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Gift

Mr.W.W.Bishop

11-8-1932 add. Ed.

Critical Obfervations

ON

SHAKESPEARE.

T

BOOK I.

SECT. I.

IS a common obfervation, and therefore perhaps not altogether untrue, that critics generally set out with these two maxims; the one, that the author must always dictate what is beft; the other, that the critic is to determine what that beft is. There is an affertion not very unlike this, that Dr. Bentley has made in his late edition of Milton: "I have "fuch

1. See his first note on Milton's Paradife loft. However to do the Dr. justice, there are some errors which he has undoubtedly mended, of which two are most remarkable. B. VII, 321. The smelling gourd, which should be fwelling. and .451. forl living, which ought to have been printed, foul living. In most of the other places, if he cannot find errors, he will make them. But methinks an author fhould

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"fuch an esteem for our poet, that which of the "two words is the better, that I say was dictated

bear his share, as well as the transcriber: and though the context is a facred thing, and ought not to be disturbed, yet in a note a better reading may be proposed. In B. IX. 670. there is the following beautiful description.

As when of old fome orator renound

In Athens or free Rome, where eloquence
Flourifhd, fince mute, to fome great cause addreft,
Stood in himfelf collected, while each part,
Motion, each act won audience, ere the tongue.

In descriptions particularly the words ought to be neither embarraffed, nor ambiguous. But here, is motion the accufative or nominative cafe? If the accufative; how far fetch'd is the meaning, each part won motion? If the nominative; Milton fhould have given it, each part, each motion, each act: or rather thus, in a great measure according to Dr. Bentley's reading,

Stood in himself collected whole, while each

Motion, each act won audience, ere the tongue.

Collected whole: In feipfo totus teres, atque rotundus. Hor. L. II. f. 7. A perfon must have no feeling of poetry not to allow this the better reading; but allowing this, no rules of criticism will fuffer him to alter, what the transcriber, or printer has not firft altered. In Shakespeare the editors have propofed many better readings, which they should have mention'd only in their notes; and they would thus have deserved that praise for their ingenuity, which they seem to forfeit, by going out of their province to correct the author, when they fhould only have corrected the faulty copy.

" by

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