a cod.-Jaques, in his famous foliloquy, fcene ninth of the fame act, mentions the juftice to be

Full of wife faws and modern inftances.'

Upon which Mr. Johnfon remarks, in oppofition to Warburton, that the juftice is full of old fayings, and late examples." We are fomewhat fufpicious, but far from being pofitive, that' Shakespeare might have an allufion in the word modern, to those law-books that are called moderns, if any fuch were called fo in his time. In fcene the third, act the third, fays the clown,

'thou art damn'd, like an ill-roafted egg, all on one fide." Says Mr. Johnfon, of this jeft, I do not fully comprehend the meaning.' Then let him afk the first cook-maid he meets, and he will tell him, that when an egg is roafting, and not turned before the fire, it is ill-roafted, for one fide is too hard and t'other too soft.

In the fong (fcene the fifth, at the third) we have the following stanza, in praise of Rosalind;

Nature presently diftill'd

Helen's cheeks, but not her heart,
Cleopatra's majefty;

Atalanta's better part;

Sad Lucretia's modefty.'

Mr. Johnson, in a long confused note, which we shall not transcribe, can make nothing of this fame Atalanta, and concludes by faying, Shakespeare was no defpicable mythologift, yet he feems here to have mistaken fome other chara&er for that of Atalanta.' On the contrary, we believe that honeft Shakespeare, in the dictionaries of his times, met with one Atalanta, who was Jafon's daughter, and who, after wounding the Calydonian boar, vowed perpetual virginity. The poet had just before mentioned two lewd characters, Helen and Cleopatra, and he contrafts their wantonnefs with Atalanta's better part, chastity, and Lucretia's modefty. Some, perhaps, may think, that Atalanta's better part alludes to Rofalind's quickness in repartee; as a page or two after, Jaques fays to Orlando, You have a nimble wit, I think it was made of Atalanta's heels;' alluding to the well known ftory of the other Atalanta's fwiftness.

We cannot agree either with Dr. Warburton or Mr. Johnson, in finding out nonfenfe in Rofalind's faying one inch of delay more is a South-fea of difcovery.' The difcoveries made in the South-fea at that time, we may easily suppose to have been extremely flow, painful, and irksome; and any reader of common fenfe muft understand that to be Rofalind's meaning.

Here comes Sir Oliver Sir Oliver Mar-text,' fays the

clown,

clown, in the fame a&t. Mr. Johnson's note upon this paffage is fo curious, that it is worth tranfcribing:

He that has taken his first degree at the University, is, in the academical ftile, called Dominus, and in common language was heretofore termed Sir. This was not always a word of. contempt; the graduates affumed it in their own writings; fo Trevifa, the hiftorian, writes himself Syr John de Trevifa.'

Had Mr. Johnfon been more of an antiquarian, he would have been a much better editor of Shakespeare. He would then have known that this is no academical, but a pontifical ftile. The popes, not to be behind-hand with our kings before the Reformation, arrogated to themfelves a power of knighthood, both in England and Scotland; and the honour was fold by their legates or agents, to churchmen, who could pay for it, which great numbers did in both kingdoms.

In the tenth fcene, Mr. Johnson admits Dr. Warburton's observation, that a goblet is never kept cover'd, but when empty.' This, we doubt, is fpeaking not only without, but against, authority. Covers were intended to keep dust and infects out of the bowl, as may be proved by a variety of instances, could the thing admit of a dispute.

In Love's Labour Loft (act fecond, fcene firft) Mr. Johnfon, in his note, tells us, that chapman feems to fignify the feller, not as now, commonly, the buyer.' We believe the commiffioners of bankrupts understand chapman to be the feller as well as the buyer; and that the word was always understood in that fenfe. In the second scene of the third act, Coftard fays,

My fweet ounce of man's flesh; my in-cony Jew!'

