Come we all fleep, and are mere dormice; flies
A little less than dead: more dulnefs hangs
On us than on the morn. We're spirit-bound
In ribs of ice; our whole bloods are one stone;
And honour cannot thaw us, nor our wants,
Tho' they burn hot as fevers to our states.
Cat. I mufe they would be tardy at an hour
Of fo great purpose.

Cet. If the gods had call'd

Them to a purpose, they would just have come
With the fame tortoise speed; that are thus flow
To fuch an action, which the gods will envy,
As afking no lefs means than all their pow'rs,
Conjoin'd, t'effect. I would have feen Rome burnt
By this time, and her afhes in an urn:

The kingdom of the fenate rent asunder;
And the degen'rate talking gown run frighted
Out of the air of Italy.

Cat. Spirit of men!

Thou heart of our great enterprise! how much
I love these voices in thee!

Cet. O, the days

Of Sylla's fway, when the free fword took leave
To act all that it would!

Cat. And was familiar

With entrails, as our augurs.

Cet. Sons kill'd fathers,

Brothers their brothers.

Cat. And had price and praise.

All hate had licence given it, all rage reins.

Cet.

6 All hate had licence given it; all rage REIGN'D.] As this line is perfectly good fenfe, the reader perhaps may not fee any neceffity for altering the text; but as there is a different reading in the oldeft olio, and a reading I think far more poetical and nervous, I am inclined to give it the preference. In that copy the verse stands thus: All hate had licence given it; all rage raines.

The fame is continued in the edition of 1640. The fucceeding editor in 1692 took the word raines to be a verb, and perceiving it

Cet. Slaughter beftrid the streets, and stretcht himself To feem more huge; whilft to his stained thighs The gore he drew flow'd up, and carried down Whole heaps of limbs and bodies through his arch. No age was fpar'd, no fex.

Cat. Nay, no degree.

Cet. Not infants in the porch of life were free. The fick, the old, that could but hope a day Longer by nature's bounty, not let stay.

inconfiftent in point of grammatical conftruction with the preceding fentence, he altered it to the verb reign'd, which the fenfe feemed to require; and this reading was copied in the laft edition of 1716. But the true lection is the fubftantive reins, as it now ftands in the text: the image is a claffical and bold profopopeia, taken from a horse with the reins thrown loofe upon his neck, who exults at large without the leaft fenfe of controul or restraint. One may take occafion from hence, to obferve the great uncertainty of conjectural criticism; and how easy it is to be mifled by the fimilitude of founds, to adopt a word or meaning that was never intended by the author. And this will often be the cafe, even with the moft judicious critics, where an equivocal word occurring fhall either improve or debase the fentiment, according to the fenfe it is taken in. An inftance of this kind occurrs to me in Beaumont and Fletcher; and I believe that I fhall give no offence to the ingenious Mr. Seward, by obferving that an ambiguity of expreffion induced him to propofe a correction, where none was wanting. La-writ abufing Sampson, the advocate, fays thus:

"Avaunt, thou buckram budget of petitions,
"Thou spittle of lame caufes-

Mr. Seward remarks, that to call a petty-fogger a person spit out of lame caufes, feems very ftiff; and as the common cant term Splitter is fo near the face of the letters, there can be little doubt of its being the original. But I apprehend, with fubmiffion, that spittle is the original word; and it gives us a very humourous idea: Spittle, in that author's age, was the fame with what is now more ufually called an hofpital; and to call the wrangling lawyer a pittle of lame caufes, is intimating, with true comic humour, that his practice was made up of nothing but mean and beggarly caufes, which no other man of the profeflion would be concerned in. I have mentioned this inftance only as it confirms the reflection made above; that the beft critics may be eafily deceived, where the expreffion will admit of two meanings equally confiftent with common fenfe. Virgins,

Virgins, and widows, matrons, pregnant wives,
All died.

Cat. 'Twas crime enough, that they had lives.
To strike but only thofe that could do hurt,

Was dull and poor.

As fome the prey.

Some fell to make the number,

Cet. The rugged Charon fainted,

And afk'd a navy, rather than a boat,

To ferry over the fad world that came :

The maws and dens of beafts could not receive
The bodies that thofe fouls were frighted from;
And ev❜n the graves were fill'd with men, yet living,
Whofe flight and fear had mix'd them with the dead.
Cat. And this fhall be again, and more, and more!
Now Lentulus, the third Cornelius,
Is to ftand up in Rome.

