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partial reader think of such extravagance? what, but that Mr. Kenrick is, in controverfy, what the North-American Indians are in war; and comes armed with the tomahawk and scalpingknife, to flay, and to ftrip, the flain, with the barbarity of a Mohawk or a Cherokee.

To do our Author juftice, however, he feems to have been conscious of his having offended against the laws of literary war; and he thus apologizes for it, in his preface; if, indeed, that can be called an apology, which is rather a juftification:

The Author, fays he, fpeaking of himself, can readily forefee, that he fhall be thought to have treated both Dr. Johnfon and Dr. Warburton [for he fpares the bifhop as little as he hath spared the doctor of laws] with an ill-becoming levity, if not with unmerited feverity.-The Reviewer confeffes indeed he should have been glad to have had, on this occafion, lefs to do with the commentary of the reverend gentleman laft mentioned. And this, he has reafon to think, would have been the cafe, had not Dr. Johnson been prevailed on by his printer prudentially to cancel feveral annotations, in which he had strongly expreffed his diffent from that learned fcholiaft. But having, on fecond thoughts, judged it expedient to fhelter himself, as it were, under the wing of the bishop of Gloucefter; it is hoped the juftice due to Shakespeare will excufe the Reviewer, though he fhould be fometimes obliged, in correcting his prefent editor, to ruffle and expofe an irreverend feather or two of the bishop's.

That he may not be fufpected, however, of attempting to injure either, from a principle of spleen or refentment, he can fafely aver, with regard to both, what another of Dr. Warbur ton's antagonists hath declared in refpect to him alone; i. e. "That he is perfonally a ftranger to either of thefe gentlemen; never converfed with them; never faw them [but onte]; never had the leaft communication with them of any kind; never hath received or folicited any favour from either; nor, on the other hand, had been ever perfonally disobliged by them; fo that it is impoffible this proceeding can have been influenced either by difappointment or refentment. The truth is, that the Reviewer hath always understood it to be an established law in the republic of letters, wifely calculated to restrain the exceffes of infult, petulance and ill-nature, too apt to fhoot up in the fplenetic receffes of folitary literature, that every writer fhould be treated on the fame foot of civility, on which, when unprovoked by prior ill ufage, he hath been accustomed to treat others." Now, whether he hath treated either of thefe gentlemen worfe than they have, treated Shakespeare, he dares appeal to the impartiality of the public; which, at whatever low eftimation it may rate an obfcure author, who hath never fet his name to a book; it will hardly think there can be a greater difference between him and

this par nobile fratrum of commentators, than there is between them and the inimitable writer on whose works they have fo freely commented. If the Reviewer hath at any time, indeed, behaved towards thefe gentlemen with little ceremony, it hathbeen always when they deferved much lefs: for it is to be obferved, he had nothing to do with the political characters of either. He did not think it neceffary, therefore, to pay any deference to Dr. Johnson, as his majefty's penfioner; nor to Dr. Warburton, as bishop of Gloucefter. Their literary character was all that concerned him; and even, viewing them in this light, he had to refpect them only as commentators on Shakespeare.

Not that the Reviewer piques himself on being deficient in point of civility, or would take upon himself to infringe the neceffary forms of decency and decorum. He admits, as Dr. Johnfon obferves," that refpect is due to high place, and tenderness for living reputation :" but then he conceives that respect to be limited both as to place and time; and cannot admit that any tenderness for the living gives us a right to trample inhumanly and facrilegiously on the dead.

Had the bishop of Gloucester, when he entered on that right-reverend function, made a public recantation of the errors of poetry, and formally renounced the pomps and vanities of verbal criticism; not one of the herefies he maintained, or the fins he committed in this kind, abfurd and enormous as they were, fhould, with the Reviewer's confent, have risen up in judgment against him; or have been dragged from that oblivion, to which they feemed eternally configned. But if either Dr. Warburton, or his friends, prefume on the influence of lawnfleeves in the republic of letters, it is proper to inform them there are neither bishops, priefts, nor deacons in that community. The republic of letters is a perfect democracy, where, all being equal, there is no respect of perfons, but every one hath a right to fpeak the truth of another, to cenfure without fear, and to commend without favour or affection. Nor is the literary community of lefs dignity than the political. Popularity and influence, indeed, may be obtained, for a while, by finifter means in both; but though birth and wealth may confer eminence and power in the one, not the defcent of an Alexander, nor the riches of Crofus, confer prerogative or authority in the other.'