Incony or kony, in the north, fignifies fine, delicate—as a kony thing, a fine thing. It is plain, therefore, we should read, my in-cony jewel. Cony, has the fignification here given it; but incony, I never heard nor read elsewhere. I know not whether it be right, however fpecious, to change Jew to jewel. Jew, in our author's time, was, for whatever reason, apparently a word of endearment. So in Midfummer Night's Dream,

Moft tender juvenile, and the most lovely Jew.'

Thefe are moft unfortunate criticisms! Conny, or cony, in the North of England, and canny, in Scotland, have the fame fignifications. They mean an artful, fortunate, provident manager; or a perfon who is aufpicious and lucky. A conny or canny foot, is a foot of good luck; inconny, or unconny, is the reverfe; and, therefore, Coftard here applies it with great propriety to Armado, My in conny Jew!'-my ill-boding Jew.

He calls him Jew, on account of his fordid difpofition, and, perhaps, of his complexion likewife, because Armado was a Spaniard. The first part of this fentence alludes to Moth, and the next to Armado, whofe boafted remuneration, we fee, amounts to the whole fum of three farthings.

As we do not propofe to animadvert upon Mr. Johnson's performance, in the difputes he has with Shakespeare's other editors, concerning his author's meaning, on which much may generally be faid on both fides, and both may be in the wrong, we fhall confine ourselves to the paffage where nothing, or next to nothing, can be faid for the alterations which our editor has admitted or introduced. In the fame play (scene the third, of the fourth act) he adopts the following criticifm and emendation. from Theobald:

• So doth the bound his master, the ape bis keeper, the tired horse bis rider.] The pedant here, to run down imitation, fhews that it is a quality within the capacity of beafts: that the dog and ape are taught to copy tricks by their mafter and keeper; and fo is the tired horse by his rider. This laft is a wonderful inftance; but it happens not to be true. The author must have wrote the tryed horfe his rider; i. e. one, exercis'd, and brought to the manage: for he obeys every fign and motion of the rein, or of his rider.'

As we have faid, on other occafions, had we found the word tried in former copies, we fhould fcarcely have dreamed of an emendation, but furely the word tired is much better. Where was our editor's fagacity, when he joined with Mr. Theobald in the idea, that a tired horfe was the fame as a weary or fatigued horse. Every one acquainted with the nature of that noble animal, knows how ftately, how proud, how fond he is of his mafter, when he is tired, that is, caparisoned, dreft out with his. tires of ribbands, knots, embossments, buckles, and his other Phalaræ; and if we miftake not, there exists, at this very day, fuch a trade as that of a horse milliner, whose business is to tire or drefs out horses. If we confult ancient prints and pictures, our ancestors were far more ingenious and coftly, in this branch of millinery, than the prefent age.

In the laft fcene of the fame act, Mr. Johnfon give admittance to a very whimsical alteration of the two following lines: And when love fpeaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heav'n drowfy with the harmony!' Dr. Warburton, inftead of make, reads mark, that is (fays he) in the voice of love alone, is included the voice of all the gods. Alluding to the ancient theogony, that love was the parent and support of all the gods. Hence, as Suidas tells us, Palcephatus wrote a poem, called, "Apsodians "Eça @

φωνή

Qwvn i 2020. The voice and Speech of Venus and Love, which appears to have been a kind of cofmogony; the harmony of which is fo great, that it calms and allays all kinds of disorders; alluding again to the ancient use of mufic, which was to compofe monarchs, when by reafon of the cares of empire, they used to pafs whole nights in reftlefs inquietude.?

