The Merchant of Venice.

P. 97. Argofies.

Mr. Pope was mistaken in imagining the word, Argofie, to fignify a fhip from Argo. This laft is an inland town of the Morea, and confequently could have no shipping. In the primary fignification of the word, it denoted a fhip of Ragufa; and as that city was in the middle ages famous for its trade, and extenfive navigation, and particularly for building merchant fhips of the largest fize, every very large merchant veffel came to be called an Argafie. Hence too Ragozine, for Ragusain, the name of the pirate in Meafure for Measure.

P. 99. Now by two-headed Janus.

See the Canons of Criticism, p. 184.

P. 102. I owe you much, and, like a witless youth, That which I owe is loft.

Mr. Warburton hath altered this paffage for want of understanding it. The common reading was,

And, like a wilful youth.

That is, It hath happened to me, as it generally doth to a wilful youth; I have fquandered away what I am now a debtor for. But Mr. Warburton urges,

He had juft before promifed, that, what followed, 'fhould be pure innocence. Now wilfulness is not quite fo pure.' Would any reafonable man have imagined, that the intention of this promife was to reftrain the promifer from all mention of the follies of his youth, when he was at the fame time to propofe a scheme to retrieve the unhappy confequences of them? The promife therefore could relate only.

to

to the new propofal, which immediately follows this preamble. Besides, to talk with Mr. Warburton in his own way, the very state of the cafe which precedes the propofal, the owing much when he had nothing to pay,' that is, the extravagance of making a figure at the expence of his creditors, is undoubtedly as great a breach on the purity of innocence, as the wilfulness of youth, which is not always inconfiftent with it, at leaft is always admitted as fome excufe for wrong conduct.

P. 111. O, what a goodly outfide's falfebood bath! The common reading was,

O, what a goodly outfide falfehood bath!

These words must be understood as fpoken in an ironical contemptuous manner, by which they are peculiarly applied and confined to the inftance which had juft then presented itself to obfervation. They are not intended to exprefs a general maxim, which holds univerfally; fo that Mr. Warburton's objection, that it is not true that falfehood hath always a goodly outfide,' is befide the purpose. Still more fo is his other objection, that this doth not take in the force of the fpeaker's fentiment, who would obferve, that that falfehood which quotes Scripture for its purpofe hath a goodly outfide;' fince this is the very circumftance which gave occafion to this farcafm, and is particularly alluded to in it. The difagreeable hiffing of Mr. Warburton's reading, which betrays, either great infenfibility, or at leatt great indelicacy, of ear, is another ftrong reafon against our admitting it. See the Introduction to the Canons of Criticism, p. 28.

P. 113. See to my house, left in the fearless guard. The common reading was, fearful guard, an epi

thet

the which fignifies as well, what gives juft occafion for fear, as what is apt to fear. So in our author's Tempest, p. 28.

He's gentle, and not fearful.

and in the First Part of Henry IV. vol. iv. p. 163.

A mighty and a fearful head they are,

Mr. Warburton feems to have been ignorant of this twofold fense of the word, fearful, and therefore corrupted the text under the pretence of amending it, which is an expedient always ready at the critick's hand. But I believe it will be difficult for him to prove by the authority of any one good English writer, that, fearless, is ever used to fignify, negligent. See the Canons of Criticism, p. 19.

P, 118, Dobbin my thill-bo-fe,

For this correction, which Mr. Warburton affumes to himself, we are indebted to Mr. Theobald's Shakespear restored, p. 165.

P. 120. Thou speak'ft it well.

See the Canons of Criticism, p. 51.

Ibid. If any man in Italy have a fairer table, which doth *** offer to fwear upon a book, I shall bave good fortune.

Mr. Warburton not understanding part of this paf fage, nor readily apprehending that the fentence is abruptly broken off, without an explicit conclufion, a practice not unfrequent with Shakespear, as our critick himself elfe where (Much Ado about Nothing, P. 33. note 5.) acknowledges, is pleafed to treat the whole as nonfenfe. He is therefore obliged to have recourse to a fuppofition (the ufual refuge of

his

his brethren the criticks in the like cafe) that a line hath been loft in the tranfcribing, which he fupplies by afterifks, and proceeds to give us, if not the very words, at least the fenfe of it. But I think we have no occafion for it, and that confidering the hu. mourous and fantastical language in which the poet hath dreffed the character of Launcelot, the place will very well bear the following interpretation. If

any man in Italy have a fairer table, which pronounces that I fhall have good fortune, with as • much affurance as if it was ready to fwear it upon a book- Here the sentence breaks off, and we muft fupply, 'I am miftaken,' or fome other ex. preffion of the like import. Mr. Theobald had not the least conception of the meaning of this paffage, and therefore hath put us off with a piece of incomprehenfible nonfenfe.

P. 123. We have not spoke us yet of torch-bearers. I have no objections to this reading if it be warranted by the authority of the elder editions. Spóke us, if put for, bespoke us, that is, provided ourfelves. However, Mr. Pope's edition gives us

We have not spoke as yet of torch-bearers.

P. 126. 0, ten times fafter Venus' widgeons, fly
To feal love's bonds new made, than they are

་

wont

To keep obliged faith unforfeited!

..

The common reading was, Venus' pigeons'. To this Mr. Warburton objects, That it is a very odd image, of Venus's pigeons flying to feal the bonds of love, though, he fays, the fenfe is obvious, and that he knows the refpect due to the aforefaid 'pigeons.' However he will needs have it that a joke was certainly intended,' and, to make it out,

informs

informs us, that the widgeon is one fpecies of pigeons, and likewife fignifies a filly fellow and in this ambiguity of fignification, he affures us the 'joke confifts, and that it is in high humour.' Now I have put all this together, I must confefs it appears to me fome of the most unaccountably ftrange ftuff I ever met with. Our critick doth not fee, what one would imagine even the dulleft reader muft fee, that it is not the pigeons who are understood 'to feal the bonds of love,' any more than to keep 'obliged faith unforfeited; but that it is Venus herself (who is drawn by them, and regulates their flight according to her own good pleasure) who is fuppofed to be affiftant in both. It is plain therefore that he misunderstood the fenfe of the paffage, and that to him at least it was not obvious, though I believe there are few readers to whom it would not be fo. As to a 16 widgeon being one species of pigeons,' this is a point of natural history utterly unknown to the western part at leaft of this ifland, where a widgeon is univerfally used to denote a particular fpecies of water-fowl, of a middle fize between a duck and a teal. It is reckoned a filly bird, perhaps from the eafe with which it is fnared, and the name metaphorically applied to fignify a filly fellow,' but then, as it is no way connected with Venus, it can have no place here. But granting our critick every thing he can afk, what do we get by it? Why, we have an infipid conundrum fathered upon Shakespear, at the expence of a moft elegant image of his own, which is quite defaced by it.

6

P. 132. Yet do not fuddenly, for it may grieve him. I am inclined to believe Shakespear wrote,

Fet do't not fuddenly.

I 2

P. 133.