Page images
PDF
EPUB

newer one in contemplation. Of all this poor Mr. Weber

suspects nothing.

G. 268. W. 242.

Read:

Your Lordship's care shall share in the plot.
Your lordship's ear, &c.

G. 271. W. 244.-But countenance the cause.
Read: But countenance the course.

i. e. the mode of our proceedings.

G. 277. W. 249.-- pearls, which the Indian lackies
Presented for the ransom of his life.

Read:

pearls, which the Indian Cacique

Presented, &c.

G. 278. IV. 251.——

she's taken, and will love you now, As well in buff, as your imagined bravery, Your dainty ten-times drest buff: with this language,

Bold man of arms, shalt win upon her, doubt

not.

"The old copy reads "shall win upon her." The slight alteration in the text (thou shalt) was essential in order to restore the sense of the passage."

Yet the sense of the passage, of which, by the way, Mr. Weber does not understand one syllable, is entirely destroyed by his essential alteration.

Read:

G. 279. W. 251.

she's taken; and will love you now
As well in buff as your imagined bravery.
Your dainty ten-times dress'd buff, with this
language,

Bold man of arms, shall win upon her, doubt not,
Beyond all silken puppetry.

Pearl-larded caps.

Read: Pearl-larded capes.

There is no excuse for this blunder, as the expression

is a mere repetition of a passage just above. whose cape, &c."

"Our cloke,

G. 279. W. 252.-Play's play, luck's luck, fortune's I know

what

"The old copy reads, Fortune's an I know not what. It was necessary here to make another variation."

The old copy reads no such thing; and Mr. Weber, by his necessary variation, has destroyed both sense and metre. Read: Play's play, luck's luck; Fortune's an—

know what.

-I

G. 281. W. 254.-No might of man, &c.

"The old copy

reads

No man," &c.

Why should Mr. Weber say this? The old copy reads

distinctly,

G. 284. W. 256.

No might of man.

chouses.] "i. e. Fools, persons easily cheated."

Just the reverse: knaves, persons that cheat every one. Mr. Weber had Massinger before him, (as had Ford when he wrote this passage,) and there he might have found a full explanation of the word.

G. 285. W.257.-Pray let not me be bandied, sir.

"Skinner explains the verb 'to bandy,' totis viribus se opponere"!

G. 285. W. 257.-I will then rip up

The progress of your infancy.

Read: The progress of your infamy :

--

And accordingly Martino begins with her marriage.

G. 286. W.258.-A jointure to my over-living niece,

Read:

my over-loving niece.

G. 287. W.258.-Be sued to buy a loving man,—
Read: Be sued to by a loving man.

G. 288. W. 260.—And mumbled the roguy Turks.
This destroys the metre.

Read: And mumbled the rogue Turks.

G. 290. W. 262.-Lose not opportunity for air,

"Air must in this instance signify haughty, an affectation

of virtue."

With all due deference to Mr. Weber's must, air signifies, in this instance, a mere trifle, such as the speaker insinuates fame, idle report, to be.

G. 295. W. 265.-I need no fellows now.

Read: I need no followers now.

G. 296. W. 266.—"Puffkins was probably a cant word for strumpets at the time. It may have been formed from puffin, a kind of water fowl."

Were they strumpets? But this is the folly of the Shakspeare editors, who had already taught Mr. Weber (lxxxiii.) that gull, the old term for a simpleton, was also taken " from a kind of water-fowl." Puffkin is " formed" from puffe, (a worthless funguous excrescence, a dust-ball,) precisely as whiskin is from whiske, and has degenerated, by a similar process, into a term of low ribaldry. See p. cxlii.

G. 298. W. 268.-Rot in fripperies.] "I suspect we should read riot in fripperies."

This is in direct opposition to the speaker; who alludes to the neglect shewn the poor disbanded soldier on his return from the wars. At home, he says, they are suffered to rot in cast clothes, rags: to riot has seldom been their fate. G. 299. W.268.-This fellow's a shrewd fellow at a pink.

