From fairies and the tempters of the night, [Slecps. [Iachimo rifts from the Trunk. Iach. The crickets fing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense Repairs itself by rest: our Tarquin thus Thus in a chapel lying! Come off, come off. [Taking off her Bracelet. As flippery as the Gordian knot was hard. (4) Osleep, &c.] So Ovid says, Stronger Stulte quid eft fomnus, gelidæ nisi mortis imago? Stronger than ever law could make: this secret Why should I write this down, that's rivetted, [He goes into the Trunk, the Scene clofes. SCENE IV. Gold. (6) 'Tis gold Which buys admittance, oft it doth, yea, makes Diana's (5) May bear, &c.] Some copies read, bare, or make bare; others, ope: but the true reading is, bear, a term taken from heraldry, and very fublimely applied. The meaning is, that morning may affume the colour of the raven's eye, which is grey: hence it is so commonly called, the grey-cy'd morning; in Romeo and Juliet, I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye. Warburton. No term in heraldry is so common as to bear, so that, doubtless, Mr. Warburton's explanation must be allowed: Shakespear uses it in Much ado about Nothing; "So that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between him and his horse." (6) Tis, &c.] See the 2d part of Henry IV. Act 4. Sc. 11. Virgil says, Curs'd gold, how high will daring mortals rise Diana's rangers false themselves, and yield up SCENE VII. A Satire on Women. (7) Is there no way for men to be, but women Must be half-workers? We are bastards all; And Horace has an ode expressly on this subject, That gold makes its way thro' all things: 'tis in his 3d book, and the 16th ode. Take part of it in the words of Greech; A tower of brass, gates strong and barr'd, That fought imprison'd Danae's bed When Jove himself was bribe, and turn'd to gold. It flies thro' walls, and breaks away: And made the wife her fatal lord betray. (7) Is there, &c.] Milton says, O why did God Creator wife, that peopled highest heaven This And that most venerable man, which I This novelty on earth, this fair defect When Par. Loft, B. 10. ν. 888. This thought, as Dr. Neruton has well observed, both in Shakefp.ar and Milton, "was originally from Euripides, who makes Hippolitus, in like manner, expoftulate with Jupiter, for not creating man without woman." See Hip. 616. Ο Jupiter, why woman, man's fole woe, And Jafon is made to talk in the same strain, in the Meka, 573. Children by other means should be created, Dr. Newton adds, "Such sentiments as these, we suppose, procured Euripides the name of woman-hater. Ariosto, however, hath ventured upon the fame, in Rodomont's invective against woman. Orlando Furioso, Cant. 27. S. 120. Why did not nature rather fo provide, As are the apples with the pear and plumb ? Harrington, St. 97. It would be endless to quote from authors, passages fimilar to this in Shakespear: those of our own nation have greatly labour'd on the topic: Mr. Warburton himself hath joined the band, and fought against the ladies, as his pithy reflections on the wife of Job, in his Divine Legation, shew: however, we still find them retaining their power in spite of all the malice of their foes, and amidst so many enemies still triumphant. The manner in which the jealous Posthumus defcribes the ap parent modesty of his wife, deferves to be compared with the following passage from Philafter, who having received a letter to inform him of the falfhood of his mistress, whom he dearly loved and believed perfectly chaste, fays; O, let When I was stampt. Some coiner with his tools The nonpareil of this Oh, vengeance, vengeance! Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd, And pray'd me oft forbearance; did it with A pudency so rosy, the sweet view on't Might well have warm'd old Saturn-that I thought her As chaste as unfunn'd snow. * * * The woman's part in me;-for there's no motion O, let all women, That That love black deeds learn to diffemble here! See Philafter, Act. 3. A little further in the fame act, he thus declaims against the sex. Some far place, Where never womankind durft set her foot, And live to curse you : There dig a cave and preach to birds and beafts, pions, Both heal and poison; how your thoughts are woven |