With full and holy rite be minister'd, FER. As I hope With fuch love as 'tis now; the murkieft den, The edge of that day's celebration, When I fhall think, or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd, Or night kept chain'd below. 8 PRO. Fairly spoke: Sit then, and talk with her, fhe is thine own.What, Ariel; my industrious fervant 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 paffage in NONNUS, which will fufficiently illuftrate Profpero's expression. Κέρης δ ̓ ἐγγὺς ἔκανε· καὶ ἀτρέμας ἄκρον ἐρύσσας Δεσμὸν ἀσυλήτοιο φυλάκτορα λύσαιο μίτρης Φειδομένη παλάμη, μὴ παρθένον ὑπνο ἑάσση. HENLEY, No fweet afperfion-] Afperfion is here ufed in its primitive fenfe of Sprinkling. At prefent it is expreffive only of calumny and detraction. STEEVENS. Fairly Spoke :] Fairly is here used as a trifyllable. STEEVENS. In fuch another trick: go, bring the rabble, 2 Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple ARI. PRO. Ay, with a twink. Presently? ARI. Before you can fay, Come, and go, And breathe twice; and cry, so, so; Each one, tripping on his toe,' Will be here with mop and mowe: Do you love me, master? no. PRO. Dearly, my delicate Ariel: Do not approach, 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 abftemious, Or elfe, good night, your vow! FER. 9 — the rabble,] The crew of meaner fpirits. JOHNSON. fir; 2 Some vanity of mine art;] So, in the unprinted romance of EMARE, quoted by Mr. Warton in his differtation on the Gefla Romanorum, (a Prefix to the third Vol. of the Hiftory of English Poetry.) "The emperour faid on hygh, i. e. an illufion. STEEVENS. 3 Come, and go, Each one, tripping on his toe,] So, in Milton's L'Allegro, v. 33 i 66 Come, and trip it as you go "On the light fantastic toe.' STEEVENS. Abates the ardour of my liver. PRO. Well. Now come, my Ariel; bring a corollary,* Rather than want a fpirit; appear, and pertly.No tongue; all eyes; be filent. A Mafque. Enter IRIS. [Soft mufick. IRIS. Ceres, moft bounteous lady, thy rich leas Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and peafe; Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep, And flat meads thatch'd with ftover," them to keep; Thy banks with peonied and lilied brims," Which spungy April at thy heft betrims, 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 Dictionary. STEEVENS. 5 No tongue;] Those who are prefent at incantations are obliged to be strictly filent, "elfe" as we are afterwards told, "the fpell is marred." JOHNSON. 6-thatch'd with ftover,] Stover (in Cambridgeshire and other counties) fignifies hay made of coarfe, rank grafs, fuch as even cows will not eat while it is green. Stover is likewise used as thatch for cart-lodges, and other buildings that deferve but rude and cheap coverings. The word occurs in the 25th Song of Drayton's Polyolbion: "To draw out fedge and reed, for thatch and ftover fit." Again, in his Mufes' Elyzium: "Their browse and ftover waxing thin and scant." STEEVENS "Thy bank with peonied, and lilied brims,] The old edition reads pioned and twilled brims, which gave rife to Mr. Holt's conjecture, that the poet originally wrote with pioned and tílled brims.” Peonied is the emendation of Hanmer. Spenfer and the author of Muleaffes the Turk, a tragedy, 1610, ufe pioning for digging. It is not therefore difficult to find a meaning for the word as it ftands 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 chafte crowns; and thy broom groves, 8 Whose shadow the difmiffed bachelor loves, B. XXVI. ch. x. mentions the water-lily as a preferver of chastity; and fays, 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 fong of Drayton's Polyolbion, the Naiades are reprefented as making chaplets with all the tribe of aquatic flowers; and Mr. Tollet informs me, that Lyte's Herbal fays, " one kind of peonie is called by fome, maiden or virgin peonie." In Ovid's Banquet of Senfe, by Chapman, 1595, I meet with the following ftanza, in which twill-pants are enumerated among flowers: "White and red jafmines, merry, melliphill, "Fair crown imperial, emperor of flowers; "Immortal amaranth, white aphrodill, "And cup-like twill-pants ftrew'd in Bacchus' bowers." If twill be the ancient name of any flower, the old reading, pioned and trilled, may ftand. STEEVENS. Mr. Warton, in his notes upon Milton, after filently acquiefcing in the fubftitution 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 afked-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 thofe banks, be the produce of Spungy APRIL-Or, whence it can be gathered that Iris here is at all fpeaking of the banks of a river? and, whether, as the bank in queftion 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 reprefented as reforting, becaufe at the approach of spring, it becomes needful to repair the banks (or mounds) of the flat meads, whofe grafs not only fhooting over, but being more fucculent Being lafs-lorn; thy pole-clipt vineyard; * than that of the turfy mountains, would, for want of this precaution, be devoured, and fo the intended ftover [hay, or winter keep] with which thefe meads are proleptically defcribed as Thatched, be loft. The giving way and caving in of the brims of thofe banks, occafioned by the heat, rains, and frofts of the preceding year," are made good, by opening the trenches from whence the banks themselves were at firft raised, and facing them up afresh with the mire thofe trenches contain. This being done, the brims of the banks are, in the poet's language, pioned and twilled.-Mr. Warton himself, in a note upon Comus, hath cited a paffage in which pioners are explained to be diggers [rather trenchers] and Mr. Steevens mentions Spenfer and the author of Muleaffes, as both ufing pioning for digging. for digging. TwILLED is obviously formed from the participle of the French verb touiller, which Cotgrave interprets filthily to mix or mingle; con found or shuffle together; bedirt; begrime; befmear-fignifications that join to confirm the explanation here given. This bank with pioned and twilled brims is defcribed, as trimmed, at the beheft of Ceres, by fpungy April, with flowers, to make cold nymphs chafte crowns. These flowers were neither peonies nar lilies, for they never blow at this feason, but " ladyfmocks all filver white," which during this humid month, ftart up in abundance on fuch banks, and thrive like oats on the fame kind of foil :— "Avoine touillée croift comme enragée."-That OU changes into W, in words derived from the French, is apparent in cordwainer, from cordouannier, and many others. HENLEY. Mr. Henley's note contends for fmall proprieties, and abounds with minute obfervation. But that Shakspeare was no diligent Botanist, may be ascertained from his erroneous defcriptions of a Cowflip, (in the Tempeft and Cymbeline) for who ever heard it characterized as a bell-shaped flower, or could allow the drops at the bottom of it to be of a crimson hue? With equal carelessness, or want of information, in the Winter's Tale he enumerates" lilies. of all kinds," among the children of the fpring, and as contemporaries with the daffodil, the primrofe, and the violet. It might be added, (if we muft Speak by the card) that wherever there is a bank there is a ditch; where there is a ditch there may be water; and where there is water the aquatic lilies may flourish, whether the bank in queftion belongs to a river or a field.-These are petty remarks, but they are occafioned by petty cavils.—It was enough for our author that Peonies and Lilies were well-known |