fenting Shakespeare, and thence taking occafion to condemn him where he is not culpable; lengthening out your cenfure with imputations that, being falfe in themselves, appear as invidious in the man, as they are contemptible in the critic. Would not one imagine, from the warmth with which Dr. Johnfon fpeaks of this paffage, that it militates against the doctrine of the immortality of the foul; infinuating that in death we close our eyes, and fleep for ever?-Nothing, however, can be more foreign from the plain intent of the fpeaker, and the obvious meaning of the paffage. The duke, in the affumed character of a friar, is endeavouring to perfuade Claudio to acquiefce in the fentence of death paffed on him, and to prepare himself for launching into eternity. To this end he advises him to think altogether on death; and to excite him to do fo, he enumerates the feveral foibles of humanity, and the calamities incident to human life; evidently intending by this means to wean his affections from the world, and render him lefs averfe to part with it, and lefs apprehenfive of the pain of dying. Thou ft provokest fleep, fays he, yet abfurdly feareft to die; which, with regard to the painful and perplexing vigil of life, is only to go to fleep. For that he only speaks of the mere fenfe of death, the parting of the foul from the body, and that Claudio understood him fo, is very evident, by the reply which the latter makes to his harangue; notwithstanding the very laft words of it seem to be full as exceptionable as those objected to. in this life

DUKE.

CLAU.

Lie hid a thousand deaths; yet death we fear,
That makes thefe odds all even.

I humbly thank you.

To fue to live, I find, I feek to die ;

And, feeking death, find life: let it come on. If any thing farther is neceffary to corroborate what is here ad vanced, we might inftance the duke's exhorting him, in scene III. of the fame act, to go to his knees and prepare for death. It is highly inconfiftent to think fuch a piece of advice fhould come from one who conceived death to be a perpetual fleep. Prayers muft feem as fuperfluous to him, as the advice muft appear impertinent to the prifoner. But that Claudio had the ftrongest notions of a future ftate after death is not to be doubted, fince, fpeaking of the fin of debauching his fifter, and Angelo's defign to commit it, he says,

If it were damnable, he being fo wife,

Why would he for the

Be perdurably fin'd?

momentary trick

Again, when his fears recurring, he tells his fifter that

Death is a fearful thing,

it is plain, he doth not confine the meaning of the word, as

Hh 4

the

the duke did, to the mere act or circumftance of dying: for when the retorts upon him,

And fhamed life a hateful,

he goes on,

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where.

As if he had faid, I do not mean the mere pain of dying; it is what is to come after death that I fear, when we are to

go we know not where;

To lie in cold obftruction, and to rot;
This fenfible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted fpirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-fibbed ice:
To be imprifon'd in the viewlefs winds,
And blown with reftlefs violence round about
The pendant world; or to be worse than wort
Of thofe, that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling; 'tis too horrible!

Can we think that Shakespeare could fo far forget himself, as to be here fo very explicit regarding the notion of a future ftate, if but two or three pages before he had been inculcating a contrary doctrine! What then muft we think of his commentator, who affects to be moved with indignation, and in effect prefumes to charge him on this account with vulgarity, folly and impiety! Shakespeare appears to have had 'fuch a regard, even for his mortal part, as to bestow a curfe on the perfon who should disturb his afhes; what a fevere malediction, then, would he not have bestowed on that facrilegious hand, which had thus mangled his immortal reputation, could he have penetrated the womb of time, or anticipated the temerity of a modern critic!' The next fpecimen we fhall felect, fhall be, the remarks on a paffage in The Merchant of Venice:

DUKE.

Upon my pow's I may difmifs the court,
Unlefs Bellario, a learned Doctor,

Whom I have fent for to determine this,
Come here to day.

Whom I have fent for.

« Bellario, a learned DoctorThe doctor and court are here fomewhat unfkilfully brought together. That the duke would, on fuch an occafion, confult a doctor of great reputation, is not unlikely; but how should this be foreknown by Portia ?"

Here our author grows ftill warmer; and he thus expoftulates with the learned editor: Why will you, Dr. Johnfon, be thus conftantly feeking occafion to find fault with Shakespeare, for misconduct in his drama; the bufinefs of which you are evidently much too unfkilled in to have a right to take upon you the authority of cenfuring the foremost man of all this world? You admit it to be right that Dr. Bellario, whom we may very

well

well fuppofe to be a civilian of the firft rank, fhould be fent for, to advife in this caufe. You know too, I imagine (or at leaft you might have known, if you had read the play) that this fame Dr. Bellario (for he was a doctor too; we are all doctors, Dr. Johnfon) was a relation, a coufin, to Portia. This being premifed, is it not very natural to suppose that, after Bassanio was called away in fuch hafte to Venice, on account of the profecation carried on against his friend Anthonio, his bride Portia would fend a meffenger to her coufin Bellario, in order to ask his opinion of fo extraordinary a cafe, or to intereft him in Anthonio's behalf? And can any thing be more probable than that he fhould inform her, on receiving fuch a meffage, that he was actually fent for to Venice on that very account? For it is to be obferved, that the duke fpeaks as if he had fent for him fome confiderable time before: for he fays, unless Bellario, &c. come here to DAY. His power of difmiffing the court alfo, on his not coming, feems founded on fome phyfical or moral impediment, that might very naturally occur, to prevent his arrival within the time: fo that he must be fuppofed either at fuch a diftance as made it neceffary to give him a confiderable timely warning, or that the extraordinary nature of the cause might make him re"quire fo much the more time to prepare himfelf equitably to determine it. This being the ftate of the cafe, was not here a very apt foundation on which to build Portia's plot of officiating for the doctor? which defign the no doubt concerted with him by letter, before the fent for the notes and clothes mentioned scene V. act III.-And that this was really the case seems evident, from what Portia fays to Jeffica, during the abfence of Baffanio, and before she fends Balthazar to Bellario for the notes and clothes.-Jeffica compliments her on

a noble and a true conceit

Of god-like amity; which appears most strongly
In bearing thus the abfence of her lord.

