or, if you please, their purposes, by certain founds, yet who doth not know, that in general they utter the founds peculiar to their kind, without any particular defign, or certain purpose whatsoever. They are no more than the natural cuftomary expreffion of their actual feeling. At least this is the common received opinion, which is fufficient to juftify the poet in adopting it. So in the cafe under confideration, when Profpero first met with Caliban, this latter would gabble out certain uncouth noises, like the jabbering of an ape, deftitute of any determinate meaning; and though he had indeed purpofes, yet he had never adapted any of those noifes to a particular expreffion of them, nor, perhaps, could fignify them twice fucceffively by the fame precife found. So that though he had purposes, and knew the purposes he had, yet it may very properly and truly be faid, that he did not know his own meaning, that is, the meaning of that gabble he was perpetually uttering, without any certain defign or determinate fignification.

P. 22. Weeping against the king my father's wreck. The old editions, as is evident from Mr. Pope's teftimony, give us,

Weeping again;

that is, after having wept it at my feparation from him. There was therefore no neceffity for altering the text, which is the only juftifiable pretext for doing it. Against, for over again, or oppofite to, is not the natural or ufual idiom of the English language, though I do not deny it may be fometimes met with in that fignification. The common import of this prepofition is, in oppofition to, or, in expectation of, or preparation for, any thing.

P. 26. If you be made or no?

If this is not the original reading of the first folio edition, as I am inclined to believe it is, but an alteration of Mr Pope's, I think however it is fufficiently warranted by the former part of this speech.

Ibid. The king my father wreck'd.

Yes, faith, and all his lords; the duke of Milan,
And his brave fon, being twain.

Though Anthonio's fon doth not appear in this play, nor has any further notice taken of him, yet it is manifeft from the very construction that he is here intended. The imagination of the gentleman of Grays-Inn, that Ferdinand meant himself as being fon of the king of Naples, is utterly without foundation. He had juft before mentioned himself as having feen the wreck, and therefore could not count himself again with any propriety among those who, he believed, had perifhed in it. The ftiling himself the king's brave fon, carries with it an air of boafting, utterly inconfiftent with the modefty of his character. Laftly, The oppofition in the speech of Profpero, immediately following, of his own more braver daughter,' cannot be fo properly referred to the rightful Prince of Naples, as to the fon of his own ufurping brother.

P. 28. Make not too rash a tryal of him; for
He's gentle, and not fearful.

Miranda affigns two reafons, to induce her father not to make too rafh a tryal of Ferdinand, that is, not to attempt a combat, which, fhe apprehends, will be attended with great hazard and danger. The firft is, That he is gentle, which every one fees is fo far from being pertinent, that its natural tendency is rather to encourage fuch an attempt. The

second,

fecond, That he is not fearful, is indeed, in the common and ordinary acceptation of the word, a perfuafive one; but to pass over the faintness and coldness of the expreffion, he is not fearful, to denote that he is a man of fpirit and refolution, the propriety of language would, in this cafe, have inclined the poet to have faid, though he is gentle, he is not fearful, or at least, he is gentle, but not fearful, that the oppofition between those characters might have appeared. I cannot, therefore, help thinking that Shakespear wrote,

Make not too harsh a tryal of him; for
He's gentle, and not fearful.

That is, do not treat him with too much feverity, for he is gentle, and by no means one from whom you can juftly entertain any apprehenfions. That the word, fearful, is frequently used in this fenfe, is too well known to need particular proof. See however, our fubfequent note on the Merchant of Venice, p. 113. The pertinence alfo of this allegation, appears from those apprehenfions which Profpero had juft before expreffed, and which his daughter now endeavours to remove.

-Thou doft bere ufurp

The name thou ow'st not, and haft put thy felf
Upon this ifland, as a fpy, to win it

From me, the lord on't.

P. 30.
Is common.

Our fint of woe

The old reading, our bint of woe,' that is, the fubject of complaint, which our calamity hints or fuggefts to us, was certainly right, and ought not to have been altered. Mr. Warburton, however, afferts, that hint of wor, can fignify only prog

noftic of woe.' What fenfe then will he make of the following paffage in Othello, Act I. Scene 8th ? And with it all my travel's hiftory: Wherein of antres vaft, and defarts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks, and bills whofe heads touch heav'n,

It was my hint to speak.

That is, my fubject led me to speak. I find, indeed, Mr. Warburton hath altered the word here too, adopting a mistake of the printer of the old quarto, which will be confidered in its proper place. His own conjecture, ftint of woe,' properly fignifies restriction or limitation of woe, which is not the idea required in this place. I am tempted to fancy, this gentleman, when he made this emendation, might probably be thinking on his tythes, which, when they are compounded at a certain limited fum agreed on, commonly go, in the western part of this ifland at leaft, by the name of fint.

Ibid. Alon. Pr'ythee, peace.

All that follows from these words, to the speech of Alonzo which begins,

You cram these words into my ears,

is rejected by Mr. Pope, with Mr. Warburton's, at least, tacit approbation, as unworthy of Shakefpear, and probably the interpolation of the players. I wish I could not fay, that there are too many inftances to be found in our poet's works, which indifputably prove, that his great genius did not difdain, and that pretty frequently, to gratify the wretched tafte of a vulgar audience by ribaldry, even below this which is objected to. 'Tis too evident to be controverted, that he could condefcend to catch the laugh of the crowd, at the expence of his reputation with better judges, whofe indulgence,

по

no doubt, he hoped would make great allowances for it. For as to his reputation with pofterity, that feems scarce to have entered into his thoughts, as is manifest from his extreme negligence in the publication of his works, and the miferable condition in which they are handed down to us. In the present cafe, however, it is certain, that the whole of what is propofed to be rejected, cannot be expunged, not only because it contains circumftances relative to Claribel's marriage, which in feveral following paffages are fuppofed to be already known to the audience, but because in the above mentioned fpeech of Alonzo, they are exprefly referred to, and fuppofed to have been just talked of. For instance,

would I had never

Married my daughter there! for, coming thence,
My fon is loft.

where the words, there, and, thence, as Mr. Theobald rightly observes, have no fenfe, but upon the fuppofition that the marriage at Tunis had been just mentioned.

Ibid. The 'vifer will not give o'er fo.

This 'vifer, for adviser, is a correction of Mr. Warburton's. The original reading was, vifitor; which, whoever shall happen to recollect the vifits of confolation ufual among friends or acquaintance upon any great calamity befalling any one of them, and the trite formal common place topicks enlarged upon on fuch occafions, will fcarce think needs an alteration.

P. 33. Where be, at least, is banish'd from your eye, Who bath caufe to wet the grief on't.

The eye is here treated as a diftinct perfon, by being joined to the mafculine relative, who. The meaning

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