I, a loft Mutton, gave your letter to her, a lac'd Mutton;] Speed calls himself a loft Mutton, because he had loft his mafter, and because Protheus had been proving him a Sheep. But why does he call the lady a lac'd Mutton? Wenchers are to this day called Mutton-mongers; and confequently the object of their paffion muft, by the metaphor, be the Mutton. And Cotgrave, in his English-French Dictionary, explains Lac'd Mutton, Une Garfe, putain, fille de joye. And Mr. Motteux has rendered this paffage of Rabelais, in the prologue of his fourth book, Cailles coiphees mignonnement chantans, in this manner; Coated Quails and laced Mutton waggishly finging. So that lac'd Mutton has been a fort of ftandard phrafe for Girls of Pleafure. THEOBALD.' This is another fpecimen of Mr. Johnfon's difcernment, for we will venture to say that no man can read this note without having an idea that the mutton spoken of here is a real fheep; hor has the dictionary-monger and tranflator cleared up the matter. The fact is, that mouton lacè was a tuft of falfe hair, which the ladies of thofe times laced to their natural hair. That kind of falfe hair is now called a tête de mouton, Cincinni muliebres ad frontem, or the front curls of a woman's head.

In the fourth scene of the fame act it is hard to say whether Mr. Theobald or Mr. Johnfon is guilty of the greatest mistake upon Panthion's faying that,

youthful Valentine,

Attends the emperor in his royal court.'

Says Mr. Theobald, this forgetfulness and contradiction, viż. of Valentine being at Milan when he is faid to be at the emperor's court, may perhaps, be folved, as fince the reign of Charlemaigne, this dukedom and its territories have belonged to the emperors.' Says Mr. Johnson, Mr. Theobald discovers not any great skill in hiftory. Vienna is not the court of the emperor as emperor, nor has Milan been always without its princes fince the days of Charlemagne." Indeed, Mr. Johnfon, Theobald is fo far in the right, that the city of Milan was the capital of the emperor in Lombardy, and he always was crowned there. Your fhrewd obfervation of Milan

not having been always without its princes fince the days of Charlemaigne,' is nothing to the purpose, because those princes were vaffals to the empire, and received their inveftitures from the emperors, whofe prefence always fuperfeded their territorial privileges; witnefs the hiftories of the Visconti, the Galeazzi, and the Sforza families, who all reigned in Milan, but as vaffals to the emperor. Says Mr. Theobald, in the fame note, but without any mark of reprobation from Mr. Johnfon," I wish, I could as eafily folve another abfurdity which en

counters us, of Valentine's going from Verona to Milan, both inland places, by fea.' But does Shakespeare speak a fingle word of Valentine's going from Verona to Milan by fea?-We believe not. He speaks indeed of a fhip that was to carry him from Verona, or the Veronefe, to Milan, or the Milanefe. But every one knows that the veffels which then plied upon the Po and the Adige, tho' not fo large as barks are now, were called fhips; and where was the abfurdity of Shakespeare in fuppofing, what is extremely probable, that Valentine went the whole or the greatest part of his journey by one or other of those rivers, without being within fifty miles of the fea?

In the firft fcene of the fourth act, Mr. Johnfon in a note tells us that, Robin Hood was captain of a band of robbers, and was much inclined to rob churchmen.' We believe there never was fuch a perfon as Robin Hood, and that it is a very natural corruption of the word robbinghood, or the fociety of robbers, in the fame manner as we fay brotherhood, ffterhood, prisfihood, and the like. Thofe hoods were very common in the northern parts, for fome time after the Norman invasion; and after they were fuppreffed, it was very natural for priests and foreigners to coin a Robin Hood out of the robbing hood, which has been thereby contracted into a fingle perfon ever fince. The duke opens the first scene of Meafure for Measure, in fpeaking to Efcalps, as follows:

• Efcalus,

Efcal. My Lord.

Duke. Of government the properties t' unfold,
Would feem in me t' affect speech and discourse.
Since I am not to know, that your own fcience
Exceeds, in that, the lifts of all advice

My ftrength can give you: then no more remains:
But that to your fufficiency, as your worth is able,
And let them work.'-

We fhall not here examine Mr. Theobald's abfurd note, becaufe Mr. J. by not admitting it, is not anfwerable for it. His own is as follows:

Sir Thomas Hanmer having caught from Mr. Theobald a hint that a line was loft, endeavours to fupply it thus.

-Then no more remains,

But that to your fufficiency you join

A will to ferve us, as your worth is able.

He has by this bold conjecture undoubtedly obtained a meaning, but perhaps not, even in his own opinion, the meaning of Shakespeare.

That the paffage is more or lefs corrupt, I believe every reader will agree with the editors. I am not convinced that a

line is loft, as Mr. Theobald conjectures, nor that the change. of but to put, which Dr. Warburton has admitted after fome other editor, will amend the fault. There was probably fome original obfcurity in the expreffion, which gave occafion to mistake in repetition or tranfcription. I therefore fufpect that the author wrote thus,

Then no more remains,

But that to your fufficiencies your worth is abled,
And let them work.

Then nothing remains more than to tell you that your virtue is now invested with power equal to your knowledge and wifdom. Let therefore your knowledge and your virtue now work together. It may eafily be conceived how fufficiencies was, by an inarticulate fpeaker, or inattentive hearer, confounded with fufficiency as, and how abled, a word very unusual, was changed into able. For abled, however, an authority is not wanting: Lear uses it in the same sense, or nearly the fame, with the Duke. As for fufficiencies, D. Hamilton, in his dying speech, prays that Charles II. may exceed both the virtues and fufficiencies of his father.