A fufficient intimation, I think, that Baffanio must have been gone fome time. Again, in Portia's reply to this compliment, The fays

this Anthonio,
Being the bofom lover of my lord,

Muft needs be like my lord. If it be fo
How little is the coft I have bestowed,
In purchafing the femblance of my foul
From out the ftate of bellish cruelty?

Here we find Portia fpeaking very peremptorily and certainly of Anthonio's deliverance; and of the coft already bestowed to effect it. Is it reafonable to think fhe would exprefs herself thus confidently on a mere fuggeftion of her own? Befides, what coft could he have beftowed? Her having bid her husband pay

the

the bond three times over, was nothing; because she could not be fure the money would be taken. Nay, the evidently does not intend to truft to that acceptance. It is therefore, I think, very evident that she had even at this time concerted the scheme with her coufin Bellario. How far Belmont might be from either Venice or Padua, I cannot exactly fay: but it appears from circumstances that it could not be very far. From Belmont to Venice, it seems, there was a common traject, or ferry; fo that the distance of both from Padua could not be too great for tranfacting the business in queftion.-It is true, that the formality with which Portia introduces her charge to Balthazar, when she fends him for the notes and cloaths, feems to favour the fuppofition, that this was the first time fhe had fent to Bellario, in which cafe there would be fome grounds for Dr. Johnfon's remark; but we must obferve, that Balthazar is now to be intrufted with a more important charge than he had before been, in merely carrying and bringing back a letter; or, it is not unlikely, that Portia entrusted that bufinefs with a fervant of lefs importance. All these things duly confidered, it is plain, I think, that Dr. Johnfon has very rafhly and unadvisedly prefumed to call Shakespeare unfkilful, because he wanted skill himfelf. I fhall difmifs this note, therefore, with advifing our editor never to wade fo far out of his depth for the future. It is a trite adage, but it is a very good one, and worthy to be obferved; Ne futor ultra crepidam. I do not fay that Dr. Johnson may not probably be well fkilled in fome things. Not that I know that he is well killed in any; for, though I have read all his works, I declare he does not appear to me (at least fo far as I myfelf am able to judge) to be mafter of any one fcience, or any one language, fo that he must not plume himself on my fuffrage. Not that I deny him to be mafter of the whole circle of fciences, and of all languages ancient and modern. But, if it be fo; if it be really true, as his friends inform me, that he is poffeffed of fuch amazing ftores of literary and scientific knowledge, I cannot help thinking him extremely culpable, not to fay very ungrateful, to keep them all avaricioufly to himself, and fob off the public with mere fhreds and patches. How dare Dr. Johnfon treat that public with fo much contempt, which hath done him fuch extravagant honour? How dare he behave to that public with fuch unparalell'd ingratitude, which hath given him fuch unparalell'd, fuch

་་

..I will except indeed the article af literary compofition; in which, fo far as the meritof a fpeech, an effay, a life, or a novel, goes, he is undoubtedly the beft writer in Christendom. But his merit even here is in a great measure mechanical, and may be justly accounted for in a manner that will do little honour either to his boasted genius or earning.

avowed, fuch unmerited encouragement?-It is true, that its having done all this is fufficient to give Dr. Johnson a very mean opinion of its spirit, tafte and judgment. But he should have been aware of carrying the impofition too far; he should not have prefumed to think that this public, tasteless and ignorant as he may suppose it, could ever be prevailed on to grace his waving noddle with a wreath, irreverently torn from the brows of Shakefpeare!

The felf-fufficient, the arrogant, Dr. Johnfon may poffibly conceive, that the zeal, with which the very name of Shakespeare inspires me, is counterfeited; and that I exprefs myself thus warmly, to provoke him to a reply.-No, Dr. Johnfon, you cannot reply. I muft join in that deference, which I think the world hath undefervedly paid you, fo far as to own, that I fhould never have prefumed to publish any thing against Dr. Johnson, that I had not good reafon to think UNANSWERABLE. It is indeed prudential in you to make a virtue of neceffity, and previously to give out, that you will not do what you have fo much reafon to think you can not do.-Yet you have your satellites, your light-troops; you may fend them out to harrafs the enemy whom you dare not encounter. But, as I am no far ther your enemy than as you are Shakespeare's, fend who you will, as many as you will; I will undertake, under fo gallant a leader, to rout an army of fcribblers, to crush a myriad of cockle-fhell critics, in his cause.'

Boldly faid! Mr. Kenrick! Why, you are the very ORLANDO FURIOSO of Criticism! But are you not apprehenfive of the fate of Tom Ofborne? Prefumptuous Tom Ofborne! who, braving the vengeance of this paper-crown'd idol,' [the editor of Shakefpeare] was, for his temerity, transfixed to his mother Earth by a thundering folio!' KENRICK's Pref. p. xi.

We intended fome farther extracts from this extraordinary Review; but the paffages we have already quoted, have fufficiently extended the article: we fhall conclude, therefore, for the prefent, with a word of exhortation, cordially offered to Mr. Kenrick,-that he will, in the profecution of this undertaking, humanely condefcend to lay by his tomahawk, moderate his wrath against a fellow countryman and brother author, and, for the honour of letters in general, and British literature in particular, liften to the advice given by an ingenious young Bard to the Reviewers and Critics of the prefent age: O be this rage for maffacre withstood,

Nor thus imbrue your hands in brother's blood!

The RACE.

• Not run through the body, we hope, with a folio book! This alludes to an anecdote current among the booksellers and

printers.

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