Saith Henriquez of a Maiden of low Condition, objecting his high Quality: What have his Comparisons here to do? Correct it boldly, Throw all my gay Caparifons afide, All the Verfe of this Scene is confounded with Profe. O that a Man Could reafon down this Feaver of the Blood, Read -this ferver of the Blood, Then Julio I might be in Deed thy Friend. : marking the juft Oppofition of Deeds and Words. ACT 4. SCENE I. How his Eyes Shake Firefaid by Violante, observing how the luftful Shepherd looks at her. It must be, as the Senfe plainly demands, -How his Eyes take Fire! And measure every Piece of Youth about me! Ibid. That though I wore Disguises for some Ends. She had but one Disguise, and wore it but for one End. Reftore it with the Alteration but of two Letters, That though I were difguifed for fome End. ACT 4. SCENE 2. -To Oaths no more give Credit, To Tears, to Vows; falle both! B 3 Falfe Falfe Grammar I'm fure. Both can relate but to two Things: And fee! how eafy a Change sets it right? To Tears, to Vows, falfe Troth I could fhew you that very Word Troth, in Shake- Ibid. For there is nothing left thee now to look for, This I fear is of a Piece with None but itself can be its Parallel: For the Grave puts an End to all Sorrow, it can need no Sorrow. Yet let us vindicate Shakespear where we can: I make no Doubt he wrote thus, For there is nothing left thee now to look for, Which Reduplication of the Word gives a much ftronger Emphasis to Violante's Concern. This Figure is called Anadyplofis. I could fhew you a Hundred just such in him, if I had nothing else to do. This Double Falfhood was vindicated by Mr. Theor bald, who was attacked again in the Art of Sinking in Poetry: Here he endeavours to prove falfe Criticifms, Want of Understanding Shakespear's Manner, and cavilling, in Mr. Pope, to juftify himself and the great Dramatick Poet, and to prove the Tragedy in Question to be in Reality Shakespear's, and not unworthy of him; this he does in a Letter which is fubjoin'd, and concludes with a very confiderable Air of Self-fufficiency, and no finall Boast. Dear SIR, You YOU defire to know why, in the general At- Writers Writers living, and dead, he has fo often had a Fling of Satire at me. I fhould be very willing to plead Guilty to his Indictment, and think as meanly of myself as he can poffibly do, were his Quarrel altogether upon a fair and unbiafs'd Motive. But he is angry at the Man; and, as Juvenal says, facit Indignatio Verfum. In my Attempts to restore Shakespear, I laid open fome Defects of his Edition. I endeavoured in my Book to treat him with all the Deference and Tenderness, that the Circumftance would bear; and no Body, I think, has impeached me of the least Failure in this Point. But to fet any Thing right, after Mr. Pope had adjusted the Whole, was a Prefumption not to be forgiven! Hinc illae Lacrymæ. That I have been right, in the Main, in my Corrections, is pretty well agreed on my Side : And I am almost apt to to think, Mr. Pope has been of the fame Opinion; or he would have fhewn them trifling, and impertinent, by a Confutation, unless it was beneath him to enter the Lifts with so weak an Adversary. Instead of a Reply, or a Juftification of his own Indolence, his Refource is to railing: Or as it were, (after the French Manner of punishing, when a Criminal is out of their Reach) to hang me up in Effigy. But I forgive his arch Talent of Picturing: He fhall represent me as an Eel, or a Swallow, a Grub, or a Worm; or in any other Form of Ridicule, that may serve to allay a future Fit of Spleen. If Infir mity may be thrown off by fuch pretty Exercife, his wayward Humour fhall have the full Scope of Calumny. But as he has been pleased to reflect on me in a few Quotations from a Play, which I had lately the good Fortune to usher into the World; I am there concern'd in Reputation to enter upon my Defence. There are three Paffages, you'll observe, in his B 4 his Art of Sinking in Poetry, which he endeavours to bring into Difgrace, from Double Diftrefs, as he calls it: I fuppofe he means Double Falfhood; for that is the Title of the Play published by me. I fhould have expected from fome others, that, when they were upon the Bufinefs of finding Fault, they fhould not have commited fuch an Error. But 'tis meer Word-catching, and beneath a great Genius to be exact in any Thing. One of thefe Paflages, alledged by our critical Examiner, is of that Stamp, which is certainly to determine me in the Clafs of his profound Writers: For a genuine Writer of the Profound will take Care never to magnify any Object without clouding it at the fame Time. The Place, fo offenfive for its Cloudiness, is this. The Obfcureness of her Birth Cannot eclipfe the Luftre of her Eyes, Which make her all one Light, I must own, I think, a Man needs be no great Oedipus to folve the Difficulty of this Paffage. Nothing has ever been more common than for Lovers to compare their Miftreffes Eyes to Suns and Stars. And what does Henriquez fay more here than this, That tho' his Mistress be obscure by her Birth, yet her Eyes are fo refulgent, they fet her above that Difadvantage, and make her all over Brightness ? Now wherein is this Thought fo wonderfully magnified, or clouded? The only Obfcurity, that I can yet find in the Paffage, is in Mr. Pope's clouding it by Mifunderstanding. For if he will take a fimple Defcription of Beauty to be the Defcription of a Lady at Dinner, as he is pleased to do here, there is, indeed, fomething of the Baotian Fog in the Cafe. I remember another Rapture in Shakespear, upon a Painter's Painter's drawing a fine Lady's Picture, where the Thought feems to me every whit as much magnified, and as dark at the firft Glance. -But her Eyes How could he fee to do them! Having done one, This Paffage is taken from the Merchant of Venice; and if the Examiner will not allow it to be dark, I'll venture to produce another out of the fame Play, that, I believe, every Body will agree to be fo. Grat. My Eyes, my Lord, can look as swift as yours: you. If I did not know a little more of Shakespear, than Mr. Pope has yet convinced the Publick that he does, Ifhould, from fuch Inftances, take him to be a very cloudy Writer. It were worth fomething, methinks, to know what Ideas Mr. Pope had of Gratiano's loving for Intermiffion. Surely, he will hardly perfuade us, that Intermiffion here means for want of fomething elfe to do, because he would not stand idle. By a preper Variation in the Pointing, and a very short Comment, I'll undertake to clear up the Clouds of this dark Place; and thus it must be corrected, before it can be understood. Grat. My Eyes, my Lord, can look as fwift as yours; You faw the Miftrefs, I beheld the Maid: You lov'd; I lov'd: (For Intermiffion No more pertains to me, my Lord than you. i. e. For, in a Love-Adventure, I could no more ftand out, no more be idle, or unactive, than you, But |