may credit the old copies, he has, by mistaking places, left his scenery inextricable. The reason of all this confusion seems to be, that he took his story from a novel, which he fometimes followed, and fometimes forfook, sometimes remembered, and sometimes forgot. That this play is rightly attributed to Shakspeare, I have little doubt. If it be taken from him, to whom shall it be given? This question may be asked of all the difputed plays, except Titus Andronicus; and it will be found more credible, that Shakspeare might fometimes fink below his highest flights, than that any other should rise up to his lowest. JOHNSON. Johnfon's general remarks on this play are just, except that part in which he arraigns the conduct of the poet, for making Proteus fay, that he had only feen the picture of Silvia, when it appears that he had had a personal interview with her. This, however, is not a blunder of Shakspeare's, but a mistake of Johnson's, who confiders the passage alluded to in a more literal sense than the author intended it. Sir Proteus, it is true, had foen Silvia for a few moments; but though he could form from thence fome idea of her person, he was still unacquainted with her temper, manners, and the qualities of her mind. He therefore confiders himself as having feen her picture only. - The thought is just, and elegantly expreffed. So, in The Scornful Lady, the elder Loveless says to her: I was mad once when I loved pictures; " For what are shapes and colours else, but pictures?" M. MASON. Mr. Ritson's reply to the objections of Mr. Tyrwhitt, was not only too long to appear in its proper place, but was communicated too late to follow the note on which it was founded. STEEVENS. Pro. O, how this spring of love resemblech, &c. pp. 191, 192, 193. The learned and respectable writer of these observations is now unfortunately no more; but his opinions will not on that account have less influence with the readers of Shakspeare: I am therefore ftill at liberty to enforce the justice and propriety of my own fentiments, which I trust I shall be found to do with all possible delicacy and refpect toward the memory and character of the truly ingenious gentleman from whom I have the misfortune to differ. I humbly conceive that, upon a more mature confideration, Mr. Tyrwhitt would have admitted, that, if the propofed method of printing the words in question were once proved to be right, it would be of little consequence whether the difcovery had ever been adopted before," or could be followed in the pronunciation of them, without the help of an entire new fyftem of spelling:" which, in fact, is the very objet I mean to contend for; or rather for a system of spelling, as I am perfectly confident we have none at present, or at least I have never been able to find it. We are. not to regard the current or fashionable orthography of the day, as the result of an enquiry into the fubje& by men of learning and genius; but rather as the mechanical or capricious efforts of writers and printers to express by letters, according to their ear, the vulgar speech of the country, just as travellers attempt that of the Chickfaws or Cherokees, without the assistance of grammar, and utterly ignorant or regardless of confiftency, principle, or system. This was the cafe in Caxton's time, when a word was spelled almost as many different ways as it contained letters, and is no otherwise at this day; and, perhaps, the prejudices of education and habit, even in minds fufficiently expanded and vigorous on other fubje&s, will always prevent a reform, which it were to be wished was neceffary to objets of no higher importance. Whether what I call the right method of printing these words be "fuch as was never adopted before by any mortal," or not, does not seem of much confequence; for, reasoning from principle and not precedent, I am by no means anxious to avail myself of the inconfiftencies of an age in which even scholars were not always agreed in the orthography of their own name: a fufficient number of instances will, however, occur in the course of this note to shew that the remark was not made with its author's usual deliberation; which I am the rather disposed to believe, from his conceiving that this method could not be followed in pronunciation;" fince were it univerfally adopted, pronunciation neither would nor poffibly could be affected by it in any degree whatever. "Fanciful and unfounded" too as my "fuppofed canon" may be, I find it laid down in Ben Jonfon's Grammar, which expressly fays that "the second and third person fingular of the present are made of the first by adding eft and eth, which laft is fometimes shortened into s." And afterward speaking of the first conjugation, he tells us that it fetcheth the time past from the present by adding ed." I shall have reafon to think myself peculiarly unfortunate, if, after my hypothesis is "allowed in its utmost extent," it will not prove what it was principally formed to do, viz. that Shakspeare has not taken a liberty in extending certain words to fuit the purpose of his metre. But, furely, if I prove that he has only given those words as they ought to be written, I prove the whole of my position, which should ceafe, of course, to be termed or confidered an hypothefis. A mathematical problem may, at first fight, appear "fanciful and unfounded to the ablest mathematician, but his affent is enfured by its demonftration. I may fafely admit that the words in queftion are " more frequently used" by our author's contemporaries, and by himself, "without the