We now proceed to the eighth and laft volume of Mr. Johnfohn's Shakespeare, which opens with Romeo and Juliet, a play Mr. Steevens has given us two editions of in his publication: the laft, however, is the most correct. Mr. Johnson, in commenting upon the words, "Or dedicate his beauty to the fame," fufpects that fome lines are loft which connected this fimile more closely with the foregoing speech." We, on the other hand, believe the fpeech to be perfect. Montague here mentions two states of a flower-bud; the one, when it puts out its leaves, the other, when it is full spread.

-to his will!] Sir T. Hanmer, and, after him, Dr. Warbur ton, read, to his ill. The prefent reading has fome obscurity; the meaning may be, that love finds out means to pursue his defire. That the blind should find paths to ill is no great wonder.' "This note is applied to the reading of the most perfect edition of this play published by Mr. Steevens. We shall for the fake of perfpicuity give the paffage as it ftands in both editions. The imperfect edition has it,

Alas that loue whose view is muffled ftill,

Should without lawes giue path-waies to our will:

The more corrected copy which Mr. Johnson follows, reads, Alas that loue, whofe view is muffled still,

Should without eyes, fee path-waife to his will:

We prefer the former reading, as being the most intelligible and philofophical.

Why Juch is love's tranfgreffion.-] Such is the confequence of unfkilful and mistaken kindness.

This line is probably mutilated, for being intended to rhyme to the line foregoing, it must have originally been complete in its measure.'

This is a very venial mistake in Mr. Johnfon, who perhaps had not an opportunity of confulting the first edition of this play, where he might have perceived that the author did not originally mean that the two following lines fhould be in rhime, tho' they are in the fecond. The first edition fays,

Griefes of mine owne lie heauie at my hart,

Which thou wouldft propagate to haue them preft.

Our limits will not permit us to pursue Mr. Johnfon's notes through the most fertile fields of criticism; we mean in Hamlet and Othello. We cannot, however, applaud his management in ftifling difficulties when he cannot remove them. Of this we have a pregnant inftance in Othello, where the Moor is made to say,

Oh thou weed!

Who art fo lovely fair, and smell'ft so sweet,

Dr. Warburton fays, "The old quarto reads, O thou blache weed, why art fo lovely fair, &c. which the editors not being able to fet right, altered as above. Shakespeare wrote, O thou bale weed, &c. Bale, i. e. deadly, poisonous." Mr. Steevens's edition reads, O thou black weed; and Mr. Johnson, contrary to all authorities we know of, retains O thou weed, and takes no notice of any farther doubts or difficulties, tho' the scene teems with both. We believe it would be no difficult matter to prove that blache weed is the true reading, and that a blache flower, in Shakespeare's and Sir Henry Spelman's time, was a commen expreffion.

The remarks

We fhall now take our leave of this work. and emendations we have laid before the public, are but a few of a number too great for our plan to admit of. Mr. Johnson's chief defect as an editor, feems to confift in his being too much of a Martinet (if we may ufe the expreffion) in learning. He confults onlythe academy and the portico, without deviating into the narrow turns and lanes where Shakespeare's words now lie obfcure, tho' undeformed and unaltered. But, notwithstanding his defects, he has the merit of refcuing Shakespeare's meaning, in a multitude of paffages, from the pragmatical efforts of `preceding editors, who have moft facrilegioufly prefumed to alter his text according to their own groundlefs conjectures. We with Mr. Johnfon had ftuck to his own difcernment of Shakespeare's meaning, without attempting any alteration in the reading. He may perhaps, upon a review of his own notes, be of our opinion; but, as his edition now ftands, with the help of Dr. Warburton's notes, Shakespeare appears in it more himself, than in any other which has appeared fince that of Mr. Rowe.

II. The Divine Legation of Mofes demonfrated. In nine Books. The fourth Edition, corrected and enlarged. By William, Lord Bishop of Gloucefter. In V. Vols. 8vo. Pr. 11. 10. Millar. [Concluded.]

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HE author having fhewn, that an extraordinary providence was the neceffary confequence of a theocracy; and that this providence is reprefented in Scripture to have been really administered; he proceeds to obferve, that temporal rewards and punishments (the effects of this providence), and not future, must therefore be the fanction of the Jewish law and religion. Having thus prepared the ground, and laid the foundation, he goes on to prove, that the doctrine of a future state of re

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wards and punishments, which could not, from the nature of things, be the fanction of the Jewish œconomy, was not in fact contained in it at all; nay farther, that it was purpofely omitted by the Great Lawgiver. This is proved from several paffages in the book of Genefis and the law.

