that virtue is the fource of happinefs in every fcene of existence, he concludes with this pathetic addrefs to his reader, on the importance of a religious life.

Immortality, reader, is no fable. Immortality is not the fiction of priests to awe and enflave the world. Eternity is no dream, no ideal romantic illufion. God hath promised it: that Being, whofe veracity is inviolable, hath appointed us the heirs of it. This inheritance, to which we are thus raised, is not indeed in this life. This is not our home. This is not the Chriftian's portion, or the Christian's reft. We can only in this probationary fcene anticipate its joys, and by devout meditations antedate the unutterable vaftness and plenitude of its felicity. This inheritance is in reverfion. It is beyond the grave. Religion infures it to us. Death will introduce us to We must pass through the valley of the fhadow of death before the fight of its happy fhores falute our enraptured view. This earthly houfe of our tabernacle must be diffolved before we fully know the joys which God hath prepared for those who love him.'

it.

32. Practical Christianity, illußrated in Nine Tracts on Various Subjects. By Samuel Walker, A. B. 12mo. Pr. 35.

Dilly.

This performance is adapted to the taste of those readers, who, inftead of improving their understandings, and rectifying their errors, doze over a religious book, deploring the corruption and impotency of their mental powers.

The author reprefents human nature as effentially earthly, fenfual, devilish,' and mankind as a race of beings under a moral impoffibility either of difcerning, willing or effecting any one, the least fpiritual or divine thing.'

He speaks of Chriftianity, in the title of this work, as a practicable fyftem, but is not this incompatible with doctrines which reprefent Chriftians in general as mere paflive inftruments in the hands of God? Or, however, are not the pofitions abovementioned calculated to extinguish every spark of generous emulation, and fink the mind in a state of spiritual flumber?

The whole merit of this book confifts in the author's piety. There is no ingenuity in the compofition. In the ninth article every paragraph refounds with a repetition of the text, there is but a fep between me and death *. This, we fuppofe, might

1 Sam. xx, 3.

have its effect on fome of Mr. Walker's congregation at Truro, but can never fupply the place of an argument, or be agreeable to a judicious reader.

33. Strictures on the Commentary and Conference of the Reverend Mr. Dodd, Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majefty: with Reflections on the Reverend Mr. Heathcote's Ufe of Reason.' By Mr. Antininny T. 800. Pr. 25. Folingby.

This author attacks Mr. Dodd moft unmercifully, and in many inftances, we muft confefs, very juftly. But Mr. Antininny has his foibles; he is a profeffed admirer of Hutchinson, and explains the hiftory of the creation upon the principles of that celebrated writer of gibberish. The following paragraph may entertain the reader, and give him a fufficient idea of the comments of Mr. Dodd, and the ftrictures of Mr. Antininny.

Mr. Dodd hath, he fays, diligently confulted the best and most able writers upon the facred Scriptures, with the Jewish writers, to the number of, I can't tell how many; and therefore we may conclude, he hath compressed and confolidated the light, to be had from them, into a body of natural philosophy, the best that could be had, from fo many Chriftian writers, befides the Jewish, for the benefit of his reader: and what that is, we have juft feen. I would not fuppofe he has played those able writers falfe, and given us, as their fenfe, what they never give, as their own; for in truth, many of them are able writers; but rather, that he has only dipped into some of them, or that they have not pretended to explain the creation, or the flood; but taking it for granted, as in good manners I must, that he has read them all, and that he could get nothing better from them, than what we have been a confidering, let him blame no man for faying, a better account was wanted, than they could give, till he has joftified that account to the world. Darkness he annihilates; the Spirit he makes a God of; the light he makes a ghost of; it comes in and out at the keyhole, is nothing, but juft while it appears; it flides about, comes, is gone; nobody knows where, nor how; nor what becomes of it, or what it is fed and supported by, while it is here; in short, he might as well have called it a privation of darkness, as he does darkness a privation of light, and rid his hands, as he hath his thoughts, of the trouble of both at once. His chaos is a most curious olla podrida, and I have set it before the reader, as a curiofity. The firmament, called the strength of God, is dwindled down into the elafticity of the air; the waters that covered the whole furface, and fill the great womb of the earth, he lodges in the mouths of that great fea; ftoring

the

the atmosphere, tho' with a body of them, thick enough to have as entirely darkened the fun, and intercepted all benefit from it to the earth, as a brafs wall would have done, for fixteen hundred years to the flood, that the clouds might have rain enough, for fear the great deep should not, to drown the earth; and down they come; and then run off the declivity of the earth into the feas, which now could hold them all, but before were not big enough; and what was very good of them, they were fo civil as not to mount again to their cock loft in the air, left every bumpkin should laugh at their being there, when it was visible that they were not. There are other curious ob. fervations and difcoveries in Mr. Dodd's notes, which I have taken pains to expand, for the benefit of careless readers; for he has an art of compreffing his matter together, that you shall often find more of it in four lines in him, than in twice four pages in Behmen or Bunyan. But I have done with them for the prefent, till what relates to the revelation of christianity comes, together with his explanation of the Cherubim; when perhaps we may lay our loggerheads together once more; only I must now have a word or two with him, on fome paffages in his Conference.

