather'd lilly almoft wither'd.

Reflections on killing a fly.

Mar. (6) Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly. Tit. But?-how if that fly had a father and mother? How

(5) See Vol. I. p. 86. n. 13.

(6) Alas.] The mind of Titus is wholly taken up with a reflection on his misfortunes, and his miferies as a parent: His brother Marcus killing a fly, he reprehends him for his cruelty; for, fays he,

Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny:

A deed of death done on the innocent
Becomes not Titus' brother.

And he further reflects upon it, and brings him to himself: "How, fays he, if this poor fiy, had a father and motherhow what would be hang, &c. The reader muft fee the impropriety; for furely, he would add, "how would they, the father and the mother, for the lofs, hang their flender gilded wings. and buz-lamenting doings in the air? So that doubtless we should read,

How wou'd they hang their flender gilded wings
And buz-lamenting doings in the air?

For the fly after being kill'd, could not hang his wings bimfelf, nor buz-lamenting doings; which word, though perhaps not altogether

How would he hang his flender gilded wings,
And buz-lamenting doings in the air?

Poor harmlefs fly,

That with his pretty buzzing melody,
Came here to make us merry;

And thou haft kill'd him.

REVENGE.

Lo, by thy fide where rape, and murder, ftands
Now give some furance that thou art revenge,
Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels;
And then I'll come and be thy waggoner,
And whirl along with thee about the globe;"
Provide two proper palfries black as jet,
To hale thy vengeful waggon fwift away,
And find out murders in their guilty caves.
And when thy car is loaden with their heads,
I will dismount, and by thy waggon wheel
Trot like a fervile foot-man all day long;
Even from Hyperion's rifing in the east,
Until his very downfal in the sea.

together fo expreffive, feems to me the true one; it is frequently ufed for an action, a thing done: Mr. Theobald proposes,

Lamenting dolings,

Though he was conscious of the fimilarity between the word and the epithet; notwithstanding which the Oxford editor gives us, Laments and Dolings.

Troilus

Troilus and Creffida.

ACTI

SCENE I.

Love, in a brave young Soldier.

ALL here my varlet: I'll un-arm again.

(*) C Why fhould I war without the walls of

Troy,

That find fuch cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan, that is mafter of his heart,
Let him to field: Troilus alas! hath none.

(1) Call, &c.] Mr. Theobald and Mr. Upton both perceiv'd our author's allufion here to an ode of Anacreon, (or, as the latter fays, to a thought printed among thofe poems, which are afcribed to Anacreon.) Ben Johnson, as well as our author, alludes to it in the following paffage :

Volpone. O I am wounded!

Mef. Where, Sir?

Vol. Not without.

Those blows were nothing; I could bear them ever
But angry Cupid, bolting from her eyes,
Hath hot himself into me, like a flame;
Where now he flings about his burning heat,
As in a furnace, fome ambitious fire

Whofe vent is stopt. The fight is all within me

[blocks in formation]

Volpone A&t 2. S. 30

ΜΑΧΗΣ ΕΣΩ Μ' ΕΧΟΥΣΗΣ ;

M

De'nde

The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant. But I am weaker than a woman's tear, Tamer than fleep, fonder than ignorance; Lefs valiant than the virgin in the night, And fkill-lefs as unpractis'd infancy.

[blocks in formation]

O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus

When I do tell thee, there my hopes lye drown'd,
Reply not, in how many fathoms deep,

t

They lye indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad
In Creffid's love. Thou answer'ft, she is fair;
Pour'ft in the open ulcer of my heart,

Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gate, her voice;
Handleft in thy discourse O that (2) her hand!
In whofe comparison, all whites are ink,

Deinde feipfum projecit in modum teli: mediufque cordis mei penetravit & me folvit. Fruftra itaque habeo fcutum : quid enim muniamur extra, bello intus me exercente. Mr. Upton, fpeaking of the feveral translations of the last line but one, adds "Now I will fet Shakespear's tranflation against them them all: Why should I war without. T. yaş Baλwe meaning of the phrase, quid hoftem petam, aggrediar extra; cum hoftis intus eft? &c. plays of Ben Johnson, p. 28.

- For this is the vel quid boftem ferire See Remarks on three

(2) Her hand, &c.] In the Midfummer night's Dream, speak. ing of a white hand, he fays;

That pure congealed white high Taurus' fnow,
Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow
When thou hold'ft up thy hand.

A 3. 1.6.

I don't know what to make of the words and spirit of sense, nor any of the critics fatisfy me: the Oxford editor reads

do

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Neither of which appear to me as from the hand of Shakespear: whether by the Spirit of fenfe, he means the fenfe of touching, I can not tell; that feems the most probable, to the feifure of her hand the down of the cignet is harth, and its fpirit of fenfe [the soft and delicate fenfe, its touch gives us hard as the the plowman's palm." Writing

T

Writing their own reproach: to whofe foft feizure
The cignet's down is harfh, and spirit of fenfe.
Hard as the palm of plowman. This thou tell'ft me;
(As true thou tell'ft me) when I fay I love her:
But faying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay'ft in every gash that love hath given me,
The knife that made it.

SCENE V. Succefs, not equal to our Hopes.
The ample propofition that hope.makes,
In all defigns begun on earth below,

Fails in the promis'd largenefs: checks and difafters
Grow in the veins of action, highest rear'd;
As knots, by the conflux of meeting fap,
Infect the found pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his courfe of growth.
On Degree.

Take but degree away; untune that string,
And hark what difcord follows; each thing meets
In meer oppugnancy. The bounded waters
Would lift their bofoms higher than the shores,
And make a fop of all this folid globe:
Strength would be lord of imbecillity,

And the rude fon would ftrike his father dead :
Force would be right; or rather, right and wrong
(Between whose endless jar Justice (3) refides}

M 2

Would

(3) Refides] The thought here is beautiful and fublime: Right and wrong are fuppofed as enemies, who are perpetually at war, between whom Justice hath her place of refidence, and fits as an umpire; for 'tis the endless jar of right and wrong, that only gives occafion for the interpofition of juftice. Mr. Warburton hath, in this place, been too fevere on poor Theobald, the critic, (as he calls him) for dropping a flight remark, which, were it not defenfible, fhould rather be excus'd than cenfur'd; and introduc'd an alteration of his own, which an ill-natur'd remarker might poffibly find pleafure in retorting upon him, But, as the only bufinets of a com

mentator

« PreviousContinue »