"It is difficult to guess at the precise meaning of this expression. Pink is used in the sense of supremely excellent, but that cannot apply here. For that reason, I strongly suspect we should read punk."

Has the reader enough of this? If he has, let me ask him, if he thinks there is another person in the kingdom who does not know that a pink is a thrust or stab, and that the expression means- -a shrewd fellow at his weapon, at a duel, &c.?

G. 302. W. 272.-" Exit Guz. Ful, and Benatzi!"

G. 305. W. 274.-Sure this bulk of mine

'Tails in the size a tympany of greatness.

On this absurd reading, Mr. Weber has a more absurd

note, with which I will not afflict the reader, except just to observe, that he suspects tail to be abbreviated from entail; and so he has printed it.

Read:

Sure this bulk of mine
Tails in the size! A tympany of greatness
Puffs up too monstrously my narrow chest.

G. 306. W. 275.-I observed your dulness,

While the whole ging crowd to me.

Mr. Weber misunderstands the poet. Auria does not speak of the ging (gang) crowding to him; but of their loud and cheerful congratulations, (crowings,) which he contrasts with the "grudging dulness" of his friend Aurelio.

Read: When the whole ging crow'd to me.

G. 303. W. 275.-How surely dost thou malice these extremes.— "Extremes refers to the extreme honours which had been bestowed on Auria."

Mr. Weber had but to proceed to the next line, to see that extremes "referred" to the extremes of good and ill fortune which he had experienced.

G. 311. W. 279.-in our discoursing brains; i. e. “thinking, reasoning, an old sense of the word."

So Mr. Weber found it in the Index to Massinger. Had he been able to comprehend his author, however, he would have seen that "the word" meant, here, wandering, incoherent, wild.

G. 313. W. 281.-A mushroom sprung up by the sunshine of your benevolent grace, liberality, and hospitable entertainment, most magnificent beauty. I have long since lain bed-rid in the ashes of the old world, &c.

For this nonsense, read:

A mushroom sprung up by the sunshine of your benevolent grace. Liberality and hospitable entertainment, most magnificent beauty, have long lain bed-rid in the ashes of the old world, &c.

G. 314. IV. 282.-I put myself in service under the Spanish

Viceroy. Till I was taken prisoner by the Turks, I have tasted in my days good and bad.

Read: I put myself under the Spanish Viceroy, till I was taken prisoner by the Turks. I have tasted in my days, &c. G. 329. W. 293.-Pray mock it. Read: Pray mark it. G. 329. W. 293.-Desvir di Gonzado. "So the 4to. The corruption is so violent, that I have not been able to discover the Spanish word intended."

Mr. Weber's discoveries in this language will not, I suspect, much enrich the Nuevo Diccionario: the violence of which he complains, consists merely in dividing, for humour's sake, a very common Spanish word, desvergonzado. As it appears in the text, it is much the same as if Ford had said in English, Duke Impu [of] Dence.

G. 331. W. 295.-Read: Both. How?

This trifling passage, which Mr. Weber has dropped, is the more necessary, as Futelli and Piero immediately reply to it. "Thus and thus, you stinkards;" and kick them both

out.

G. 333. W. 297.-Could your looks

Read:

Borrow more clear severity and calmness.
Borrow more clear serenity.

G. 341. W. 303.-Ben. However my outside may appear, I have wrestled with death, Signior Martino, to preserve your sleep; and such as you are untroubled. A soldier, in peace, is a mockery. Unthrifts and landed babies are prey-curmudgeons lay their baits for.*

"That is, who lay their baits for soldiers. This is the only sense I can extract from the passage, which is very inaccurately worded.” Very likely; but as this sense may not satisfy the reader,

We have already had a similar expression:

"Shallow fools and unthrifts Are the only game knaves fly at."— Fancies.

« PreviousContinue »