such fiery numbers (i. e. such verses of fire and spirit) as the sight of your fair mistress's eyes have inspired you with?"

This, dear Sir, at present, I take to be the whole meaning of our Poet, and the whole obscurity of the passage vanishes at once.

And now, Sir, a word to your emendation upon another passage in the same Play, Act V. Sc. 2: P. 278. A huge Translation of Hypocrisie,

Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.

You propose Apocrypha. Apocrypha. But, I imagine, you did not observe that for four couplets backward, and thence to the close of the Scene by the entrance of Boyet, all the lines are strictly in rhyme, which your emendation would interrupt. A Translation of Hypocrisy, I agree with you, is a very poor phrase, and nearly approaching, at least, upon nonsense. This, however, I take to be the sense of the passage: "Dumaine," says Katherine, "has sent me some thousands of verses as from a faithful lover;" that is, he has translated a huge quantity of hypocrisy into verse; but the verse so vilely composed, that it is at best but profound simplicity."

To confirm your emendation on Antony, p. 5, a strumpet's stool, you propose adding this authority from Troilus, Act II. Sc. 1, "Thou stool for a witch." I think I have met with a much stronger from Macbeth, p. 230:

but now they rise again,

With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools.

Inclosed I submit to your consideration some Queries and Conjectures on Cymbeline, not contained in yours *.

*Mr. POPE's Second Edition, 1728.

P. 11..

reek as a sacrifice

P. 12. -as offer'd mercy is

I have no perfect idea what these passages mean,

P. 13. Make me with his eye or ear.

How could posthumus with his ear make himself distinguished

by Pisanio? Should it not be, with my eye or ear?

I cannot conclude without begging my respects and thanks to Mr. Taylor*; and wishing you both a number of happy new years.

P. 21. To any shape of thy preferment, such

As thou 'll desire

Should not this be, deserve? Note, desert and merit in the context of this very sentence.

P. 22. But most miserable

Is the desire that 's glorious.

Here I am as blind as a mole. I cannot tell how it connects with the rest.

P. 23. None a stranger there.—

You have slipped the ridiculousness of this full stop.

i. e. of all the travellers upon the spot the merriest.

P. 29. And you crow cock with your comb on.

What is the conceit here; with your cock's comb? Or does he mean, you are a mere dunghill; your comb is not cut, and trimmed for the fight, as I think game-cocks are served.

P. 33.

unpav'd Eunuch.

Does he mean, unstoned (sine testiculis), from the metaphor of paving with stones?

P. 35. 1. ult.

in self-figur'd knot.

This may be right; but should not you like better, "self-finger'd knot."

So Troilus, p. 358:

And with another knot five-finger-tied.

P. 42. a-churning on.

This is ex Cathedrá Popiand. Do you like it? The old Editions have it, "a German one." And this, in my opinion, makes a climax. Are any boars better fed, or more likely to be rank, than those of Westphalia?

P. 44. With oaks unscaleable.

Certainly this should be rocks. I think the whole speech warrants it.Poor ignorant baubles! - Pray, have you observed, our Poet frequently uses ignorant in the sense of weak, impotent ? P. 45. Behoves me keep at variance.

What does Mr. Pope mean here? Mr. Rowe reads, with the old copies," at utterance;" i. e. at the utmost extremities. So, in Macbeth, p. 222:

Come Fate into the list,

And champion me to th' utterance.

P. 53. Some jay of Italy

(Whose mother was her painting) &c.

* Afterwards Dr. Robert Taylor; of whom see before, p. 46.

Sure

I am, my dearest Friend, your truly affectionate and obliged humble servant, LEW. THEOBald.

Sure I am dull beyond the knowledge of myself; or how could this escape you? Or, do you understand it? Mr. Rowe's Edition (I hope not by chance) reads, as I think right,

Whose Wother was her painting.

Wother, in Saxon, signifies beauty, merit, ornament. —So Imogen means, I conceive, that all the harlot's beauty was her being painted, as all the jay's consists in the gaiety of its feathers. P. 54. Dis-edg'd by her.

Is this a term in Hawking? Does it signify, have the edge of thy stomach taken off?

If brothers, would it had been so,

The pointing here, I think, is entirely mistaken. I read it, 'mongst friends,

If brothers;

This is warranted from what she says, p. 107:

You call'd me brother when I was but your sister:

I, you brothers, when ye were so indeed.

Ibid. Then had my prize been less.

Should not this be price, or rather poize, as better answering to ballasting, or balancing?