Though we entertain an uncommon opinion of Shakespeare's learning, yet, we dare affert, that when he wrote the two Jines in queftion, he had no fuch authors as Suidas or Palcephatus in his eye. Suidas, it is true, does fpeak of one Palæphatus (not Palcephatus) who, he fays, compofed five thousand verfes upon the language and difcourfe of Venus and Cupid; but we cannot find out the leaft authority, why the learned doctor fhould fuppofe it to be a cofmogony, the harmony of which is to great that it calms and allays all diforders. We are, therefore, inclined to believe, that he trufted too much to his memory on this occafion; and that he mistook this cofmogony for the cofmopeia, which this fame author compofed, and which was no more than a poem on the creation of the world. One Antimachus, an Egyptian, according to Suidas, wrote on the fame fubject.-Upon the whole, we entirely agree with the author of the Beauties of Shakespeare, that our poet's meaning is to fhew, that 'when Love speaks, were all the reft of the gods to speak after him, heaven would be drowsy. We fcarcely think, that the alteration of make into makes, is here needful, as mention is made of many voices forming but

one.

[To be continued. ]

II. A Letter to the Right Reverend Author of the Divine Legation of Mofes demonftrated; in answer to the Appendix to the fifth Volume of that Work: with an Appendix, containing a former literary Correfpondence, by a late Profeffor in the University of Oxford. 8vo. Pr. Is. 6d. Millar.

TH

HE author of an anonymous book, intitled, A Free and Candid Examination of the Bishop of London's Sermons, having afked, Where was idolatry ever punished by the magiftrate but under the Jewish economy?' Dr. Lowth, to whom this question was addreffed, in the fecond edition of his Prelections concerning the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews,' anfwers, Sub economiâ patriarcharum; in familiis, & fub dominatu Abrahami, Melchizedechi, Jobi, cæterorumque.'The bishop of Gloucester, in an Appendix to the fifth Volume of the Divine Legation, efpoufes the caufe of his friend the examiner, and thus attacks the profeffor: • This

This is fo pleasant an answer, and fo little needing the mafterly hand of the examiner to correct, that a few strictures, in a curfory note, will be more than fufficient to do the bufinefs.

1. The examiner, to prove, I fuppofe, that the book of Job was a dramatic work, written long after the time of the patriarch, afks, Where was idolatry ever punished by the magiftrate, but under the Jewish economy?' The professor an-, fwers, It was punished under the Jobean economy.' And he advances nothing without proof. Does not Job himself fay, that idolatry was an iniquity to be punished by the Judge?' The examiner replies, that the Job who fays this, is an airy fantom, raised for other purposes than to lay down the law for the patriarchal times.' The professor maintains that they are all affes, with ears as long as father Harduin's, who cannot fee that this is the true and genuine old Job.-In good time. Sub judice lis eft: and while it is fo, I am afraid the learned profeffor begs the question; when, to prove that idolatry was punished by the magiftrate, out of the land of Judea, he affirms that king Job punished it. If he fays he does not reft his affertion on this paffage of the book of Job alone, but on the facred records, from whence he concludes that thofe civil magiftrates, Abraham and Melchifedec, punished idolatry, I fhall own he acts fairly, in putting them all upon the fame footing; and on what ground that ftands, we shall now fee.

2. The examiner fays, Where was idolatry ever punished by the magistrate, but under the Jewish economy?' A question equivalent to this, Where was idolatry punished by the civil magiflrate, on the established laws of the ftate, but in Judea?' To which the profeffor replies, It was punished by all the pa-triarchal monarchs, by 'king Job, king Abraham, and king Melchifedec.'

Of a noble race was Shenkin.

But here, not one, fave the laft, had fo much as a nominal title to civil magiftracy: and this last drops, as it were, from the clouds, without lineage or parentage; fo that though of divine, yet certainly not a monarch of the true ftamp, by bereditary right. The critic, therefore, fails in his first point; which is, finding out civil magiftrates to do his hierarchical drudgery.'

His lordship proceeds to examine the hiftory of these patriarchs; and infifts, that they neither did, de facto, nor could, de jure, punish idolatry by the judge.

In the remaining part of the appendix, the author endeavours to ridicule and expofe an argument which the profeffor has deduced from the ftile and manner of the book of Job, in favour of its great antiquity, concluding his remarks in this menacing