poetical than Virgil's', Inanes suspensae ad ventos. Beside St. Hierome in his comment on the epiftle to the Ephesians mentions it as the opinion of the Jewish and Christian divines, that evil spirits have their residence in the space between the firmament and the earth; to which Jewish opinion St. Paul alludes, calling Satan the prince of the air. This is sufficient for a poet to give what allegorical turn he pleases to fuch opinions. In the Winter's Tale. Act V. "Her. You Gods, look down, " And from your facred vials pour your graces "Upon my daughter's head." If Homer's copies have not this expression now, we may perhaps thank Aristarchus for this and many other alterations of the like nature. 7 Virgil's expression is literally from Orpheus, whom Virgil has minutely followed in his description of the Ægyptian initiation, as the Author of the life of Sethos learnedly informs. " In the three trials of Fire, Water " and Air, are plainly discovered the three purifications "the Souls of Men were to go thro' before they returned " to life; which the greatest of the Latin poets borrowed " from him [viz. Orpheus] in the fixth book of his Æneid; Infectum eluitur fcelus, aut exuritur igni: not to omit the " circumstance of suspension in the agitated air, or in the "winds: Suspense ad ventos." I Ifaiah In King John. Act III. " Cous. Nay rather turn this day out of the “ week, " This day of shame, oppression, perjury: "Or if it must stand still, &c." In allusion to Job iii, 3. " Let the day perish, " &c." And . 6. " Let it not be joined unto "the days of the year, let it not come into the " number of the months." It seems likewise that Shakespeare had strongly the character and history of Job in view, when he made Othello pour forth the following most pathetical complaint, " Had it pleas'd Heaven "To try me with affliction, had he rain'd " Allkind of fores and shames on my bare head, " Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips, " Giv'n to captivity me and my hopes; " I should have found in some places of my foul "A drop of patience." " He that parts us, shall bring a brand from " heav'n, " And fire us hence, like foxes." Alluding Alluding to the scriptural account of Samson's tying foxes, two and two together by the tail, and fastening a firebrand to the cord, thus let, ting them loose among the standing corn of the Philiftines. Judges xv, 4. In the second part of K. Henry IV. A& IV. " And therefore will he wipe his 1o tables clean." In Hamlet, Act I. 1 " Yea from the table of my memory " I'll wipe away all trivial fond records." 10 The Pugillares or table books of the ancients were made of small leaves of wood, ivory, or skins, and covered over with wax. To which Shakespeare alludes in Timon. Act I. " My free drift " Halts not particular, but moves itself, These verses are put in the mouth of a trifling poet. They consisted sometimes of two, three, five or more pages, and thence were called duplices, triplices, quintuplices, and multiplices: and by the Greeks διπλυχα, τρίπιυχα, &c. The instrument, with which they wrote, they called stilus ; at first made of iron, but afterwards that was forbidden at Rome, and they used styles of bone: it was sharp at one end to cut the letters, and flat at the other to deface them; from whence the phrase, stylum vertere. -TABLE in Shakespeare's time signified a pocket book, " Hamlet. My "tables: meet it is I set it down." Prov. ii, 3. Write them upon the table of thine heart. So Aefchylus in fuppl. 187. Αἰνῶ φυλάξαι τάμ' ἔπη δελλόμενα. I advise thee to keep my words written on the tables of thy memory. And in Prometh. 788. ἐγΓράφειν δέλτοις Φρενῶν, which Mr. Theobald has cited. And thus the words in Macbeth are to be explained. Act I. " Kind Gentlemen, your pains "Are registred where every day I turn "The leaf to read them." Meaning in the table of his heart, to which he points. In Othello, Act IV. " If to preferve this vessel for my Lord." 1 Theff. iv, 4. To possess bis vessel in fanctification. In Macbeth. Act III. Put rancors in the veffel of my peace. So Lucret. V, 138. Tandem in eodem homine, atque in eodem vase maneret. In Cymbeline, Act I. "He fits 'mongst men, like a defcended God." There There is no less learning than elegance in this expreffion. The Greeks call these descended Gods, ΚΑΤΑΒΑΤΑΣ, and Jupiter was peculiarly worshipped as fuch, as more frequently defcending in thunder and lightning to punish guilty mortals: amongst whose titles and inscriptions you frequently meet with, ΔΙΟΣ ΚΑΤΑΙΒΑΤΟΥ. In K. Henry V. Act II. " And therefore in fierce tempest iS HE COMING "In thunder, and in earthquake, like a Jove." Agreeable to this opinion Paul and Barnabas were thought by the people of Lycaonia to be defcended Gods. Oἱ θεοὶ ὁμοιωθέντες ἀνθρώποις ** Κ-ΑΤΕΒΗΣΑΝ πρὸς αὐτές. In the Tempest, Act IV. " Profp. The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, • The folemn temples, the great globe itself, " Yea, all, which it inherit, shall dissolve." This 11 Acts xiv. 2. And here give me leave to set in a better light a passage in the discourses of Epictetus. L. I. c. 29. "Ανθρωποι ἀνθρώπε κύριθ ἐκ ἔςι, ἀλλὰ θάναλα κὶ ζωή, κα ἡδονὴ κὶ πόνου· ἐπεὶ, χωρὶς τέτων, ἀγαγέ μοι τὸν Καίσαρα, κὶ ὄψει πῶς εὐταθῶ· ὅταν δὲ μελὰ τέτων ΕΛΘΗ, βροντῶν καὶ ἀτράπίων, ἐγὼ δὲ ταῦτα φοβέμαι, τί ἄλλο ἢ ἐπέγνωκα τὸν κύριον, ὡς ὁ δραπέτης ; " Man is not the master of man, but life and death, pleasure and pain; for, exclusive of these, 66 |