appears by the application, however, that Shakespeare knew the meaning of this line; and, if he knew it in Lilly, why might he not know it in the original author from whom it was taken? Is it because you have so often quoted words and pasfages, in languages you do not understand, that you suspect Shakespeare of a fimilar practice? You should never measure others' corn by your own bufhel. You have been already reprehended in public, for misrepresenting in your preface the teftimony of your predeceffor Ben Johnfort; who tells us, that Shakespeare had small LATIN and lefs GREEK. This you converted into small Latin and NO Greek. The ingenious critic, who reminded you of this error, was candid enough to impute it to your quoting from memory only*; but, suppofing that, in this case, such a method of quotation was excufable, it appears, I think, too plainly, from your conftant and repeated endeavours to depreciate both the natural and acquired abilities of Shakespeare, that this was not the case. Your perfeverance in thefe endeavours, at leaft, give great reason to suspect the miftake was wilful; as the fuppofition of his having any Greek at all, would not have fuited with your darling project, or answered your end, of invidiously reprefenting him as a varlet, one of the illiterate vulgar.

Vol. III. Page 25.

PET. Such wind as scatters young men through the world,
To feek their fortunes farther than at home,

Where fmall experience grows. But, in a few,
Signior Hortenfio, thus it ftands with me.

Dr. Warburton fays, "this nonfenfe fhould be read thus: *Where small experience grows but in a mew,

"i. e. a confinement at home. And the meaning is, that "no improvement is to be expected of those who never look "out of doors."

In the St. James's Chronicle.

To

To this note, quoted from Dr. Warburton, the present editor adds the following:

Why this should feem nonfenfe, I cannot perceive. In a • few means the fame as in short, in few words,'

་

This piece of information, however, and the method of pointing adopted by Dr. Johnfon, might have been had long ago from Mr. Edward's Canons of Criticism; who, in expofing the abfurdity of Dr. Warburton's emendation, quotes other passages from Shakespeare, where the fame expreffion is made ufe of.

"In few; his death, whofe fpirit lent a fire
Even to the dulleft peafant in his camp, &c."
SECOND PART OF HENRY IV,

Again, in HENRY V.

"Thus then in few."

Vol. III. Page 45.

GREMIO. Two thousand ducats by the year of land!
My land amounts but to fo much in all.

All the copies, it feems, concurred in reading

My land amounts not to fo much in all

But, because Dr. Warburton blunderingly conceived something must be wrong in it, and wrote a plaufible note in justification of BUT, Dr. Johnson hath not only inserted the faid tedious note, but hath given his highest approbation to the propofed emendation, by adopting it in the text.-The sensible author of the Revifal, however, having expofed the futility of the alteration, and fufficiently explained the text, agreeable to the old reading, Dr. Johnfon hath thought proper, in his appendix, to recant his former opinion. A glaring inftance this, among many others, of the little pains our editor took to examine into these matters himself!

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Vol. III. Page 176.

MESS. I fee, lady, the gentleman is not in your books. 6. The gentleman is not in your books.] This is a phrase ufed, I believe, by more than understand it. Good lackl what a bad thing it is to want Dr. Johnfon's understanding F You understand it, no doubt, Doctor! Oh, yes, I fee you tell us what it is. To be in one's books is to be in one's codicils or will, to be among friends let down for le'gacies.'

-

سمنة

But, among friends, now, Doctor, how do you know this? I know that, in your dictionary, by way of proving that to be in books, (as you vaguely term it) means to be held in kind remembrance, you quote the following paffage from Addifon. "I was so much in his books, that, at his decease, "he left me the lamp, by which he used to write his lucu"brations." But do you, merely because the phrafe is illuftrated by this paffage, infift upon the phrafe being literally applicable to the illuftration. Or, have you a better reason 'faith, I am apt to fufpect not; for furely, uncommunicative as you are, you would have told it us either in your dictionary, or in your edition' of Shakespeare. - Shall I tell you, then, what I conceive to be the origin of this phrase? not that I pertinaciously infift upon being in the right, becaufe I think Dr. Johnfon is in the wrong. I have mind to indulge myself, however, in a conjecture, if it fo prove, on this

occafion.

