-But at dinner time I pray you have a mind where we must meet." A simple alteration illuminates the profound darkness of these lines. But at dinner time I have no other reason for alterng this, than that I have passed I pray you have a hind that we must eat. 66 "Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend, I'll break a custom." Anthonio means to say, that to save his friend from starvation, he will, contrary to custom, borrow money at "usance," or, according to the more modern term, 66 usury." We must now, therefore, place our Do cream, and mantle like a standing selves in the situation of Shakspeare, pool." This is a contradiction. I would write, Do cream and mantle like a stagnant pool. I own that the Iricism would still remain, but an alteration is effected at all events, and every alteration is a step to improvement, uniess, indeed, one changes for the worse. and imagine how he would express Yet, to supply the tripe wants of my friend, of the bowels, and is, I believe, a Tripe wants signify the yearning Scotch phrase. "That all the yeanlings which were streaked and pied, Should fall at Jacob's hire." I could make little sense of this, till, by chance, meeting with a work of Bracton's [the lawyer] I read: "It was the custom of this country formerly, when a farmer did lose a young sheep, a cow, or a pig, or did become stricken in years, or did die, for the lord to allow unto him two shillings and six-pence, for and because of a dead gift or mortuary.' From ali which I infer that Shakspeare wrote, That all the younglings which were stricked and died, Should fall, &c. "You that did void your rheum upon my beard." I cannot avoid the relation of a story here, which will make the reader smile. An old gentleman, mounting Hampstead Hill, tarried at the Load of Hay, and exclaimed: "This terrible wind brings the rheum into my eyes." "Then, why don't you," said the witty landlord, "bring your eyes into the room." "Hie thee, gentle Jew." I would vary this, I confess, from mere caprice, but every one has his whim as well as his taste. Hie thee, Gentile-Jew, conveys to my ears a more pleasing melody; besides which, it expresses the wavering opinion the Hebrew's apparently generous conduct had created. "I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine." It is really wonderful, that both Shakspeare and Milton accent the word aspect upon the last syllable. "Father, come, I'll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling of an eye." I am sorry to say this is a very indecent, though, it must be confessed, a ludicrous allusion to the burial service: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed in a moment-in the twinkling of an eye." "Like one well-studied in a sad ostent. To please his grandam.” There are two kinds of sense (besides the five) one is denominated common sense, the second nonsense. Our commentators universally prefer the latter, and therefore never dream of explaining a passage by so slight a difference from the text as the following: Like one well-studied in a St. Austin, To please his grandam. A St. Austin is a prayer-book. "Adieu! tears exhibit my tongue." There has been violent controversy about this passage, though it be simply an instance of transposition, or, as it is termed by the rhetoricians, “dislocation." Shakspeare "The hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds," The word vasty grows obsolete; I propose substituting "nasty." It is true that this may injure the sense, but the metre is well preserved. I question whether hyrcarian is not corrupted from Hesperian, and whether our bard did not allude to des serts gathered from the gardens of the Hesperides. But this I am not quite clear about. At all events, some deviation from the text should be introduced. "Portia, adieu !" I never could, with certainty, comprehend the signification of this till I had read that facetious work of M. Louvet de Couvray, entitled La fin des Amours du Chevalier de Faublas. In one of the chapters whereof (I forget which) is this exposition: "adieu," a contraction of "á dieu je vous commend." I have been told that Entick's Dictionary would have given me as much information, which shows how much we are dis posed to travel in search of what we have at home; like the man who sought for a cuckold in every parish but his own. "Hanging and wiving goes by destiny." I have consulted Lowth, and, finding this line to be ungrammati cal, esteem the whole an interpolation. MOMUS. THE KISS: OR, MOHAMASIM THE ASS DRIVER. IT was the custom of Mohamasim to rise with the sun, and drive his asses through the streets of Bagdad. All the world is aware that the milk of those animals is a sovereign remedy against stupidity. Mohamasim, therefore, grew tolerably rich, for there was not a citizen who did not persuade his neighbour that he stood in woful need of the remedy. Twenty years did he pass in this uninterrupted course, without a without a murmur, and without a wish. He had heard all speak with enthusiasm, of the pleasures of variety: yet heard with indifference. To him, that was most grateful which was most easy; and, though not supernaturally wise, he had discernment sufficient to discover that most things become easy by perpetual recurrence. 