Arm'd at all points 'gainst treachery, I hold
My humour firm. If, living, I can see thee
Thrive by thy wits, I shall have the more courage,
Dying, to trust thee with my lands. If not,
The best wit, I can hear of, carries them.
For since so many in my time and knowledge,
Rich children of the city, have concluded
For lack of wit in beggary, I'd rather

Make a wise stranger my executor,

Than a fool son my heir, and have my lands call'd
After my wit than name: and that's my nature!
Ib. Oldcraft's speech :-

To prevent which I have sought out a match for her.Read

Which to prevent I've sought a match out for her.

Ib. Sir Gregory's speech:

I'll have any of the wits hang upon me after I am married

once?

Read it thus ·-

Do you think

That I'll have any of the wits to hang

Upon me after I am married once?

and afterwards

Is it a fashion in London

To marry a woman, and to never see her?

The superfluous 'to' gives it the Sir Andrew Ague-cheek character.

THE FAIR MAID OF THE INN.

ACT II.

Speech of Albertus :

But, Sir,

By my life, I vow to take assurance from you,
That right hand never more shall strike my son,

*

Chop his hand off!

N this (as, indeed, in all other respects; but

IN

most in this) it is that Shakspeare is so incomparably superior to Fletcher and his friend, in judgment! What can be conceived more unnatural and motiveless than this brutal resolve? How is it possible to feel the least interest in Albertus afterwards? or in Cesario after his conduct?

THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN.

ON comparing the prison scene of Palamon and

Arcite, Act ii. sc. 2, with the dialogue between the same speakers, Act i. sc. 2, I can scarcely retain a doubt as to the first act's having been written by Shakspeare. Assuredly it was not written by B. and F. I hold Jonson more probable than either of these two.

The main presumption, however, for Shakspeare's share in this play rests on a point, to which the sturdy critics of this edition (and indeed all

before them) were blind,—that is, the construction of the blank verse, which proves beyond all doubt an intentional imitation, if not the proper hand, of Shakspeare. Now, whatever improbability there is in the former, (which supposes Fletcher conscious of the inferiority, the too poematic minus-dramatic nature, of his versification, and of which there is neither proof, nor likelihood,) adds so much to the probability of the latter. On the other hand, the harshness of many of these very passages, a harshness unrelieved by any lyrical inter-breathings, and still more the want of profundity in the thoughts, keep me from an absolute decision.

Act i. sc. 3. Emilia's speech :

Since his depart, his sports,

Tho' craving seriousness and skill, &c.

I conjecture' imports,' that is, duties or offices of importance. The flow of the versification in this speech seems to demand the trochaic ending-u; while the text blends jingle and hisses to the annoyance of less sensitive ears than Fletcher's-not to say, Shakspeare's.

THE WOMAN HATER.

ACT I. sc. 2.

HIS scene from the beginning is prose printed as blank

TH

verse, down to the line

E'en all the valiant stomachs in the court

This transition

where the verse recommences. from the prose to the verse enhances, and indeed forms, the comic effect. (hh) Lazarillo concludes his soliloquy with a hymn to the goddess of plenty.

EXTRACTS OF TWO LETTERS

OF MR. H. C. ROBINSON, GIVING SOME ACCOUNT OF TWO LECTURES OF MR. COLERIDGE,

DELIVERED IN MAY, 1808. (ii)

MY DEAR FRIEND,

May 7th, 1808.

N receiving your threatening letter I inclosed it in a note to Coleridge, and on calling upon him before the lecture, found a letter for me, &c. He has offered to give me admission constantly; I shall accept his offer whenever I can, and give you a weekly letter on the subject. I shall not pretend to tell you what he says, but mention the topics he runs over. Everything he observes on

morals will be as familiar to you as all he says on criticism is to me; for he has adopted in all respects the German doctrines: and it is a useful lesson to me how those doctrines are to be clothed with original illustrations, and adapted to an English audience.

The extraordinary lecture on Education was most excellent, delivered with great animation, and extorting praise from those, whose prejudices he was mercilessly attacking: he kept his audience on the rack of pleasure and offence two whole hours and ten minutes and few went away during the lecture. He began by establishing a common-place distinction neatly between the objects and the means of education, which he observed to be " perhaps almost the only safe way of being useful." Omitting a tirade, which you can well supply, on the object of Education, I come to the means of forming the character, the cardinal rules of early education. These are, First, to work by love and so generate love: Secondly, to habituate the mind to intellectual accuracy or truth: Thirdly, to excite power. 1. He inforced a great truth strikingly. "My experience tells me, that little is taught or communicated by contest or dispute, but everything by sympathy and love." "Collision elicits truth only from the hardest head." "I hold motives to be of little influence compared with feelings." He apologised for early prejudices with a self-correction "and yet what nobler judgment is there than that