The hard and soft, feem all affin'd and kin :
But, in the wind and tempeft of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mafs, or matter, by itself
Lies, rich in virtue, and unmingled.

Neft. With due obfervance of thy godlike feat,
Great Agamemnon, Neftor fhall apply

Thy latest words 6. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men: The fea being smooth,
How many fhallow bauble boats dare fail

Upon her patient breaft, making their way
With those of nobler bulk ?

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage

The gentle Thetis, and, anon, behold

The ftrong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements,
Like Perfeus' horfe 7: Where's then the faucy boat,
Whofe weak untimber'd fides but even now
Co-rival'd greatnefs? either to harbour fled,
Or made a toaft for Neptune. Even fo
Doth valour's fhew, and valour's worth, divide
In ftorms of fortune: For, in her ray and brightness,
The herd hath more annoyance by the brize 8,
Than by the tyger: but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

And flies fled under fhade, Why, then, the thing of courage',

As

6 Neftor applies the words to another inftance. JOHNSON.' Perhaps Neftor means, that he will attend particularly to, and confider, Agamemnon's latest words. MALONE.

7 Mercury according to the fable prefented Perfeus with talaria, but we no where hear of his horfe. The only flying horfe of antiquity was Pegafus; and he was the property, not of Perfeus, but Bellerophon. But our poet followed a more modern fabulift, the authour of the Deftruction of Troy, a book which furnished him with fome other circumftances of this play.

8 The brize is the gad or horfe-fly.

9 i. e. And flies are fled under fhade. I have obferved fimilar omiffions in the works of many of our authour's contemporaries.

It is faid of the tiger, that in ftorms and high winds he rages and roars most furiously.

As rous'd with rage, with rage doth fympathize,
And with an accent tun'd in self-fame key,
Returns to chiding fortune.

2

Ulyff. Agamemnon,

Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,
Heart of our numbers, foul and only spirit,
In whom the tempers and the minds of all
Should be fhut up,-hear what Ulyffes fpeaks.
Befides the applause and approbation

The which,-moft mighty for thy place and fway,-
[to Agamemnon.

And thou moft reverend for thy ftretcht-out life,—

[to Neftor.

I give to both your fpeeches,-which were fuch,
As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brafs; and fuch again,
As venerable Neftor, hatch'd in filver,

Should with a bond of air (strong as the axle-tree
On which heaven rides) knit all the Greekish ears
To his experienc'd tongue 3,-yet let it please both,-
Thou great, and wife,-to hear Ulyffes fpeak.

Agam. Speak, prince of Ithaca; and be't of lefs expect

That matter needlefs, of importless burden,

2 Chiding is noify, clamourous.

Divide

3 Ulyffes begins his oration with praifing those who had spoken be- ̄ fore him, and marks the characteristick excellencies of their different eloquence,-ftrength and sweetness, which he expreffes by the different metals on which he recommends them to be engraven for the inftruction of pofterity. The fpeech of Agamemnon is fuch that it ought to be engraven in brass, and the tablet held up by him on the one fide, and Greece on the other, to fhew the union of their opinion. And Neftor ought to be exhibited in filver, uniting all his audience in one mind by his foft and gentle elocution. Brafs is the common emblem of ftrength, and filver of gentleness. We call a foft voice a filver voice, and a persuasive tongue a filver tongue.-I once read for band, the band of Greece, but I think the text right.-To batch is a term of art for a particular method of engraving. Hacher, to cut, Fr. JOHNSON.

In the defcription of Agamemnon's fpeech, there is a plain allufion to the old cuftom of engraving laws and publick records in brafs, and hanging up the tables in temples, and other places of general refort.

Divide thy lips; than we are confident,
When rank Therfites opes his mastiff jaws,
We fhall hear mufick, wit, and oracle.

Uly. Troy, yet upon his bafis, had been down,
And the great Hector's fword had lack'd a master,
But for these instances.