How far fuch apologizing as this, may fuffice to excuse the many extraordinary freedoms which this Writer hath taken with Dr. Johnfon, (fome of which we may be obliged to quote, in the courfe of the article, although we should rather chufe to avoid the fpreading of fuch perfonalities) we leave our Readers to conclude; and fhall now proceed to give fome idea of Mr. Ken rick's hypercriticifins.

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This large pamphlet contains only half of the Author's defign; which is, to take a review of all the eight volumes of which Dr. Johnson's edition of Shakespeare confifts. The prefent firft part goes no farther than the third volume. Mr. K. begins with the Tempeft; and goes on with the plays, in the order wherein they are printed. As a fpecimen of his abilities and manner as a critic, in general, and of his knowlege of Shakespeare, and the earlier English poets, in particular, we fhall felect a few paffages; and the fewer will fuffice, as we fhall have an opportunity of returning to the fubject, when the fecond "part of this undertaking fhall be published :—and it is promised, in the advertisement, with all convenient fpeed.'

In The Midfummer-night's Dream, the following paffage hath given rife to fome very notable criticisms:

QUEEN. Full often the hath goffipt by my fide;

And fat with me, on Neptune's yellow fands,
Marking th' embarked traders on the flood,
When we have laught to fee the fails conceive,
And grow big bellied with the wanton wind:
Which the, with pretty and with swimming gait,
Following (her womb then rich with my young fquire)
Would imitate; and fail upon the land,

To fetch me trifles, and return again

As from a voyage rich with merchandize.

Mr. Kenrick obferves, that the Doctors Warburton and Johnfon have both attempted to illuftrate this paffage, without fuccefs. The difficulty, fays he, lies in the fixth, feventh, and eighth lines. Dr. Warburton fays, "Following what? 'fhe did not follow the fhip, whofe motion fhe imitated; for that failed on the water, fhe on the land. If by following we are to understand imitating, it will be a mere pleonafm-imitating would imitate. From the poet's defcription of the actions it plainly appears we fhould read

FOLLYING

Would imitate.

i. e. wantoning in fport and gaiety. Thus the old English writers--and they beleeven FOLYLY and falfely-fays Sir J. Mandeville, from and in the fenfe of folâtrer, to play the wanton. This exactly agrees to the action defcribed.→ful often has the goffipt by my fide-and-when we have laught to fee."

This note, Dr. Johnfon tells us, is very ingenious; but, continues he, "fince follying is a word of which I know not 'any example; and the fairy's favourite might, without much licentioufnefs of language, be faid to follow a fhip that failed in "the direction of the coaft, I think there is no fufficient reafon for adopting it. The coinage of new words is a violent remedy, not to be afed but in the last neceffity."

