Which laft inftance I the rather give for the fake of propofing an emendation, which I think reftores this fine paffage to its integrity. Before the late edition of Shakespeare it stood thus, And like the tyrannous breathing of the North Shakes all our Buds from growing But the fagacious Editor faw that this reading was corrupt, and therefore altered the last word, growing, for unanswerable reasons, into blowing, See Mr. W.'s note upon the place. This flight change gives propriety and beauty to the paffage, which before had no fort of meaning. Yet ftill all is not quite right. For, as the great Critic himself obferves, "Breathing is not a very proper word to exprefs the rage and blufter of the north wind." Befides, one does not fee how the shaking of these Buds is properly affigned as the cause of their not blowing, The wind might shake off the blossoms of a fruit-tree, i. e. the Buds when they were full-blown; but so long as the bloffom lies folded up in the Bud, it feeins fecure from shaking. At least the shaking is not the immediate caufe of the effect, fpoken of; it is fimply the cold of the north-wind that closes the Bud and keeps it from blowing. I am therefore tempted to propose another alteration of the text, and to read thus, And like the tyrannous Breathing of the North "Shuts all our Buds from blowing If this correction be allowed, every thing is perfectly right. It is properly the breathing, the cold breath of the North, that shuts up the Buds when they are on the point of blowing. Whence the epithet tyrannous will be understood not as implying the idea of blustering (an idea indeed neceffary if we retain the word shakes) but fimply of cruel, the tyranny of this wind confifting in imprisoning the flower in its Bud, and denying it the liberty of coming out in Blossom The application too of this comparison, which required the change of growing into blowing, feems alfo to require the prefent alteration of fbakes. For there was no manner of violence in the father's coming in upon the lovers. All the effect was, that his prefence restrained them from that interchange of tender words, which was going to take place between them, Thus far I had written in the laft edition of these notes, and I, now, fee no cause to doubt the general truth and propriety of this emendation. Only it occurs to me that, instead of SHUTS, the poet's own word might, perhaps, be CHECKS; as not only being more like in found to the word shakes; but as coming nearer to the traces traces of the letters. Befides, CHECKS gives the precife idea we should naturally look for, whether we regard the integrity of the figuretyrannous-checks, or the thing illuftrated by it, viz. the abrupt coming in of the father, which was properly a check upon the lovers. Laftly, the expreffion is mended by this reading; for, though we may be allowed to say shuts from blowing, yet checks from blowing, is cafier and better English. But to return to other inftances of the poet's artifice in the management of known words. An apparent novelty is fometimes affected. 7. By turning Participles into Adverbs tremblingly fhe ftood And on the fudden dropt A. C. A. v. S. 5. (One remembers the fine ufe Mr. Pope has made of this word in, Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er-) But his flaw'd heart, Alack, too weak the conflict to support, 'Twixt two extremes of paffion, joy and grief, Burft fmilingly 8. By figurative terms, i. e. by fuch terms as though common in the plain, are unusual in the figurative application, This common body Like to a vagabond flag, upon the stream, Goes to, and back, lacquying the varying tide. When fnow the pafture sheets. ib. To this head may be referred those innumerable terms in Shakespeare which furprize us by their novelty; and which furprize us generally, on account of his preferring the specific idea to the general in the subjects of his metaphors, and the circumftances of his defcription; an excellence in poetical expreffion which cannot be fufficiently ftudied. The examples are too frequent, and the thing itself too well understood, to make it neceffary to enlarge on this article. 9. By plain words, i. e. fuch as are common in the figurative, uncommon in the literal accep tation. Disasters vail'd the fun- Ham. A. 1. S. 1. See the note on the place. Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies Can't fuch things be And overcome us, like a fummer's cloud, Without our fpecial wonder? Macb. A. III. S. 5. 10. By tranfpofition of words-unauthorized ufe of terms-and ungrammatical conftruction. InRances in all his plays, paffim. 11. By foreign idioms. It is true these are not frequent in Shakespear. Yet fome Latinifms, and even Grecifms we have. As Quenched of hope Cymb. A. v. S. 5. And the like. Bat, which is more remarkable, and ferved his purpose just as well, the writers of that time had fo latinized the English language, that the pure English Idiom, which Shakespeare generally follows, has all the air of novelty which other writers are used to affect by a foreign phraseology. The reader fees, it were eafy to extend this lift of Shakespeare's arts in the callida junctura much farther. But I intended only a fpecimen of them; fo much as might ferve to illuftrate the rule of Horace. It is enough, that we have now a perfect apprehenfion of what is meant by CALLIDA JUNCTURA; and that it is, in effect, but another word for licentious expreffion: the use of which is, as Quintilian well expreffes it, "Ut quotidiani et femper eodem modo formati fermonis faftidium levet, et nos à vulgari dicendi genere defendat." In fhort, the articles here enume rated, |