Though Mr. Kenrick, in his preface, discovers that his capital quarrel with Mr. Johnson is his accepting a penfion. Yet we believe he would be glad of furnishing his adverfary an oppor tunity to attack him on the fame account. In this fame very remarkable preface, our author has given us fome anecdotes both ancient and modern.

In the primitive state of society, a fuperiority of intellectual abilities was the foundation of all civil pre-eminence; and hence the fceptre continued to be fwayed by fuperior wisdom through a fucceffion of ages. The acquifitions of science and learning were held among the ancients, in no less esteem than thofe of conqueft, and in as much greater than the poffeffions of royalty, as a chaplet of laurel was preferred to a coronet of mere gems and gold. Xenophon reaped more honour from his Cyropædia, than from the famous retreat of the ten thousand; and Cæfar still more from his commentary, than from all the military exploits recorded in it. As to the examples of modern times; to fay nothing of James and Chriftina, left it be objected that one was a weak man, and the other a foolish woman; we have seen the kings of Prussia and of Poland, the Alexander and the Neftor of our age, ambitious to become authors, and be made denizons of our little ftate. Frederick hath been more than once heard to fay, he would give his crown, and Stanislaus, if he had not loft it, would have given another, to poffefs the fcientific fame of Leibnitz, or the literary reputation of Voltaire.'

Really, Mr. Kenrick, we believe very little of what you affert in this paffage, with regard either to Xenophon or to Cæfar. As to his prefent Pruffian Majefty, it is true he is an author, (and a very indifferent one he is) but we do not think him fuch a fool as to have made the declaration you put into his mouth. Leibnitz ftood but in the fecond degree of philofophy; and the fashion of Voltairifin is daily and juftly declining from that station, which, to the reproach of learning, religion, and common fenfe, it once poffeffed.

This Drawcanfir of a Reveiwer opens his work with a spccimen of his critical abilities, by correcting the following paffage in the Tempeft, vol. i. p. 8.

PROS. to MIR.

I have with fuch provision in mine art
So fafely order'd that there is no soul:
No, not fo much perdition as an hair

Betid to any creature in the veffel, &c.'

Tho' we admit that Warburton's, Theobald's, and Johnson's remarks on this paffage are all abfurd; yet, we think, our Reviewer has been ingenious enough to excel them even in abfur

dity; for he reads, inftead of there is no souL, there is no ILL.' We will venture to fay, that there is no man of plain fenfe in the kingdom, who could suspect a depraved reading in this paffage, as it stood originally. Shakespeare fays, neither more or less, than that

there is no foul-viz. perdition

Nay, not fo much perdition as an hair,

Betid to any creature, &c.'

Well may Mr. Kenrick adopt, the clench of ILL-BETIDE such commentators!

We think this author's reflections upon Mr. Johnson's belief of witchcraft are illiberal, perfonal, and dragged in without having the leaft relation to his fubject.-He animadverts on Mr. Johníon for retaining the old reading in the following paffage, vol. i. p. 15.

ARIEL.

Not a foul

But felt a fever of the mad, and plaid

Some tricks of defperation:'

Mr. Kenrick is for fubftituting a fever of the mind. Mr. Johnfon is undoubtedly right in reitoring the old reading. Admitting it not to be quite idiomatical, yet it is poffeffed of ftrength fufficient to maintain its place against mere conjecture. Ex uno difce omnes. The rest of his review of this play is of a piece with the fpecimens here exhibited.—Our limits will not permit us to follow this critic through the rest of his paultry obfervations. His deriving the word feedary from the word foedus, a covenant, is an inftance of ignorance hardly to be paralleled. The beft English writers fay feodum, instead of feudum. A feodary therefore is one who owes fuit and fervice to his fuperior. Warburton's inaccuracy in fpelling the word feuda, which is the Scottish term, instead of feoda, has brought our critic into a blunder. A feodary is no other than a Jervant, an agent; and the very inftance brought by this Reviewer from Cymbeline confirms it ; Art thou a feodary (art thou an agent) for this work?'

Mr. Kenrick, in his rage of hypercriticisin, gives us the following curious differtation upon the word warp, in the celebrated fong in As you like it.

The word warp has been very differently used by different writers it is ufed by fome to mean contract or frivel, or turn afide, &c. and a certain lexicographer, in his folio dictionary, quotes this very line to fhew that it is used to exprefs the effects of froft. But may we not pertinently ask him, what these effects are? Does he mean to fay, that Shakespeare hath used it here in a fenfe different from its moft general and obvious meaning

meaning? If he does, he does not understand the poet; if he does not, he knows not how to write a dictionary. To warp,

here means neither to contract, nor to turn afide; for the body of water in freezing is dilated, not contracted; and though the froft may arreft or stop water in its paffage, I don't know that it alters its course.

The word waters, indeed, doth not mean here, as fome have fuppofed, water in the abftract, as a fluid in general; it means alio neither the waving, multitudinous, fea, nor the rapid unfreezing rivers, but fuch inland pools, lakes, and other stagnant or flowly-moving pieces of water that are fubject to be affected by froft. Now, it is well known that the furface of fuch waters, as is here meant, fo long as they remain fluid, i. e. unfrozen, is apparently a perfect plane; whereas when they are frozen, this furface deviates from its exact flatnefs, or warps. This is peculiarily remarkable in fmail ponds, the surface of which, when frozen, forms a regular concave; the ice on the fides rifing higher than that in the middle. Thus we fee that Shakespeare need not to be obliged to any lexicographer for admitting the latitude of his exprethon, as he here uies the word carp in its primitive and moit general fignification; to make a thing caft or bind, as boards do when they are cut before they, are thoroughly dry, or when they are put to the fire.'

