And I do appeal to the comparison between his "wood-notes wild," and the rhithm, (fuch as it is,) of all his cotemporaries, or fucceffors in the English Drama.

EXAMPLE I.

A more amusing epitome of Edmond's (fanciful)

ear cannot be found

"What wheels, racks, FIRES? what flaying, boiling, "In leads or oils?"

The fecond Folio, (fays Edmond,) ignorant that "FIRES" was bere used as a diffyllable, adds burning at the end of the line.

"Oho! (faid my Cynic to me,) then I have the "honour to be as criminal; for I too am igno

rant that "fires" either was, or could be, a diffyl"lable here; nor does it follow, that it was a

diffyllable here, though it may have been fo "treated when it fuited the Poet,—as it clearly did "in the example next adduced by Edmond.

"But let me afk the fagacious Problemotomift, which is the most probable? that "Shakspeare used here (as we know that he often "did elsewhere,)" the word FIRE as a monefylla"ble, though it leaves a defect in the measure, "(as the verse now appears,)" or that he used it "as a diffyllable, to give us a line which cannot "be read as a verse upon Edmond's hypothesis, "by man, woman, or child,

"Let

"Let us try it.

What wheels-racks Fi Res what flaying|—boiling.

"In the name of Pegasus, what is to become "of the two laft words?-Are they Iambics!* or "trocbees!

Let him take his choice!"

"Oh! they are Iambics to be fure !”—I anfwered.

"Are they fo?" (replied the Cynic,) " then "we must read 'em you know; and read 'em "thus:

"flaying boiling;"

"So that here the Reader's accent must be laid upon the final fyllable of two diffyllabic participles that end in "ing :"-which is of the "first impreffion, and is impracticable in its "effect;-which makes it the livelier in fuppo"fition.

"Pho! they are trochees," I faid, (aware of the dilemma, in which a fuperficial ear would place the genius of Edmond).

They are trochees !" (he 'anfwered,) " are they?-give me any two fuch in one other line " of Shakspeare, (unless at your friend's requifi❝tion ;) et eris mihi magnus Apollo :”

* I know fome Ladies who are mistreffes of the Heteroclita, and Propria quæ maribus, but are at a lofs in their Profodia, and have defired me to explain what an Iambic is. To oblige them, but in Latin familiar to them as English, I tell them, from Horace, in a most elegant hexameter

2

Syllaba longa brevi fubjecta vocatur Iambus.

C 3

The

The answer is," They are trochees here: and "that's enough." "Sic volo,-fic jubeo !"'* !”*

EXAMPLE II.

"And dafh'd the brains out had I fo swORN."

It was altered in the fecond folio.

had I [but] fo sworn.

This " but" is an impertinence, according to "Edmond; and why?" Because here the word SWORN is a word of two fyllables !!"

This differs a little from the other example; for here only one trochee or Iambic is made out of a monofyllable, fo as to complete the measure.

"But (fays Morofe,) "a more untoward word " in that place for the rhithm, Edmond's bitterest "enemies, and Capel's Ghost, would never have "been able to put into his way;—it must have "been the "IDLE BABBLER" that laid it for him "in the road.

"Let fworn be an Iambic! (which is the natu"ral foot here defiderated, as Johnson would have

*It is like the fubject of the verfes in queftion-It is the fyllogifm of the rack, and the forites of the martyr's faggot.

+ It has often ftruck me that poor Shakspeare, as the patient of Dr. Malone's Restorative cordials,

"ægrefcit medendo;"

or, at the best, converts one illness into another by a fort of commutation tax.

[Min. Felix prompted by a political friend.

r

faid,) and it is not in human power (with ears) to read it (poetically)--fo confidered.

"If it is the inverted Iambic, or trochee, it is equally unparalleled.

"The fair way to reafon it (and ftill by the

ear, (for I demand an ear, as a poftulatum,) is "to put another word, or words, in place of Sworn," and commanding equally the two fyl"lables imputed here to that word.

"Let us, for example, fuppofe the line to have "ended with "fworn it." I should then have "denied that it could have been fo written by

Shakspeare; and without any fear of Edmond's "pruderies, have made the little word fo hop to "the end of the line.

"Obferve, that I am speaking of a diffyllable "conftituting a foot, not of two fyllables reprefenting one at the end of a line. SWORN the diffyllable-must here be a foot; and the line

"must be accented thus:

ǎnd dash | the brains | out had | I sō |fwōr—n. Another (light) objection to the divifion of fworn into a couple of fyllables is, that no lips (on our fide of the Channel,) are equal to it.

Ianswer, in Edmond's name: "It is a diffyllable, "because the rhithm requires that it should be so: " and I shall now, once for all, announce (to the "Univerfities of this land) " a new figure in logic, "or in other words, a new procefs of reasoning, which has been "Shadowed" in the inftances be"fore us, and was invented by Edmond." It will be found as a Canon, en passant in the next page.

C 4

CANON

CANON

By way of EPisode.

PROOFS have the best effect when they kok backwards and forwards, and pull both ways.

EXAMPLE.

"Sworn is a diffyllable! and the rhithm is complete.

"The second Foliist was ignorant of that circumstance in the metre. It is therefore proof, that he was ignorant of Shakspeare's metre."

But ftill we are not informed what proof there is that "fworn is a diffyllable!"

"Oh! here it is," (quoth Edmond.)

"It is proved by reading the logic backwards! "In other words, the fecond Foliift was igno"rant of the metre in general.

Ergo-he was ignorant of this metre. "Ergo-Sworn is a diffyllable!

Q. E. D.

To refume the metre of Shakspeare ;-(such a region as Fancy never trod-before Edmond the Oberon fkipped over it !)

EXAMPLE