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have done; only tied her down to a sworn obedience. I would read,

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So is the will of a living daughter curb'd by the WILL of a dead father.

And p. 149 (falsely so marked):

You should refuse to perform your father's WILL. And again:

unless I be obtain'd by the manner of father's WILL.

my

P. 160. Turn upon your right hand at the next turning; but at the next turning of all, on your left, &c.

I think, I remember, somewhere in Terence, the arch-direction of a slave, who wants to puzzle his inquirer, perfectly like this-Sed non occurrit mihi locus.

P. 162. As my father shall specifie.

Considering Lancelot is here upon his game, and knocking all words out of joint, Mr. Bishop imagines this should be,

As my father shall spicifie.

Just as he a little after says, shall fruitifie unto you-(fruit and spice).

But is it of moment enough to mention?

Ibid. You have the Grace of God, Sir, and he hath enough.

Now here, indeed, methinks, this is a little too serious for Launcelot: and he delivers the proverb more justly than the Poet intended. It would be very satirical both to his old and new master, with relation both to their religion and circumstances, if we might imagine a small transposition in the words, He hath the Grace of God, Sir, and you have enough. For Launcelot to say the Jew, whom he thought a Devil, had the grace of God; or that Bassanio had enough, whom he knew to be a borrower, is very

droll.

droll. And then there is much humour too in the

ironical reply of Bassanio:

Thou speak'st it well.

Or, as we read it,

Thou split'st it well.

P. 175. That may be meant. Of the full multitude that chuse by show, &c.

Oh, the diligence of these Editors! Both the old quarto and first folio edition read,

Of the FOOL-multitude.

P. 177. Bassanio lord, Love!

Mr. Pope certainly conceives-Bassanio lord, to stand for Lord Bassanio.-I take the liberty to alter the pointing:

Bassanio, Lord Love! if, &c.

P...... As ever knapt ginger.

I do not well know what this expression alludes to. Is it the breaking ginger in pieces to put into possets, as I presume was then the custom; and which seems to be hinted at in Measure for Measure, p. 358, Ginger was not much in request; for the old women were all dead. But I had not troubled you with this trifling passage, but to be informed, exactly, what is meant by a race, or raze of ginger.— Its seeming derivation from radix, or radice, of the Italians, makes me think they meant as we do, a little root of ginger.

And so in Winter's Tale, p. 305:

A race, or two, of ginger; but that I may beg. But how are we then to understand 1 Henry IV. p. 198:

I have a gammon of bacon, and two razes of ginger to be delivered as far as Charing-cross. What! would any body send two little roots of ginger from Canterbury to London by the carrier? Sure, this is worse than coals to Newcastle.

P. 183. Thus ornament is but the gilded shore

To a most dang'rous sea; the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,

X 2

The

The seeming truth which cunning TIMES

put on

T'entrap the wisest..

The

These very fine lines, I own, puzzle me. Poet is haranguing, with some scope, of the deception of exterior beauty, from the fucus, and false hair, &c. But pray, a word or two on the text. There is a glaring contrast betwixt gilded shore, and dang'rous sea; but is there the same betwixt beauteous scarf, and Indian beauty? I suspect both the pointing and the text wrong; but after I have submitted my emendation, I shall, with the greatest pleasure, retract it, if (as it is very possible) you shall explain it to me without any alteration. Thus I at present:

Thus ornament is but the gilded shore

To a most dang'rous sea: the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian. - Beauty's, in a word,
The seeming truth which cunning DAMES* put on
T'entrap the wisest.

I am, dear Sir, your most affectionate bounden

servant,

LEW. THEOBALD.

LETTER XXI.

To the Rev. Mr. WARBURTON.

DEAR SIR, Wyan's Court, Dec. 6, 1729. I have just received the unspeakable satisfaction. of two of yours, and read them with a pleasure answering my best expectations. General thanks premised, I will only interrupt the business in hand with two or three words arising from part of their contents; and so fall into order. I am strangely delighted with Stephano and Staffilato; and will for that reason lay out with my best diligence to trace

*Or TIRES, or TRIMS.

whence

whence our Author derived his Play, the fable of it I mean. I have already thrown in a note on the nice preservation of the three unities. As you have stepped back to the Tempest, I will beg leave to take one passage of the Merry Wives in my way, which I had forgot to trouble you with; p. 235: Go; a short knife and a thong, to your manor of Pickt-hatch.

I find this place often mentioned in Ben Jonson; and sometimes joined with the Spittle. I suppose it was somewhere in the suburbs of this great town, or the Borough; but what was done there, to which our Author alludes in the knife and thong, I am utterly a stranger to.-And now as to Adam Bell or Dell. I am afraid, I must yet grow better acquainted with him. I not only remembered that remarkable story you mention of the Swiss Cantons' enfranchisement, but had lately read it. Your memory does not much deceive you in the name of the person to whom this revolution was owing. It was Tell (or Tellius); and I wish he were full to our purpose; but it happens a little unluckily, that his Christian name was William; and so we are again at seek for Adam. Moreri gives us the story with all its particulars. Vide Tell (William) &c.-And next, as to my doubts on the additional couplet in the 16th page of the Comedy of Errors. I am sorry I expressed myself so unhappily as to leave it a question whether I was desiring your assistance for my own information, or putting you upon a fruitless task. Pray, dear Sir, excuse me in your opinion from all attempts of this sort, or of using any such trifling reserve with you. Believe me, I had toiled myself into the very abyss of dullness upon this passage, and met with no ground. Your discovery is, I think, happy and satisfactory. I only observe the third line halts for want of a syllable, and in the second methinks a disjunctive would be better than a copulative. Shall I understand it right in reading thus?

Yet

-Yet the gold bides still,

That others touch:-BUT often touching will
Wear gold and [so] no man that hath a name,
But falsehood, &c.

And now to pursue my inquiries on the Merchant of Venice:

P. 186. But who comes here? Lorenzo and his IN

FIDEL?

P. 187. Nerisa, cheer yon STRANGER.-Bid HER well

come.

How comes it to pass, that there is no more notice taken of Jessica, and that Bassanio and Portia take no notice of her at all? Was she still in the habit of a boy, and appeared as Lorenzo's page? that there might be no occasion of taking notice of her, and hearing her story, which could not be so properly done if Bassanio had a letter to deliver of such consequence, and that required so much haste; and much less, if Bassanio had read it. But then again, if she was in man's cloaths, how comes Gratiano to say to Nerissa-bid her welcome, without intimating at least that she was a woman in man's apparel? And again is it not a little odd, in p. 188 Jessica mixes herself in discourse about the Jew her father's desire of revenge on Antonio, and still not one civil word is addressed to her by Bassanio or Portia ?

P. 191. The Duke cannot deny the course of law;
For the commodity that strangers have

With us in Venice, if it be deny'd,

Will much impeach the justice of the State,
Since that, &c.

I suspect, the pointing and text are slightly depraved in this passage; and may be thus set right:

The Duke cannot deny the course of law,
For the commodity that strangers have
With us in Venice. If it be deny'd

'Twill much impeach the justice of the State:
Since that, &c.

P. 192.

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