to his Bartholomow-Fair, which made its first appearance in the year 1614, couples Jeronymo and Andronicus together in reputation, and speaks of them as plays then of twenty-five or thirty years standing. Consequently Andronicus must have been on the Itage before Shakespear left Iarwickshire, to come and reside in London : and I never heard it so much as intimated, that he liad turned bis genius to stage-writing before he associated with the players, and became one of their body. However, that he afterwards introduced it anew on the stage, with the addition of his own masterly touches, is incontestible ; and thence, I prefume, grew his title to it. The diction in general, where he has not taken the pains to raise it, is even beneath that of the Three Parts of Henry VI. The atory, we are to suppose merely fictitious. Andronicus is a sur-name of pure Greek derivativni. Tamnora is neither mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus, nor any body else that I can find. Nor had Rome, in the cime of her emperors, any wars with the Goths that I know of: not till after the translation of the empire, I mean to Byzantium. And yet the scene of our play is laid at Rome, and Saturnius is elected to the empire at the capitol. (1) YALL here my varlet : I'll unarm again. Why should I war without the walls of The (1) Call, &c.] Mr. Theobald and Mr. Upton both perceived our author's allufron here to an ode of Anacreoir, (or, as the latter says, “ to a thought printed among those poems, which are ascribed to Aracreon.”) Ben Jonson, as well as our author, alludes to it in the following passage: Volpone. O I am wounded ! . Where, Sir, Volpone. Not without ; Those blows were nothing ; I could bear them ever. Volpone, Act. 2. S. 3 The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, * O Pandarus.' I tell thee, Pandarus- In This is the ode : Αφηκεν εις Μελεμιον. . EXW Boerev ΜΑΧΗΣ EΣΩ Μ' ΕΧOΥΣΗΣ; (2) Her kand, &c.] In the Midsummer Night's Dream, speaking of a white hand, he says ; That pure congealed white high Taurus' snow, A. 3. S. 6. In whose comparison, all whites are ink, Scene V. Success not equal to our Hopes. On Degree. Would And (spite of fense,) Neither of which appear to me as from the hand of Shakespear: whether by the spirit of sense, he means ike sense of touching, I cannot tell ; that seems the most probable, “to the leizure of her hand the down of the cygnet is harth, and its {pirit of lenje (the soft and delicate sense, its touch gives us ) hard as the ploughman's palm.” (3) Refdes.] The thought here is beautiful and sublime : Right and Wrong are supposed as enemies, who are perpetually Would lose their names, and so would justice too. itself. The still and mental parts, Why then, you princes, with cheeks abalh'd behold our works? And think them shame, which are indeed, nought else But the protractive trials of great fove, To find persistive constancy in man? The at war, between whom Juftice hath her place of residence, and fits as an umpire ; for 'tis the endless jar of right and wrong, that only gives occafion for the interposition of justice. Mr. War. burton hath, in this place, been too severe on poor Theobald, the sritic (as he calls him), for dropping a light remark, which, were it not defensible, should rather be excus'd than censur'di and introduced an alteration of his own, which an ill-natured remarker might possibly find pleasure in retorting upon him. But as the only business of a commentator is to do justice to his author, it seems to me highly improper to stuff one's observationis with the gall of private animofities. OS |