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I will not, fays Mr. K. difpute with our editor the ingenuity of Dr. Warburton's note, or that of his own; but it is certainly an ingenuity of a different kind to that which is neceffary to illuftrate Shakespeare. The former of thefe gentlemen, I remember, affected to ridicule the bookfellers for believing a filly maxim, that none but a poet should prefume to meddle with a poet. The event, however, hath proved this maxim to have fome truth in it. If either Dr. Warburton, or Dr. Johnfon, had, in criticifing this paffage, exercifed their ingenuity as poets, instead of their ingenuity as philologers, I am perfuaded they would foon have difcovered its meaning. But they were too intent upon wirds, to attend to the images defigned to be -conveyed by them. The former talks of an action described in two lines, wherein nothing is fpoken of but goipping and laughing. Do thefe imitate a fhip under fail? To have been merely playful and wanton, is not the imitation here mentioned: nor does it confift in merely following the object imitated, as Dr. Johnson conceives; for the did not only fail upon land, in the fame direction along the coaft as the fhips did in the fea; but fhe returned again, which must have been in a different direction. So that it appears neither of these ingenious critics had any idea of the poetical beauty of this paffage. I fhall endeavour to explain it, therefore, by a very different mode of investigation.If the reader hath ever feen a fhip fcudding before the wind, with its fore-fail grown big-bellied, as the poet expreffes it, with the fwelling breeze; he muft recollect that, in fuch a cafe, the fail projects fo far forward, that it feems, to a spectator on fhore, to go in a manner before the reft of the veflel; which, for the fame reafon, appears to follow, though clofely, after, with an eafy, fwimming motion. This was the moving image, which the fairy's favourite, taking the hint from, and the advan tage of, her pregnancy, endeavoured to imitate; and this fhe did, by wantonly difplaying before her the convexity of her fwelling belly, and moving after it, as the poet defcribes,

with pretty and with fwimming gait.

Such being the fenfe of the paffage, the text is eafily ascertained, by pointing and reading thus ;

Which fhe, with pretty and with fwimming gait

Following her womb, then rich with my young fquire,

Would imitate.

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This is the method a critic fhould take with the poets. Trace out their images, and you will foon find how they expreffed themfelves, without perplexing yourself either about the meaning of antiquated words, or the coinage of new ones.'

We cannot help thinking that Mr. Kenrick hath understood and explained this beautiful paffage better than any former commentator; and his illuftration is to us the more fatisfactory, as

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there is not a word of the author altered:-it may not be amifs, however, to obferve, in cafe of a fecond edition, that the word gate, as printed in the book, is wrong,-it fhould be gait.

In his animadverfions on the following paffage, we apprehend Our Author, who is a very enthufiaft in veneration for Shakespeare *, hath been very fuccessful in vindicating the memory of the good old Bard, from a charge which, if proved upon him, would greatly affect the moral character of his writings. The paffage is in Measure for Measure:

DUKE.

Reason thus with life;

If I do lofe thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep:

Dr. Warburton is here again brought into the fame indictment with the laft editor. The reverend critic is fuppofed, by Mr. Kenrick, to have brought the charge of fuicide against this paffage, in order to lay hold of an occafion for altering the text.

The abfurdity, fays our Reviewer, of fuppofing that the fpeaker intended it as fuch, is obvious, fince he is endeavouring to inftil into a condemned prifoner a refignation to his fentence. Dr. Johnson obferves, that the meaning feems plainly this, that "none but fools would wish to keep life; or, none but fools would keep it, if choice were allowed." A fenfe which, whether true or not, is perfectly innocent. But though our editor is graciously pleased to exculpate Shakespeare in this particular, it appears to be only that he may fall upon him with the greater violence in a page or two after; where Dr. Warburton vouchfafes to pay the poet a compliment. This paffage is in the fame Speech as the foregoing;

Thy beft of reft is fleep,

And that thou oft provok'ft, yet grofsly fear'st

Thy death, which is no more.

This paffage, fays Dr. Warburton, "is evidently taken from the following, of Cicero: Habes fomnum imaginem mortis, eamque quotidie induis, & dubitas quin fenfus in morte nullus fit, cum in ejus fimulachro videas effe nullum fenfum. But the Epicurean infinuation is with great judgment omitted in the imitation." On this note Dr. Johnfon hath made the following remark: Here Dr. Warburton might have found a fentiment worthy of his animadverfion. I cannot, without indignation, find Shakespeare saying, that death is only fleep, lengthening out his exhortation by a fentence which in the friar is impious, in the reafoner is foolish, and in the poet is trite and vulgar."-Nor can I, Dr. Johnfon, fays Mr. K. without equal indignation, find you mifrepre

We ha heard Shakespeare's writings ftyled Garrick's BIBLE.' If our English Rofcius fhould not chufe to have his favourite Bard beheld in this light, we dare fay our Author will have no objection to having his own name ftand here, in the place of Mr. Garrick's.

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