Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

Are ministers of fate; the elements

Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish

One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow-ministers
Are like invulnerable:5 if you could hurt,

Your swords are now too massy for your strengths,
And will not be uplifted: But, remember,

(For that's my business to you,) that you three,

4 One dowle that's in my plume;] The old copy exhibits the passage thus:

"One dowle that's in my plumbe." Corrected by Mr. Rowe. Bailey, in his Dictionary, says, that dowle is a feather, or rather the single particles of the down.

In a

Since the first appearance of this edition, my very industrious and learned correspondent, Mr. Tollet, of Betley in Staffordshire, has enabled me to retract a too hasty censure on Bailey, to whom we were long indebted for our only English Dictionary. small book, entitled Humane Industry: or, A History of most Manual Arts, printed in 1661, page 93, is the following passage: "The wool-bearing trees in Ethiopia, which Virgil speaks of, and the Eriophori Arbores in Theophrastus, are not such trees as have a certain wool or DowL upon the outside of them, as the small cotton; but short trees that bear a ball upon the top, pregnant with wool, which the Syrians call Cott, the Græcians Gossypium, the Italians Bombagio, and we Bombase."-" There is a certain shell-fish in the sea, called Pinna, that bears a mossy DOWL, or wool, whereof cloth was spun and made."- -Again, p. 95: "Trichitis, or the hayrie stone, by some Greek authors, and Alumen plumaceum, or downy alum, by the Latinists: this hair or DowL is spun into thread, and weaved into cloth." I have since discovered the same word in The Ploughman's Tale, erroneously attributed to Chaucer, v. 3202:

"And swore by cock 'is herte and blode,

"He would tere him every doule." Steevens.

Cole, in his Latin Dictionary, 1679, interprets "young dowle,” by lanugo. Malone.

the elements

Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish

One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow ministers
Are like invulnerable:] So, in Phaer's Virgil, 1573:
"Their swords by them they laid-

"And on the filthy birds they beat

"But fethers none do from them fal, nor wound for strok

doth bleed,

"Nor force of weapons hurt them can." Ritson.

From Milan, did supplant good Prospero;
Expos'd unto the sea, which hath requit it,
Him, and his innocent child: for which foul deed
The Powers, delaying, not forgetting, have
Incens'd the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures,
Against your peace; Thee, of thy son, Alonso,
They have bereft; and do pronounce by me,
Ling'ring perdition (worse than any death
Can be at once,) shall step by step attend

You, and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from
(Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls
Upon your heads,) is nothing, but heart's sorrow,
And a clear life ensuing.7

He vanishes in thunder: then, to soft musick, enter the Shapes again, and dance with mops and mowes,8 and carry out the table.

Pro. [Aside.] Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring: Of my instruction hast thou nothing 'bated,

In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life,"

6

clear life —] Pure, blameless, innocent. Johnson. So, in Timon: " roots you clear heavens." Steevens.

7 is nothing, but heart's sorrow,

And a clear life ensuing.] The meaning, which is somewhat obscured by the expression, is—a miserable fate, which nothing but contrition and amendment of life can avert. Malone.

8 with mops and mowes -] So, in K. Lear:

66

and Flibbertigibbet of mopping and mowing."

Steevens.

The old copy, by a manifest error of the press, reads-with mocks. So afterwards: "will be here with mop and mowe." Malone.

9

To mock and to mowe, seem to have had a meaning somewhat similar; i. e. to insult, by making mouths, or wry faces. Steevens. with good life,] With good life may mean, with exact presentation of their several characters, with observation strange of their particular and distinct parts. So we say, he acted to the life. Johnson.

Thus in the 6th Canto of the Barons' Wars, by Drayton: "Done for the last with such exceeding life,

"As art therein with nature seem'd at strife."

Again, in our author's King Henry VIII. Act I. sc. i: the tract of every thing

66

"Would by a good discourser lose some life,
"Which action's self was tongue to."

And observation strange, my meaner ministers
Their several kinds have done;1 my high charms work,
And these, mine enemies, are all knit up

In their distractions: they now are in my power;
And in these fits I leave them, whilst I visit

Young Ferdinand, (whom they suppose is drown'd,)
And his and my loved darling. [Exit PRO. from above.
Gon. I' the name of something holy, sir, why stand you
In this strange stare?

Alon. O, it is monstrous! monstrous! Methought, the billows spoke, and told me of it; The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder, That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass.2

Good life, however, in Twelfth Night, seems to be used for innocent jollity, as we now say a bon vivant: "Would you (says the Clown) have a love song, or a song of good life?" Sir Toby answers, "A love song, a love song;' "Ay, ay, (replies Sir Andrew,) I care not for good life." It is plain, from the character of the last speaker, that he was meant to mistake the sense in which good life is used by the Clown. It may, therefore, in the present instance, mean, honest alacrity, or cheerfulness.