P. 66. It strikes me past the hope of comfort.

Does not the sense require, holpe, or help?

P. 68. I dare speak it to myself, for it is vain-glory, &c.

Is it so? I do not think that was Cloten's opinion.

I would restore,

for it is not vain-glory, &c.

Ibid. Imperseverant thing.

Is the im here, as the grammarians call it, epitattic; otherwise, I think, it does not answer the Poet's meaning.

P. 74. Though his honour was nothing but mutation.

I do not understand this, according to the present reading. Should it not be, "Though his humour, &c."

P. 81. Who was he that, otherwise than noble Nature did, Hath alter'd that good picture?

I can understand this; yet did, in my opinion, is little more than a dragging expletive. Ought it not to be,

noble Nature bid, &c.

the laws of Nature being against murder.

P. 87. But to look back in front.

This odd reading is from our modern Editors. I know indeed Shakespeare somewhere talks of dragging headlong by the heels, which must be owned as preposterous. But the old copies read here, as it is certain it ought to be restored,

But to look back in frown;

i. e. if you do but frown, and threaten to make opposition.

LETTER

LETTER LXXII.

To Mr. JOHN WATTS *, Printer.

SIR, Dec. 16, 1732. Understanding that Mr. Theobald is going to publish an Edition of Shakespeare, I send you herewith a few remarks which I made in reading that Author in Mr. Pope's small Edition. As I am very well satisfied with Mr. Theobald's capacity for the

* Who was then employed on Mr. Theobald's Shakespeare, and of whom see the "Literary Anecdotes, vol. I. pp. 62, 292. + SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS; Mr. Pope's Second Edition, 1728. Vol. I.-Tempest, p. 57:

Prosp.

shall dissolve And like this unsubstantial pageant faded Leave not a rack behind.

Probably track or trace.

Midsummer Night's Dream, p. 79:

Lys.

either it was different in blood

Hermia. O cross! too high, to be enthrall'd to love.
Lys. Or else misgraffed in respect of years -
Hermia. O spight! too old to be engaged to young.

From the like opposition in the following lines, I should conjecture that it should be read,

too high to be enthrall'd to low.

Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I. Scene 1, p. 142:

What is there degraded (as Mr. Pope calls it) to the bottom of the page, though bad enough, cannot, I think, be left out without making the following lines nonsense.

Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I. Scene 1, p. 216 :

Falst. What say you, Scarlet and John?

These epithets seem to be used in allusion to Robin Hood's two companions Will Scarlet and Little John. See 2 Henry IV. Act V. Scene 5, p. 231:

O that my husband

Read, O if my husband

Vol. II. - Comedy of Errors, Act II. Scene 2, p. 15:
Adr. Are my discourses dull? barren my wit?

If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,
Unkindness blots it more than marble hard.

Read blunts.

LETTER LXXIII.

To Mr. LEWIS THEOBALD.

MY DEAR FRIEND, May 17, 1734. I received the favour of yours of the 9th instant. I rejoice heartily in your good fortunes, and am glad to find the Town in a disposition to do you justice *. As for the mention of Bellerus Old the vision of the guarded mount-the hold of Namances and Boyona, in the Poem of Lycidas; you are to observe, the Author bewails a friend drowned in the Irish seas; and in the passage in question a famous story in the Fabulous History of Ireland is alluded to. You will find the particular Fable in Sir James Ware's" Antiquities and History of Ireland;" and in another in folio likewise, published since, of the Fabulous History of Ireland. It seems Philips is about giving an Edition of these Poems.

I have transcribed about fifty emendations and remarks, which I have at several times sent you, omitted in the Edition of Shakespeare; which, I am sure, are better than any of mine published there. These I shall convey to you soon, and desire you to publish them (as omitted by being mislaid) in your Edition of the "Poems," which I hope you will soon make ready for the press. Four subscriptions due to you, of the last payments, are yet unpaid for. The gentlemen who owe them I am going to visit, when I shall receive the money. I will send it.

I desire you to let me know when you are ready for the above-mentioned, and I shall take care to transmit them to you.

You did not give me your opinion of Jortin's performance, nor what he meant by it. I am, dearest Sir, yours most affectionately, W. WARBURTON.

* This series of Letters, it is to be recollected, was subsequen to the publication of Theobald's Shakespeare.

† Did Theobald ever publish Shakespeare's Poems ›

t

Mr. Jortin published in 1734, without his name, an octavo volume of "Remarks on Spenser ;" and at the end of it gave also some "Remarks on Milton."

LETTER