ROMEO and JULIET.
—Oh! so light a foot
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.
WINTER'S TALE.
—For Cogitation
Resides not in the man that does not think.
HAMLET.
—Try what repentance can, what can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent.
Who does not see at once, the heaviest foot that ever trod cannot wear out the everlasting flint? or that he who does not think has no thoughts in him? or that repentance can avail nothing when a man has not repentance? yet let these passages appear, with a casting weight of allowance, and their absurdity will not be so extravagant, as when examined by the literal touchstone.—
Your's, &c.
LEWIS THEOBALD.
By perusing the above, the reader will be enabled to discern whether Mr.
Pope has wantonly ridiculed the passages in question; or whether Mr.
Theobald has, from a superstitious zeal for the memory of Shakespear,
defended absurdities, and palliated extravagant blunders.
The ingenious Mr. Dodd, who has lately favoured the public with a judicious collection of the beauties of Shakespear, has quoted a beautiful stroke of Mr. Theobald's, in his Double Falsehood, upon music.
—Strike up, my masters;
But touch the strings with a religious softness;
Teach sounds to languish thro' the night's dull ear,
'Till Melancholy start from her lazy couch,
And carelessness grow concert to attention.