Instead of-- Haste within me, Which is nonsense, we should read-- Fast within me,[ The sense of which is evident. Page 482. BACHA........ Is a mere modesty in his expression; ' That is, in the expression of him, and his merits. Page 486. TIMENTUS....If his thoughts (As I must ne'er believe) run with their rages, The construction of this passage is rather perplexed; but the sense is, If his thoughts run with their rages, which I must not believe, as he has always been so innocent. Page 488. BACHA....I know the we akne ss of it. That is, of the Duke's discretion, compared with that of Leucippus. Page 494. ISMENUS.... If he prove not yet The cunningest, rankest rogue, that ever canted, I'll ne'er see man again. I know him to bring. This passage is evidently erroneous. reads-- I know him to be a rogue; Seward And takes much pains to prove that the words bring and rogue are like to each other in the trace of the letters: but, as he has not convinced me of that, I should rather read-- I know him to be one, Which might probably have been mistaken for bring. Page 495. TIMENTUS........ Beside a hate of your still growing virtue She being only wicked. That is, nothing but wickedness; entirely compounded of it. Page 497. BACHA....In whom justice, And all the gods, for our imaginations, Can work into a man, were more than virtues. There appears to be some corruption in this passage; and Sympson's amendment, the reading of imitations, instead of imaginations, is certainly ingenious; but a much slighter alteration, my opinion, will answer the purpose. I should read-- in To our imaginations, Instead of for: that is, according to our conceptions. All the gods can work into a man, means, all that the gods can work into a man. There seems to me to be a striking resemblance between the character of Bacha and that of Congreve's Lady Touchwood. Page 512. BACHA....If thou fallest off, Go, be a rogue again, and lie and pander, A rogue means here a beggar, as it frequently does in those plays. Page 513. ISMENUS....Good man, he is dead, Thou salt infection like, like a disease, We must strike out one of the words like, in the third line, and read-- Thou salt infection, like a disease, &c. Page 516. URANIO........ God keep me but from knowing him till I die! We must read-- God keep him from knowing me till I die!'' She did know him: what she feared was, that he should know her. Page 517. LEUCIPPUS.... Therefore take A nobler trial than thou dost deserve, ! The word take is unnecessarily introduced by Seward; the sentence is complete without it, if, instead of a colon, we place a comma after the words at all. I cannot discover the great merit which Seward finds in this play; or think that the omission of any part of it would render it a noble tragedy. In point both of language and metre, it is inferior to other productions of the Poets: the characters are overstrained; and the incidents so unnatural, that nothing can reconcile us to them, but the interposition of that little deity which gives Seward so much offence. It would be difficult, therefore, to find a fitter title for this drama than Cupid's Revenge. VOL. X. THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. Page 6. SONG....Not an angel of the air, I believe that angel is the true reading. But Theobald might have found in Massinger an authority for the word angel, in his Virgin Martyr, page 134. Page 6. SONG....Nor chough hoar. I have no doubt but this is the true reading. The chough is a bird resembling the scaldcrow, but smaller, the head and back of which is of a greyish colour. Page 7. FIRST QUEEN.... Who endur'd The beaks of ravens, talons of the kites, And pecks of crows, in the foul fields of Thebas. Who endure, Instead of endured, as they were still in that situation. Page 7. FIRST QUEEN........ And, of thy boundless goodness, take some note, Of thy boundless goodness, means out of thy boundless goodness. Page 10. EMILIA........ Your grief is written in your cheek. THIRD QUEEN....Oh, woe! You cannot read it there. Here, through my tears, You may behold them. Seward and Sympson say that, in repeating these words, the Queen evidently points to her heart. But though she speaks of her heart afterwards, she alludes in this place to her eyes, which she compares to pebbles viewed through a glassy stream; a description which would not apply to her heart. Page 11. THIRD QUEEN........ Those that with cords, knives, drams, precipitance, I think Seward's explanation is right, and that precipitance means the act of precipitation. The Queen is enumerating the various means by which desperate people usually put an end to their existence, and precipitation is one of them. Page 11. THESEUS....And I will give you comfort, To give your dead lords graves. The words will in the first line, and to in the last, appear to have been erroneously transposed. The passage must originally have run thus-- |