It is not neceffary, we apprehend, to give any particular ac-. count of our author's reflections on Mr. Heathcote's book, as every body knows in what manner Mr. Hutchinson, and his followers, have declaimed against reafon in matters of religion.

34. The Novellift, or Tea-Table Mifcellany; containing the felect Novels of Dr. Croxall, with other polite Tales, and pieces of modern Entertainment. Two Vols. 12mo. Pr. 6s. Lowndes. This collection contains, befides what is taken from Dr. Croxall, feveral papers from the Rambler, Adventurer, and other inferior performances.-Though many of the stories are trite, yet they may prove entertaining to the younger clafs of readers.

* Viz. A Conference between a Myftic, an Hutchinfonian, a Calvinift, a Methodist, a Member of the Church of England, and others; printed, without the author's name, in the year 176r.;

THE

CRITICAL REVIEW.

For the Month of December, 1765.

ARTICLE I.

The Plays of Shakespeare, with the Corrections and Illuftrations of various Commentators. To which are added Notes, by Samuel Johnfon. VIII. Vols. 8vo. Pr. 2l. 8s.

Pr. 21. 8s.

Tonfon.

AVING in our laft Number reviewed Mr. Johnson's pre

H face, and differed from him who differs from (we believe)

all Englishmen in their ideas of Shakespeare's genius and merit, we now proceed to investigate his edition of that great poet, as to particular paffages, and the emendations he has either introdu'ced or admitted, by which the fervice he has done the literary world, as an editor of Shakespeare, muft ftand or fall.

We have already expofed the critical fagacity that altered foul to foil, and ill, in Profpero's fpeech to Miranda in the Tempeft. In the fame play our editor has the following moft extraordinary note. deck'd the fea.] To deck the sea, if explained, to honour, adorn, or dignify, is indeed ridiculous; but the original import of the verb deck is, to cover; fo in fome parts they yet fay deck the table: this fenfe may be born, but perhaps the poet wrote fleck'd, which I think is still used of drops falling upon water. Dr. Warburton reads mock'd, the Oxford edition brack'd.'

We shall not contend whether the word deck'd is proper here; but if an alteration is neceffary, why not fubftitute eck'd or eik'd, which is to encrease the fea; as Jaques in the Winter's Tale is faid to have augmented the brook with tears. As to the word fleck'd being fill used for drops falling into the water, we are by no means fatisfied that the English use it in that fenfe, tho' perhaps the French do. The old English fignification of the word fleck was Spotted or flea-bitten.

In Trincalo's fpeech, where he mentions a foul bumbard that would shed his liquor,' Mr. Johnfon fuffers Theobald's note to ftand, in which he fays that the word bumbard meant VOL. XX. December, 1765.

Dd

a

ers.

a large veffel for holding drink, as well as the piece of ordnance fo called.' We ftrongly fufpect, and the authorities brought by Theobald from Shakespeare confirm it, that the foul bumbards mentioned here, are neither more nor less than full bumpWe have already (fee vol. xix. p. 166.) given our reason, which is very different from Mr. Johnson's, why the word third ought to ftand in Profpero's speech, act iv. fcene 1. and we cannot conceive to what fpecies of obftinacy it must be owing that he did not replace the word twilled, if he faw our obfervations on the word (ibid.) To this day, where the undulations of the waves produce thofe fmall ridges that are often difcernible on the fands of the shore, they are called the twill'd fands : our editor tells us in his note, that he does not understand the word.

In fcene iv. of the last act of the fame play, where Ferdinand and Mirando are difcovered at chefs, the latter fays, that she would fuffer him to play her falfe for a score of kingdoms,” which Mr. Johnfon and Dr. Gray very fagacioufly interpret to be twenty kingdoms-we have no idea why Miranda fhould confine herself to the number twenty. Every one knows what it is to Score up at play-yes (fays the) if every score was a kingdom I would fuffer you.

We have already (ib. p. 167.) explained the meaning of the line, The human mortals want their winter here." But Mr. Johnfon has loaded his page with notes and conjectures, void of probability, upon the fame paffage. He admits and confequently approves of Theobald's alteration of the two following lines in the firft fcene of the fourth act of the Midfummer's Night's Dream.

Titania, mufick call, and frike more dead

Than common fleep; of all these fine the fenfe." Mr. Johnfon, upon Theobald's authority, changes those two lines into

Titania, mufick call; and ftrike more dead

*Than common fleep of all these five the fenfe.'

We can by no means fee the propriety of this alteration. The word fine here fignifies mulare, and confequently Titania does the very thing Oberon defires. She fines or deprives them of their fenfe. Would mufick (fays Mr. Theobald) that was to trike them into a deeper fleep than ordinary, contribute to fine (or refine) their fenfes ?" Mr. Johnfon has omitted this part of Theobald's note, tho' the abfurdity of it is the only authority he could have for admitting the alteration into his text,

In the Two Gentlemen of Verona, when Speed calls the lady a laced mutton, (icene 2d, a&t ift,) Mr. Theobald has the following notable note, which Mr. Johnfon has admitted.