Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

bedirt; begrime; besmear :-significations that join to confirm the explanation here given.

This bank with pionied and twilled brims is described, as trimmed, at the behest of Ceres, by spungy April, with flowers; to make cold nymphs chaste crowns. These flowers were neither peonies nor lilies, for they never blow at this season, but "lady-smocks all silverwhite,” which, during this humid month, start up in abundance on such banks, and thrive like oats on the same kind of soil:-" Avoine touillée croist comme enragée.". That ou changes into w, in words derived from the French, is apparent in cordwainer, from cordouannier, and many others. HENLEY.

73. and thy broom groves,] A grove of broom, I believe, was never heard of, as it is a low shrub and not a tree. Hanmer reads brown groves.

STEEVENS.

Disappointed lovers are still said to wear the willow, and in these lines broom groves are assigned to that unfortunate tribe for a retreat. This may allude to some old custom. We still say that a husband hangs out the broom when his wife goes from home for a short time; and on such occasions a broom besom has been exhibited as a signal that the house was freed from uxorial restraint, and where the master might be considered as a temporary bachelor. Broom grove may signify broom bushes. See Grava in Cowel's Law Dict. TOLLET.

75. Being lass-lorn ;- -] Lass-lorn is forsaken of his mistress. So, Spenser:

"Who

"Who after that he had fair Una-lorn."

STEEVENS.

75.thy pole-clipt vineyard;] To clip is to

twine round or embrace. Thy poles are

braced by the vines.

clipt or emSTEEVENS.

88. My bosky acres, &c.] Bosky is woody. Bosquet, Fr. So, Milton:

"And every bosky bourn from side to side."

Again, in King Edward I. 1599:

"Hale him from hence, and in this bosky wood "Bury his corps." STEEVENS.

go. -to this short grass'd green?] The old copy reads short-graz'd green. Short-graz'd green means grazed so as to be short. The correction by Mr. Rowe. STEEVENS.

[ocr errors]

115. And-] Omitted in the first folio. MALONE. 120. Earth's increase,- -] All the editions that I have ever seen concur in placing this whole sonnet to Juno; but very absurdly, in my opinion. I believe every accurate reader, who is acquainted with poetical history, and the distinct offices of these two goddesses, and who then seriously reads over our author's lines, will agree with me, that Ceres' name ought to have been placed where I have now prefixed it.

THEOBALD.

-foison plenty ;] i. c. plenty to the utmost abun

dance; foison signifying plenty.

STEEVENS.

Foison, as Ray remarks in his Collection of East-country words, is used in Suffolk to signify-the natural juice or

[blocks in formation]

1

moisture of grass or other herbs. It is in this sense that the word is here applied.

HENLEY. 129. Harmonious charmingly :· -] Mr. Edwards would read,

Harmonious charming lay.

For though (says he) the benediction is sung by two goddesses, it is yet but one lay or hymn. I believe this passage appears as it was written by the poet, who, for the sake of the verse, made the words change places; and then the meaning is sufficiently obvious. STEEVENS. A similar inversion occurs in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

"But miserable most to live unlov'd." MALONE. 141. wand'ring brooks,] The modern editors read winding brooks. The old copy-windring. I suppose we should read wand'ring, as it is here printed. STEEVENS.

148. Leave your crisp channels,- -] Crisp, i. e. curling, winding. Lat. crispus. So, Henry IV. P. I act i. sc. iv. Hotspur speaking of the river Severn:

[ocr errors]

"And hid his crisped head in the hollow bank." Crisp, however, may allude to the little wave or curl (as it is commonly called) that the gentlest wind occasions on the surface of waters. STEEVENS.

165. And, like the baseless fabrick of this vision, &c.] The exact period at which this play was produced is unknown: it was not, however, published before 1623. In the year 1603, the Tragedy of Darius, by

Lord

Lord Sterline, made its appearance, and there I find the following passage :

"Let greatness of her glassy sceptres vaunt,

"Not sceptres, no, but reeds, soon bruis'd,
soon broken;

"And let this worldly pomp our wits enchant,
“All fades, and scarcely leaves behind a token.
"Those golden palaces, those gorgeous halls,
"With furniture superfluously fair,

Those stately courts, those sky-encount'ring
walls,

"Evanish all like vapours in the air."

Lord Sterline's play must have been written before the death of queen Elizabeth (which happened on the 24th of March 1603), as it is dedicated to James VI. King of Scots.

Whoever should seek for this passage (as here quoted from the quarto, 1603) in the folio edition, 1637, will be disappointed, as Lord Sterline made considerable changes in all his plays, after their first publication. STEEVENS. 169. And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded,] Faded means here "having vanished;" from the Latin vado. So, in Hamlet:

[ocr errors]

"It faded on the crowing of the cock."

To feel the justice of this comparison, and the pro priety of the epithet, the nature of these exhibitions should be remembered. The ancient English pageants were shows exhibited on the reception of a prince, or any other solemnity of a similar kind. They were presented

presented on occasional stages erected in the streets. Originally they appear to have been nothing more than dumb shows; but before the time of our author, they had been enlivened by the introduction of speaking personages, who were characteristically habited. The speeches were in verse; and as the procession moved forward, the speakers, who constantly bore some allusion to the ceremony, either conversed together in the form of a dialogue, or addressed the noble person whose presence occasioned the celebrity. On these allegorical spectacles, very costly ornaments were bestowed. So early as in the reign of King Henry VI. in a pageant presented on that monarch's triumphal entry into London, after his coronation at Paris, the Seven Liberal Sciences, personified, were introduced in a tabernacle of curious worke, from whence their queen, Dame Sapience, spoke verses. At entering the city, he was met and saluted in metre by three ladies (the dames Nature, Grace, and Fortune) richly cladde in golde and silkes, with coronets, who suddenly issued from a stately tower, hung with the most splendid arras. See Fabian Chron. Tom. II. fol. 382. Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poet. Vol. II. p. 190. 202. MALONE.

.

170. Leave not a rack behind:-] "The winds" (says lord Bacon)" which move the clouds above, which we call the rack, and are not perceived below, pass without noise."

The word is common to many authors contemporary

« AnteriorContinuar »