original." You are right, justice; and you weigh this well; therefore continue in your office, deciding what is right and wrong, and determining between the weights of different evidence and arguments, as a person weighs things in scales to determine their value, and execute justice as you did on me; and I wish your honours may increase during a long life, and that you may see a son of mine obey you as I did, if he offend as I have done. I shall then gladly repeat what my father said of me

I am happy to have a judge who is bold enough to execute the laws against my own son, and no less happy to have a son that submitted, in such a wise manner, to the hand of justice."

Therefore still bear the balance and the sword.The chief justice of the king's bench has neither a balance (a pair of scales), nor a sword, carried before him; but the allegorical figure of Justice is represented in painting and statuary, by a female figure blindfold, to show that Justice should not respect the persons of people; with a balance in her left hand, to de*note that she weighs carefully before she determines; and with a sword in her right hand, to denote that Justice can punish offenders with the sword of the law. The roman ma

gistrates had axes surrounded with rods, carried. before them, as emblems of punishment; the rods to punish smaller offences, the axe to punish greater crimes with death. Though the judges have not swords carried before them, yet the king, who is the head of the law, and who is represented by the chief justice of the king's bench, has the sword of state carried before him on days of ceremony.

"You committed me;

For which I do commit into your hand

Th' unstained sword, that you have us'd to bear;
With this remembrance, that you use the same
With the like bold gust and impartial spirit,
Which you have done 'gainst me-There is my hand :
You shall be as a father to my youth,

My voice shall sound as you do prompt my ear,
And I will stoop and humble my intents

To your well-practis'd, wise directions."

in

"You committed me to prison; for which bold and dignified conduct I entrust to your hand the sword of Justice, which you used to bear, and which never was stained by any justice, whilst in your care; at the same time · putting you in mind, to use it hereafter with the same courage, justice, and impartiality, with which you used it against me.-There is my hand: you shall be shall be a father to me; I will

publish such decrees as you advise, and I will submit my will to your experience and wisdom."

.................................................... ....... You committed me,

For which I do commit into your hand. Here the words committed, sent to gaol, and, commit, entrust, are purposely employed to make a kind of gingle in the sound, a kind of pun, or double meaning, of which authors of bad taste are fond. Shakspeare condescended to employ this false ornament in his best plays; but it cannot be justified even by his authority.

Th' unstained sword.-Unstained here has a secret reference to the blood which the sword of justice may be supposed to have shed. This is not a pun, but a just metaphor. The variable meaning of words is, in argument and reasoning, the chief source of errour and confusion; but in poetry it contributes to diversify and ornament. Pure, unstained blood, means, in general, nobility unsullied by crimes or dishonourable actions; but the unstained sword of Justice means not stained with pure and innocent blood. The blood of the guilty does not stain the sword of the law.

With this remembrance. Hoping that you will remember.

There is my hand.-I give you my hand; I shake hands with you, as a pledge or token of my promise.

Stoop and humble my intents.-Lower and moderate my intents or intentions by your advice.

"And princes all, believe me, I beseech you;
My father's gone into his grave; and in
His tomb lie all my wild affections;
For with his spirit sadly I survive,

To mock the expectations of the world,
To frustrate prophecies, and to rase out
Rotten opinion, which hath writ me down
After my seeming.”

"And, princes, believe me, my father has carried my wildness and youthful follies into his grave with him; for all my former affec tions or propensities lie there; and his sedate spirit lives in me, to disappoint the expectation which the world has of my being a dissipated monarch, and to contradict prophecies and opinions which were formed from my former conduct."

Perhaps some allusion is meant here to the jewish expiatory sacrifice; but as this is not a fit place for such a discussion, I must refer my young readers, for an explanation, to their preceptors.

.

To rase out rotten opinion.-Unsound opinion. This seems to be a bad metaphor.

Which hath writ me down

After my seeming.

Which has written and fixed in the memory of the people. The memory is often compared to a book or tablet, in which things are written down.-The ancients had wooden tables, covered very thinly with wax, upon which they wrote with a pointed iron, called a style; whence comes the word style, or manner of writing. As we do not know how ideas are remembered, we are obliged to speak metaphorically when we describe the operations of memory; and it is a very natural metaphor to suppose the memory to be like a waxed tablet, upon which ideas might be engraved, and from which they might be easily effaced. We speak of warm images melting into the soul-of ideas melting away from the memory:

.

"Where beams of warm imagination play, The memory's soft figures melt away."

POPE.