About her neck a pacquet-mail,
Fraught with advice, some fresh, some stale,
Of men that walk'd when they were dead,
And cows of monsters brought to bed;
allusion to a proverbial expression, in which, an excitement to a lie was
called a whetstone. This will explain a smart repartee of Sir Francis
Bacon's before King James, to whom Sir Kenelm Digby was relating,
that he had seen the true philosophers' stone in the possession of a hermit
in Italy; and when the king was very curious to understand what sort of
stone it was, and Sir Kenelm much puzzled in describing it; Sir Francis
Bacon interposed, and said, perhaps it was a whetstone. (Mr. W.) See
this proverbial expression applied, Cartwright's First Admonition to the
Parliament, p. 22. Preface to the Translation of Mr. Henry Stephens's
Apology for Herodotus, p. 2. J. Taylor upon Tom Coryat's Works, p.
73. R. Yaxley's Panegyric Verses upon T. Coryat and his Crudities.
Purchase his Character of Ctesias, Pilgrims, vol. 5. book 5. p. 482. A
Whetstone for Liars. A Song of Strange Wonders; believe them who
will: Old Ballads, Bibliothec. Pepysian. vol. 1. p. 522. Cleveland's
Defence of Lord Digby's Speech, Works, 1677, p. 133. Ray's Proverbs,
2d edit. p. 89. Might not this proverbial expression take its rise from
the old Roman story of a razor's cutting a whetstone? Mr. Butler truly
characterizes those lying papers the Diurnals; of the authors of which,
the writer of Sacra Nemesis, or Levite's Scourge, &c. 1644, speaks as
follows: "He should do thee and thy three brethren (of the bastard
brood of Maia) right, who should define you, base spies hired to invent,
and vent lies through the whole kingdom, for the good of the cause."
v. 64. And cows of monsters brought to bed.] See three instances of
this kind, in Mr. Morton's History of Northamptonshire, chap. 7, pag.
447; and one in Knox's History of the Reformation of Religion in Scot-
land, pag. 93, edit. 1732; and of another in the Philosophical Transac-
tions, vol. 26, num. 320, pag. 310. But the most remarkable is the
following one: Classiæ intra octavum diem Natalis Christi, (1269) Na-
tus est vitulus cum duobus caninis capitibus, atque dentibus, et septem
pedibus vitulinis-ab ejus cadavere canes atque volucres abhorruere,
(Chronic. Chronicor. Politic. lib. 2, pag. 278. Vid. pag. 107, 300, 305,
404.) See an account of a mare's foaling a fox in the time of Xerxes,
King of Persia, Higden's Polychronicon, by Treviza, lib. 2, chap. 2,
fol. 60; and a hind with two heads and two necks, in the forest of Wal-
mer, in Edward the Third's time: Tho. Walsingham Hist. Angliæ, An-
Of hail-stones big as pullets' eggs,
And puppies whelp'd with twice two legs;
A blazing-star seen in the west,
By six or seven men at least;
Two trumpets she does sound at once,
But both of clean contrary tones;
glica. Normannic. &c. 1603, p. 135: and of two monstrous lambs,
Philosophical Transactions, vol. 1, no. 26. p. 480.
v. 65. Of hail-stones big as pullets' eggs.] Alluding probably to the
storm of hail in and about Loughborough in Leicestershire, June 6, 1645,
in which, "Some of the hail-stones were as big as small hen's eggs,
and the least as big as musket-bullets: (Mercurius Belgicus, or Memo-
rable Occurrences in 1645) or to the storm at Chebsey in Staffordshire,
the Sunday before Saint James's day, 1659, where there fell a storm of
hail, (as Dr. Plot observes, Staffordshire, chap. 1, s. 48, p. 23.) "The
stones were as big as pullets' eggs." (See a remarkable account of this
kind, Morton's Northamptonshire, p. 342.) In King John's reign, anno
1207, a storm fell, in which the hail-stones were as big as hen's eggs,
Higden's Polychronicon, by Treviza, lib. 7, cap. 32, fol. 300. (See an
account of the hail-storm in Edward the First's reign, Fabyan's Chro-
nicle, part 2, fol. 67.) Though these accounts seem to be upon the
marvellous, yet Dr. Pope, a man of veracity, in a letter from Padua,
to Dr. Wilkins, 1664, N. S. concerning an extraordinary storm of thun-
der and hail, (see Professor Ward's Lives of the Professors of Gresham
"This
College, p. 116.) gives the following more remarkable account.
storm (says he) happened July 20, about three o'clock in the afternoon,
at the bottom of the Euganean Hills, about six miles from Padua ; it
extended upwards of thirty miles in length, and about six in breadth ;
and the hail stones which fell in great quantities were of different sizes;
the largest of an oval form, as big as turkey's eggs, and very hard; the
next size globular, but somewhat compressed; and others that were more
numerous, perfectly round, and about the bigness of tennis balls." (See
an account of a remarkable hail storm at Venice, Tom Coryat's Crudi-
ties, p. 256, and at Lisle in Flanders 1686. Philosophical Transactions,
vol. 1, no. 26, p. 481. vol. 16, no. 203, p. 858: the Tatler's banter upon
news writers for their prodigies, in a dearth of news, no. 18.)
