Titus ******* : SCENE V. Wrong and Infolence. Now breathless wrong Shal. fit and pant in your great chairs of ease; : Titus Andronicus. ACT L SCENE II. W MERCY. ILT thou draw near the nature of the Gods? Draw near them then in being merciful; Sweet Mercy is nobility's true badge. SCENE III. THANKS. Thanks, to men Of noble minds, is honourable meed. SCENE IV. An Invitation to Love. (2) The birds chaunt melody on every bush, The snake lies rolled in the chearful fun, (1) Wilt, &c.] See vol. I. p. 69. n. 11. This, as Mr. Whalley has observed, is directly the sense and words of a passage in one of Cicero's finest orations: Homines ad Deos nulla re propius accedunt, quam falutem Hominibus dando. Orat. pro legar. fub. fin. See Enquiry into the learning of Shakespear, p. 64. (2) The Birds, &c.] Nobilis æstivas platanus, &c. A plain diffus'd its bow'ring verdure wide Midst these a brook in winding murmurs stray'd, Chiding the pebbles over which it play'd, 'Twas love's Elyfium, Petron Arb. by Addison junior: The The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind, And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground: こ Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns, Let us fit down and mark their yelling noise : And after conflict, such as was suppos'd Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep. SCENE V. Vale, a dark and melancholy one described (3) A barren and detested vale, you fee, it is. The trees, tho' summer, yet forlorn and lean, O'ercome with moss, and baleful misselto. Here never shines the sun: Here nothing breeds (3) Barren, &c.] Non bac autumno tellus viret, aut alit berbas, No autumn here, e'er cloaths herself with green, With nought but baleful cypress are adorn'd. Petron. Arbit, translated by Baker. Unless Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven, SCENE VII. A Ring, in a dark Pit. (4) Upon his bloody finger he doth wear Young Lady playing on the Lute, and finging. Fair Philomela, she but loft her tongue, A (4) Upon, &c.] We may suppose the light thrown into the pit by this ring; something of that kind Milton speaks of, in the first book of Paradise Loft. Paradise Loft. A dungeon horrible on all fides round, As one great furnace flam'd: yet from these flames No light, but rather darkness visible Serv'd only to discover fights of woe, &c. P. 61. Again, The feat of defolation void of light, Save what the glimmering of these livid flames, Casts pale and dreadful. P. 181. And And make the filken strings delight to kiss them; A Lady's Tongue cut out. O, that delightful engine of her thoughts, That blab'd them with such pleasing eloquence, Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage, Where, like a sweet melodious bird, it fung Sweet various notes, inchanting every ear ! (5) Or, &c.] This puts me in mind of that most excellent paffage in Milton's Comus, where upon the lady's finging, Comus obferves, Can any mortal mixture of earths mould A Per |