it is but just to give him an opportunity of "extracting" a better for himself, by laying the passage fairly before him. Read: Ben. However I may appear, I have wrestled with death to preserve your sleeps, and such as you are, untroubled. A soldier, in peace, is a mockery. Unthrifts and landed babies are prey curmudgeons lay their bait for. Martino had insulted the poverty of Benatzi before his mistress; to this he replies, as in the text, that soldiers were neglected and despised in peaceable times; and that spendthrifts, young heirs, &c. were the prey for which curmudgeons, (usurers,) such as Martino, threw out their baits. The passage will now, I believe, be allowed to be very accurately worded by the author, whatever it may be by the critic. G. 344. W.306.-Sure state and ceremony! Read: In habit here like strangers, we shall wait. Inhabit here. Like strangers, we shall wait G. 345. W. 307.—“ Carriage, i. e. behaviour"! G. 347. W. 309. Behold these hairs, Great masters of a spirit! Mr. Weber seems to think, that this is addressed by Auria to Aurelio, Malfato, &c. How they could be termed "great masters of a spirit," does not appear. But the critic mistakes the passage altogether. Auria alludes to Horace : Lenit albescens animos capillus, &c. Behold these hairs, Great master of a spirit-yet they are not In a word, Auria, like Othello, was somewhat declined into the vale of years; but that's not much. This speech is exquisitely beautiful. G. 348. W.310.-Skirmish of words hath with your wife lewdly rang'd, Adulterating the honours of your bed. Hold [not] dispute, &c. "The word not is accidentally omitted in the quarto. The context is so obscure, that I strongly suspect the omission of a line." Mr. Weber neither understands himself, nor his author. With is shuffled out of its place. Read: G. 354. W. 313. Read: Skirmish of words. Hath your wife lewdly rang'd, Adulterating the honour of your bed? Futelli Hath wean'd her from this pain. from this pair: i. e. "of gallants," as it follows in the very next line. G. 355. W. 315.-" Debosh'd. This was the antient method of spelling this word." I have preserved this explanatory observation solely on account of its unsuspecting simplicity. THE SUN'S DARLING. G. 361. W. 323. While the stage flourished, the poem lived by the virtual favour of the court. "The 4to reads fervour,” Mr. Weber says; but he has fortunately detected and rectified the blunder. It only required to read to the end of the line to see that his emendation was perfectly ridiculous, since the whole force of the sentence depends upon retaining the original word, fervour. G. 369. W. 331. I'd not be baited with my fears Here the critic, with that ill-fortune to which a distressed gentleman, who does not know one word from another, is sometimes exposed, in turning to his Index for the meaning of the passage, has pitched upon the wrong term, and given us all that the Variorum editors apply to bating or fluttering with the wings, as a hawk, to illustrate a very different act-baiting or worrying with dogs, which is the meaning of the text: and thus involved himself in unqualified This is the third or fourth time that Mr. Weber has corrupted this expressive word. G. 372. W. 334. Roaring-boys and oatmeals.] "I have not been so fortunate as to discover any reference to these oatmeals, except the following title of an old pamphlet, mentioned in the British Bibliographer, (just published,) alludes to one of their order. A Quest, &c. Gathered by Oliver Oatmeale, 1595.'" I should not have noticed this, had not Mr. Nares condescended to adopt it, and to say, "that no trace of this odd appellation has yet been discovered, except in the title > abovementioned." I can assure Mr. Nares, that I have found several traces of this "odd appellation." In the next edition of his valuable Glossary, he will do well to omit the name and authority of Weber altogether. While the volume is in my hands, I will just notice another word, of which the Glossary adopts the editor's expla nation.--Cooling-card.-" This phrase," Mr. Weber says, "originated probably from card-playing, when the exultation of one of the parties is COOLED by being over-trumped.” This is almost too ingenious for Mr. Weber; and yet it might be wished that it had been left with him. The matter is not much, certainly; but (whatever be the metaphorical sense) a cooling-card is literally a bolus. G. 372. W. 334. Though I die in totters.] "I am unable to discover any passage in support of this reading." Yet the word is to be found thus spelt in Shakspeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger; in short, in every writer of the time. G. 373. W. 335.-Out, fool! Prodigious and abortive birth! Read: G. 373. W. 335.-Thy scurvy and abominable hatred. Read: Thy scurvy and abominable beard. G. 378. W.340.-Spring. Welcome the mother of the year, the Spring! "This speech is most absurdly pointed in the old copy. In the first line, Spring bids Ray-bright welcome her as the mother of the year. Spring does no such thing; she herself welcomes Raybright; and the critic's blunder arises from his not understanding the poet, and pointing the speech even more absurdly than the old copy. Read: Spring. Welcome! The mother of the year, the Spring, She then proceeds to enumerate all her blessings to him, Like lovers of your laws, &c. "Fac'd; i. e. attired. Perhaps from the facings of garments." This explanation is illustrated by two such happy quotations from the Variorum, that I cannot find in my heart to withhold them. -to face the garment of rebellion With some fine colour.-Henry IV." -His hose shall be freshly guarded With colours two or three.-Interlude of Nature." After all, the text simply means—rustics, who look like lovers of Spring's laws; i. e. of May-games; in other words, healthy, ruddy, cheerful faces. Mr. Weber did not see that his rural fellows, faced with garments of fine colours, are in the next speech but one called "country-grays." G. 383. W.345.—“ A second morris-dance is announced here, in the old copy, of which there is no indication in the text." This note is no farther of importance, than as it serves to show the editor's fatal alacrity in blundering. Instead of announcing the entrance of a second Morrice-dance, the old copy distinctly marks the exit of the first.-" Exit Morris." G.383. W.345. bid the rosy-finger'd May Rob hills and dales, and sweets to strew his way. Mr. Weber did not understand the poet, and therefore corrupted him. For the, read my; for and, read with sweets to strew his way; i. e. Rob hills and dales for the purpose of procuring sweets, &c. The entrance of Folly is not noticed by Mr. Weber in this scene, though he is a prime actor in it. G. 384. W.346.-Spring! a hot lady, a few fields and gardens lass! Can you feed upon sallads and tansies? eat, like an ass, upon grass every day at my lady's? Comes to you now a goose, now, &c." Spring, a hot lady! a few fields and gardens lass. upon tansies, eat like an ass upon grass every day? comes to you now a goose, now a woodcock, &c. G.386. W.347.-My mine of treasures. Read My Mine of pleasures. : Can you feed At my lady's G.387. W.348.-What's he? A French gentleman, that trails a Spanish pike; a tailor. "I cannot discover the force of this allusion, except it be to the thinness of the tailor's legs." Had Mr. Weber looked into our old dramatists, he might have found scores of examples of this expression (Spanish |