In Henry V. Act III. The French king and his nobles are speaking contemptibly of Henry the fifth and the English army. 86 "Duke of Bourb. If thus they march along Unfought withal, but I will fell my dukedom, "To buy a foggy and a dirty farm "In that short nooky ifle of Albion. There is a figure in rhetoric named meiofis, which is not unelegantly used when we extenuate and undervalue "It fhould be now; but that my fear is this, In the first part of King Henry VI. A&t I.. The Duke of "Thou that giv'ft whores indulgences to fin." And presently after calls him, Winchester goofe; which phrafe B. Johnfon ufes in a poem, entitled, An Execration upon Vulcan. And this a sparkle of that fire let loofe That was lock'd up in the Wincheftrian Goofe There is now extant an old manuscript (formerly the officebook of the court-leet held under the jurifdiction of the undervalue any thing. The Frenchman therefore calls our island fhort nooky, according to the figure it made in the maps, and according bishop of Winchester in Southwark) in which are mention'd the feveral fees arising from the brothel-houses allowed to be kept in the bishop's manour, with the customs and regulations of them. One of the articles is, De his, qui cuftodiunt mulieres, habentes nefandam infirmitatem. Item, Chat no flewholder keep any woman within his house, that hath any sickness of benning, but that she be put out upon pain of making a fyne unto the Lozd of C fhillings. This fickness of brenning is alluded to in the fecond part of K. Henry IV. A&t II. the late editors did not fee the allufion, and therefore have altered the paffage. "P. "Henry. For the women-Fal. For one of them, fhe is in "hell already, and burns poor fouls: for the other, &c." 'and the antiquity of the disease is mention'd in two letters printed in the philofophical transactions, No. 357 and 365. This might vindicate Shakespeare from an anacronifm, in mentioning a disease in the reign of K. Henry VI. which fome think never existed in the world till the reign of Henry VII. about the year 1494. after Columbus and his crew returned from the famous expedition to the Indies. And the fwelling in the groin occafion'd by this filthy disease was call'd a Winchester goofe. But Shakespeare, as a poet, might claim privileges which a hiftorian cannot, be the state of the controverfie how it will. Aut famam fequere, aut fibi convenientia finge. 6 Infula natura triquetra. Caef. de bell, Gall. L. V. to 151 to the comparison of it to the great ideas, which Frenchman-like he conceived of his own country. How much more poetical is this, than the alteration of the editors into nook-fbotten ifle? In the first part of K. Henry VI. A&t I. "Daup. Thy promifes are like Adonis' garden, 66 "That one day bloom'd and fruitful were the "next." A poet can create: what fignifies it then if the grotto of Calypfo, or the gardens of Alcinous and Adonis, had not any existence but in poetical imagination? Pliny fays, That Antiquity had nothing in greater admiration than the gardens of the Hefperides and of the kings Adonis and Alcinous. i. e. as they existed in the descriptions of the poets. Spencer defcribes the gardens of Adonis in his Fairy Queen B. III. c. 6. f. 42. and copies Homer's description of the gardens of Alcinous. Shakespeare had his eye on both these poets. To omit what Johnson writes, in Every man out of his humour, A& IV. fc. 8. I fhall cite Milton. IX, 439. 7 Pliny L. XIX. c. iv. 8 Hom. Od. . 117. 66 " Spot L 4 "Spot more delicious than thofe gardens feign'd If this place of Milton is not understood with ΠΑΡ Δ' ΑΠΑΛΟΙ ΚΑΠΟΙ ΠΕΦΥΛΑΓΜΕΝΟΙ ΕΝ ΑΡΓΥΡΕΟΙΣ. However the gardens of revived Adonis became a proverb for things of fhew without fubftance, as well as for what was of little value and perish 10 The ftory is frequently alluded to. See Sandy's travels p. 209. Maundrell p. 34, 35. Milton himself I, 446. &c. Dr. Bentley has taken notice of this [Seeming] mistake of Milton; but never gave himself any trouble to examine into the meaning of it. Thofe gardens feign'd, i. e. by the poets fo that he diftinguishes them from thofe earthen pots planted with herbs and flowers, and exhibited at his feftival. : able. 153 able. 10 In the Caesars of Julian, Conftantine, having spoken his speech, is thus taken up short by Silenus, "But would you then, Constantine, put off your gardens of Adonis upon us for "things of worth and substance ?" "What, "replys Conftantine, do you mean by Adonis' " gardens ?" "Those (fays Silenus) which "the women plant with herbs in honour of that "minion of Venus in little earthen pots filled "with dirt, which as foon almost as they begin "to flourish immediately wither and decay 66 away. ." These are properly the gardens of revived Adonis; Milton therefore might have avoided this ambiguity by leaving out revived as thus. Spot more delicious than thofe gardens feign'd "Or of Adonis, or Alcinous "Renowned hoft of old Laertes' fon." Our Shakespeare's expreffion is beyond all exception and cenfure. 1ο Καὶ ὁ Σειληνός, ̓Αλλ ̓ ἢ τὲς ̓Αδώνιδα, κήπος ὡς ἔργα ἡμῖν, ὦ Κωνσαντίνε, ἑαυτῶ προσφέρεις ; [lege cum Voff. cod. προφέρεις ;] τί δὲ, εἶπεν, εἰσὶν ὃς λέξεις ̓Αδώνιδος κήπος ; [Οὓς repone, abforpt. à prior. Syllab.] aï yuvaíxıs, ïQn, Tŷ TÊS ̓Αφροδίτης ἀνδρὶ φυλεύεσιν, ὀτρακίοις ἐπαμησάμενοι γῆν λα χανίαν. χλωρήσανα δὲ ταῦτα πρὸς ὀλίγον αὐτίκα απομαφαίνεται. |