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Two glaffes, where herself herself beheld
A thousand times, and now no more reflect;
Their virtue loft, wherein they late excell'd,
And every beauty robb'd of his effect:

Wonder of time, quoth fhe, this is my fpites,
That, you being dead, the day should yet be light.
Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophefy,
Sorrow on love hereafter fhall attend;
It fhall be waited on with jealoufy,

Find fweet beginning, but unfavoury end;
Ne'er fettled equally, too high or low

;

That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe.

It fhall be fickle, falfe, and full of fraud,
And shall be blafted in a breathing-while;
The bottom poison, and the top o'er-ftraw'd
With fweets, that fhall the fharpeft fight beguile :
The strongest body shall it make moft weak,
Strike the wife dumb, and teach the fool to
speak.

It shall be sparing, and too full of riot,
Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures";

"His feeds to water at thofe fprings

"On chalic'd flow'rs that lies."

See note on this paffage, last edit. Vol. IX. p. 220.

S

STEEVENS.

this is my fpite,] This is done, purposely to vex and dif

MALONE.

trefs me.
"Ne'er fettled equally, too high, or law;] So, in The Midfum
mer Night's Dream:

"The courfe of true love never did run fmooth &c.
"O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low &c."
STEEVENS.

? -to tread the measures;] To dance. So, in K. Rich. III;
“Our ftern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
"Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

MALONE.

The

The ftaring ruffian fhall it keep in quiet,

Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treafures:

It fhall be raging-mad, and filly-mild,

Make the young old, the old become a child.

It fhall fufpect, where is no cause of fear;
It fhall not fear, where it fhould most mistrust;
It shall be merciful, and too severe,
And moft deceiving, when it seems most just;
Perverse it shall be, when it seems moft toward,
Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.

It fhall be caufe of war, and dire events,
And fet diffention 'twixt the son and fire;
Subject and fervile to all difcontents,
As dry combuftious matter is to fire;

Sith in his prime death doth my love destroy,
They that love beft, their love fhall not enjoy.

By this, the boy that by her fide lay kill'd,
Was melted like a vapour from her fight,
And in his blood that on the ground lay fpill'd,
A purple flower fprung up, checquer'd with white;
Refembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood
Which in round drops upon their whiteness flood.
She bows her head, the new-fprung flower to smell,
Comparing it to her Adonis' breath;

It fball he cause of war, &c.] Several of the effects here predicted of love, in Timon of Athens are afcribed to gold.

66

STEEVENS.

• Was melted like a vapour] So, in Macbeth:
-and what feem'd corporal, melted
"Like breath into the wind." STEEVENS.

Again, in The Tempest:

"Thefe our actors,

"As I foretold you, were all fpirits, and

"Are melted into air, into thin air." MALONE.

And

And says, within her bofom it shall dwell,
Since he himself is reft from her by death:

She crops the stalk, and in the breach appears
Green dropping fap,
fap, which the compares to

tears.

Poor flower, quoth fhe, this was thy father's guife,
(Sweet iffue of a more sweet-fmelling fire)
For every little grief to wet his eyes:
To grow unto himself was his defire,

And fo 'tis thine; but know, it is as good
To wither in my breaft, as in his blood.

Here was thy father's bed, here in my breast ';
Thou art the next of blood, and 'tis thy right:
Lo! in this hollow cradle take thy reft,

My throbbing heart fhall rock thee day and night:
There fhall not be one minute of an hour,
Wherein I will not kifs my sweet love's flower.

Thus weary of the world, away fhe hies,
And yokes her filver doves; by whofe fwift aid
Their mistress mounted, through the empty skies
In her light chariot quickly is convey'd,

here is my breaft,] As Venus fticks the flower to which Adonis is turned, in her bofom, I think we must read against all the copies, and with much more elegance:

Here was thy father's bed, here in my breast

For it was her breast which she would infinuate to have been Adonis' bed. The clofe of the preceding ftanza partly warrants this change:

66

but know it is as good

"To wither in my breast, as in his blood." As the fucceeding lines in this ftanza likewise do: "Low in this hollow cradle take thy reft."

THEOBALD.

I have received this emendation, as the reading is, I think, more elegant, and the change very small.

MALONE.

Holding

Holding their courfe to Paphos, where their queen
Means to immure herself, and not be feen.

2 This poem is received as one of Shakspeare's undisputed performances,-a circumstance which recommends it to the notice it might otherwife have escaped.

