ALON. I cannot too much muse," Such shapes, fuch gefture, and fuch found, ex preffing (Although they want the use of tongue,) a kind Of excellent dumb difcourfe. PRO. Praise in departing." No matter, fince FRAN. They vanish'd ftrangely. SEB. They have left their viands behind; for we have ftomachs. 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, whofe throats had hanging at them 7 too much mufe,] To mufe, in ancient language, is to admire, to wonder. So, in Macbeth: "Do not mufe at me, my moft worthy friends." STEEVENS. 8 Praife in departing.] i. e. Do not praife your entertainment too foon, left you fhould have reafon to retract your commendation. It is a proverbial faying. So, in The Two angry Women of Abingdon, 1599: "And fo fhe doth; but praise your luck at parting," Again, in Tom Tyler and his Wife, 1561: "Now praife at thy parting." Stephen Goffon, in his pamphlet entitled, Playes confuted in five Actions, &c. (no date) acknowledges himfelf to have been the author of a morality called, Praife at Parting. STEEVENS. 9-that there were mountaineers, &c.] Whoever is curious to know the particulars relative to these 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 excrefcences or tumours. Quis tumidum guttur miratur in Alpibus? STEEVENS. " Wallets of flesh? or that there were fuch men, we find, which now Each putter-out on five for one,3 will bring us men, Whofe heads food 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 breafts." STEEVENS. Or he might have had it from Hackluyt's Voyages, 1598: "On that branch which is called Caora are a nation of people, whofe heads appear not above their fhoulders. They are reported to have their eyes in their fhoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breafts." MALONE. 3 Each putter-out, &c.] The ancient cuftom here alluded to was this. In this age of travelling, it was a practice with those who engaged in long and hazardous expeditions, to place out a fum of money on condition of receiving great intereft 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 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." To this inftance I may add another from The Ball, a comedy, by Chapman and Shirley, 1639: "I did most politickly difburfe 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; So, in -on five for one" means on the terms of five for one. Barnaby Riche's Faults, and nothing but Faults, 1607: "-thofe whipfters, that having spent the greateft part of their patrimony in prodigality, will give out the reit of their stocke, to be paid two or three for one, upon their return from Rome," &c. &c. Each putter-out on five for one,] The old copy has: -of five for one." STEEVENS. I believe the words are only transposed, and that the author wrote: "Each putter-out of one for five." So, in The Scourge of Folly, by J. Davies of Hereford, printed about the year 1611: Good warrant of. ALON. I will ftand to, and feed, Although my last: no matter, fince I feel Thunder and lightning. 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 "Sir Solus ftraight will travel, as they say, "And gives out one for three, when home comes he." It appears from Moryfon's ITINERARY, 1617, Part I. p. 198, that "this cuftom of giving out money upon thefe adventures was first used in court, and among noblemen;" and that fome years before his book was published, " bankerouts, ftage-players, and men of base condition had drawn it into contempt," by undertak ing journeys merely for gain upon their return. MALONE. 4 I vill ftand to, and feed, Although my laft: no matter, fince I feel The beft is paft] I cannot but think that this paffage was intended to be in rhyme, and fhould be printed thus: "I will fland to and feed; although my laft, "No matter, fince I feel the beft is paft." M. MASON. 5 Enter Ariel like a harpy; &c.] This circumftance is taken from the third book of the Æneid as tranflated by Phaer, bl. 1. 4to. 1558: faft to meate we fall. "But fodenly from down the hills with grisly fall to fyght, "The harpies come, and beating wings with great noys out thei fhright, "And at our meate they fnach; and with their clawes," &c. Milton, Parad. Reg. B. II. has adopted the fame imagery : with that "Both table and provifions vanifh'd quite, "With found of harpies' wings, and talons heard." STEEVENS. 6- and with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes.] Though I will not undertake to prove that all the culinary pantomimes exhibited in France and Italy were known and imitated in this king (That hath to instrument 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 'mongst men Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad; [Seeing ALON. SEB. &c. draw their fwords. And even with such like valour, men hang and drown Their proper felves. You fools! I and my fel lows Are minifters of fate; the elements Of whom your fwords are temper'd, may as well Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at ftabs Kill the ftill-clofing waters, as diminish One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow-minifters dom, I may obferve that flying, rifing, and defcending services were to be found at entertainments given by the Duke of Burgundy, &c. in 1453 and by the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1600, &c. See M. Le Grand D'Auffi's Hiftoire de la vie privée des François, Vol. III. p. 294, &c. Examples therefore of machinery fimilar to that of Shakspeare in the prefent inftance, were to be met with, and perhaps had been adopted on the ftage, as well as at public feftivals here in England. See my note on The Merry Wives of Windfor, A& V. fc. v. from whence it appears that a ftriking conceit in an entertainment given by the Vidame of Chartres, had been transferred to another feaft prepared in England as a compliment to Prince Alafco in 1583. STEEVENS. That bath to inftrument this lower world, &c.] i. e. that makes afe of this world, and every thing in it, as its inftruments to bring about its ends. STEEVENS. * One dowle that's in my plume;] The old copy exhibits the paffage thus: "One dowle that's in my plumbe." Corrected by Mr. Rowe. 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 induftrious and learned correfpondent, Mr. Tollet, of Betley, in Staffordshire, has enabled me to retract a too hafty cenfure on Bailey, to whom Are like invulnerable: if you could hurt, we were long indebted for our only English Dictionary. In a fmall book, entitled Humane Industry: or, A Hiftory of moft Manual Arts, printed in 1661, page 93, is the following paffage: "The wool-bearing trees in Ethiopia, which Virgil speaks of, and the Eriophori Arbores in Theophraftus, are not fuch trees as have a certain wool or DowL upon the outfide of them, as the fmall cotton; but short trees that bear a ball upon the top, pregnant with wool, which the Syrians call Cott, the Græcians Goffypium, 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 fome Greek authors, and Alumen plumaceum, or downy alum, by the Latinifts: this hair or Dow is fpun into thread, and weaved into cloth." I have fince difcovered the fame word in The Ploughman's Tale, erroneously attributed to Chaucer, v. 3202: "And fwore 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. 9 Of whom the elements your One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow minifters Are like invulnerable:] So, in Phaer's Virgil, 1573: "Their words 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. |