As to the other commentary, on the passage "We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns, Johnson had such mortal antipathy to a pun, that, in his jealousy to avoid, he finds one, where Shakespeare never designed any. A "crack'd crown may undoubtedly mean both a "broken head and a "broken piece of money ;" but it is equally as plain that Shakespeare by the currency of a "broken head” did not mean that "a soldier's wounds entitled him to universal reception." The very passage, by which this unfortunate similitude was traced out, opposes the construction of the commentator. A broken piece of money would not receive an universal reception; but on the contrary would have excited scrutiny and suspicion whenever its unhappy physiognomy was discovered. Hotspur merely observes that it is a soldier's duty not to dally away his time in softer pleasures; but in the exercise of his profession to make "bloody noses and cracked crowns,' ,” “current,” or as widely disseminated as possible, and this is the whole mystery of the passage. Richard terrified by a dream exclaims "Have mercy Jesu.....Soft.....I did but dream. O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me.” Dr. Warburton on this passage remarks "this is extremely fine. The speaker had entirely got the better of his conscience and banished it from all his waking thoughts; but it takes advantage of his sleep and frightens him in his dreams. With great elegance therefore, he is made to call it coward conscience, which dares not encounter him when awake and his faculties entire ; but takes advantage of reason being off its guard and the powers of the soul dissolved in sleep." This criticism, with reverence be it spoken, is more worthy the pen of honest Theobald, than Dr. Warburton. Had the learned prelate recalled to his memory the last words of Richard in the preceding scene, where he felt such depression of soul while reflecting on his guilt, that he calls for artificial stimulants to restore it to its wonted tone: "Give me a bowl of wine. I have not that alacrity of spirit Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have," he would have been well convinced, that "the speaker had not entirely got the better of his conscience, and banished it from all his waking hours."..... It was plainly the intention of the poet to give to the mind of Richard while awake a foreboding of his dream. It is farcical therefore to apply, as the bishop does, the term coward to his conscience as a word of reproach, and to represent it as something which had not the courage "to encounter him when awake and with his faculties entire." It represents the ambition of Richard and his conscience at a platonick kind of fisty cuff with each other, in which ambition triumphs in the diurnal, and conscience in the nocturnal rounds. In this nonentity of pugilism "reason is" part of the time "off its guard," of which circumstance Mendoza conscience "takes the advantage." Notwithstanding the bishop, contrary to the functions of his office, decides that conscience" dared not encounter" its opponent by day, we will venture any reasonable bet on the question, and Richard himself shall determine the point. He does decide it; and what is more whimsical still, in the very speech from which the learned commentator extracted that singular beauty. Reader, the tyrant is now awake. "My CONSCIENCE hath a thousand several tongues, Neglect the bishop's beauty; turn his own words right upon him, that "the speaker had not banished conscience from all his waking thoughts," nor “ got the better of it," and "that it dared to encounter him while he was awake, and his faculties entire ;” that "it did not take the advantage of reason being off its guard, and the powers of the soul dissolved in sleep," and we have Shakespeare's precise meaning, and the whole speech of Richard stands consistently together. The plain interpretation is, conscience is not a coward, but it is a terrible thing to create cowardice, and such and such only was Shakespeare's meaning. Nor less extraordinary is a construction put by Mr. Walker on a passage, too perspicuous in itself to require the aid of a commentator. It is as follows: "If antiquity can give sanction to the pronunciation of a word, this (raisin) may be traced as far back as the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Falstaff, in the first part of Henry IV. being urged to give reasons for his conduct, tells him, that if raisins were as plenty as blackberries, he would not give him one upon compulsion. This pun evidently shews these words were pronounc ed exactly alike in Shakespeare's time, and that Mr. Sheridan's pronunciation of the word, as if written raysin, is not only contrary to general usage, but, what one would think a greater offence, destructive of the wit of Shakespeare." Falstaff, being detected by the merry wags his comrades in a most atrocious falsehood, is desired by them to give a reason for his conduct, and this is his reply, "What upon compulsion! No, were I at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion! If reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion.' The reluctance manifested by all mankind to answer on compulsion, and by Englishmen in particular, where confessions so obtained are disregarded by courts of justice, furnishes the knight with a very plausible pretext to decline an attempt at exculpation. Furthermore and lastly, this is believed to be the first attempt of a commentator to change the meaning of a word from its spelling, when the pronunciation was equivocal, for no other purpose than to manufacture a pun. Admitting what however does not appear but from the simple ipse dixit of Mr. Walker, that raisin and reason had the same pronunciation, still if Shakespeare spelt the word reason, it is decisive authority that his commentator's construction was wrong. The author puns enough in all conscience to gratify the most voracious appetite for quibbles, and it seems cruel to charge him with another literary sin of that kind which he never committed, when it makes flat nonsense of the passage to boot. Before we conclude, we will notice an analogy between two pas. sages of Virgil and Shakespeare. Virgil in a well known passage thus describes the appearance of Ætna : "Sed horrificis juxta tonat Etna ruinis. Interdumque atram prorumpit ad aethera nubem, Cum gemitu glomerat, fundoque exaestuat imo." Poor Blackmore in an evil hour rendered this unfortunate passage thus ; Etna and all the burning mountains find Their kindred stores with inbred storms of wind And with their melted bowels spread the ground.” Pope, who was lynx-eyed to discover a fault in any 'one whom his jealousy alone raised to the rank of a poetical rival, found in this passage whatever materials the