Imatges de pàgina
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← appears by the names in ufe. Thus Monkey, which, the Etymologifts tell us, comes from monkin, monikin, homunculus. Baboon, " from Babe, the termination denoting addition and « increment, a large Babe. Mantygre speaks its "original. And when they have brought their fir"names with them from their native country, as

Ape, the common people have as it were chri"fened them by the addition of Jack-an-Ape.". Mr. W.

Mantygre fpeaks its original! This poor critic fpeaks his original in every note he writes, especially if left to himself. Mantiger is the English pronunciation of Mantichora, Malixugas. But not to be grave-The other is on a passage in King Lear) AS I.

Regan. That I profess

Myself an enemy to all other joys,

"Which the most precious fquare of fenfe poffefjes."

"Which the most precious fquare of fenfe poffeffes.] "By the fquare of fenfe, we are, here, to underftand the four nobler fenfes, viz. the fight, hearing, tafte and fmell: For a young Lady could "not, with decency, infinuate that she knew of any pleafures which the fifth afforded. This is imagined and expreffed with great PROPRIETY and DELICACY. But the Oxford editor, for square reads spirit." Mr. W. I cannot

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I cannot help bere pausing a little, and reflecting on the ftrange notes, which I have been tranfcribing.-Yet this Critic, after the utmost acrimony of ftile against Mr. Theobald and Sir Thomas Hanmer, thus concludes, They Separately possessed those "two qualities which, more than any other, have "contributed to bring the Art of Criticism into difand EX

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repute, DULNESS OF APPREHENSION,

TRAVAGANCE OF CONJECTURE."

I have spoken very fully of what has contributed to bring the art of criticism into disrepute; but the want of Scholarship is the original of all. And I could wifh our Critic, among fome few other obfervations, had not thought the following abfolutely below his ferious notice :

" 'Twere well if a careful and critical reader "would first form to himself some plan, when he "enters upon an author deferving a stricter in

quiry if he would confider that originals have "a manner always peculiar to themselves; and not only a manner, but a language: if he would compare one paffage with another; for fuch authors

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are the best interpreters of their own meaning: "and would reflect, not only what allowances may "be given for obfolete modes of speech, but what a "venerable caft this alone often gives a writer. I

1 Mr. W.'s preface, p. xiii.

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..omit the previous knowledge in ancient cu❝stoms and manners, in grammar and conftru"Єtion; the knowledge of thefe is presupposed; " to be caught tripping here is an ominous stumble at the very threshold and entrance upon criticism 'tis ignorance, which no guefs-work, no divining faculty, however " ingenious, can atone and commute for."

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Had Mr. W. seriously noticed this, he would, as feriously, have laid afide all defigns of commencing an editor of Shakespeare: nor would be have gone out of his way to shew his readers, how little he knows of the English, how lefs of the Latin, how nothing of the Greek languages. He bas * launched forth on the immenfe ocean of criticifm with no compafs or card to direct his little fkiff; and tho' perhaps he may blind the eyes of the Lefs-obferving reader by stealing this man's obfervations, and by adding a little to another's; by overrefining on this passage, and feeking after diftant and far-fetched allusions to other paffages: yet all this fig-leave covering will but the more ferve to difcover the nakedness of the commentator to the difcerning eye of the real Critic.

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IX.

Whatever appearances of learning these remarks, which I have now under examination, may put on ; yet being deftitute of the thing itself, they will, from fuch appearances, be more defpifed by the real fcholar. I have heard it said by Critics, That fuch a remark is more ingenious than true. But, for my own part, I know nothing ingenious, but what is true. Nor can I look on the following in any other light, than as an idle dream

But

"From off this briar pluck a white rofe with me.] This is given as the original of the two "badges of the boufe of York and Lancaster, "whether truly or not, is no great matter. "the proverbial expreffion of SAYING A THING "UNDER THE ROSE, I am perfuaded, came from "thence. When the nation had ranged itself into "two great factions, under the white and red

rofe, and were perpetually plotting, and counter"plotting against one another, then when a matter "of faction was communicated by either party to "his friend in the fame quarrel, it was natural for him to add, that he said it under the rose; "meaning that, as it concern'd the faction, it was દ religiously to be kept fecret." Mr. W. [vol. 4. pag. 465.]

This is ingenious! What pity, that it is not learned too?The Rofe, (as the fables fay) was the fymbol of filence, and confecrated by Cupid to Harpocrates, to conceal the lewd pranks of his mother. So common a book as Lloyd's dictionary might have inftructed him in this. "Huic Harpocrati Cupido "Veneris fil. parentis fuæ rofam dedit in munus, ❝ ut fcilicet fi quid licentius dictum, vel a&tum fit in "convivio, fciant tacenda effe omnia. Atque idcirco ❝ veteres ad finem convivii fub rofa, Anglicè "under the role, tranfacta effe omnia ante digreffum contestabantur; cujus formæ vis eadem effet, atque ifta, Μισῶ μνάμονα συμπόταν. Probant banc rem verfus qui reperiuntur in marmore : "Eft rofa flos Veneris, cujus quo furta laterent "Harpocrati matris dona dicavit Amor. "Inde rofam menfis hofpes fufpendit amicis, "Convivæ ut fub eâ dicta tacenda sciant.'

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BUT there is fcarcely a page, that does not furnifh us with inftances of this over-refining humour. 'Tis this, together with a love of paradoxes, that generally misleads him from that plain road, to which plain fenfe would direct every reader. Who, even of a common understanding, can be mistaken in interpreting the following paffage in Macbeth, At I. where the Captain is giving an account of the Battle?

"As

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