refentment against Falstaff's impudent addreffes, adds, "I'll exhibit a bill in parliament for the putting "down of MEN." True woman in her anger; who, for the fake of one, would punish the whole fex: for to argue from particulars to univerfals is no unufual thing with them at all. Thus highly in character fays Diana in All's Well that ends Well, A& IV. "Since Frenchmen are fa braid, "Marry that will, I'll live and die a maid.” Could now any one imagine, that these paffages should not pass unmolested? Yet Mr. Theobald makes Mrs. Page fhew ber refentment only against FAT MEN: and Mr. W.-against what? Why, against MUM. I'll affure the reader, 'tis MUM: I took it at first for an error of the prefs; but there is a long note to vindicate the alteration; and fuch a note, as is worthy of fuch an alteration. In the other paf fage, Diana they make to fay, "Since Frenchmen are fo braid, "Marry 'EM that will, I'D live and die a maid." Could not the poets have taught our Critics better? Was it not for ONE man's guilt, that Pallas, (the "goddefs of Wisdom too) deftroyed a whole fleet? "UNIUS ob noxam et furias Ajacis Oïlei? Did Did not Juno deteft the whole Trojan race, because ONE Trojan Alighted her beauty, in comparison of Venus? Add moreover, don't people in the height of resentment often wish things, which their cooler reafon would condemn? And are not fuch Speeches agreeable to what the Critics call the ro wgénov, the decorum, the fuitableness of the character? An unreasonable thing itself, if spoken by an unreasonable perfon, bence becomes poetically reafonable.But as the women above have, for the fake of one, expressed their anger against all men; so the poets bave put a more extraordinary kind of resentment in the mouths of fome men. And first Euripides in Hippolytus, . 616. «Ω ζεῦ, τί δὴ κίβδηλον ἀνθρώποις κακὸν, O Jupiter, quidnam fucatum malum homi- Mulieres, fub folis luce collocasti ? Si enim volebas feminare genus humanum, Again in Medea, *. 573. —χρῆν γὰρ ἄλλοθέν ποθεν βροτες Πᾶιδας τεκνῖσθαι, θῆλυ δ ̓ ἐκ εἶναι γένος. -oportebat autem homines aliunde Gignere liberos, neque effe genus muliebre : Sic enim homines nullum malum haberent. As extraordinary as it may appear, yet two of the And thus Adam, in Paradife Loft, X, 888. "Creator wife, that peopled highest heav'n Of nature? and not fill the world at once “With men, as angels, without feminine? "Or find fome other way to generate "Mankind? this mifchief had not then befal'n: "And more, that shall befal, innumerable "Disturbances on earth through female fuares, "And Strait conjunction with this fex. AGAIN, tho' 'tis hard to parallel this tranfformation of MEN into MUM, with any criticisms in the world, yet many inftances of the like occur in our late editor's notes.-In the Comedy of Errors, AB At IV. Dromio is ludicrously picturing the Bailiff, who arrested his master.—“ The man, Sir, that "when gentlemen are tired gives them a fob, and "refts them; be that takes pity on decayed men, «and gives 'em fuits of durance; be that fets up "his reft to do more exploits with his mace, than "a morris-pike ?"," This quibbling wit, I should think, an ordinary reader would fcarce misapply" gives 'em fuits durance," or, as the phrafe is, gives them a ftone-doublet, i. e. puts them into prison: an expreffion as old as Homer, Aatov toro xilŵva. Il. y'. 57. lapideam indutus fuiffes tunicam: tho' there it means stoned to death." Sets up his reft, &c.?? The Serjeant or Bailiff carried with him a mace, as an infign of his authority; this mace be ludicrously compares to a Morisco pike, when fet in its Reft, to run at tilt. The Morris, or Moorish pike is particularly mentioned, because the Moors were famous for these kind of chivalrous feats. "fets up "his reft:" is too known a phrafe to want a comment. Ital. metter la lancia in refta, to couch the lance. RESTA, A REST, haftæ retinaculum : à reftando. Fairfax, XX. ft. 29. "In RESTS their lances flicke." Taffo e fon le lancie in resta. Spencer, B. 2. c. 1. ft, 26.. "And in the REST his ready fpear did flick." With the above paffage of Shakespeare the reader may compare the following from Johnson. Every Man in his Humour, Act IV. Sc. XI. Well, of all my difguifes yet, now am I most like myfelfe being in this Serjeant's gowne. A man of my prefent profeffion, never counterfeits, till be lays bold upon a debtor, and fays, be refts him, for then he brings him into all manner of "unreft. A kind of little kings we are, bearing "the diminutive of a mace, made like a young "artichock, that always carries pepper and falt in itfelf." Now, reader, I defire thou wouldst get thro' the following -I will give it no name, but leave it to thy own reflection. "Sets up his reft: Is a phrafe taken from military exercife. When gunpowder was first invented, its force was very weak compared to that in prefent ufe. This neceffarily required fire-arms to be of an extraordinary length. As "the artists improved the ftrength of their powder, "the foldiers proportionably shortened their arms "and artillery; fo that the cannon which Froiffart "tells us was once fifty feet long, was contracted to lefs than ten. This proportion likewife held in "" their |