It was an ancient cuftom among the literati all over Europe, and is fill kept up abroad, particularly in Holland and Germany, for men of letters to keep a book, which they call an album, fo denominated from a fimilar application of that word, among the ancient Romans, to a matricular regifter or mufter-roll of names. This book, or books, contained in like manner a lift of the names of the owner's friends, admirers or acquaintance; who, in fubfcribing their names in

his

his album, generally used to preface them with fome compliment or device, in profe or verfe, each after his own manner. It was very natural, therefore, for them to fay, in speaking of their favourites or friends, that they were in their books ;' and of their enemies, that they were not in their books, or out of their books. Nay, I know not if it would be at all unnatural for refentful perfons to ftrike out the names of those who might afterwards offend them, in order to fhew their fpleen, and at the fame time that they would not be obliged to fuch people for a compliment. I cannot help thinking alfo, that I discover a propriety in the meffenger's using this phrafe to Beatrice, as he might intend farcastically to infinuate that, he imagined, by the feverity of her raillery against Benedict, that he was one who had paid no compliment to her beauty. But whether this propriety be imaginary or not, there is not the leaft room for fuppofing that he meant to fay Beatrice had not, according to Dr. Johnfon's explication, remembered Benedict in the codicil of her will. It is, indeed, a thousand to one if the laft will and teftament of the buxom Beatrice was written; and a much greater chance if it had codicils annexed to it.

Vol. III. Page 199.

BEAT. Good lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am fun-burn'd; I may fit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband.

Dr. Johnson's note. What is it to go to the world? perhaps to enter, by marriage, into a fettled ftate: but why is the unmarried lady fun-burnt? 1 believe we fhould read, thus goes every one to the wood but I, and I am fun-burnt. • Thus does every one but I find a fhelter, and I am left ex'posed to wind and fun. The nearest way to the wood, is a phrase for the readieft means to any end. It is faid of a Sa woman, who accepts a worse match than those which she had refused, that the has paffed through the wood, and at « laft taken a crooked stick. But conjectural criticifm has always

ways fomething to abate its confidence. Shakespeare, in • All's well that ends well, uses the phrase, to go to the world, ⚫ for marriage. So that my emendation depends only on the ⚫ oppofition of wood to fun-burnt.'

A very flight dependance, indeed, and by no means worthy fo prolix an illustration! Our editor, surely, had lost himfelf in a wood, or his wits were gone wool-gathering about the hedges while he penned it.-To go to the world, is to go into, to fettle in, the world, which is ufually fuppofed to be done în marriage. Thus the clown, in All's well that ends well, afks the Countess leave to marry Ifabel.—If I have your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Ifabel the woman and I will do as we may.-That a wood was necessary to give meaning to the word fun-burnt, I cannot admit. It is evident that Beatrice bere speaks ironically, and, perhaps, a little sarcastically and peevishly, on the occafion of Hero's getting a husband before her. For it seems that Hero was a brunette, and, in all probability, not fo fair nor fo fine a woman as Beatrice. At leaft fo it is, if we may take Signior Benedict's word for it, who, fpeaking of Hero, fays, "She is too low for an high "praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great "praise :" whereas of her cousin Beatrice he speaks in a different manner, and this even before he is tricked into falling in love with her, and while he boasts that " he can see with"out spectacles.". Of her he says, after turning up his nose, as it were, at the commendations given to the person of Hero, "There's her coufin, if he were not poffeffed with fuch a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the laft of December.". Now, though we fhould fuppofe Benedict to be a little partial, as having a fneaking kindness, though he will not own it, for this amiable fury; yet it feems clear that she was fairer than Hero. It was very natural for her, therefore, to fay ironically on this occafion, "Thus every one gets married but I.- Poor I am “funburn'd; i. e. not fair enough to attract the notice of

"the