additional fyllable;" as this will only shew that his contemporaries and himself have more fre. quently" taken the liberty of shortening those words, than written them at length. Such a word as alarm'd, for instance, is generally, perhaps conftantly, used by poets as a diflyllable; and yet, if we found it given with its full power a-larm-ed, we should scarcely say that the writer had taken the liberty of lengthening it fyllable. Thus too the word diamond is usually spoken as if two fyllables, but it is certainly three, and is so properly given by Shakspeare: a Sir, I must have that diamond from you." Hadft is now a monosyllable, but did our author therefore take a liberty in writing Hadeft? " Makes ill deeds done. Hadeft thou not been hy." Not only this word, but mayest, doest, doeth, and the like are uniformly printed in the bible as diflyllables. Does Butler, to serve his rhime, stretch out the word brethren in the following paflage? "And fierce auxiliary men, "That came to aid their brethren." Or does he not rather give it, as he found it pronounced, and as it ought to be printed? The word idly is still more to the purpose: It is at present a dissyllable; what it was in Shakspeare's time may appear from his Comedy of Errors, 1623: "God helpe poore foules how idlely doe they talk:" or, indeed, from any other passage in that or the next edition, being conftantly printed as a trifyllable. So, again in Spenser's Faery Queene, 1609. 1611; "Both ftaring fierce, and holding idlely." And this orthography, which at once illustrates and supports my system, appears in Shelton's Don Quixote, Sir T. Smith's Commonwealth, Goulart's Hiftories, Holinshed's Chronicle, and numberless other books; and confequently proves that the word was not stretched out by Spenfer to fuit the purpose of his metre, though I am aware that it is misspelled idlely in the first edition, which is less corealy printed. But the true and established spelling might have led Mr. Seward and Dr. Farmer to a better reading than gentily, in the following line of Beaumont and Fletcher : " For when the west wind courts her gently." Proved, I suppose, is rarely found a diffyllable in poetry, if even pronounced as one in profe; but, in the Articles of Religion, Oxford, 1728, it is spelled and divided after my own heart: whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be prove-ed thereby, &c." The words olfervation and affection are usually pronounced, the one as confifling of three, the other of four syllables, but each of them is in reality a fyllable longer, and is so properly given by our author: "With obfervation, the which he vents:' ن Examples, Indeed, of this nature would be endless; I shall therefore content myself with producing one more, from the old ballad of The Children in the Wood: "You that executors be made, " And overjeers eke." In this passage the word overseers is evidently and properly used as a quadrifyllable; and, in one black letter copy of the ballad, is accurately printed as fuch, overseeers; which, if Shakspeare's orthography should ever be an editor's obje&, may ferve as a guide for the regulation for the following line: "The high all-feer that I dallied with." Of the words quoted by Mr. Tyrwhitt, as instances of the liberty supposed to have been taken by Shakspeare, those which I admit to be properly a fyllable shorter, certainly obtained the fame pro. nunciation in the age of this author which he has annexed to them, Thus country, monftrous, remembrance, affembly, were not only pronounced, in his time, the two first as three, the other as four syllables, but are fo ftill; and the reason, to borrow Mr. Tyrwhitt's words, " must be obvious to every one who can pronounce the language.' Henry was not only usually pronounced, (as indeed it is at present,) but frequently written as a trifyllable; even in prose. Thus in Dr. Hution's Discourse on the Antiquities of Oxford, at the end of Hearne's Textus Roffenfis, "King Henery the eights colledge." See, upon this fubje&, Wallisii Grammatica, p. 57. That Mr. Tyrwhitt should have treated the words angry, humbler, nobler, used as trifyllables, among those which could receive no fupport from the fuppofed canon," must have been owing to the obfcure or imperfect manner in which I attempted to explain it ; as these are, unluckily, fome of the identical instances which the canon, if a canon it must be, is purposely made to support, or rather, by which it is to be supported: an additional proof that Mr. Tyrwhitt, though he might think it proper to reprobrate my doctrine as "fanciful and unfounded," did not give himself the trouble to understand it. This canon, in short, is nothing but a most plain and simple rule of English grammar, which has, in substance, at least, been repeated over and over: Every word, compounded upon the prin ciples of the English or Saxon language, always preferves its roots unchanged: a rule which, like all others, may be liable to exceptions, but I am aware of none at present. Thus humbler and nobler, for instance, are composed by the adje&ives humble, noble, and er, the fign of the comparative degree; angry, of the noun anger, and y the Saxon adjective termination ig. In the use of all these, as trifyllables, Shakspeare is most correct; and that he is no less fo in England, which used to be pronounced as three fyllables, and is fo ftill, indeed, by those who do not acquire the pronunciation of their mother tongue from the books of purblind pedants, who : want themselves the instrution they pretend to give, will be evident |