A Person in Despair, compared to one on a Rock, &c. For now I stand, as one upon a rock, Environ'd with a wilderness of fea, Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave; Tears compar'd to Dew on a Lilly. (5) When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears Stood on her cheeks; as doth the honey-dew Upon a gather'd lilly almost wither'd. Reflections on killing a fly. Mar. (6) Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly. Tit. But?-how if that fly had a father and mother? How wholly taken up with a re (5) See Vol. I. p. 86. n. 13. (6) Alas.] The mind of Titus is flection on his misfortunes, and his miseries as a parent: His brother Marcus killing a fly, he reprehends him for his cruelty; for, says he, Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny: And he further reflects upon it, and brings him to himself: "How, fays he, if this poor fly, had a father and motherhow? what would be hang, &c. The reader must see the impropriety; for furely, he would add, "how would they, the father and the mother, for the loss, hang their slender gilded wings. and buz-lamenting doings in the air? So that doubtless we should read, How wou'd they hang their slender gilded wings For the fly after being kill'd, could not hang his wings himself, nor buz-lamenting doings; which word, though perhaps not al together How would he hang his flender gilded wings, That with his pretty buzzing melody, And thou hast kill'd him. REVENGE. Lo, by thy fide where rape, and murder, stands, Now give some surance that thou art revenge, Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels; And then I'll come and be thy waggoner, And whirl along with thee about the globe; Provide two proper palfries black as jet, To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away, And find out murders in their guilty caves. And when thy car is loaden with their heads, I will dismount, and by thy waggon wheel Trot like a servile foot-man all day long; Even from Hyperion's rifing in the east, Until his very downfal in the fea. together so expressive, seems to me the true one; it is frequently ufed for an action, a thing done: Mr. Theobald proposes, Lamenting dolings, Though he was confcious of the similarity between the word and the epithet; notwithstanding which the Oxford editor gives us, Laments and Dolings. Troilus (3) Troilus and Creffida. ACTI. SCENE Ι. CA Troy, That find such cruel battle here within ? (1) Call, &c.] Mr. Theobald and Mr. Upton both perceiv'd our author's allufion here to an ode of Anacreon, (or, as the latter fays, to a thought printed among those poems, which are afcribed to Anacreon.') Ben Johnson, as well as our author, alludes to it in the following passage: Volpone. O I am wounded! Mes. Where, Sir? Vol. Not without. Those blows were nothing; I could bear them ever. But angry Cupid, bolting from her eyes, Hath hot himself into me, like a flame; Where now he flings about his burning heat, As in a furnace, fome ambitious fire Whose vent is stopt. The fight is all within me Volpone Act 2. S. 3 ΜΑΧΗΣ ΕΣΩ Μ' ΕΧΟΥΣΗΣ ; VOL. II. M Deinde The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant... But I am weaker than a woman's tear, And skill-less as unpractis'd infancy. * * * O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus 1 ! When I do tell thee, there my hopes lye drown'd, In whose comparison, all whites are ink, : Deinde feipfum projecit in modum teli: mediusque cordis mei penetravit & me folvit. Fruftra itaque habeo scutum: quid enim muniamur extra, bello intus me exercente. Mr. Upton, speaking of the feveral translations of the last line but one, adds "Now I will fet Shakespear's tranflation against them them all: Why should I war without. Τι γας βαλωμεθ' εξω - For this is the meaning of the phrase, quid hoftem petam, vel quid bostem ferire aggrediar extra; cum hoftis intus eft? &c. See Remarks on three plays of Ben Johnson, p. 28. (2) Her band, &c.] In the Midsummer night's Dream, speak. ing of a white hand, he says; That pure congealed white high Taurus' snow, A 3. f. 6. I don't know what to make of the words and spirit of fense, nor do any of the crities fatisfy me: the Oxford editor reads Neither of which appear to me as from the hand of Shakespear: whether by the spirit of fenfe, he means the fenfe of touching, I cannot tell; that feems the most probable, " to the seisure of her hand the down of the cignet is harsh, and its fpirit of fenfe [the soft and delicate fenfe, its touch gives us] hard as the the plowman's palm." Writing Writing their own reproach: to whose soft seizure T Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me, SCENE V. Success, not equal to our Hopes. The ample proposition that hope makes, On Degree. Take but degree away; untune that string, (3) Refides] The thought here is beautiful and fublime: Right and wrong are supposed as enemies, who are perpetually at war, between whom Justice hath her place of refidence, and fits as an umpire; for 'tis the endless jar of right and wrong, that only gives right occafion for the interpofition of justice. Mr. Warburton hath, in this place, been too severe on poor Theobald, the critic, (as he calls him) for dropping a flight remark, which, were it not defenfible, should rather be excus'd than cenfur'd; and introduc'd an alteration of his own, which an ill-natur'd remarker might poffibly find pleafure in retorting upon him, But, as the only business of a com mentator |