us with ingratitude is known to be particularly difguftful, even though we should despise any thing they should fay or do when out of our presence *. It were indeed extremely offenfive to fee others fhew their teeth at us, even though they could not bite. Perhaps Shakespeare had some distant allusion to this proverbial phrase: it is also obfervable, that the invifibility of the wind was a circumftance which this great poet had frequently in his mind. Thus, in Measure for Measure, he speaks of the viewlefs winds; an epithet, I believe, peculiar to himself. I now truft this explanation to the reader's judgment, and should also take leave of the fubject itself, were there not an expreffion in the laft ftanza; the beauty of which is, in a great measure, loft, for want of being rightly understood.— I have not undertaken, indeed, to fupply the defects of the commentators; but as this fong is a favourite, I cannot proceed without making a flight animadverfion or two on this head. The expreffion I mean is, Though thou the waters WARP. The word warp has been very differently used by different writers it is ufed by fome to mean contract or shrivel, to 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 afk 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? 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 ftop 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 also neither the waving, multitudinous, fea, nor the ra Thus Adam to his ingrateful Eve, in Milton's Paradife Loft, 4 pid pid unfreezing rivers, but fuch inland pools, lakes, and other ftagnant or flowly-moving pieces of water that are subject to be affected by froft +. Now, it is well known that the furface of such 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 peculiarly remarkable in small ponds, the furface 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 expreffion, as he here ufes the word warp in its primitive and most general fignification; to make a thing caft or bend, as boards do when they are cut before they are thoroughly dry, or when they are put to the fire. Vol. II. Page 54. Ros. O moft gentle Jupiter!-What tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal! Dr. Warburton tells us "we fhould read Juniper, as the "following words fhew, alluding to the proverbial term of a ❝ juniper lecture: a fharp or unpleafing one! Juniper being a rough prickly plant." In answer to this, Dr. Johnson says, in his usual indolent and laconic manner, Surely Jupiter may stand.' Ay, furely; why not? as well as Jupiter in the beginning of the 6th scene of the preceding act, where the fame Rofalind fays, O Jupiter! how weary are my fpirits! Yet neither he, nor Dr. Warburton, boggle in the leaft at Jupiter there. But who told you, Dr. Johnson, that Jupiter might stand here, and gave you the fame reafon for it?-Did not the au + Agreeable to this, when the rivers break down or run over their banks, laying the country under water, we say the waters are out. When the river is returned again to its channel also, the pools remaining behind in the adjacent fields or meadows, are called the waters. thor of the Canons of Criticifm do this? Why fhould you be fo fparing of confeffing your obligations to that gentleman? Vol. II. Page 81.. Ros. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cockpigeon over his hen; more clamorous than a parrot against rain; more new-fangled than an ape; more giddy in my defires than a monkey; I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain; and I will do that, when you are difpofed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when you are inclined to fleep. Dr. Warburton fays, "that inftead of the last word sleep, "we should read weep" to this reading, however, Dr. Johnfon objects. I know not, fays he, why we fhould read to 6 weep. I believe moft men would be more angry to have their fleep hindered than their grief interrupted.' What our editor fuggefts is certainly very true, especially of persons addicted to fomnolency; but if the poet intended the antithefis Dr. Warburton feems to fuppofe, I fhould rather read weep: but then the conftruction of the sentence will not do. Instead of saying, I will laugh like a hyen, and that when you are inclined to weep; the and fhould be tranfpofed, and the word that omitted. He fhould have faid, AND I will LAUGH like a byen, when you are inclined to WEEP. Suppofing the text uncorrupted in no other particular, I must give my voice, with the editor, for fleep. But I cannot help fufpecting that this paffage is corrupted in a part where none of the commentators seem to think it. It is juftly to be prefumed, at least, that