for their corrupt
dealings in this way. And Coleridge founded an argument against the whole
body upon the confessedly dreadful failure of Bentley, prince of all the
order, when applied to a case where most of us could appreciate the
result--namely, to the _Paradise Lost_. If, said Coleridge, this Bentley
could err so extravagantly in a case of mother-English, what must we presume
him often to have done in Greek? Here we may see to this day that practice
carried to a ruinous extent, which, when charged upon tinkers, I have seen
cause to restrict. In the present case from _Macbeth_, I fear that COR. is
slightly indulging in this tinkering practice. As I view the case, there
really is no hole to mend. The old meaning of the word _convince_ is well
brought out in the celebrated couplet--

'He, that's convinc'd against his will,
Is of the same opinion still.

How can _that_ be? I have often heard objectors say. Being convinced by his
opponent--_i. e._, convinced that his opponent's view is the right one--how
can he retain his own original opinion, which by the supposition is in polar
opposition. But this argument rests on a false notion of the sense attached
originally to the word _convinced_. That word was used in the sense of
_refuted; redargued_, the alternative word, was felt to be pedantic. The
case supposed was that of a man who is reduced to an absurdity; he cannot
deny that, from his own view, an absurdity _seems_ to follow; and, until he
has shown that this absurdity is only apparent, he is bound to hold himself
_provisionally_ answered. Yet that does not reconcile him to his adversary's
opinion; he retains his own, and is satisfied that somewhere an answer to it
exists, if only he could discover it.

Here the meaning is, 'I will convince his chamberlains with wine'--_i. e._,
will refute by means of the confusion belonging to the tragedy itself, when
aided by intoxication, all the arguments (otherwise plausible) which they
might urge in self-defence.

['_Thrice_ and once the hedge-pig whined:'--

This our friend COR. alters to _twice_; but for the very reason which
should have checked him--namely, on Theobald's suggestion that '_odd_
numbers are used in enchantments and magical operations;' and here he
fancies himself to obtain an odd number by the arithmetical
summation--_twice_ added to _once_ makes thrice. Meantime the odd number is
already secured by viewing the _whines_ separately, and not as