Imatges de pàgina
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Thus proudly pight' upon our Phrygian plains,
Let Titan rise as early as he dare,

I'll through and through you!-And thou, greatsiz'd coward!

No space of earth shall sunder our two hates;
I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,
That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy thoughts.-
Strike a free march to Troy!-with comfort go:
Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.

[Exeunt ÆNEAS and Trojans.

As TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other side, PANDARUS.

Pan. But hear you, hear you!

Tro. Hence, broker lackey! ignomy and shame Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name! [Exit TROILUS.

Pan. A goodly med'cine for my aching bones!O world! world! world! thus is the poor agent despised! O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a' work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be so loved, and the performance so

5pight] i. e. pitched, fixed. The obsolete preterite and participle passive of to pitch.

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with comfort go:

Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.] This couplet affords a full and natural close of the play; and though I once thought differently, I must now declare my firm belief that Shakspeare designed it should end here, and that what follows is either a subsequent and injudicious restoration from the elder drama, mentioned in p. 269, or the nonsense of some wretched buffoon, who represented Pandarus. When the hero of the scene was not only alive, but on the stage, our author would scarce have trusted the conclusion of his piece to a subordinate character, whom he had uniformly held up to detestation. It is still less probable that he should have wound up his story with a stupid outrage to decency, and a deliberate insult on his audience.-But in several other parts of this drama I cannot persuade myself that I have been reading Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

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loathed? what verse for it? what instance for it?Let me see:

Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing, Till he hath lost his honey, and his sting: And being once subdued in armed tail, Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.— Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths.

As many as be here of pander's hall, Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall: Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans, Though not for me, yet for your aching bones. Brethren, and sisters, of the hold-door trade, Some two months hence my will shall here be made: It should be now, but that my fear is this,Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss: Till then I'll sweat, and seek about for eases; And, at that time, bequeath you my diseases.

[Exit.

This play is more correctly written than most of Shakspeare's compositions, but it is not one of those in which either the extent of his views or elevation of his fancy is fully displayed. As the story abounded with materials, he has exerted little invention; but he has diversified his characters with great variety, and preserved them with great exactness. His vicious characters disgust, but cannot corrupt, for both Cressida and Pandarus are detested and contemned. The comick characters seem to have been the favourites of the writer; they are of the superficial kind, and exhibit more of manners than nature; but they are copiously filled and powerfully impressed. Shakspeare has in his story followed, for the greater part, the old book of Caxton, which was then very popular; but the character of Thersites, of which it makes no mention, is a proof that this play was written after Chapman had published his version of Homer. JOHNSON.

END OF VOLUME SEVENTH.

C. and R. Baldwin, Printers,

New Bridge-Street, London.

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