Whom thus we ftray to find; and the sea mocks Do not, for one repulfe, forego the purpose Seb. The next advantage Ant. Let it be to-night; For, now they are opprefs'd with travel, they As when they are fresh. use such vigilance, Seb. I fay, to-night: no more. Solemn and ftrange mufick; and Profpero on the top, invifible. Enter feveral ftrange fhapes, bringing in a banquet; they dance about it with gentle actions of Jalutation; and, inviting the king, &c. to eat, they depart. Alon. What harmony is this? my good friends, hark! Alon. Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were 2 Seb. A living drollery: Now I will believe, That there are unicorns; that, in Arabia There is one tree, the phoenix' throne 3; one phoenix At this hour reigning there. A living drollery:] Shows, called drolleries, were in Shakespeare's time performed by puppets only. From these our modern drolls, exhibited at fairs, &c. took their name. So in B. and Fletcher's Valentinian : 3 "I had rather make a drollery till thirty." STEEVENS. -one tree the phoenix throne;] For this idea, our author might have been indebted to Phil. Holland's Tranflation of Pliny, b. XIII. chap. 4. "I myself verily have heard ftraunge things "of this kind of tree; and namely in regard of the bird Phenix, "which is fupposed to have taken that name of this date tree; [called in Greek po] for it was affured unto me, that the "faid bird died with that tree, and revived of itfelfe as the tree fprung again." STEEVENS. Ant. Ant. I'll believe both; And what does elfe want credit, come to me, Gon. If in Naples I fhould report this now, would they believe me? (For, certes, these are people of the island) Many, nay, almost any. Pro. Honeft lord, Thou haft faid well; for fome of you there prefent, Are worse than devils. Alon. I cannot too much mufe, [Afide. Such fhapes, fuch gefture, and fuch found, expreffing (Although they want the ufe of tongue) a kind Of excellent dumb difcourfe, Pro. Praife in departing. Fran. They vanish'd strangely, Seb. No matter, fince [Afide. For certes, &c.] Certes is an obfolete word, fignifying certainly, So in Othello: -certes, fays he, "I have already chofe my officer." STEEVENS. too much mufe.] To mufe, in ancient language, is to So in Macbeth: 6 "Do not mufe at me, my most worthy friends." STEEVENS. Praife in departing.] i. e. Do not praise your entertainment too foon, left you should have reason to retract your commendation. It is a proverbial faying. So in the Tevo angry Women of Abington, 1599: "And fo the doth; but praise your luck at parting." Again in Tom Tyler and his Wife, 1598: "Now praife at thy parting. Stephen Goffon, in his pamphlet entitled, Playes confuted in five Actions, &c. (no date) acknowledges himself to have been the author of a morality called, Praife at Parting. STEEVENS. They They have left their viands behind; for we have fto machs. Will't please you taste of what is here? Alon. Not I. Gon. Faith, fir, you need not fear: When we were boys, Who would believe that there were mountaineers, Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em Wallets of flefh? or that there were fuch men, Whose heads stood in their breafts? which now, we find, "Each putter out on five for one, will bring us Good warrant of. Alon. that there were mountaineers, &c.] Whoever is curious to know the particulars relating to thefe mountaineers, may confult Maundeville's Travels, printed in 1503, by Wynken de Worde; but it is yet a known truth that the inhabitants of the Alps have been long accuftom'd to fuch excrescences or tu mours. Quis tumidum guttur miratur in Alpibus ? men, STEEVENS, Whofe heads flood in their breafts?] Our author might have had this intelligence likewife from the tranflation of Pliny, b. V. chap. 8. The Blemmyi, by report, have no heads, but mouth "and eies both in their breast." STEEVENS. 66 9 Each putter out, &c.] This paffage alluding to a forgotten cuftom is very obfcure: the putter out must be a traveller, else how could he give this account? the five for one is money to be received by him at his return. Mr. Theobald has well illustrated this paffage by a quotation from Jonfon. JOHNSON. The ancient cuftom was this. In this age of travelling, it was cuftomary for those who engaged in long expeditions, to place out a fum of money on condition of receiving great interest for it at their return home. So Puntarvolo (it is Theobald's quotation) in Ben Jonfon's Every Man out of his Humour: "I do intend, "this year of jubilee coming on, to travel; and (because I will not altogether go upon expence) I am determined to put forth "fome five thousand pound, to be paid me five for one, upon the "return of my wife, myself, and my dog, from the Turk's court in Conftantinople." 66 66 To Alon. I will ftand to, and feed, Thunder and lightning. 1 Enter Ariel like a harpy; claps his wings upon the table, and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes. Ari. You are three men of fin, whom destiny, (That hath to inftrument this lower world, And what is in't) the never-furfeited fea Hath caused to belch up; and on this island Where man doth not inhabit; you 'mongft men Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad; And even with such like valour men hang and drown Their proper felves. [Alonfo, Sebaftian, and the reft Ye fools! I and my fellows [draw their fwords. Are minifters of fate; the elements Of whom your fwords are temper'd, may as well Wound the loud winds, or with bemock't-at stabs Kill the still-clofing waters, as diminish To this inftance I may add another from The Ball, a comedy, by Chapman and Shirley, 1639: I did most politickly disburse my fums "To have five for one at my return from Venice." Again in Amends for Ladies, 1639: "I would I had put out fomething upon my return; Again in Brome's Antipodes, 1638 : "Like the reports of thofe, that beggingly STEEVENS. Enter Ariel like a harpy, &c.] Milton's Par. Reg. b. II. "" with that "Both table and provifions vanish'd quite, "With found of harpies wings, and talons heard." STEEVENS. That hath to inftrument this lower world, &c.] i. e. that makes ufe of this world, and every thing in it, as its inftruments to bring about its ends. STEEVENS. 3 One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow-ministers You, and your ways; whofe wraths to guard you from (Which here, in this most desolate ifle, elfe falls 3 One dowle that's in my plume ;] The old copy exhibits the paffage thus: One dole that's in my plumbe.. Bailey, in his Dictionary, fays, that dowle is a feather, or rather the fingle particles of the down. Since the first appearance of this edition, my very industrious and learned correfpondent, Mr. Tollet, of Betley, in Staffordshire, has enabled me to retract a too hafty cenfure on Bailey, to whom we were long indebted for our only English Dictionary. In a fmall book, entitled Humane Induftry: or, A Hiftory of moft Manual Arts, printed in 1661, page 93, is the following paffage : "The wool-bearing trees in Ethiopia, which Virgil fpeaks of, " and the Eriophori Arbores in Theophraftus, are not fuch trees "as have a certain wool or DOWL upon the outside of them, as "the fmall cotton, but fhort trees that bear a ball upon the top, "pregnant with wool, which the Syrians call Cott, the Grecians "Gollypium, the Italians Bombagio, and we Bombafe." "There is a certain fhell-fish in the fea, called Pinna, that bears a moffy DowL, or wool, whereof cloth was fpun and made." -Again, page 95: "Trichitis, or the hayrie ftone, by some "Greek authors, and Alumen plumaceum, or downy alum, by "the Latinifts: this hair or DOWL is fpun into thread, and "weaved into cloth." I have fince difcovered the fame word in The Ploughman's Tale, attributed to Chaucer, v. 3202. 66 And fwore by cock'is herte and blode, "He would tere him every doule." STEEVENS. 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