Thy thoughts with nobleness, that thou mayst prove
To shame invulnerable, and stick i'th' wars
Like a great fea-mark, ftanding every flaw,
And faving those that eye thee!

Coriolanus' Mother's pathetic Speech to him.

- Think with thyself,

How more unfortunate than all living women
Are we come hither; fince thy fight, which should
Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with com-

forts,
Constrains them weep, and shake with fear and forrow;
Making the mother, wife, and child to fee,
The fon, the husband, and the father tearing
His country's bowels out; and to poor we
Thine enmity's most capital; thou barr'st us
Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort
That all but we enjoy.

**

*

*

* * *

We must find,

An eminent calamity though we had
Our wish which side shou'd win. For either thou

Must, as a foreign recreant, be led
With manacles along our streets: or elfe
Triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin
And bear the palm for having bravely she
Thy wife and children's blood for myff, fon,
I purpose not to wait on fortune, till
These wars determine; if I can't perfuade thee
Rather to shew a noble grace to both parts,

:

Than

In the Two Noble Kinmen, Arcite, lamenting the many miseries of their captivity, among the rest complains that they should have

No issue know them;

No figure of ourselves shall we e'er see,

To glad our eye, and like young eagles, teach 'em
Boldly to gaze against bright arms, and say

Remember what your fathers were-and conquer.

1

Than feek the end of one: thou shalt no fooner'

March to affault thy country, than to tread

(Trust to't, thou shalt not) on thy mother's womb, That brought thee to this world.

SCENE IV. Peace after a Siege.

Ne'er thro' an arch so hurried the blown tide,
As the re-comforted thro' th' gates. Why, hark you!
(15) The trumpets, fackbuts, pfalteries and fifes,
Tabors and cymbals, and the shouting Romans
Make the fun dance.

(15) The, &c.] Shakespear poffibly might have this verse from the 3d chapter of Daniel, in view, when he wrote the above.

At what time ye bear the found of the cornet, flute, barp, fackbut, pfaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image, &c.

Or this from the laft Pfalm. Praise him with the found of the trumpet, praise bhim with the pfaltery and barp: praise bim with the timbrel and dance, praise bim with the ftringed inftruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals, praise bim upon the high-founding cymbals. Let every thing that bath briath braise the Lord.

General Observation.

The tragedy of Coriolanus (fays Johnfon) is one of the most amufing of our author's performances. The old man's merriment in Menenius; the lofty lady's dignity in Volumnia; the bridal modesty in Virgilia; the patrician and military haughtiness in Coriolanus; the plebeian malignity and tribunitian insolence in Brutus and Sicinius, make a very pleasing and interesting variety: and the various revolutions of the hero's fortune fill the mind with anxious curiofity. There is, perhaps, too much bustle in the first act, and too little in the laft.

Cymbeline.

To after-eye him.

Pis. Madam, so I did.

Imo. I would have broke mine eye-strings; crackt

'em, but

To look upon him; (1) till the diminution

Of space, had pointed him sharp as my needle;
Nay, followed him, 'till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat, to air; and then

Have turn'd mine eye, and wept: but, good Pifanio,
When shall we hear from him?

Pis. Be affur'd, madam,

With his next vantage.

Imo. I did not take my leave of him, but had Most pretty things to say; ere I could tell him

How

(1) Till, &c.] There needs no alteration here: Imogen fays, "She would not have left to after-eye him, till he was as little as a crow, nay, she would have crackt her eye-ftrings to look. apon him, till the diminution of space [the leffening of the nace he took up] had pointed him sharp as a needle," (till the ace he took up feem'd not only small as a bird, but even sharp a needle's point.)

How I would think of him at certain hours,
Such thoughts, and fuch; or I could make him fwear,
The she's of Italy should not betray

Mine interest, and his honour: or have charg'd him
At the fixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,
T' encounter me with orifons, (for then
I am in heav'n for him ;) or e'er I could
Give him that parting kiss, (2) which I had fet
Betwixt two charming words, contes in my father,
And like the tyrannous breathing of the north,
Skakes all our buds from blowing *.

SCENE VIII. The Bafeness of Falshood to a Wife.
Doubting things go ill often hurts more,

Than to be fure they do; for certainties
Or are past remedies; or timely knowing,
The remedy then borne, difconer to me
What both you spur and stop.

Iach. (3) Had I this cheek!

To

(2) Which, &c.] Mr. Warburton, in his note on this passage, has had the felicity to discover what the two charming words were, between which Imogen would live fet her parting kiss, which Shakespear probably never thought of. He says, "without question, by these two charming words, the would be un derstood to mean,

Adieu, Posthumus.

The one religion made so, the other love."

Imogen must have understood the etymology of our language very exactly, to find out so much religion in the word adieu, which we use commonly, without fixing any such idea to it; as when we fay, fuch a man has bid adieu to all religion. And on the other fide, the must have understood the language of love very little, if the could find no tenderer expreffion of it, than the name by which every body elfe called her husband. Edward's Ga 1. of Crit. p. 115.

* Blowing, Warb. vulg. growing.

(3) Had I, &c.] He afterwards says,

12

To

To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch
Whose very touch wou'd force the feeler's soul
To th' oath of loyalty: this object, which
Takes prifoner the wild motion of mine eye,
Fixing it only here; should I, (damn'd then)
Slaver with lips, as common as the stairs
That mount the capitol; join gripes with hands
Made hard with hourly falfhood as with labour,
Then glad myself by peeping in an eye,
Base and unlustrious as the smoaky light
That's fed with stinking tallow it were fit
That all the plagues of hell should at one time
Encounter fuch revolt.

Imogen's Bedchamber; in one Part of it, a large

Imo.

Trunk.

Imogen is discovered reading.

-Mine eyes are weak

Fold down the leaf where I have left; to bed-
Take not away the taper, leave it burning:
And if thou canst awake by four o'th' clock,

I prithee call me-Sleep hath seized me wholly.

To your protection I commend me, gods,

To be partner'd

[Exit Lady.

From

With tom-boys, hir'd with that self-exhibition
Which your own coffers yield: with difeas'd ventures
That play with all infirmities for gold,
Which rottenness lends nature! fuch boil'd stuff

As well might poifon poifon: be reveng'd, &c.

These lines are well worthy the reflection of all those gent'emen, who style themselves Men of Pleasure: if they would duly weigh the truth of them; their own pride fure would be the first thing, to drum them, as Shakespear fays, from their lafcivious ports.