[101]
And mingle with the English epicures:
The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
Shall never sagg with doubt, nor shake with fear.[1]
If Mr. Steevens had well examined the two concluding lines of this resolute defiance, he might, perhaps, have paraphrased them in a note to this pur-
- ↑ Macbeth, Act v. Sc 3.
than one of the most requisite of them. Mr. Steevens had no ear for the colloquial metre of our old dramatists: it is not possible, on any other supposition, to account for his whimsical desire, and the pains he takes, to fetter the enchanting freedom of Shakspeare's numbers, and compel them into the heroic march and measured cadence of epic versification. The native wood-notes wild that could delight the cultivated ear of Milton, must not be modulated anew, to indulge the fastidiousness of those who read verses by their fingers.
