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"O Heav'ns

If you do love old men, if your fweet fway "ALLOW OBEDIENCE, if yourselves are old, "Make it your cause."

"ALLOW obedience.] Could it be a question whe"ther beaven ALLOWED obedience? the poet

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"HALLOW obedience. - "

Mr. W.

But does not our Critic forget his Bible? For thus our tranflators, Luke XI, 48. " Truly ye bear witness that ye ALLOW the deeds of your fathers." Thus they express the force of the original ouveudoMEITE, i. e. are well pleased with, like well of, approve, &c. Again, Pfalm XI, 6. “The Lord "ALLOWETH the righteous: but the ungodly, and " him that delighteth in wickedness doth his foul “ abbor”. I will add too the teftimony of a poet. Fairfax. IX. ft. 13.

"Reprov'd the cowards, and ALLOW'D the "bould."

And in this fenfe it anfwers to its original, allouër, à louer, laudare.

II.

Fairfax perhaps may be of fome authority with our commentator, for I find his name used to au

thorize

thorize an interpretation of a passage in Antony and Cleopatra, Att I.

"So He [Antony] nodded,

"And foberly did mount an ARM-GAUNT fteed. "An ARM-GAUNT fteed.] i. e. his feed worn "lean and thin by much fervice in war. So

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"His STALL-WORN fteed the champion ftout beftrode." Mr. W.

What will the reader fay when he turns to Fairfax, [B. VII. ft. 27.] and finds the verse thus printed,

I

"His STALWORTH fteed the champion tout

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beftrode."

And what will be think of a commentator, that either has not learning to read authors, or corrupts them to vindicate his ill-digested whims and reveries?

III,

To match this STALL-WORN fteed, with another learned citation of the like kind, among many others, I think the following offers itself, where Iago tells Othello that Brabantio, father of Defdemona, was a man of power and authority,

1 Concerning the meaning of this word fee Dr. Hickes, in Grammat. Anglo-S. p. 128,

"Be

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"Be fure of this

"That the Magnifico is much belov'd
"And bath in his effect a voice potential
"As double as the Duke's

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"As double as the Duke's.] Rymer feems to have bad his eye on this paffage, amongst others, where be talks so much of the impropriety and barbarity in the ftyle of this play. But it is an "elegant Grecifm. As double, fignifies as large, as extenfive, for thus the Greeks ufe dins. Diofc. L. 2. c. 213. And in the fame manner . and construction, the Latins fometimes used duplex. And the old French writers fay, La plus "double. Dr. Bentley has been as fevere ont Milton for as ELEGANT A GRECISM,

"Yet virgin of Proferpina from Jove.

Lib. 9. ver. 396.

«'Tis an imitaten of the Παρθένον ἐκ θαλάμε of Theocritus, for an unmarried virgin." Mr. W.

I fhall take no notice at all of the reasoning, by which Mr. W. would have us think that Rymer had his eye on THIS paffage of Othello, nor of the citation from Diofcorides, [L. 2. c. 213.] which Mr. W. never red there, for this very good reason, because 'tis not there: he had it from H. Stephens in V. Amλs. But all this I omit, to come to Milton and Theocritus :

"Yet

« Yet Virgin of Proferpina from Jove.

"This (he fays) is an ELEGANT GRECISM, and can imitation of the ΠΑΡΘΕΝΟΝ ΕΚ ΘΑΛΑΜΟΥ of Theocritus, for an unmarried Virgin."

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As frange as this citation may appear to the learned reader, yet I think I can give fome account of it. Daniel Heinfius wrote fome curfory notes on Theocritus, in which thefe words, ΠΑΡΘΕΝΟΝ ΕΚ ΘΑΛΑΜΟΥ, be renders virginem intactam. Becaufe, it Jeems, Θύρσις ἐξ Αἴτνας τας Θύρσις ὁ Αίτναῖος. So here Heinfius would have παρθένος ἐκ θαλάμα the fame as, ἡ ἔτι ἐν τῷ θαλάμῳ ανατρεφο μένη. But there is no analogy at all in the confruition, especially if we confider them with the context and the Scholiaft here is doubtless right who thus interprets, καὶ παρθένον δὲ ἐκ τῶ δωματία ἐφόβησεν· ἀντὶ τῇ φυγεῖν ἐποίησεν. As will fill be more manifeft to any one that reads the verses here cited from the ΦΑΡΜΑΚΕΥΤΡΙΑ.

:

Σὺν δὲ κακαῖς μανίαις καὶ παρθένον ἐκ θαλάμοιο,
Καὶ νύμφαν ἐφόβησ ̓ ἔτι δέσμια θερμὰ λιποῖσαν
Ανέρος.

This is their verfion, as I find it,

Ille enim objecto furore malo, virginem ex thalamo,

Et fponfam expulit ex thoro tepido adhuc

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But for argument's fake we will allow Heinfius explanation, viz. Παρθένος ἐκ θαλάμε, means a virgin who lives in her chamber ; 4s Θύρσις ἐξ Αἴτίας, means Thyrfis who lives at the foot of mount Etna: and in Virgil [Georg. III, 2.] Paftor ab Amphryfo, is the Shepherd who refided near the river Amphryfus. Many other inftances there are of the like nature; fo that by the fame analogy, when Milton calls Ceres VIRGIN OF PROSERPINA, (according to our Critic, Пagbéves ix Пegoεóvns] Milton must mean Ceres the Virgin who dwells in Proferpina, or, formerly refided there. Wonderful Grecian!

IV.

Another citation of like kind I find in a note on Julius Cafar, A III.

Antony. "You all do know this mantle; I "remember

"The first time ever Cafar put it on,

" 'Twas on a fummer's evening in his tent
"That day be overcame the Nervii-

"Look! in this place, ran Caffius dagger

" through;

"See, what a rent the envious Cafca made.

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Through this, the well-beloved Brutus ftabb.d.”

" And

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