Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

sible that his beloved daughter would continue to be the ob ject of his affectionate care; and having been before deprived of his dukedom, in some measure through his inattention to the duties of that high station, he was determined in his own mind, on his return to Milan, not to neglect his worldly affairs: but it was also his fixed purpose, still to appropriate a third part of his time to meditating upon his last momentous change; or, that

Every third thought should be his grave.

1785, May.

MR. URBAN,

W. and D.

June 8.

IF I have not already overloaded you with remarks on Shakespeare, please to insert the following.

T. H. W.

Taming of the Shrew." I remember (says Barckley) a pretie experiment practised by the Emperor Charles the Fifth upon a drunkard. As this Emperour on a time entered into Gaunt, there lay a drunken fellow ouerthwart the stretes, as though he had bene dead; who, least the horsemen should ride ouer him, was drawen out of the way by the legges, and could by no means be wakened; which, when the Emperour saw, he caused him to be taken vp and carried home to his pallace, and vsed as he had appointed. He was brought into a faire chamber hanged with costly arras, his clothes taken off, and laid in a stately bed meet for the Emperour himselfe. He continued in sleepe vntil the next day almost noone. When he awaked and had lyen wondring a while to see himself in such a place, and diuerse braue gentlemen attending upon him, they took him out of the bed, and apparelled him like a prince, verie costly garments, and all this was done with verie great silence on everie side. When he was ready, there was a table set and furnished with verie daintie meats, and he set in a chaire to eate, attended vpon with braue courtiers, and serued as if the Emperour had bin present, the cupboord full of gold plate and diuerse sortes of wines. When he saw such preparation made for him, he left any longer to wonder, and thought it not good to examine the matter any further, but took his fortune as it came, and fell to his meate. His wayters with great reuerance and dutie obserued diligently his nods and becks, which were his signes to call for that he lacked, for words he vsed none. As he thus sate in his maiestie eating

and drinking, he tooke in his cups so freelie, that he fell fast asleepe againe as he sate in his chaire. His attendants stripped him out of his fresh apparel, and arrayed him with his owne ragges againe, and carried him to the place where they found him, where he lay sleeping vntil the next day. After he was awakened, and fell into the companie of his acquaintance, being asked where he had bene; he answered that he had bene asleepe, and had the pleasantest dream that ever he had in his life; and told them all that passed, thinking that it had been nothing but a dreame."-A Discourse of the Felicitie of Man, by Sir Richard Barckley, Knt. 1598, p. 24. This frolic seems better suited to the gaiety of the gallant Francis, or to the revelry of the boisterous Henry, than to the cold and distant manners of the reserved Charles, of whose private character, however, historians have taken little notice.

Macbeth.-The Witch, an unpublished tragi-coomodie, by Thomas Middleton, whence Shakespeare is supposed to have taken the songs, and some hints for the incantations, in Macbeth, must, from the evidence of the following passage, have been written after the 39th of Elizabeth (1597), when the act was made against minstrels, fiddlers, and pipers.

"Twill be a worthie work, To put down all theis pipers (smokers): 'tis great pity, There should not be a statut against them,

As against fidlers.

tills

Act 2. sc. 1.

But it is probable, from the familiar mention of tobacco, to which Shakespeare hath no allusion, that this performance did not appear several years after the accession of James. Middleton, in his dedication to this play, says, it was "ignorantly-ill-fated," which seems to be a mild or tender way of owning that it was damned by an ignorant audience.

Antony and Cleopatra.-Act II. Scene 7.

Pomp. This is not yet an Alexandrian feast. Ant. It ripens toward it. Strike the vessels, ho, Here is to Cæsar.

Vessels probably mean kettle-drums, which were beaten when the health of a person of eminence was drunk; immediately after, we have, "make battery to our ears with the loud music." They are called kettles in Hamlet.

VOL. II.

Give me the cups;

And let the kettle to the trumpet speak.

U

Johnson's explanation, "try whether the casks sound as empty," degrades this feast of the lords of the whole world into a rustic revel.

