Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/62

50 Thee elevations and depreions of renown, and the contradictions to which all improvers of knowledge mut for ever be expoed, ince they are not ecaped by the highet and brightet of mankind, may urely be endured with patience by criticks and annotators, who can rank themelves but as the atellites of their authors. How cant thou beg for life, ays Homer’s hero to his captive, when thou knowet that thou art now to uFer only what mut another day be uered by Achilles?

Dr. Warburton had a name ufficient to confer celebrity on thoe who could exalt themelves into antagonits, and his notes have raied a clamour too loud to be ditinct. His chief aailants are the authors of The canons of critcim, and of The revial of Skakepeare’s text; of whom one ridicules his errors with airy petulance, uitable enough to the levity of the controvery; the other attacks them with gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to jutice an aain or incendiary. The one tings like a fly, ucks a little blood, takes a gay flutter, and returns for more; the other bites like a viper, and would be glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind him. When I think on one, with his confederates, I remember the danger of Coriolanus, who was afraid that girls with pits, and boys with tones, hould lay him in puny battle; when the other croes my imagination, I remember the prodigy in Macbeth:

Let