Or that for which I live; whom once again FER. Against an oracle. I do believe it, PRO. Then, as my gift, and thine own acqui fition 4 strangely stood the test:) Strangely is used by way of come mendation, merveilleusement, to a wonder; the fame is the fenfe in the foregoing scene. JOHNSON. i. e. in the last scene of the preceding act: "with good life " And obfervation Strange". STEEVENS. 4 Then, as my gift, and thine own acquifition ) My guest, first folio. Rowe first read gift. JOHNSON. A fimilar thought occurs in Antony and Cleopatra : "I fend him "The greatness he has got." STEEVENS. $_her virgin knot) The fame expreffion occurs in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609: "Untide I still my virgin knot will keepe." STEEVENS. 6 If thou doft break her virgin knot before All fanctimonious ceremonies, &c.) This, and the paffage in Pericles Prince of Tyre, are manifest allusions to the zones of the ancients, which were worn as guardians of chastity by marriageable young women. Puellæ, contra, nondum viripotentes, hujufmodi zonis non utebantur: quod videlicet immaturis virgunculis nullum aut certé minimém, a corruptoribus periculum immineret: quas propterea vocabant 'αμίτρες, nempe discinclas.' With full and holy rite be minifter'd, As Hymen's lamps shall light you. FER. For quiet days, fair issue, and long life, As I hope With fuch love as 'tis now; the murkiest den, The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion Our worfer Genius can, shall never melt Mine honour into luft; to take away The edge of that day's celebration, When I shall think, or Phœbus' steeds are founder'd, Or night kept chain'd below. Fairly spoke: PRO. Sit then, and talk with her, she is thine own. What, Ariel; my industrious servant Ariel! Enter ARIEL. ARI. What would my potent master? here I am. PRO. Thou and thy meaner fellows your last fervice Did worthily perform; and I must use you There is a passage in NONNUS, which will sufficiently illustrate Κέρης δ ̓ ἐγγὺς ἵκανε καὶ ἀτρέμας ἄκρον ἐξύσσας Φειδομένη παλάμη, μὴ παρθένον ὕπνου ἑάσσῃ. HENLEY. 7 No Sweet afperfion-] Afperfion is here used in its primitive sense of Sprinkling. At present it is expreffive only of calumny and detration. STEEVENS. 8 Fairly Spoks;) Fairly is here used as a trifyllable. STEEVENS. In such another trick: go, bring the rabble, Incite them to quick motion; for I must Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple 2 Some vanity of mine art; it is my promife, And they expect it from me. ARI, Before you can fay, Come, and go, And breathe twice; and cry, fo, fo; Each one, tripping on his toe, 3 Will be here with mop and mowe: Do you love me, master? no. PRO. Dearly, my delicate Ariel: Do not ap proach, Till thou dost hear me call. ARI. Well I conceive. (Exit. PRO. Look, thou be true; do not give dalliance Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw To the fire i'the blood: be more abstemious, Or elfe, good night, your vow! FER. I warrant you, fir; The white-cold virgin snow upon my heart 9-the rabble,) The crew of meaner spirits, JOHNSON. 2 Some vanity of mine art ;) So, in the unprinted romance of EMARE, quoted by Mr. Warton in his differtation on the Gesta Romanorum, (a Prefix to the third Vol. of the History of English. Poetry.) " The emperour faid on hygh, " Sertes, thys is a fayry, i. e. an illusion. STEEVENS. 3 «Or ellys a vanite.” Come, and go, 1 Each one, tripping on his toe,) So, in Milton's L' Allegro, v. 33: "Come, and trip it as you go. "On the light fantastic toe,” STEEVENS. 1 Abates the ardour of my liver. PRO. Well. Now come, my Ariel; bring a corollary, * Rather than want a spirit; appear, and pertly. No tongue; all eyes; be filent. A Masque. Enter IRIS. (Soft musick. IRIS. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and pease; Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep, And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep; Thy banks with peonied and lilied brims, ' Which spungy Aprils at thy hest betrims, 4 - bring a corollary,) That is, bring more than are fufficient, rather than fail for want of numbers. Corollary means furplus. Corolaire, Fr. See Cotgrave's Di&ionary. STEEVENS. No tongue;) Those who are present at incantations are obliged to be strialy filent, « else, as we are afterwards told, « the spelf is marred." JOHNSON. 6 thatch'd with stover,) Stover (in Cambridgeshire and other counties) fignifies hay made of coarse, rank grafs, such as even cows will not eat while it is green. Stover is likewise used as thatch for cart-lodges, and other buildings that deserve but rude and cheap coverings. The word occurs in the 25th Song of Drayton's Polyolbion : « To draw out sedge and reed, for thatch and ftover fit." Again, in his Muses' Elyzium : { " Their browse and stover waxing thin and scant.." STEEVENS, 7 Thy bank with peonied, and lilied brims, The old edition reads pioned and twilled brims, which gave rise to Mr. Holt's conjecture, that the poet originally wrote - with pioned and tilled brims.” Peonied is the emendation of Hanmer. Spenfer and the author of Muleaffes the Turk, a tragedy, 1610, use pioning for digging. It is not therefore difficult to find a meaning for the word as it stands in the old copy; and remove a letter from twilled, and it leaves us tilled. I am yet, however, in doubt whether we ought not to read lilied brims; for Pliny, To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom groves, & Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves, B. XXVI. ch. x. mentions the water-lily as a preferver of chastity; and says, elsewhere, that the Peony medetur Faunorum in Quiete Ludibriis, &c. In a poem entitled The Herring's Tayle, 4to. 1598, "the mayden piony" is introduced. In the Arraignement of Paris, 1584, are mentioned "The watry flow'rs and lillies of the banks." And Edward Fenton in his Secrete Wonders of Nature, 4to B. VI. 1569, afferts, that "the water-lily mortifieth altogether the appetite of fenfualitie, and defends from unchafte thoughts and dreames of venery." In the 20th song of Drayton's Polyolbion, the Naiades are represented as making chaplets with all the tribe of aquatic flowers; and Mr. Tollet informs me, that Lyte's Herbal says, "one kind of peonie is called by fome, maiden or virgin peonie." In Ovid's Banquet of fenfe, by Chapman, 1595, I meet with the following stanza, in which twill-pants are enumerated among flowers: "White and red jasmines, merry, melliphill, " Fair crown imperial, emperor of flowers; "Immortal amaranth, white aphrodill, " And cup-like twill-pants strew'd in Bacchus' bowers." If twill be the ancient name of any flower, the old reading, pioned and twilled, may stand. STEEVENS. Mr. Warton, in his notes upon Milton, after filently acquiescing in the substitution of pionied for pioned, produces from the ARCADES "Ladon's lillied banks, as an example to countenance a further change of twilled to lillied, which, accordingly, Mr. Rann hath foifted into the text. But before fuch a licence is allowed, may it not be asked-If the word pionied can any where be found? or (admitting fuch a verbal from peony, like Milton's lillied from lily, to exift)-On the banks of what river do peonies grow?-Or (if the banks of any river should be discovered to yield them) whether they and the lilies that, in common with them, betrim those bauks, be the produce of Spungy APRIL? - Or, whence it can be gathered that Iris here is at all speaking of the banks of a river?and, whether, as the bank in question is the property, not of a water-nymph, but of Ceres, it is not to be confidered as an object of her care?-Hither the Goddess of Husbandry is represented as resorting, because at the approach of spring, it becomes needful to repair the banks (or mounds) of the flat meads, whose grafs not only shooting over, but being more fucculent 14 |