: Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, DANGER. I'll read your matter, deep and dangerous: As full of peril and advent'rous spirit, As to o'er-walk a current, roaring loud, On the unsteadfast footing of a spear. HONOUR. (4) By heav'ns! methinks, it were an easy leap, (4) By heav'ns! &c.] I will not take upon me to defend this paffage from the charge laid against it of bombaft and fuftian, but will only observe, if we read it in that light it is perhaps one of the finest rants to be found in any author, Mr. Warburton attempts to clear it from the charge, and observes, "tho' the expression be fublime and daring, yet the thought is the natural movement of an heroic mind. Euripides, at least, (as he adds) thought so, when he put the very same sentiment, in the fame words, into the mouth of Eteocles." Εγω γαρ, &c. I will not cloak my foul: methinks with ease Descending, pierce, so be I cou'd obtain A kingdom, at the price, and god-like rule. ACT ACTII. SCENE VI. Lady Piercy's pathetick Speech to her Husband. (5) O my good lord, why are you thus alone? Of fallies, and retires; of trenches, tents, Of palisadoes, fortins, parapets ; : And in thy face strange motions have appear'd, these ! Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, (5) See Portia's speech to Brutus in Julius Cæfar, Aft II. Scene III. B 3 ACT : ACT III. SCENE I. (6) I blame him not: at my nativity, Hot. So it would have done At the same season, if your mother's cat Had kitten'd, though yourself had ne'er been born. * * * * * Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions; and the teeming earth On miferable Rhymers. (7) I had rather be a kitten, and cry, mew! Than one of these same meeter-ballad-mongers: I'd (6) I blame, &c.] Glendower was mightily fuperftitious, he adds afterwards Give me leave To tell you once again, that at my birth The front of heav'n was full of fiery shapes, The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds Were strangely clam'rous in the frighted fields: These signs have marked me extraordinary, And all the courses of my life do shew, I am not in the roll of common men. (7) 1 bad, &c.] Horace in his art of poetry, speaking of poetafters, fays; ! I'd rather hear a brazen candlestick turn'd, Punctuality in Bargain. I'll give thrice so much land To any well-deserving friend; But in the way of bargain, mark ye me, A Husband fung to fleep by a fair Wife. (8) She bids you Ut mala, &c. A mad dog's foam, th' infection of the plague, And again; 'Tis hard to say, whether for facrilege, And never leave 'till they have read men dead. And ROSCOMΜΟΝ. (8) She bids, &c.] There is something extremely tender and pleafing in these lines, as well as in the following, from Philafter, which justly deferve to be compared with them: B4 - Whe And she will fing the song that pleaseth you, 3 - Who shall now tell you How much I lov'd you? who shall swear it to you, Act. 3. latter end. (9) As is, &c.] It is remarkable of Milton, that whenever he can have an opportunity, he takes particular notice of the evening twilight, but I don't at present recollect any passage where he defcribes this morning-twilight, which Shakespear so beautifully hints at: nothing can exceed this lovely description in the 4th book of his Paradise Loft. Now came still evening on, and twilight gray V. 598. The reader will be agreeably entertain'd, if he refers to the paffage in Dr. Newton's Edition of Milton. SCENE |