he was drowned in the laft rain; because, truly, he looks dejected, and therefore may be phrafeologically compared to a drown'd puppy?

Dr. Gray would make a farther emendation of the text, in this paffage, of which our editor hath made mention in his appendix; but seems to disapprove it. The Doctor propofes that, instead of reading what fay'ft thou, trot? we fhould read, what fay'ft thou to't? the word trot being feldom, if ever, used to a man. To this Dr. Johnfon replies, Trot, or as it is ❝ now often pronounced honest trout, is a familiar addrefs to a man among the provincial vulgar.' Now, it appears to me, although I think Dr. Gray's emendation very admiffsible, that Lucio might very probably here mean to give Pompey an appellation usually given to women, by way of gibing him' for following fo fcandalous an employment as that of a bawd, ufually practifed by wretches of that fex. But be this as it may, I think nobody can hesitate about Dr. Johnson's being in the wrong, when he supposes that Lucio might call Pompey Bum, the cock-bawd, HONEST trout.-Trout! indeed! Dr. Johnson surely must imagine his readers to be very gudgeons, to bait his hook with fuch grubs, as thefe grub-street annotations!

Vol. I. pages 329 and 330. are inferted two notes from Dr. Warburton, without any remark of the editor's ; notwithftanding they are both fufficiently refuted and exploded in the Canons of Criticism, pages 25 and 26. I must beg leave, however, for that reason to pass them over here.

Vol. I. Page 333.

ESCAL. Double and treble admonition, and fill forfeit in the fame kind! this would make Mercy fwear, and play the tyrant.

I doubt not but my readers have already obferved that, when Dr. Johnson's fentiments coincide with Dr. Warbur

ton's, he does not chufe to hazard them for his own; as he does when they agree with thofe of Edwards, and fome others. But, for fear they should be wrong, he takes advantage of the verbum facerdotis, and fkulks behind the name of WARBURTON. This he does with regard to the paffage now before us; and yet if I fhould admit a fingle emendation of all thofe Dr. Warburton proposes, I believe it would be this; and yet I don't approve of it. But the cafe is, I as little approve of what is advanced by others in favour of the prefent reading, and yet, as Dr. Johnson says, nothing better fuggests itself. Dr. Warburton fays, "We should read SWERVE, i. e. "deviate from her nature. The common reading gives us "the idea of a ranting whore." In oppofition to this, the author of the Revifal fays, the common reading is "agreeable "to a very common form of expreffion, This would make a "faint fwear, and fuppofes it means no more than that the "excess of the provocation would get the better of the mild

difpofition even of Mercy herself, and put her in a passion.” In answer again to this, however, it may be observed, that we have no fuch very common form of speech as is here asferted. Nay, I don't know that we can poffibly have occa fion for fuch a form, Make a faint fwear! Pray where are there any faints now-a-days to be met with? For my part, I never converfed with any but fictitious ones. I have heard, indeed, of things being provoking enough to make a PARSON fwear, and that even in the middle of his fermon. But alas! alas! there is a great difference between faints and parfons; though I hope the author of the Revifal is too honeft a man wilfully to impose a parfon on his readers for a faint. The true ftate of the cafe appears to me to be as follows: the poet did not intend, or at least did not effect, a compleat perfonification of Mercy. If he had, he would not have given us the idea of a ranting whore, as Dr. Warburton justly expreffes it; nor would he have reprefented Mercy as ftripped of her attributes, or put in a paffion, as the Reviser

has

has it. It feems to me that Efcalus fpeaks of that mercy, or merciful difpofition, exifting in his own breaft, agreeable, and in reply, to what the bawd had faid to him in the preceding speech. Your honour is accounted a MERCIFUL man. To which he answers, "Yes, but such provocation would "make me, merciful as I am, fwear and play the tyrant." To this it may be objected, that Efcalus represents himself in this cafe as a ranting bully, juft as Mercy, in the other, gives the idea of a ranting whore. So that, perhaps, after all, we had better abide by the literal conftruction of the text, and suppose the profopopeia compleat; in which case to swear muft mean to make a vow never to be moved by pleas or interceffion; to be unrelenting, being one of the principal characteristics of a tyrant.

Vol. I. Page 348.

PROV. A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully, but as a drunken fleep; careless, reckless and fearless of what's paft, prefent or to come; infenfible of mortality, and desperately mortal.