Dr. Johnfon does not think it fo, as he paffes it over, notwithstanding he affures us, in his preface, that he hath left not one paffage, that he thought obfcure, without attempting to elucidate it. But what shall we fay to Rofalind's laughing like a HYEN? If by a hyen is meant an hyena, I do not know what authority we have for its laughing, nor can discover the propriety of the allufion. It is reported, indeed, of that furious animal, that that it will counterfeit a man's voice; nay, call him by his name, to entice him out of doors, in order to devour him; after which he may be faid, metaphorically, to laugh in his Sleeve at the fuccefs of his contrivance. But the laughing here alluded to, must be neceffarily fo loud as to prevent a drowsy man's going to fleep; and I do not know that any animal in nature is poffeffed of the ftreperous part of rifibility, except man. Homo eft animal rifibile, and I believe exclufively fo. Shakespeare then can never mean to say, like an hyæna, "What then could he mean ?"-True, reader, that is the queftion.-Have but a little patience and I will endeavour to tell you.-Shakespeare, with all his diverfity of action and character, is generally very uniform and conftant in his train of thinking. He does not chop his metaphors into fritters; nor skip giddily and alternately from the allufions of art to those of nature, or vicê verfâ. The reader will please to observe, that, in the preceding line, and in this very sentence, he mentions Diana. Now, it is not at all like Shakefpeare to fly off immediately from this claffical allufion, to fo diftant a one as any afforded by natural hiftory; even suppofing there were not that impropriety in it as I have above noticed. I would venture, after the modifh way of deciding arguments, to lay a good bet, if it could be determined, that Shakespeare wrote thus ; I will wEEP for nothing like DIANA in the fountain; and I will do that, when you are difpofed to be MERRY: I will LAUGH like a HYAD, and that when you are inclined to SLEEP. The word laugh in the last part of the fentence being used, by way of irony, for CRY; thus we ironically fay, to laugh like Heraclitus, the weeping philofopher*: fo that to laugh like a *Or, according to the vulgar phrafe, to laugh on the wrong fide of the mouth. But if any of my readers fhould make objections to the hyad, is to feb and blubber like one of the hyads. Now hyads, or hyades, is an appellation given to the conftellation, otherwife called the feven ftars, and fupofed to be a watery fign; whence their denomination from us, i. e. to rain. The poets feign thefe hyads to have been the daughters of Atlas and Æthra; and pretend that Hyas, their brother, having been torn to pieces by a lioness, they wept fo vehemently for his death, that the gods, in compaffion to them, tranflated them to heaven, and placed them in the forehead of the bull, where they ftill continue to weep: whence the conftellation is fuppofed by fome to prefage rain. I am well aware, that fome of my readers will think this comment written rather too much in the Warburtonian strain*. But, if it be juft and pertinent, I think this should be no ob In the fuppofed use of the figure above-mentioned, and be willing to look over the defect of construction in the text, in favour of Dr. Warburton's propofed alteration, they may take the word in its natural fenfe; in which cafe, to laugh like a HYAD, would mean, as another vulgar phrafe has it, to laugh till he cries. either cafe, however, it must be hyad, and not byen: this latter reading being entirely excluded for the reasons above given. By fubftituting the former alfo we make both the allufions claffical, and preferve that conformity of thinking, which is perfectly agreeable to the genius of Shakespeare; who, it is very poffible, came from reading Ovid, to compofe many fcenes in this play. It is certain his head was fo full of him, that he mentions his very name in one of the scenes, where neither the occafion, nor the turn of the dialogue, gave the leaft room for it. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honeft Ovid, was among the Goths. *It is not impoffible alfo, that fome fuperficial critics may think, that a man could not be kept awake by a woman's weeping. But certainly, if the blubbered and roared heartily, and out of fpite, as is here fuppofed, he might as well be kept awake by her crying as her laughing. Befides, if we reflect on the fhrewd veracity of the old proverb, that fays, Women laugh when they can, and weep when they will; I conceive that Rofalind, in mentioning the feveral acts of her wil fulness, fpeaks only of her weeping. jection |