And here, fays the author, more fully to evince, that Moses, who, it seems, studiously omitted the mention of it, was well apprised of its importance, I fhew, that the punishment of children for the fins of their parents' was brought into this inftitution purposely to afford fome advantages to government, which the doctrine of a future ftate, as it is found in all other focieties, amply fupplies. This, at the fame time that it gives further strength to the position of no future state in the Mofaic difpenfation, gives the author a fair occafion of vindicating the juftice and equity of the law of punishing children for the fins of their parents; and of proving the perfect agreement between Mofes and the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah, concerning it; which hath been, in all ages, the stumbling-block, of Infidelity. 'But we now advance a step further, and shew, that as Mofes did not teach, yea forbore to teach the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, fo neither had the antient Jews, that is to fay, the body of the people, any knowledge of it. The proof is ftriking, and fcarce to be refifted by any party or profeffion but that of the fyftem-maker. The Bible contains a very circumftantial account of this people, from the time of Mofes to the great captivity; not only the hiftory of public occurrences, but the lives of private perfons of both fexes, and of all ages, conditions, characters and complexions; in the adventures of virgins, matrons, kings, foldiers, scholars, parents, merchants, hufbandmen. They are given too in every circum- ' ftance of life; captive, victorious, in fickness and in health; in full fecurity and amidst impending dangers; plunged in civil business, or retired and fequeftered in the service of religion. 'Together with their ftory, we have their compofitions likewife: in one place we hear their triumphal; in another, their penitential ftrains. Here we have their exultations for bleffings received; there, their deprecations of evil apprehended: here. they urge their moral precepts to their contemporaries; and there again, they treasure up their prophecies and predictions. for the use of pofterity; and on each, denounce the threatenings and promifes of Heaven. Yet in none of these different circumstances of life; in none of these various cafts of compofition, do we ever find them afting on the motives, or influenced by the profpect, of a future ftate: or, indeed, expreffing the least hopes or fears, or even common curiofity, concerning it but every thing they do or fay, refpects the prefent life only;

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the good and ill of which are the fole objects of their pursuits and averfions.

The ftrength of this argument is ftill further fupported by a view of the general hiftory of mankind; and particularly of those nations moft refembling the Jewish in their genius and circumftances: in which we find the doctrine of a future ftate of rewards and punishments, was always pushing on its influence. It was their constant viaticum through life; it stimulated them to war, and spirited their songs of triumph; it made them infenfible of pain, immoveable in danger, and fuperior to the approach of death.

This is not all: we obferve, that even in the Jewish annals, when this doctrine was become national, it made as confiderable a figure in their history, as in that of any other nation.

It is ftill further urged, that this conclufion does not reft merely on the negative filence of the Bible-history; it is fupported on the pofitive declarations contained in it; by which the facred writers plainly discover that there was no popular expectation of a future ftate or refurrection.

From the Old Testament we come to the New. By the writers of which it appears, that the doctrine of a future ftate of rewards and punishments, did not make part of the Mofaic difpenfation.

Their evidence is divided into two parts; the first, proving that temporal rewards and punishments were the sanction of the Jewish difpenfation: the fecond, that it had no other. And thus, with the moft direct and unexceptionable proof of the two minor propofitions, the fifth book concludes.

• VI. But to remove, as far as poffible, all the fupports of prejudice against this important truth, the fixth and last book of this volume is employed in examining all those texts of the Old and New Teftament, which had been commonly urged to prove, that the doctrine of a future ftate of rewards and punishments, did make part of the Mofaic difpenfation.

• And amongst those of the Old Testament, the famous paffage of the nineteenth chapter of Job, concerning a refurrec tion (as it has been commonly understood) holding a principal place, it was judged expedient, for the reafons there given, to, examine that matter to the bottom. This neceffarily brought on an enquiry into the nature and genius of that book; when written, and to what purpose. By the aid of which enquiry, a fair account is given of the sense of that famous text, consistent with our general propofition.

But the whole difcourfe on the book of Job hath this further ufe: It provides a ftrong fupport and illuftration of what will be hereafter delivered concerning the gradual decay of the extraordinary

extraordinary providence from the time of Saul, to the return from the great captivity.

Yet this is not all. The difcourfe hath yet a further use, with regard to revelation in general. For the explaining, how the principles of the gospel-doctrine were opened by degrees, fully obviates the calumnies of thofe two leaders in infidelity, Tyndal and Collins; who pretend, that the heads and governors of the Jews refined their old doctrines concerning the Deity, and invented new ones: just as the priests improved in know ledge, or the people advanced in curiofity; or as both were better taught by the inftructions they received from their mafters, in the country whither they were led away captive.

The difcourfe of Job being of this importance, we were led to fupport all the parts of it from the attacks of various writers, who had attempted to confute it.

The reft of the Old Teftament-rexts are gone through with greater dispatch, being divided into two parts. 1. Such as are fuppofed to teach the feparate existence, or, as it is called, the immortality of the foul. And 2. Such as are supposed to teach a future state of rewards and punishments, together with a re furrection of the body. In the course of which examination, much light, it is hoped, has been thrown both on the particular texts and on the general queftion.

From the texts of the Old Teftament, the argument pro ceeds to examine thofe of the New: amongst which, the famous eleventh chapter of the epiftle to the Hebrews is not forgotten; the fenfe of which is cleared up, to oppofe to the inve terate mistakes of fyftematical divines: and here, occafion is taken to explain the nature of St. Paul's reafoning against the errors of the Jewish converts; a matter of highest moment for a right understanding of this apoftle's letters to the feveral churches; and for the further illuftration of the general argument.

'As in all this nothing is taught or infinuated which opposes the doctrine of our excellent church, common decency required that this conformity should be fully fhewn and largely insisted on.

Having therefore, all along, gone upon this principle, That "though a future ftate of rewards and punishments made no part of the Mofaic difpenfation, yet that the law had a spiritual meaning; though not feen or understood till the fulness of time was come. Hence the ritual law received the nature, and afforded the efficacy of prophecy: in the interim (as is fhewn) the mystery of the gospel was occafionally revealed, by God, to his chosen fervants, the fathers and leaders of the Jewish nation; and the dawnings of it gradually opened by the prophets, to the people." Having, I fay, gone all the way upon this

principle,