Book II. but that I am affeard. Macbeth, Act IV. Wear thou thy wrongs, His title is affeard. And elfe-. where. There is indeed a paffage in Spencer's Fairy Queen, B. V. c. 3. ft. 22. That may feem to vindicate the received reading, which is as follows.

As for this lady which he sheweth here,
Is not (I wager) Florimel at all;

But fome fair franion, fit for fuch a fear
That by misfortune in his band did fall.

Fit for fuch a fear, i. e. fit for fuch a fearful perfon, fuch a coward; as perhaps fome might think it should be interpreted. But this place in Spencer is wrongly fpelt, and it fhould be thus written,

But fome fair frannion, fit for fuch a fere.

But fome loose creature fit for such a companion. Fere is so used by Spencer and 7 Chaucer. So that Spencer and Shakespeare fhould both

be

7 A paffage in Chaucer I would hence corrrect: In the Prologues of the Canterbury Tales. . 166.

"A Monke ther was fayr for the maistery,
"An outrider, that loved venery."

του

be corrected. The story is taken from Plutarch in his life of Antony. Λέγων τὴν τύχην αὐτῇ, λαμπροβάτην ἔσαν καὶ μεγίσην, ὑπὸ τῆς Καίσαρος ἀμαυ n goa The Latin tranflator is wrong here, Tux is his Genius, not chance or fortuneγὰρ σὸς Δαίμων τὸν τέτε φοβεῖται καὶ γαῦρο ὢν καὶ ὑψηλὸς ὅταν ἦ καθ ̓ αὑτὸν, ὑπ ̓ ἐκείνε γίνεται ΤΑΠΕΙ ΝΟΤΕΡΟΣ ἐγγίσαν, » ΑΓΕΝΝΕΣΤΕΡΟΣ. Plut. p. 930. E. Which paffage ftronly confirms my emendation. The allufion is to that belief of the ancients, which Menander fo finely expreffes, Απαλι Δαίμων ανδρὶ συμπαραςαλεῖ

Ενθὺς γενομένῳ μωςαγωγὸς τὸ βιδ.

It feems to me it fhould be thus,

"A Monk ther was, fere for the miftery, &c.

i. c. "There was a Monk, a proper companion and brothet for the Monkish profeffion, [fo miftery is used by "the old writers ;] An outrider, &c. i. e. one not confined "to his cloyster, but a rider abroad and a lover of hunting." This word is wrongly fpelt in B. Johnson's Silent Woman. A& II. Sc. V. 66 Morofe. Dear Lady, I

"am courtly, I tell you, and I must have mine eares ban"queted with pleasant and wittie conferences, pretty girds, "fcoffs, and daliance in her, that I mean to choose for

:

my

bedpheere, read, bed-fere." i. e. a bed-fellow fo playing fere, a play fellow, used by Chaucer, and by Beaumont and Fletcher in the two Noble Kinsmen. Act IV. playpheeres. read, play-feres. This word we had originally from the Danes.

The philofophical meaning the emperor Marcus Antoninus lets us into. L. V. f. 27. Aαíμwr öv ὁ Δαίμων ἑκάτω προςάτην καὶ ἡγεμόνα ὁ Ζεὺς ἔδωκεν ἀπόσπασμα ἑαυτόν· το δὲ ἔσιν ὁ ἑκάςε νῆς καὶ λόγω. And our learned Spencer. B. 2. c. 12. ft. 47.

They in that place him GENIUS did call :
Not that celeftial power, to whom the care
Of life, and generation of all

That lives, pertains, in charge particular;
Who wondrous things concerning our welfare,
And ftrange phantoms doth let us oft forefee,
And oft of fecret ills bids us beware:

That is our SELF; who [r. whom] tho' we do not fee,

Yet each doth in himself it well perceive to be.

The fame story is alluded to in Macbeth, A&t III.

There is none but be

Whofe being I do fear and under him
My Genius is rebuk'd; as it is faid,
Antony's was by Caefar.

Thefe paffages a little confidered will fhew in a fine light that dialogue between Octavius and Antony, in Julius Caefar, Act V. where Octavius ufes his controuling and checking genius:

"Ant.

"Ant. Octavius, lead your battle foftly on, "Upon the left hand of the even field. "Oct. Upon the right hand I, keep thou the " left.

"Ant. Why do you crofs me in this exigent? * Oct. I do not crofs you, but I will do fo."

'Twas a common opinion likewise among the ancients, that, when any great evil befel them, they were forfaken by their guardian Gods. How beautiful is this reprefented in Homer and Virgil? The heavenly power, that usually pro tected the hero, deferts him just before his ruin. Plutarch tells us in his life of Antony, that, be fore he killed himself, a great noife of all man ner of inftruments was heard in the air, fuch as was ufually made at the feafts of Bacchus; it feemed to enter at one gate of the city, and, traverfing it quite through, to go out at the gate which the enemy lay before: this fignified, as 'twas interpreted, that Bacchus, his guardian God, had forfaken him. This circumftancè our poet has introduced in Antony and Cleopatra, A& IV.

" 'Till God at last,

Wearied with their iniquities, withdraw
His prefence from among them, and avert
His boly eyes.

But I am commencing commentator, when my province is only criticifm: to return thereforeIf the omiffion of a fingle letter occafions fuck confufion in modern languages, what will it not do in the Greek and Latin? I will just mention an inftance of this fort. In Ovid. Amor. III. XII. 21. "Per nos Scylla, patri canos furata capillos,

"Pube premit rabidos inguinibufque canes." But fome copies read caros, from which word a letter is omitted, and it fhould be written claros.

-Patri claros furata capillos.

For thus the hair of Nifus is defcribed in Ovid
Met. VIII, 8.

"Inter honoratos medio de vertice canos CRINIS inhaerebat, magni fiducia regni." Virg. Georg. I. 405.

11 Perhaps too Milton had in his mind what Jofephus relates, that a voice was heard before the destruction of Jerufalem, fuppofed of the guardian Angels forfaking the Jewish temple: Let us depart hence. pelaCaśvwpev śvleõber. Jofeph. de bell. Jud. L. 7.

Et

C