'Tis a piteous truth, that, be our inclinations howsoever unaspiring and inoffensive, they are equally subject to opposition with the most turbulent and ambitious. We may -Buchannan. as well expect to live for ever, as to be for ever fortunate. Life is at best but like the beard of Hamlet's father, a sable silvered. Even the humble existence of Mohamasim, it seems, was to be checkered with trouble; for, one day, as the sultan passed by, the poor fellow, seized with a fit of coughing, wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Unfortunately, by the laws of the Ottomans, it is a capital crime to wipe your mouth in the supreme presence; but the sultan, who then reigned, having an uncommon portion of humanity and forgiveness, ordered the punishment to be mitigated to a thousand lashes. Now, as Mohamasim could have no claim to feeling, for he was an ass driver, a thousand lashes was a mere flea-bite to him; even the courtiers, a kind of personage re nowned for compassion and fine feeling, did not deny the justice and lenity of the sentence; for what crime could be more atrocious than to wipe one's mouth in the presence of a being who wore red morocco slippers? Punishments are bestowed in Turkey with somewhat more alacrity than rewards are given in England. Mohamasim was stripped with summary celerity, and had received a dozen tolerably smart applications to his shoulders, when the sultan ordered the executioner to stop. The executioner, having lent his sovereign money, cared not an iota for his commands, so proceeded. The truth was, that having run up a score with Mohamasim, for milk, he bore him inveterate animosity; for there is nothing so merciless as ingratitude. Stay your hand, said the vizier, but still he proceeded. Stay your hand, exclaimed the courtiers unanimously; but still he proceeded. Dog, said the sultan, enraged, stay thy hand, or thou shalt be hanged, like the coffin of Mohammed, between earth and heaven. As the man had no violent inclination to be hung, he withheld at last, and Mohamasim had the satisfaction of hearing him told to go about his business. Mohamasim, said the sultan, if thou hast not contrived, before one revolution of the moon, to kiss the princess Roxalinda, thou shalt receive the rest. Commander of the Faithful, said Mohamasim, rubbing his shoulders, thy will is indisputable; mankind are thy slaves; thou speakest and art obeyed, nay, more than obeyed. Dust of my feet, replied the sultan, tamper not with my patience; choose, or this moment is thy last. Let me consider, said Mohamasim, with a playfulness he could not conquer; shall I now have nine hundred and sixty more of these pretty, agreeable, jocose lashes, or a kiss of the princess? Why, truly, I believe I shall prefer the kiss, if it be merely for the sake of variety. The sultan smiled, and left him. Well, said the ass driver, when alone, can this be rejection; can this be choice; or receive nine hundred and sixty lashes from the heavy hand of that unmerciful scoundrel, or kiss the princess Roxalinda, the most angelick of mortals; the dar ling of the universe? Am I awake?It would have puzzled Merlin himself to determine how long he would have soliloquized in interrogations, had he not been interrupted by the melodious remonstrances of his animals; but no sooner did the well known sounds salute his ears, than he started as from a trance, and, running to embrace his companions, profaned the very lips with which he was to kiss the princess. Never did scene exhibit more pathos on the one side, or more indifference on the other. The truth is, that asses are not remarkable for tenderness. As he quitted the animals, the difficulty of obtaining an interview with the princess, for the first time, occurred to him.. Mirthful and thoughtless, he never dreamed of obstacles till he tumbled over them. It was not till now that he suspected the sultan, in giving him his choice, had condescended to be facetious, and that, in fact, his shoulders were doomed to be flayed as inevitably, as though Gravity herself held the lash. In the name of the prophet, said he, where, when, and how shall I behold the princess Roxalinda? What hast thou to do with her, said a neighbour, slapping him with friendly freedom on the shoulder? Before I proceed, it were not amiss to observe upon the dissimilitude of customs in different nations. In Turkey, you prove the strength of your friendship by raising a tumour upon your neighbour's shoul der. Lapland, being intolerably frigid, the inhabitants greet each other with an amicable squeeze by the nose, remarkably conducive to a more general circulation of the blood. The Dutch, of proverbial phlegm, usually apply a bamboo of some ten or twelve inches in circumference to each other's posteriors; a practice, say they, which, while it de |