most malignant satire could covet for unrestrained indulgence. The translation is plainly too contemptible for sober criticism, and would have past inoffensively into oblivion with the other productions of Blackmore's pen; but his malignant genius threw Pope in his way to obstruct the passage. Johnson, it is true, has tried to commend him, but seems to give up the point in despair in the midst of his panegyricks, and probably would never have undertaken so arduous a task, had he not been compelled to it by his predominant anxiety to encounter the criticism of an opponent so illustrious as Pope. Finding Blackmore's poetry unworthy of panegyrick, he resorts to his life, and, because he was pious, seems anxious to attach his piety to the puny efforts of Blackmore's muse, as if the former would consecrate the latter. Pope no doubt would agree with Johnson on the score of Blackmore's piety; but he understood the franchises of Parnassus too well to admit that piety alone entitled a man to the honours of a sitting. Pope, with that alacrity so characteristick of genius, while searching his brains for a sarcasm, alighted on the passage we have quoted, and combining Blackmore's profession with his poetry, made Mount Etna one of his patients in a fit of the cholick. From that hour to the present, Blackmore by the pestilent assistance of Pope has suffered an immortality such as all wish to avoid, the immortality of contempt. Shakespeare, by good fortune hav ing what Blackmore had not, genius to canonize the sins of his pen, reckless of criticism, thus describes the convulsions of nature; "Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth Within her womb, which for enlargement striving Here nature, that venerable old lady, is represented as troubled with all the symptoms of a cholick; nay, what is worse, the nature of her complaint is specifically mentioned. This passage, however, has not only been past without censure by criticks, but has been cited with commendation. Such a sanction can genius give to all its works. The solution is easy, the latter passage was the errour of Shakespeare, and the former of Blackmore. R. FOR THE ANTHOLOGY. REMARKER, No. 44. Give me the preacher, whose capacious soul, ANON. THERE is no subject, on which men more widely differ than on that of preaching. On every other department of intellectual exertion they seem generally agreed; and who are the best poets, historians, and philosophers of civilized nations, is a point indisputably settled. But what is the best mode of preaching, and who the best preachers, still remains undecided by the clergy no less than by the laity, and every man is left to judge, according to his own prejudices, partialities, and passions. If the same theological creed were universally embraced, there would be less difficulty in deciding the question. But whilst the christian world continues to adopt different systems, 'to espouse dissimilar doctrines, cach individual will judge of the excellence of a sermon, and of the merit of a preacher, in exact proportion as they approximate to his own theological opinions. Thus I have known a disciple of a particular school of theology give a decided preference to the worst pulpit orator in a metropolis, whilst he would sneer at the eloquent productions, delivered by men of acknowledged genius, and of first rate talents. The wild ravings of field orators and camp-meeting rhetoricians pass with many for divine inspirations, who would be lulled asleep by the ponderous sense of a Barrow, or the polished delicacy of a Blair. I know of no printed sermons, which are perfect models of pulpit eloquence. The French are too ostentatious in their manner, and wretchedly deficient in matter. Single passages of great excellence may be produced, but not an entire sermon; neither are the violent exclamations, with which they abound, well adapted to the sobriety of New England feelings. We seem to require, that good sense should form the constituent part of a sermon, for the absence of which no rhetorical flourishes can make adequate compensation. Sermons should be impressive and instructive; impressive to gain attention, instructive to reward it. They should contain matter enough to satisfy the judicious, and yet be sufficiently interesting to engage and edify the multitude. Mr. Cowper recommends the great apostle of the Gentiles, as the best model on which a preacher can form himself. But St. Paul, from the nature of his subjects, often appears too metaphysical and obscure; and his writings, in which are many things hard to be understood, have given birth to the far larger portion of the controversies, which still continue to divide and agitate the disciples of the humble Nazarene. Men of similar learning and integrity will draw different inferences from the same passage, and many chapters from his various epistles have been interpreted, in very distinct senses, with plausibility nearly equal. I should recommend a preacher, therefore, to go to the fountain head, and imitate the Saviour himself, who" spake as never man spake." In his sermon on the mount, in his beatitudes, in his parables, in all his discourses, we find patterns of consummate eloquence, pathetick, simple, and sublime. We hear, from the divine founder of our religion, no abstruse treatises on faith, justification, perseverance, necessity, and free will. But he directs his addresses to "the business and bosoms of men," denouncing those vices that will hazard their eternal salvation, and earnestly enforcing those virtues, the practice of which, through his merits, will ensure their present and future happiness. Our triple duties towards God, our fellow creatures, and ourselves, are the glorious themes, on which he exerts his divine eloquence, the just discharge of which is attended by practical utility. "He came into the world to save sinners," not by preaching to them that unintelligible jargon, and quaint language, with which the huge folios and solid quartos of Boeotian commentators are replete, but by teaching us how to do good and avoid evil. Here then is the pattern to imitate, here is the example for the christian orator to follow; and he, who preaches from the word of the Saviour, is more likely to preach the gospel, and breathe the genuine spirit of christianity, than those, who prefer to choose a text from the obscurer parts of Paul, or the Revelation of John. Non omnia possumus omnes. A consummate preacher is a rara avis in terris. One may excel in composition, and be deficient in just and forcible elocution. Another may possess an excellent delivery, yet his discourse may be vox et preterea nihil. He is the best preacher, who unites the most excellencies with the fewest defects; who is pious without cant, pathetick without whining, |