< Thomas Hanmer reads mortally defperate. Mortally is in low 'converfation used in this sense, but I know not whether it ⚫ was ever written. I am inclined to believe, that defperately • mortal means defperately mischievous.

I wish Dr. Johnson, every time he had dictated any of the articles of his critical creed, had given us a reason for the faith that is in him. Why he should believe Barnardine to be desperately mischievous, I cannot poffibly conceive. The Provost seems to give him a very different character: He hath evermore, says he, had the liberty of the prison: give him leave to escape hence, he would not: drunk many times a day, if not many days entirely drunk. We have very often awaked him, as if to carry him to execution, and fhewed him a feeming warrant for it: it hath not moved him at all. Is this the description of a man defperately mischievous? I fhould rather think that, by

defperately

defperately mortal, means totally incurable of diseases, acquired by his beaftly courfe of life; or else that, defpairing or carelefs of life, he looks upon himself as dead to the world, and takes no thought of what becomes of him. That he is yet defperate, or inflexibly obftinate, about even dying, is plain. from his telling the friar, that he will not die that day for ⚫ any man's perfuafion; but if they will have it fo, they shall beat out his brains with billets.'

Vol. I. Page 364.

Oh! that it were as like as it is true.

Dr. Johnson hath, on this paffage, filently adopted the explanation of Mr. Edwards, in oppofition to that of Dr. Warburton. He does the fame thing again in page 369. — See Canons of Criticifm, page 144.

PETER.

Vol. I. Page 366.

and what he with his oath By all probation will make up full clear,

Whenever he's convented. Firft, for this woman. Dr. Johnson hath here inferted the word convented, instead of convened, which was the common reading. Convented, indeed, was the reading of the firft folio, which Dr. Warburton infifts upon to be right *, giving his reafons for it in the following arrogant and foolish note, which is as impertinently and fillily adopted by our editor. "The firft folio reads con"vented, and this is right; for to convene fignifies to affem"ble; but convent, to cite or fummons. Yet, because con"vented hurts the measure, the Oxford editor fticks to convened,

though it be nonfenfe, and fignifies, whenever he is assembled "together. But thus it will be, when the author is thinking "of one thing, and his critic of another. The poet was at❝tentive to his fenfe, and the editor, quite throughout his

* And yet Dr. Warburton, as the author of the Revifal fhrewdly remarks, calls that edition, on another occafion, the old blun"dering folio."

"per

"performance, to nothing but the meafure; which Shakef66 peare having entirely neglected, like all the dramatic writers "of that age, he has spruced him up with all the exactness ❝ of a modern measurer of fyllables."

I should be glad to know how either Dr. Warburton or Dr. Johnson came to know that Shakespeare entirely neglected measure? Shakespeare had a poetical ear; and though he might not stand to count his fingers, as probably these gentlemen do when they write verfes, he wrote in general much more melodioufly than any of the dramatic writers of his own. age, or perhaps of the prefent. The Oxford editor did very wifely, therefore, in abiding by the measure, as he could do it without any injury to the fenfe. For to convene, as the author of the Revifal juftly obferves, means not only to affemble together, but to cite or cause to appear; and is rendered in Latin by cito, cieo. To this I may add alfo, that cito does not mean fimply to cite or fummons in general, but also to summons or produce as a witness, exactly agreeable to the cafe before us. Thus CICERO, in hâc re te teftem citabo. But perhaps these learned gentlemen will object to all this, because the verb convene is not derived from cito, cieo, but from convenio they will profit little, however, by this evasion; for the verb convenio itself is used in the fenfe of giving a cita tion or fummons. Thus PLAUTUS, illum in jus conveniam. But fuppofing these quotations to be, as learned quotations generally are, nothing at all to the purpose, I may safely borrow a phrase from Scripture on this occafion, and say to Dr. Johnson, Out of thy own mouth will I judge thee, thou CARELESS COMMENTATOR! The author of the Revifal feems a little unhappy that, having kept no common-place-book, he cannot produce an example of the use of the word convene in the fenfe contended for: but, if he had turned to Dr. Johnfon's common-place-book, i. e. his folio dictionary, he would have there found that this fenfe is properly authorized. To convene, fays the lexicographer, is to fummen judicially; as a

proof