There are some excellencies which are lefs graceful than even their oppofite defects; there are fome virtues, which being merely conftitutional, are entitled to very small degrees of praise. Our poet might defign his Adonis to engage our esteem, and yet the fluggish coldness of his difpofition is as offenfive as the impetu ous forwardness of his wanton miftrefs. To exhibit a young man infenfible to the careffès of tranfcendent beauty, is to defcribe a being too rarely feen to be acknowledged as a natural character, and when feen, of too little value to deferve fuch toil of reprefentation. No elogiums are due to Shakspeare's hero on the fcore of mental chastity, for he does not pretend to have fubdued his defires to his moral obligations. He ftrives indeed, with Platonick abfurdity, to draw that line which was never drawn, to make that distinction which never can be made, to feparate the purer from the groffer part of love, affigning limits, and afcribing bounds to each, and calling them by different names; but if we take his own word, he will be found at laft only to prefer one gratification to another, the fports of the field to the enjoyment of immortal charms. The reader will eafily confefs that no great respect is due to the judgment of fuch a would-be Hercules, with fuch a choice before him.-In fhort, the story of Jofeph and the wife of Potiphar is the more interefting of the two; for the paffions of the former are repreffed by confcious rectitude of mind, and obedience to the highest law. The prefent narrative only includes the disappointment of an eager female, and the death of an unfuf ceptible boy. The deity, from her language, fhould feem to have been educated in the fchool of Meffalina; the youth, from his backwardness, might be fufpected of having felt the difcipline of a Turkish feraglio.

It is not indeed very clear whether Shakspeare meant on this occafion, with Le Brun, to recommend continence as a virtue, or to try his hand with Aretine on a licentious canvas. If our poet had any moral defign in view, he has been unfortunate in his con duct of it. The fhield which he lifts in defence of chastity, is wrought with fuch meretricious imagery as cannot fail to counteract a moral purpose.-Shakspeare, however, was no unskilful mythologist, and must have known that Adonis was the offspring of Cynaras and Myrrha. His judgment therefore would have "prevented him from raifing an example of continence out of the produce of an incestuous bed. Confidering this piece only în the light of a jeu d'efprit, written without peculiar tendency, we shall even then be forry that our author was unwilling to leave

the

the character of his hero as he found it; for the common and more pleasing fable affures us, that

-when bright Venus yielded up her charms, "The bleft Adonis languish'd in her arms.”

We should therefore have been better pleased to have seen him in the fituation of Afcanius,

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cum gremio fotum dea tollit in altos

"Idaliæ lucos, ubi mollis amaracus illum

"

"Floribus et multa afpirans complectitur umbra;' than in the very act of repugnance to female temptation, felf-denial being rarely found in the catalogue of Pagan virtues.

If we enquire into the poetical merit of this performance, it will do no honour to the reputation of its author. The great excellence of Shakspeare is to be fought in dramatick dialogue, expreffing his intimate acquaintance with every paffion that fooths or ravages, exalts or debafes the human mind. Dialogue is a form of compofition which has been known to quicken even the genius of those who in mere uninterrupted narrative have funk to a level with the multitude of common writers. The fmaller pieces of Otway and Rowe have added nothing to their fame.

Let it be remembered too, that a contemporary author, Dr. Gabriel Harvey, points out the Venus and Adonis as a favourite only with the young, while graver readers beftowed their attention on the Rape of Lucrece. Here I cannot help obferving that the poetry of the Roman legend is no jot fuperior to that of the mythological ftory. A tale which Ŏvid has completely and affectingly told in about one hundred and forty verfes, our author has coldly and imperfectly fpun out into near two thousand. The attention therefore of these graver perfonages must have been engaged by the moral tendency of the piece, rather than by the force of style in which it is related. STEEVENS.

This first effay of Shakspeare's Mufe does not appear to me fo entirely void of poetical merit as it has been reprefented. In what high estimation it was held in our author's life-time, may be collected from what has been already obferved in the preliminary remark, and from the circumstances mentioned in a note which the reader will find at the end of The Rape of Lucrece.

To the other elogiums on this piece may be added the concluding lines of a poem entitled Mirrha the Mother of Adonis; or Luftes Prodegies, by William Barksted, 1607;

"But ftay, my Mufe, in thine own confines keep,

"And wage not warre with fo deere lov'd a neighbor; "But having fung thy day-fong, reft and fleep; "Preferve thy fmall fame, and his greater favor. "His fong was worthie merit; Shakspeare, hee "Sung the faire bloffome, thou the wither'd tree: Laurel is due to him; his art and wit "Hath purchas'd it; cyprus thy brows will fit."

MALONE,

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