King Lear-Act II. Scene 2.

Kent. Stand, rogue, stand, you neat slave, strike.

Does "neat slave" mean any thing more than cowherd?
It was the lark, the herald of the morn.

Romeo and Juliet, Act 3. sc. 5.

The mountain larke, daie's herald, got on wing.
Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, book 1. sc. 3

[blocks in formation]

Warburton's emendation is needless, as Menander uses the very same expression.

Τις πέλαγος αυτον εμβαλεις γαρ πραγμάτων.

Fragm. p. 22. Amstel. 1719.

In mare molestiarum te conjicies.

You will throw yourself into a sea of troubles.

Osr. The king, Sir, hath laid, that in a dozen passes between yourself and him, he (Laertes) shall not exceed you (Hamlet) three hits; he (Laertes) hath laid on (out of) twelve for nine. Act 5. sc. 2.

Laertes, being the most expert fencer, was to give Hamlet nine hits out of twelve passes. Johnson's note seems more difficult to be understood than the passage itself. But this learned annotator, employed in unravelling such trivial entanglements, is Hercules spinning:

Et manu, clavam modo qua gerebat,

Fila deduxit,

1787, June,

T. H. W.

LXXXVII. Imitations and accidental Resemblances of Milton, &c.. Dec. 26.

MR. URBAN, WHEN it suits you, please to insert a few remarks which I have made in looking over Newton's edition of Milton. If some of them appear minute, let it be considered, that whatever gives the least light into any obscure passage in Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, or Pope, should' not be esteemed trivial; neither will imitations or accidental resemblances be neglected by those who are desirous of seeing in what manner different authors express the same thought. The works of these our greatest masters are growing every day darker from the shades which time gradually spreads over them, and which it is much beyond the power of any one man to clear off effectually, I therefore throw my mite occasionally into your valuable collection. Yours, &c.

[ocr errors]

T. H. W.

NOTES ON MILTON.

Paradise Lost.

Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first
Wast present,-

B. i. v. 19.

Copied from Homer's invocation of the Muses:

66 Εσπέλε νυν μοι, Μεσαι, ολυμπια δωματ' εχεσαι
Έμεις γαρ θεας εσίες παρεσίς τε, ίσίε τε παντα.

[ocr errors]

Il. ii. v. 484.

"Instruct me now, O ye Muses! who have celestial

mansions;

For ye are goddesses, and are present, and know all things."

That sea-beast.
Leviathan, which God of all his works

Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream:
Him, haply slumb'ring on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee.

Ver. 200.

"It sometimes falleth out, that mariners, thinking these whales to be islands, and casting out ankers upon their backs, are often in danger of drowning. The Bishop of Breme, in old time, sent certaine legates with a convent of friers to preach and publish in the north the popish faith; and when they had spent a long journey in sailing towards the north, they came unto an iland, and there casting their anker, they went ashore, and kindled fires, and so provided victuals for the rest of their journy. But when their fires grew very hote, this iland sanke, and suddenly vanished away, and the mariners escaped drowning very narrowly with the boate that was present." Hackluyt's Voyages, I. 568.

4

His pond'rous shield,

the broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders like the moon,

Ver. 284,

"And on her shoulder hung her shield,-
As the fair moon in her most full aspect."
Spenser's F. 2. B. V. Cant. v. St. 3.

While over-head the moon,

they on their mirth and dance

Intent,

V. 784.

Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus, imminente Luna; Junctæque Nymphis Gratia decentes

Alterno terram quatiunt pede."

Hor. L. I. Od. iv. v. 5.

Like a comet burn'd,

and from his horrid hair

Shakes pestilence and war.

B. II. v. 708.

So Spenser:

"All as a blazing star doth far out-cast
His hairy beams, and flaming locks dispred,
At sight whereof the people stand agast."

And Sylvester:

F. 2. B. III. Cant. i. st. 15.

"There, with long bloudy hair, a blazing star
Threatens the world with famin, plague, and war."

Again:

« AnteriorContinuar »