The terms

For common juftice you're as pregnant in.]

The later editions all give it, without authority, the terms of juftice, and Dr. Warburton makes terms fignify bounds or limits. I rather think the Duke meant to fay, that Efcalus was prefent, that is, ready and knowing in all the forms of law, and, among other things, in the terms or times fet apart for its adminiftration,'

After all this fhrewd reafoning, Dr. Warburton certainly is in the right, tho' he seems not to know why, for the word naturally referred to, was the duke's firength or power in government, which, when joined to the fufficiency or abilities of Efcalus, were equal to the talk of the latter's government, by a delegated authority. We cannot, partly for the reafons Mr. Johnfon gives himself, agree to the alteration of prone in the fixth fcene of the fame play for prompt, or any other word, for in her youth

There is a prone and speechlefs dialect,

Such as moves men!.

The sense is extremely clear, and in the manner of Shakefpeare, according to the old reading.

We cannot imagine why Mr. Johnfon fhould give admittance to Warburton's ridiculous note on the following speech,

Why, all the fouls that were, were forfeit once.2

Dd 3

merely

merely because it is not good divinity; and that therefore the first were should be changed to are. It is evident by what follows,

And he, that might the 'vantage beft have took,

Found out the remedy.'

that tho' Ifabella may not be a very accurate divine, yet it is plain, fhe fpeaks of the fouls that were forfeited at the time the remedy firft was found out.—Mr. Johnson in the fame fcene has the following note:

But ere they live to end.] This is very fagacioufly substi tuted by Sir Thomas Hanmer for, but here they live.' This conjecture is fo far from being fagacious, that it makes the paffage ftark nonfenfe. The whole is as follows.

--Now, 'tis awake;

Takes note of what is done; and like a prophet,
Looks in a glafs that fhews what future evils,
Or new, or by remiffnefs new-conceiv'd,
And fo in progress to be hatch'd and born,
Are now to have no fucceffive degrees;
But ere they live to end.'

In the name of common fenfe, where is the difference between ere and here, which was the old reading? The bere plainly refers to their being conceived in the prophetic glass, and confequently they were to be ended ere they lived in the world.

In the firft fcene of As you like it, Mr. Johnfon agrees with Dr. Warburton in reading fys me here at home, instead of stays me here at home. If we had found the word fys in the origi nal, we should not perhaps have ventured any emendation; but we are so far from thinking there is a neceffity for any here, that we apprehend the amendment offered, to be a fort of tautology, and fomewhat of an anticlimax; to fpeak more properly, fys me here at home, unkept; for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an OX ?' This is the fame as faying, I am flyed like a hog, nay, Į am ftalled like an ox; whereas, by retaining the original word the abfurdity is removed. Mr. Johnson admits, without any reprehenfion, Warburton's emendation, in the second scene, of revenue for reverence.

In the fourth fcene of this act, Cælia fays to her friend Rofalind, Let us fit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally. Mr. Johnfon's note upon this humorous paffage is as follows. The wheel of Fortune is not the wheel of a bousewife. Shakespeare has confounded Fortune, whofe wheel only figure's

figures uncertainty and viciffitude with the Destiny that spins the thread of life, though indeed not with a wheel." We can by no means fee how Shakespeare has confounded the wheel with the diftaff; as the Spinning wheel and the wheel of Fortune have the fame form and figure. Cælia speaks of her and her companion, placing themfelves at the wheel of Fortune.

In the feventh scene of the same act, Orlando says,

My better parts

Are all thrown down; and that, which here ftands up,
Is but a quintaine, a meer lifeless block.'

Mr. Johnson gives us Dr. Warburton's note upon this paffage, who obferves that a Quintaine was a post or butt set up for several kinds of martial exercises, against which they threw their darts, and exercised their arms.' This is but an imperfect (to call it no worfe) explanation of a beautiful paffage. The quintaine was not the object of the darts and arms: it was a ftake driven into a field, upon which were hung a fhield and other trophies of war, at which they fhot, darted, or rode, with a lance. When the fhield and the trophies were all thrown down, the quintaine remained. Without this information how could the reader understand the allufion of

--my better parts

Are all thrown down;'

This quintaine feems to have been of very old ftanding; Virgil, in defcribing the trophies of Mezentius, fays,

Ingentem quercum, decifis undique ramis,

Conftituit tumulo, fulgentiaque induit arma.

In the fixth scene of the second act, Mr. Johnson admits of Theobald's alteration of bow merry are my Spirits into how weary are my fpirits ? And he tells us that the clown's reply makes this reading certain. We think that Rofalind's rejoinder makes the original reading certain: I must comfort (fays he) the weaker veffel, as doublet and hofe ought to fhew itself courageous to petticoat.' From this fpeech (which we are to fuppofe Calia not to hear) Rofalind affects a merrinefs of fpirits. In the fame fcene, the clown fays, I remember the wooing of a peafcod instead of her, from whom I took two cods, and giving her them again, faid with weeping tears, wear these for my fake.' Mr. Johnfon obferves, that for cods it would be more like sense to read peas, which having the hape of pearls, refembled the common prefents of lovers.' Mr. Johnson feems to have forgotten that the clown took the two cods from his miftrefs. We fufpect there is fome allufion here to a pillow, which in the northern countries is ftill called Dd4 a cod.