Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You, that way; we, this way. [Exeunt.

not as at present, a proverb, a sentence, but the whole tenor of any instructive discourse.

5 When roasted crabs, &c.] i. e. the wild apples so called. The bowl must be supposed to be filled with ale; a toast and some spice and sugar being added, what is called lamb's wool is produced.

In this play, which all the editors have concurred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confessed that there are many passages mean, childish, and vulgar; and some which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden Queen. But there are scatter'd through the whole many sparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakspeare.

JOHNSON.

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

Bass. Why dost thou what thy Knife so earnestly? Shy. To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt thee

Publish'd by F. & C. Rivington, May 10.1803.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.*

VOL III

K

O

« ÎnapoiContinuă »