Lent. Nay, urge not that

Is fo uncertain.

Cat. How?

Lent. I mean, not clear'd,

And therefore not to be reflected on.

Cat. The Sybils leaves uncertain? or the comments Of our grave, deep, divining men not clear?

7 All died. Cat. 'Twas crime enough, that they had lives.] This defcription of outrageous cruelty, which triumphed in the days of Sylla, is borrowed from Lucan, who gives us this account of the barbarities exercised by Marius and his faction.

Quis fuit ille dies, Marius quo mania victor
Corripuit? quantoque gradu mors fæva cucurrit ?
Nobilitas cum plebe perit: lateque vagatur
Enfis; & à nullo revocatum eft pectore ferrum:
Stat cruor in templis, multaque rubentia cæde
Lubrica faxa madent: nulli jua profuit atas.
Non fenis extremum piguit vergentibus annis
Frecipitaffe diem: nec primo in limine vitæ
Infantis miferi nafcentia rumpere fata.
Crimine quo parvi cædem potuere mereri ?
Sed fatis eft jam poffe mori.

LUCAN, lib. 2,

Len.

Len. All prophecies you know suffer the torture.
Cat. But this already hath confefs'd, without;
And fo been weigh'd, examin'd, and compar'd,
As 'twere malicious ignorance in him
Would faint in the belief.

Len. Do you believe it?

Cat. Do I love Lentulus, or pray to fee it?
Len. The augurs all are conftant, I am meant.
Cat. They had loft their science else.

Len. They count from Cinna.

Cat. And Sylla next, and fo make you the third; All that can fay the fun is ris'n, must think it.

Len. Men mark me more of late, as I come forth.
Cat. Why, what can they do lefs? Cinna and Sylla
Are fet and gone; and we must turn our eyes
On him that is and fhines. Noble Cethegus,
But view him with me, here! He looks already
As if he shook a fceptre o'er the fenate,

And the aw'd purple dropp'd their rods and axes:
The statues melt again, and houshold gods
In groans confefs the travail of the city:
The very walls fweat blood before the change;
And stones start out to ruin, e're it comes.

Cet. But he, and we, and all are idle ftill.
Len. I am your creature, Sergius; and whate'er
The great Cornelian name fhall win to be,
It is not augury, nor the Sybils books,
But Catiline that makes it.

Cat. I am fhadow

To honour'd Lentulus, and Cethegus here,
Who are the heirs of Mars.

Cet. By Mars himself,

Catiline is more my parent; for whofe virtue
Earth cannot make a fhadow great enough,
Though envy should come too. O, there they are.
Now we shall talk more, though we yet do nothing.

[T

[To them.] Autronius, Vargunteius, Longinus, Curius, Lecca, Beftia, Fulvius, Gabinius, &c.

Aut. Hail, Lucius Catiline.
Var. Hail, noble Sergius.
Lon. Hail, Publius Lentulus.
Cur. Hail, the third Cornelius.
Lec. Caius Cethegus, hail.
Cet. Hail, floth and words,
Inftead of men and spirits.
Cat. Nay, dear Caius-

Cet. Are your eyes yet unfeel'd? dare they look day In the full face?

Cat. He's zealous for th' affair,

And blames your tardy coming, gentlemen.

Cet. Unless we had fold ourselves to fleep and ease, And would be our flaves flaves

Cat. Pray you forbear.

Cet. The north is not fo ftark and cold.
Cat. Cethegus.

Bef. We fhall redeem all if your fire will let us.
Cat. You are too full of lightning, noble Caius.
Boy, fee all doors be fhut, that none approach us
On this part of the house. Go you, and bid

Cet. Are your eyes yet unfeel'd? dare they look day
In the FULL FACE ?] The old editions have it,

Dare they look day

In the dull face?

Mr. Seward, diffatisfied with the epithet dull, conjecturally fubftituted full, which is alfo the reading of the laft edition. Tho' the day, fays he, had been before described black and ominous, and therefore the sense may be, dare you look even fuch a day as this in be face? yet the natural taunt of Cethegus taking his metaphor from a hawk juft unfeel'd, is,

Dare you look day

In the full face?

For my own part, I have no objection to the words du'l face, tho' I have retained the text as I found it.

The