410 
his manly, though rough, freedom; his just 
indignation at meanness and vice; and I 
hereby call upon the author of the Re- 
view I am.exposing, in the name of a 
man, whom, if he were living, he would 
not dare to look in the face without trem- 
bling, after this unjust assault, to come 
forth from his concealment, and produce 
that “tale of his early perfidy,” which, 
he says, he has heard from authority that 
@ppears to him unquestionable. ‘ But 
the man, (he adds) is gone to his audit / 
and we have no desire to load his me- 
mory with any other accusations, than 
those of which his biographer has here 
supplied the materials.” ‘Thus closing 
his attacks on the virtuous dead with 
dark insinuations, and that affectation of 
eandour which bespeaks a Lurtuffe of the 
first water, instead of a fit critic for @ 
thinking nation. 
. Let this tale therefore be manfully 
brought forward, with the names of its 
authors; and, if they fail in proof, of 
which I doubt not they will, we shall 
then have the pleasure to clear these 
aspersions from the character of an 
honest man; and instead of one libeller, 
expose two, to the contempt of an in- 
sulted public. 
A Frrenp To Mrrir. 
‘ — 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
si@DR; 
N the important duty of correcting 
that which lapprehend to be a dan- 
gerous, as wellas too common, iJliberality, 
1, regret to find myself in the most un- 
pleasant predicament of having a lady 
for my, antagonist. But mere politeness 
eught, in reason, to give place’to a more 
serious duty; a sentiment in which I am 
sure of being joined by the lady herself, 
whose genius and acquirements are so 
respectable. FE allude to certain objec- 
tionable sentiments in Miss Starke’s truly 
poetic ode, On the Goodness of Provi- 
dence. (Monthly Magazine for Decem- 
. ber, 1810.) Lhe words in which they 
are conveyed are indicated by italics, 
in the following quotation : 
But man, too fond of earth, ne’er loeks on 
high, 
To read the mystic wonders of the sky ; 
Or, if he read, no steady credence gives, 
Because be hears, and oft, alas ! believes 
Those fiends accurst, who fain with sceptic lean 
ould poison all bis confidence in Heaven. 
: Out of respect however to the lady, I 
will suppose that she availed herself of 
one species ‘of the poetica licentie, by 
elothing ardent images in words of cor- 
gesponding ardour, and that, in sober and 
Critical Remarks on Shakespeare. 
[Aprif f 
rational prose, she would have hesitated 
to apply the harsh terms of § fiends ac* 
curst’ to rational beings, endowed by 
nature with equal rights*of judgment, 
and even with the equal, although unde= 
sirable, privilege, of making the retort 
courteous of ‘ damned phanatiques.” 
We may go still farther in apologizing for 
a lady and a poetess, who may have been 
misled by authority as well as imagi- 
nation, and who may have relied with 
implicit confidence on the unanimous 
decisions of those doctors who teach, if 
not openly, that no faith is to be kepes 
with infidels, at least, that no quarter 
is to be allowed them. Does not that 
rational and liberal christian, Dr. Rees, 
assure us in his sermons, that the chief 
motive of every sceptic is vanity, and his 
intention evil; and who would venture 
to controvert the opinion of a learned 
separatist from the church, whose very 
vocation implies every thing which is 
liberal, philosophical, and condescending 
in short, every christian virtue ? 
February 11, 1811. 
a 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
CRITICAL REMARKS On SHAKESPEARE, 
Axzxy’s West THAT Enps WeEkt. 
_ Act I. Scene 3. 
HE composition that your valour 
-and fear make in you, isa virtue of a 
good wing, and I like the wear well.” “The 
true reading,” says Dr. Warburton, “ is 
doubtless a good ming, a word common to 
the writers of this age;” but this common 
word ming, Di. Johnson tells us, he was 
never able to find. Mr. Steevens, how= 
ever, has given us several examples of its, 
being in current use as a verb; but, as a 
substantive, even his indefatigable indus- 
try could. find none. Thus, Thomas 
Drant, in his translation of one of the 
Epistles of Horace: 
‘* He bears the bell in all respects, whe good 
with sweet doth ming.” 
L. 
“ 
And Sir A. Gorges, in his translation of. 
Lucan, 1614: 
*¢ Which never mings with other stream.” 
But the passage in question wants no 
alteration; the metaphor is taken, like 
many others in the works of this poet, 
froma falconry; and it seems to denote 
firmness of contexture. “Certainly,” says 
Lord Bacon, in his Natural History, ex- 
periment 886, ‘many birds ef a gvod 
wing, as kites and tha like, would bear up 
agood weight as they fly.” King Jainest. 
in-his progress, from Edinburgh to Lone 
don, was splendidly entertained at Hin- 
chinbrook-house, the seat of Sir Oliver 
Cromwell; 
