Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a

good tall fellow had destroy'd So cowardly : and but for these vile guns, He would himself have been a soldier.

DANGER.

l'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 unsteadfaft footing of a spear.

HONOUR

(4) By heav'ns! methinks, it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon :
Or, dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks :
So he, that doth redeem her thence, might wear
Without corrival all her dignities.
But out upon this half-fac'd fellowship!

"6 tho' the

(4) By beav'ns ! &c.) I will not take upon me to defend this passage from the charge lạid against it of bombast 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, expression be sublime and daring, yet the thought is the natura! movement of an heroic mind. Euripides, at least, (as he adds) thought so, when he put the very fame sentiment, in the fame words, into the mouth of Eteocles,'

&c.
I will not cloak my soul : methinks with ease
I cou'd scale heaven, and reach the fartheit ftar;
Or to the deepest entrails of the earth
Descending, pierce, so be I cou'd obtain
A kingdom, at the price, and god-like rule.

А ст.

Eyw yope

ACTII. SCENE VI.

Lady Piercy's pathetick Speech to her Husband.

(5) O my good lord, why are you thus alone? For what offence have I this fort-night been A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed? Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden fleep? Why dost thou bend thy eyes upon the earth, And start so often, when thou sitt'st alone ? Why haft thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks, And given my treasures, and my rights of thee, To thick-ey'd musing, and curs'd melancholy? In thy faint flumbers I' by thee have watcht, And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars : Speak terms of manage to thy bounding feed ; Cry, courage ! to the field! and thou hast talk'd Of fallies, and retires ; of trenches, tents, Of palisadoes, fortins, parapets ; Of basiliks, of cannon, culverin, Of prisoner's ransom, and of soldiers slain, And all the current of a heady fight. Thy spirit within thee hath been fo at war, And thus hath so beftirr'd thee in thy sleep, That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow, Like bubbles in a late disturbed stream: And in thy face strange motions have appear'd, Such as we fee, when men restrain their breath On some great sudden hafte. O, what portents are

these ! Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, And I must know it, else he loves me not.

(s) See Portia's speech to Brutus in Julius Cæfar, A& II. Scene III,

B 3

ACT

ACT III. SCENE I.

Prodigies ridiculd.
(6) I blame him not : at my nativity,
The front of heav'n was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning creffets ; know, that, at my birth,
The frame and the foundation of the earth
Shook like a coward.

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 Is with a kind of cholick pinch'd and vext, By the imprisoning of unruly wind Within her womb; which, for enlargement friving, Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples down High tow'rs and mois-grown steeples.

On miserable Rhymers. (7) I had rather be a kitten, and cry, mew! Than one of these fame 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 Mhapes,
The goats ran froin the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clam'rous in the frighted fields :
These figns have marked me extraordinary,
And all the courses of my life do fhew,

I am not in the roll of common men. (7) I bad, &c.] Horace in his art of poetry, speaking of poctAfers, says į

I'd rather hear a brazen candlestick turn'd,
Or a dry wheel grate on the axle -tree,
And that would nothing set my teeth on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry ;
'Tis like the forc'd gait of a fhuffling nag.

Puntuality in Bargain.

I'll give thrice so much land
To any well-deserving friend ;
But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
I'll cavil on the ninth Part of a hair.

A Husband sung to feep by a fair Wife.

She bids you

(8) All on the wanton rushes lay you down, And rest your gentle head upon her lap,

And

Ut mala, &c.
A mad dog's foam, th' infection of the plague,
And all the judgments of the angry gods
Are not avoided more by men of senfe,

Than poetasters in their raging fits.
And again;

'Tis hard to say, whether for sacrilege,
Or incest, or some more unheard of crime,
The rhyming fiend is sent into these men :
But they are all most visibly posseft,
And like a bated bear, when he breaks loose,
Without distinction seize on all they mcet :
Learn'd, or, unlearn'd, none scape within their reach ;
(Sticking like leeches, till they burst with blood,)
Without remorse insatiably they read,
And never leave 'till they have read men dead.

ROSCOMMON.

(8) She bids, &c.] There is something extremely tender and pleafing in these lines, as well as in the following, from Philafter, which justly deserve to be compared with them :

- Whe

B 4

And she will fing the song that pleaseth you,
And on your eye-lids crown the God of sleep,
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness;
Making such diff'rence betwixt wake and sleep,
19) As is the diff'rence betwixt day and night,
The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team
Fegins his golden progress in the east.

Who fhall now tell you
How much I lov'd you ? who shall swear it to you,
And weep the tears I send ? who shall now bring you
letters, rings, bracelets, lose his health in service?
Wake tedious nights in stories of your praise ?
Who now shall fing your crying elegies,
And ftrike a sad soul into fenfeless pictures,
And make them mourn? who shall take up his lute
And touch it, till he crown a filent Seep
Upon my eye-lid, making me dream and cry,
Oli my dear, dear Pbilaster

AZ. 3. latter endo

(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 lie describes 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 ftill evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her fober livery all things clad :
Silence accompanied : for beast and bird,
They to their grasly couch, these to their nests
Were sunk, all but the wakeful nightingale ;
She all night long her amorous descant sung :
Silence was pleas'd ; now glow'd the. firmament
With living saphirs : Hesperus, that led
The starry hoft, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rifing in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light,

And o'er the dark her filver mantle threw. The reader will be agreeably entertain'd, if he refers to the pasfage in Dr. Newton's Edition of Miltox,

V. 598.

SCENE