What a pity it is that this whole display of critical and natu ral knowledge fhould be entirely thrown away; fince nothing is more certain, than that Shakespeare meant no more by war ing, but fixing or freezing the waters. The allufion is drawn, from the operation of weavers, who warp, that is, fix their worsted or yarn in their looms before they work it.

Mr. Kenrick's changing Hyen for Hyad, in Rotalind's fpeech. in As you like it, is one of the moft ingenious pieces of abfurdity we have feen. The metaphor, as it ftands in the original, is not indeed very happy; but if Pliny and the ancients conveyed to the moderns a notion that the Hyæna could imitate a man's voice fo well as to call him out by his name, and then devour him; why may not the Hyæna laugh as well as fpeak? We are however miftaken, if the laughing of the Hyæna, as well as the tears of the Crocodile, is not mentioned by fome of the old travellers. After all Mr. Kenrick's exultations at the discovery of the meaning of the word l'envey, in Love's Labour Left, his etymology is but fantaftical; nor is it juftied by the Trevoux Dictionary, which feems to be the ne pus ultra of his French learning. We fhall give him credit for his retaining the word knot in the fame play; but we see no authority he has for fuppofing the king to be a wounded knot, or bird, fo called. When we reflect, that he fteps afide and con

ceals himself in a bufh, while he discovers the lovers, fo ás fo be as invisible as a gnat, the badness of the rhimes is removed by reading gnat instead of knot; but this is mere conjecture.

Mr. Kenrick triumphs most unmercifully over Mr. Johnson's notes on the following paffage in the Winter's Tale :

How would he look to fee his work, fo noble,

Vilely bound up!

We agree with him that Mr. Johnfon's is indeed a moft vile note; but a man of honour, fpirit, or virtue, would be chronicled to all eternity for a dunce, rather than be guilty of the illiberal perfonal abufe of Mr. Johnson, with which he has filled up the remaining part of this article. In the fame play, the clown makes ufe of the following expreffion, • Advocate's the court-word for a pheafant.' Mr. Kenrick is of opinion, that inftead of pheasant, we ought to read present: We own this is not an intolerable conjecture, tho' we have fome fufpicion that Shakespeare might have an allusion to the French word faifant.-In Twelfth Night, Sir Toby says to Sir Andrew, Why doft thou not go to church in a galliard, and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a jig! I would not fo much as make water, but in a fink-a-pace.' The conceit, fays he, of making water in a fink-a-pace, is fo low and vile, that I cannot give into the notion that Shakespeare, fond as he feems of punning and playing upon words, was the author of it.' We can find no manner of conceit, punning, or playing, in the words. Even fo late as our own time, the term fink-a-pace was made ufe of by dancing-masters, when they were teaching the courant, or the minuet. The fink means the inflection of the knee that is neceffary in thofe dances. We will not, however, quarrel with Mr. Kenrick, if he fhould boldly reftore the cinque-pace.

We cannot afford any farther room for animadverfions upon this hypercritical production of a writer who feems to understand at least as little of Shakespeare as Mr. Johnfon. The groping about for the fenfe in a few particular paffages, as the Revifer of Shakespeare's text and the Reviewer of Johnfon have done, is playing at blind-man's-buff with that great author. To retrieve his language, and to fix his expreffions to the meaning they bore in his days, is the best service that can be now done to the memory of Shakespeare. It is a kind of criticism that can admit of no difpute; because we can venture to appeal to living authorities for ascertaining the meaning of almost every word which Shakespeare's commentators, editors, and annotators, have given up as defperate.

ART. III.

II. The Divine Legation of Mofes demonftrated. In nine Books, The Fourth Edition, corrected and enlarged. By William, Lord Bishop of Gloucefter. Five Vols. 8vo. Pr. 5s. each. Millar.

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S the author has now completed this voluminous work, we fhall lay before our readers a diftin&t view of the argument by which he undertakes to demonftrate the divine legation of Mofes. This, we apprehend, will be more useful than any particular account of this new edition; and will not be disagreeable to those who want to gain an idea of this ela borate demonftration without the trouble of attending the author through all the remote and dark corners of antiquity, and the tedious procefs of thefe myfterious volumes.'

We shall not interrupt the author's train of reafoning by many remarks. This work has been the subject of controverly for several years; and, in the learned world, its merit is fufficiently known.

Take his lordship's account of the argument.

In reading the law and hiftory of the Jews, with all the attention I could give to them, amongft the many circumstances peculiar to that amazing difpenfation (from feveral of which, as I conceive, the divinity of its original may be fairly proved) thefe two particulars moft forcibly ftruck my obfervation, The omiffion of the doctrine of a Future State, and the adminiftration of an Extraordinary Providence. As unaccountable as the first circumftance appeared when confidered feparately and alone, yet when fet against the other, and their mutual relations examined and compared, the omiffion was not only well explained, but was found to be an invincible medium for the proof of the divine legation of Mofes which, as unbelievers had been long accustomed to decry from this very cir cumftance, I chofe it preferably to any other. The argument appeared to me in a fupreme degree ftrong and fimple, and not needing many words to enforce it, or, when inforced, to make it well understood.

Religion hath always been held neceffary to the fupport of civil fociety, because human laws alone are ineffectual to reftrain men from evil, with a force fufficient to carry on the affairs of public regimen: and (under the common difpenfation of Providence) a future ftate of rewards and punishments is confeffed to be as neceffary to the fupport of religion, becaufe nothing else can remove the objections to God's moral government under a providence fo apparently unequal; whofe phanomena are apt to difturb the serious profeffors of religion with doubts and fufpicions concerning it, as it is of the effence VOL. XX. November, 1765. Z

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