The specialty of rule + hath been neglected:
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, fo many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive 5,
To whom the foragers fhall all repair,

What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
The unworthieft fhews as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center",
Obferve degree, priority, and place,
Infifture, course, proportion, feason, form,
Office, and cuftom, in all line of order:
And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol,
In noble eminence enthron'd and fpher'd
Amidft the other; whofe med'cinable eye
Corrects the ill afpects of planets evil,
And pofts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad: But, when the planets,
In evil mixture, to disorder wander7,

4 The particular rights of fupreme authority.

What

5 The meaning is, When the general is not to the army like the bive to the bees, the repofitory of the ftock of every individual, that to which each particular reforts with whatever he has collected for the good of the whole, what honey is expected? what hope of advantage? The fenfe is clear, the expreffion is confused.

6 By this center Ulyffes means the earth itself, not, as Dr. Warburton fuppofed, the center of the earth. According to the fyftem of Ptolemy, the earth is the center round which the planets move.

7 I believe the poet, according to aftrological opinions, means, when the planets form malignant configurations, when their aspects are evil towards one another. This he terms evil mixture. JOHNSON.

The apparent irregular motions of the planets were fuppofed to portend fome difafters to mankind; indeed the planets themselves were not thought formerly to be confined in any fixed orbits of their own, but to wander about ad libitum, as the etymology of their names demonstrates.

What plagues, and what portents? what mutiny?
What raging of the fea? thaking of earth?
Commotion in the winds? frights, changes, horrours,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate

The unity and married calm of states

Quite from their fixure? O, when degree is fhak'd,
Which is the ladder of all high defigns,

The enterprize is fick! How could communities,
Degrees in fchools, and brotherhoods in cities",
Peaceful commérce from dividable shores',
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, fcepters, laurels,
But by degree, ftand in authentick place?
Take but degree away, untune that ftring,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets-
In mere oppugnancy: The bounded waters
Should lift their bofoms higher than the shores,
And make a fop of all this folid globe:
Strength fhould be lord of imbecility,

And the rude fon fhould ftrike his father dead:
Force fhould be right; or, rather, right and wrong
(Between whofe endless jar juftice refides)
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;

And appetite, an univerfal wolf,

So doubly feconded with will and power,
Muft make perforce an univerfal prey,

And, laft, eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is fuffocate,

Follows the choking.

And this neglection of degree it is,

That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose

It

8 The epithet married is here used to denote an intimate union.-

Shakspeare calls a harmony of features, married lineaments.

9 Corporations, companies, confraternities.

1 Dividable is here ufed to express divided. 2 That goes backward step by step.

It hath to climb3. The general's difdain'd
By him one step below; he, by the next;
That next, by him beneath: fo every step,
Exampled by the firft pace that is fick
Of his fuperior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodlefs emulation 4:

And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own finews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness ftands, not in her ftrength.
Neft. Moft wifely hath Ulyffes here discover'd
The fever whereof all our power is fick.

Agam. The nature of the fickness found, Ulyffes,
What is the remedy?

Uly. The great Achilles,-whom opinon crowns
The finew and the forehand of our hoft,-
Having his ear full of his airy fame 5,

Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent
Lies mocking our defigns: With him, Patroclus,
Upon a lazy bed, the livelong day

Breaks fcurril jefts;

And with ridiculous and aukward action
(Which, flanderer, he imitation calls,)

He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,
Thy toplefs deputation he puts on;

6

And, like a strutting player,-whofe conceit
Lies in his ham-ftring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and found

'Twixt his ftretch'd footing and the fcaffoldage 7,-
Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming s

8

He

3 With a defign in each man to aggrandize himself, by flighting his immediate fuperior.

4 An emulation not vigorous and active, but malignant and fluggifh.

5 Verbal elogium; what our authour in Macbeth has called mouthbonour.

6 Topless is that which has nothing topping or over-topping it; supreme; fovereign.

7 The galleries of the theatre, in the time of our authour, were fometimes termed the fcaffolds.

8 i. c. wrefted beyond the truth; over-charged.