Life seems to be used in the chorus to the fifth act of K. Henry V. with some meaning like that wanted to explain the approbation of Prospero:

"Which cannot in their huge and proper life

"Be here presented."

The same phrase occurs yet more appositely in Chapman's translation of Homer's Hymn to Apollo:

"And these are acted with such exquisite life,

"That one would say, Now the Ionian strains
"Are turn'd immortals." Steevens.

To do any thing with good life, is still a provincial expression in the west of England, and signifies, to do it with the full bent and energy of mind:-" And observation strange," is with such minute attention to the orders given, as to excite admiration. Henley.

1 Their several kinds have done:] i. e. have discharged the several functions, allotted to their different natures. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act V. sc. ii. the Clown says "You must think this, look you, that the worm will do his kind." Steevens.

1 2

·bass my trespass.] The deep pipe told it me in a rough bass sound. Johnson.

So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. II. c. 12:

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

From Milan, did supplant good Prospero;
Expos'd unto the sea, which hath requit it,

Him, and his innocent child: for which foul deed
The Powers, delaying, not forgetting, have
Incens'd the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures,
Against your peace; Thee, of thy son, Alonso,
They have bereft; and do pronounce by me,
Ling'ring perdition (worse than any death
Can be at once,) shall step by step attend

You, and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from
(Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls.
Upon your heads,) is nothing, but heart's sorrow,
And a clear life ensuing."

He vanishes in thunder: then, to soft musick, enter the Shapes again, and dance with mops and mowes,3 and carry out the table.

Pro. [Aside.] Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring: Of my instruction hast thou nothing 'bated,

In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life,"

6

clear life-] Pure, blameless, innocent. Johnson.
66 -roots you clear heavens."

So, in Timon:

7 is nothing, but heart's sorrow,

Steevens.

And a clear life ensuing.] The meaning, which is somewhat obscured by the expression, is-a miserable fate, which nothing but contrition and amendment of life can avert. Malone.

[merged small][ocr errors]

with mops and mowes -] So, in K. Lear:

and Flibbertigibbet of mopping and mowing.”

Steevens.

The old copy, by a manifest error of the press, reads-with mocks. So afterwards: "will be here with mop and mowe." Malone.

To mock and to mowe, seem to have had a meaning somewhat similar; i. e. to insult, by making mouths, or wry faces. Steevens. 9 with good life,] With good life may mean, with exact presentation of their several characters, with observation strange of their particular and distinct parts. So we say, he acted to the life. Johnson.

Thus in the 6th Canto of the Barons' Wars, by Drayton: "Done for the last with such exceeding life,

"As art therein with nature seem'd at strife." Again, in our author's King Henry VIII. Act I. sc. i: the tract of every thing

66

"Would by a good discourser lose some life,
"Which action's self was tongue to."

And observation strange, my meaner ministers
Their several kinds have done;1 my high charms work,
And these, mine enemies, are all knit up

In their distractions: they now are in my power;
And in these fits I leave them, whilst I visit

Young Ferdinand, (whom they suppose is drown'd,)
And his and my loved darling. [Exit PRO. from above.
Gon. I' the name of something holy, sir, why stand you
In this strange stare?

Alon. O, it is monstrous! monstrous! Methought, the billows spoke, and told me of it; The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder, That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass.

2

Good life, however, in Twelfth Night, seems to be used for innocent jollity, as we now say a bon vivant: "Would you (says the Clown) have a love song, or a song of good life?" Sir Toby answers, "A love song, a love song;"-"Ay, ay, (replies Sir Andrew,) I care not for good life." It is plain, from the character of the last speaker, that he was meant to mistake the sense in which good life is used by the Clown. It may, therefore, in the present instance, mean, honest alacrity, or cheerfulness.

Life seems to be used in the chorus to the fifth act of K. Henry V. with some meaning like that wanted to explain the approbation of Prospero:

"Which cannot in their huge and proper life

"Be here presented."

The same phrase occurs yet more appositely in Chapman's translation of Homer's Hymn to Apollo:

"And these are acted with such exquisite life,

"That one would say, Now the Ionian strains
"Are turn'd immortals." Steevens.

To do any thing with good life, is still a provincial expression in the west of England, and signifies, to do it with the full bent and energy of mind:-" And observation strange," is with such minute attention to the orders given, as to excite admiration. Henley.

1 Their several kinds have done:] i. e. have discharged the several functions, allotted to their different natures. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act V. sc. ii. the Clown says " You must think this, look you, that the worm will do his kind." Steevens. ·

2

·bass my trespass.] The deep pipe told it me in a rough bass sound. Johnson.

So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. II. c. 12:

the rolling sea resounding soft,

"In his big base them fitly answered." Steevens.

« VorigeDoorgaan »