How many shallow bauble boats dare fail But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage And flies get under shade; why then the thing of courage, As rowz'd with rage, with rage doth sympathize; Returns to chiding fortune. Ulyff. Agamemnon, Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,. The which, most mighty for thy place and sway, [To Agamemnon. -ancient breast. 6-the thing of courage,] It is faid of the tiger, that in storms and high winds he rages and roars most furioufly. HANMER. 7 Returns to chiding fortune.] For returns, Hamer reads replies, unneceffarily, the sense being the fame. The folio and quarto have retires, corruptly. And 1 And thou, most rev'rend for thy stretcht-out life, [To Neftor. I give to both your speeches; which were such, : 9 Agam. Speak, Prince of Ithaca, and be't of less expect That matter needless, of importless burden, Uyff. Troy, yet upon her basis, had been down, The speciality of Rule hath been neglected; 8-Speeches; which were such, Should hold up high in brass; Should-knit all Greeks ears To bis experienc'd tongue: -) Ulifes begins his oration with praising those who had spoken before him, and marks the characteristick excellencies of their different eloquence, strength and sweetness, which he expresses by the different metals on which he recommends them to be engraven for the instruction of posterity. The speech of Azamemnon is such that it ought to be engraven in brafs, and the tablet held up by him on the one fide, and Greece on the other, to shew the union of their opinion. And Neftor ought to be exhibited in filver, uniting all his audience in one mind by his soft and gentle elocution. Brass is the common emblem of strength, and filver of gentleness. We call a foft voice a filver voice, and a perfuafive tongue a filver tongue. I once read for hand, the band of Greece, but I think thetextright. To batch, is a term of art for a particular method of engraving. Hacher, to cut, French. 9 Agam. Speak, &c.] This speech is not in the quarto. The Speciality of Rule-] The particular rights of supreme authority. And And, look, how many Grecian Tents do stand When that the General is NOT LIKE the bive,] The image is taken from the government of bees. But what are we to understand by this line ? either it has no meaning, or a meaning contrary to the drift of the speaker. For either it signifies, that the General and the hive are not of the same degree or species, when as the speaker's complaint is, that the hive acts so perversely as to destroy all difference of degree between them and the General: or it must signify, that the General has private ends and interests distinct from that of the bive; which defeats the very end of the speaker; whose purpose is to justify the General, and expose the disobedience of the hive. We should certainly then read, When that the General NOT LIKES the bive: i. e. when the foldiers like not, and refufe to pay due obedience to their General: This being the very cafe he would describe, and shew the mischiefs of. WARB, No interpretation was ever more perverse than those of the commentator. The meaning is, When the General is not to the ar my like the hive to the bees, the repofitory of the stock of every individual, that to which each particular reforts with whatever he had collected for the good of the whole, what honey is expected? what hope of advantage? The sense is clear, the expreffion is confused. 3 The heav'ns themselves, -] This illustration was probably derived from a passage in Hooker: If celestial spheres should forget their wonted motion; if the Prince of the lights of beaven should begin to stand; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, and the seasons of the year blend them felves, what would become of man? The heav'ns themselves, the planets, and this center,] i. ea the center of the earth; which, according to the Ptolemaic system then in vogue, is the center of the Solar System. WARB. Corrects Corrects the ill afpects of planets evil, Sans check, to good and bad. nets In evil mixture to disorder wander, But when the pla What plagues, and what portents, what mutiny? Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixure? Oh, when degree is shaken, Which is the ladder to all high designs, • The enterprize is fick. How could communities, And the rude son should strike his father dead: 1 Force should be Right; or rather, & Right and Wrong, 8 Right and Wrong, Between whose endless jar Juftice RESIDES, Would lose their names, ( The editor, Mr. Theobald, thinks that the second line is no bad comment upon what Horace has said on this Subject; -funt certi denique fines, Quos ultra citraque nequit confiftere rectum. But if it be a comment on the Latin poet, it is certainly the worft that ever was made. Horace says, with extreme good fenfe, that there are certain bounds beyond which, and short of which, Justice or Right cannot exist. The meaning is, because if it be sport of those bounds, Wrong prevails; if it goes beyond, Justice tyrannises; according to the common proverb of Summum jus fumma injuria. Shakespear fays, that Justice refides between the endless jar of right and wrong. Here the two extremes, between which Justice refides, are right and wrong; in Horace the two extremes, between which Justice resides, are both wrong. A very pretty comment this truly, which puts the change upon us; and instead of explaining a good thought of Horace, gives us a For nonsensical one of its own. A man of Compliments, whom This is the exact office of Juflice in the present reading: But we are not to think that Shak Spear in a ferious speech would dress her up in the garb of his fantaftick Spaniard. We must rather conclude that he wrote, Between whose endless jar Juf tice PRESIDES; i. e. always determines the controversy in favour of Right; and thus Justice is properly characterised without the author's ever dreaming of commenting Horace. WARBURTON. Surely all this is needless. If Justice prefides between them, the must refide between them; if the fits with authority, the muft fit. And |