difon's immortal De Coverley, upon the subject of his judicial enquiries into Mrs. White's aërial equitations.

"It should be remembered, fays De Coverley Malone, (and fo it should) that churches are not always empty-(no more they are!) and that nothing shows that Falstaff means an empty church."

It is an opinion fire cannot melt out of me, that Edmond is in the right. [Min. Felix.

Tro. and Creff.

EXAMPLE XXXI.

It is the purpose that makes ftrong the vow.
But vows to every purpose must not hold.

Edmond." The Effence of a lawful vow is -a lawful purpose !!"

I cannot better wind up this Canon than by Edmond's definition of circumstance, which, according to him (impregnated with Johnsonian æther) is the detail or circumducton of an argument." [Tro. and Creff. act. 3, sc. 3.

But perhaps

EXAMPLE XXXII. will do as well.

As she is mine, I may difpofe of her, which shall be

either to this gentleman or to her death

Mid. N. Dream.

"By a law of Solon, parents had an abfolute power of life and death over their children.

"So it fuited the poet's purpose well enough to suppose the Athenians had it before. "Or, PERHAPS, he neither thought nor

knew any thing of the matter."

[Malone, Qu. Ann Str. Eaft.

CANON

CANON III.

The Minute, or the Minutian.

"Drawn with a team of little atomies."

[Rom. & Jul.

"The purpose is perfpicuous, ev'n as fubftance, "Whose groffness little characters sum up.'

"Notes of Nothing."

Tro. & Creff.

[Edwards.

EXAMPLE I.

Jacques.]" To fee no paftime I."

Steevens.] "Amidft this general feftivity, the reader may be forry to take leave of Jaques." One fhould imagine this Editor was an Alderman upon a Lord Mayor's Day, but with more compaffion for the absentee.

This hypothetical fenfibility which is preparing, with a contingent remainder (as the Sergeant unintelligibly, but, I fuppofe, wittily, obferves) to afflict us, paffes off in a topic of confolation, which proves that we are not forry at all; as it is made clear to us, (though we

per

perfectly knew it before,) that Jacques would not have liked the feaft. "He has filled (we are told) "with fenfibility, his part, and preferves to the "laft, that refpect which is due to him as a "confiftent character, and an amiable, though folitary moralift.”

"

"It may be observed, with scarce lefs concern, (viz. lefs than what is no concern at all) that Shakspeare has, upon this occafion, forgot Old Adam, the fervant of Orlando, whofe fidelity should have entitled him to notice at the end of the piece, as well as to that happiness which he should naturally have shared on the return (I suppofe he means acquifition) of fortune (I suppose he means good fortune) to his master.

It is the more remarkable fince, at the end of the novel, Mr. Lodge makes him " Captain of the King's Guard."

The first remark upon Old Adam's fate is, that it seems in these profe-elegies over him, to excite more diftrefs than Jaques's voluntary abdication of paftimes, which it was natural for him to diflike.

However, as I am charmed with Steevens's good nature, which I am fure is, "the language of his heart;"* I am forry to heighten fo amiable a diftrefs, by telling his executors,

* Forgot his epic and Pindaric art,

But ftill I love "the language of his heart."

Pope.

that

that Adam's laft words, to our knowledge, were thefe

"

I fcarce can speak, to thank you for myself.” That affecting addrefs was in act the fecond, and we are now in act the fifth.

I have therefore too much reason to believe that Old Adam is dead, and that he died very foon after he delivered thofe words; and the rather, as from the time of that epilepfy, which hunger and age produced, we never hear of his name.

It must not, however, be inferred, that Orlando was not as deeply concerned as he should have been, though he does not introduce the topic; for the Ladies beg leave to remind the late Mr. Steevens, that Rosalind's admirer was in love. Indeed, his occupation proves it, for he was chiefly employed in fcribbling verfes upon trees, (for which lovers, I fuppofe, have a patent,) and I am forry to add, more witty than delicate-we have a little fparring match of fatire with Jaques ; but the rest of him, (Orlando) is mere love. He talks of his love to Rofalind as a boy. He makes love to her in play, as to a girl representing his Rofalind,and he makes arrangements with Rosalind herfelf, as a magician for marrying that fame Rofalind as the Duke's niece. I cannot, in these memoirs of his life, see a niche for Old Adam's figure. There is indeed, a fhort and rather hurried converfation between the two reconciled brothers; but it must be remembered, that both

of