v. 66. And puppies whelp'd with twice two legs.] This is put for the
sake of the rhyme. With the help of John Lilburn's logic, he might
have made them twice four legs. "That creature, says he, which has
But whether both with the same wind,
Or one before, and one behind,
We know not, only this can tell,
The one sounds vilely, th' other well;
And therefore vulgar authors name
Th' one good, the other evil fame.
This tattling gossip knew too well,
What mischief Hudibras befel;
And straight the spiteful tidings bears
Of all, to th' unkind Widow's ears.
two legs before, and two legs behind, and two legs on each side, has
eight legs: But as a fox is a creature which has two legs before, and two
legs behind, and two legs on each side; Ergo, &c." (J. Lilburn's Answer
to Nine Arguments by T. B. 1645.)
v. 69. Two trumpets she does sound at once] The trumpet of eternal
fame, and the trumpet of slander. Mr. Pope's Temple of Fame. See
this applied; Dunciad, part 4, 1741, p. 7.
v. 77. This tattling gossip] Twattling gossip in the two first edi-
tions of 1664. (See twattle, Junii Etymologic. Anglican.) altered as it
stands here, 1674. Mr. Cotton, in his Virgil Travestie, book 4, p. 85,
gives the following humorous description of Fame.
At this a wench call'd Fame flew out,
To all the good towns round about;
This Fame was daughter to a crier,
That whilom liv'd in Carthage-shire:
A little prating slut, no higher
When Dido first arriv'd at Tyre
Than this
but in a few years space
Grown up a lusty strapping lass:
A long and lazie quean I ween,
Was not brought up to sew and spin,
any kind of housewif'ry
To get an honest living by ;
But saunter'd idly up and down,
From house to house, and town to town ;
To spy and listen after news,
Which she so mischievously brews,
That still whate'er she sees or hears,
Sets folks together by the ears.
This baggage, that still took a pride to
Slander, and backbite poor Queen Dido;
Because the Queen, once on detection,
Sent her to the mansion of correction:
Glad she had got this tale by th' end,
Runs me about to foe and friend.
And tells 'em that a fellow came,
From Troy, or such a kind of name,
To Tyre, about a fortnight since,
Whom Dido feasted like a prince;
Was with him always day and night,
Nor could endure him from her sight;
And that 'twas thought she meant to marry him,-
At this rate talk'd the foul-mouth'd carrion.
See Shakespear's description of Rumour, Prologue to the Second Part
of Henry the Fourth, Spectator, No. 256, 257, 273.
v. 81. Democritus ne'er laugh'd so loud] See L'Estrange's Fables,
part 2. fab. 182. "He was a man of the largest size, says Nestor Ironside,
(Guardian, No. 29.) which we may ascribe to his so frequent exercise of
his risible faculty." See the Guardian's description of the several sorts
of laughers.
Si foret in terris, rideret Democritus-
Horat. Epist. lib. 2. Ep. 1. 1. 194.
Perpetuo risu pulmonem agitare solebat
Democritus-
And from his wooden jail, the stocks,
To set at large his fetter-locks,
And by exchange, parole, or ransom,
To free him from th' enchanted mansion.
This b'ing resolv'd, she call'd for hood
And usher, implements abroad
Which ladies wear, beside a slender
Young waiting damsel to attend her.
All which appearing, on she went
To find the Knight, in limbo pent.
And 'twas not long before she found
Him, and his stout Squire, in the pound;
Both coupled in inchanted tether,
By further leg behind together:
For as he sat upon his rump,
His head, like one in doleful dump,
Between his knees, his hands apply'd
Unto his ears on either side;
v. 91. And from his wooden jail] This and the following line stand in the two editions of 1664 thus,
That is to see him deliver'd safe,
Of's wooden burthen, and Squire Ralph.
v. 95. She call'd for hood &c.] With what solemnity does the Widow march out to rally the Knight? The Poet, no doubt, had Homer in his eye, when he equips the Widow with hood and other implements; Juno, in the 14th book of the Iliad, dresses herself, and takes an attendant with her, to go a courting to Jupiter. The Widow issues out to find the Knight with as great pomp and attendance, though with a design the very reverse to Juno's. (Mr. B.)
v. 110.————-cheek by joul] See jig by jole, Skinneri Etymolog, Junii Etymolog. Anglican.
v. 111, 112. She came upon him in his wooden-Magician's circle, on the sudden] There was never certainly a pleasanter scene imagined, than this before us: it is the most diverting incident in the whole Poem. The
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