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45 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's name ought to have been placed where I have now prefixed it.

THEOBALD.

46-foison- Ray interprets foison by the juice or natural moisture of herbs and grass.

47-crisp channels,] i. e. either winding in their course, or having their waters curled by the wind.

48

—a rack behind:] rack signifies the moving of the clouds by the wind.

49 For stale to catch these thieves.] Stale, in fowling, is bait.

50-belongs to a frippery :] i. e. an old clothes shop. French fripperie.

51-under the line:] Edwards considers this as an allusion to what often happens to people who pass the line. The violent fevers which they contract in that hot climate, make them lose their hair. If Shakspeare had any other joke in view, it must be a miserably coarse one.

52

-put some lime, &c.] i. e. some birdlime.

53 -to barnacles, or to apes] The barnacle is a kind of shell-fish, which sticks to the bottoms of ships, and which was anciently supposed, when broken off, to become a Scotch goose.

[blocks in formation]

"The scottish barnacle, if I might choose, "That of a worme doth waxe a winged goose," &c. HALL'S Virgodemiarum, Lib. iv. Sat. 2. Hollinshed in vol. i. page 38, declares himself to have seen the feathers of these barnacles " hang out of the shell at least two inches." Collins well observes, that this vulgar error merits not serious confutation.

ACT V.

54 Passion as they,] Shakspeare often uses to passion as a verb.

55 After summer, merrily:] This is the reading of all the editions. Yet Mr. Theobald has substituted sunset, because Ariel talks of riding on the bat in this expedition. An idle fancy. That circumstance is given only to design the time of night in which fairies travel. One would think the consideration of the circumstances should have set him right. Ariel was a spirit of great delicacy, bound by the charms of Prospero to a constant attendance on his occasions: so that he was confined to the island winter and summer. But the roughness of winter is represented by Shakspeare as disagreeable to fairies, and such like delicate spirits, who, on this account, constantly follow summer. Was not this then the most agreeable circumstance of Ariel's new-recovered liberty, that he could now avoid winter, and follow summer quite round the globe? But to put the matter quite out of question, let us consider the meaning of this line:

"There I couch when owls do cry."

WHERE? in the cowslip's bell, and where the bee sucks, he tells us this must needs be in summer.

when owls cry; and this is in winter:

"When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, "Then nightly sings the staring owl."

WHEN?

The Song of Winter in Love's Labour's Lost. The consequence is, that Ariel flies after summer. Yet the Oxford editor has adopted this judicious emendation of Mr. Theobald.

WARBURTON.

56 I am woe for't,] i. e. it pains me or makes me

sorry.

57 As great to me, as late;] My loss is as great as yours, and has as lately happened to me.

JOHNSON.

58 My tricksy spirit!] Tricksy, clever, adroit: from trick, a prank.

59 Was ever conduct of:] i, e. conductor of.

60 with beating on-] A similar expression occurs in the second part of K. Henry IV.

"Thine eyes and thoughts

"Beat on a crown."

STEEVENS.

61 Coragio!] Coragio is Italian, signifying a good heart or courage.

62

where should they

Find this grand LIQUOR that hath gilded them?] Shakspeare, to be sure, wrote-grand 'LIXIR, alluding to the grand Elixir of the alchymists, which they pretend would restore youth, and confer immortality. This, as they said, being a preparation of gold, they called

Aurum potabile; which Shakspeare alluded to in the word gilded; as he does again in Antony and Cleopatra: "How much art thou unlike Mark Antony?

"Yet coming from him, that great medicine hath "With his tinct gilded thee."

But the joke here is to insinuate that, notwithstanding all the boasts of the chemists, sack was the only restorer of youth and bestower of immortality. So Ben Jonson, in his Every Man out of his Humour;— "Canarie the very Elixir and spirit of wine." This seems to have been the cant name for sack, of which the English were, at that time, immoderately fond. Randolph, in his Jealous Lovers, speaking of it, says,"A pottle of Elixir at the Pegasus, bravely caroused." So again in Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas, Act III.

"Old reverend sack, which, for aught that I can read yet,

"Was that philosopher's stone the wise king Ptolemeus

"Did all his wonders by.".

The phrase too of being gilded, was a trite one on this occasion. Fletcher, in his Chances:-Duke. Is she not drunk too? Whore. A little gilded o'er, sir; old sack, old sack, boys!"

WARBURTON.

As the Elixir was a liquor, the old reading may stand, and the allusion holds good without alteration.

STEEVENS.

T. DAVISON, PRINTER,

White-friars.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

BY

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

VOL. 1.

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