MIRA. My father's of a better nature, fir, Be of comfort; Than he appears by fpeech; this is unwonted, PRO. Thou shalt be as free As mountain winds: but then exactly do ARI. To the fyllable. PRO. Come, follow: fpeak not for him. [Exeunt. ACT II. SCENE I. Another part of the Inland Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and others. GON. 'Befeech you, fir, be merry: you have caufe (So have we all) of joy; for our escape Is much beyond our lofs: Our hint of woe2 The masters of fome merchant,3 and the merchant, 2 Our hint of woe-] Hint is that which recalls to the memory. The caufe that fills our minds with grief is common. Dr. Warburton reads-stint of woe. JOHNSON. Hint feems to mean circumstance. "A danger from which they had escaped (fays Mr. M. Mason) might properly be called a hint of woe." STEEVENS. 3 The mafters of fome merchant, &c.] Thus the old copy. the paffage be not corrupt (as I suspect it is) we must suppose that by masters our author means the owners of a merchant's ship, or the officers to whom the navigation of it had been trusted. Have juft our theme of woe: but for the miracle,+ Can speak like us: then wifely, good fir, weigh ALON. Pr'ythee, peace. SEB. He receives comfort like cold porridge. ANT. The vifitor 5 will not give him o'er so. SEB. Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike. GON. Sir, SEB. One:Tell. GON. When every grief is entertain'd, that's of fer'd, Comes to the entertainer SEB. A dollar. GON. Dolour comes to him, indeed;" spoken truer than you purposed. I fuppofe, however, that our author wrote"The miftrefs of fome merchant," &c. you have Miftrefs was anciently fpelt-maiftreffe or maiftres. Hence, perhaps, arose the prefent typographical error. See Merchant of Venice, A& IV. fc. i, STEEVENS. 4 Have juft our theme of wee: but for the miracle,] The words of woe, appear to me as an idle interpolation. Three lines before we have " our hint of woe-." STEEVENS. The vifitor-] Why Dr. Warburton fhould change vifitor to 'vifer, for advifer, I cannot difcover. Gonzalo gives not only advice but comfort, and is therefore properly called The Vifitor, like others who visit the fick or diftreffed to give them confolation. In fome of the Proteftant churches there is a kind of officers termed confolators for the fick. JOHNSON. • Gon. Dolour comes to him, indeed;] The fame quibble occurs in The Tragedy of Hoffman, 1637: "And his reward be thirteen hundred dollars, "For he hath driven dolour from our heart." STEEVENS, SEB. You have taken it wifelier than I meant you fhould. GON. Therefore, my lord,— ANT. Fye, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue! GON. Well, I have done: But yet SEB. He will be talking. ANT. Which of them, he, or Adrian, for a good wager, firft begins to crow? SEB. The old cock. ANT. The cockrel. SEB. Done: The wager? ANT. A laughter. SEB. A match. ADR. Though this island seem to be defert, SEB. Ha, ha, ha! ANT. So, you've pay'd." ADR. Uninhabitable, and almoft inacceffible,SEB. Yet, you've pay'd.] Old copy-you'r paid. Corrected by Mr. Steevens. To pay fometimes fignified-to beat, but I have never met with it in a metaphorical fenfe; otherwise I should have thought the reading of the folio right: you are beaten; you have loft. MALONE. This paffage scarcely deferves explanation; but the meaning is this: Antonio lays a wager with Sebastian, that Adrian would crow before Gonzalo, and the wager was a laughter. Adrian fpeaks firft, fo Antonio is the winner. Sebaftian laughs at what Adrian had said, and Antonio immediately acknowledges that by his laughing he has paid the bet. The old copy reads-you'r paid, which will anfwer as well, if those words be given to Sebaftian instead of Antonio. ADR. Yet ANT. He could not mifs it. ADR. It must needs be of fubtle, tender, and delicate temperance.8 ANT. Temperance was a delicate wench.9 SEB. Ay, and a fubtle; as he most learnedly delivered. ÅDR. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. ANT. Or, as 'twere perfumed by a fen. GON. Here is every thing advantageous to life. SEB. Of that there's none, or little. GON. How lufh1 and lufty the grafs looks? how green? 8 and delicate temperance.] Temperance here means temperature. STEEVENS. Temperance was a delicate wench.] In the puritanical times it was ufual to christian children from the titles of religious and moral virtues. So Taylor, the water-poet, in his description of a ftrumpet: "Though bad they be, they will not bate an ace, How lufh &c.] Lush, i. e. of a dark full colour, the oppofite to pale and faint. SIR T. HANMER. The words, how green? which immediately follow, might have intimated to Sir T. Hanmer, that lush here fignifies rank, and not a dark full colour. In Arthur Golding's tranflation of Julius Solinus, printed 1587, a paffage occurs, in which the word is explained." Shrubbes lushe and almoft like a gryftle." So, in A Midfummer Night's Dream: "Quite over-canopied with lufhious woodbine." HENLEY. The word lush has not yet been rightly interpreted. It appears from the following paffage in Golding's tranflation of Ovid, 1587, to have fignified juicy, fucculent: ANT. The ground, indeed, is tawny. ANT. He miffes not much. SEB. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally. GON. But the rarity of it is (which is indeed almost beyond credit) SEB. As many vouch'd rarities are. GON. That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the fea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness, and gloffes; being rather new dy'd, than ftain'd with falt water. ANT. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not fay, he lies? SEB. Ay, or very falfely pocket up his report. GON. Methinks, our garments are now as fresh as when we put them on firft in Africk, at the "What? feeft thou not, how that the year, as reprefenting plaine "The age of man, departes himself in quarters foure: first, baine "And tender in the spring it is, even like a fucking babe, "Then greene and void of strength, and lush and foggy is the blade; "And cheers the husbandman with hope." Ovid's lines (Met. XV.) are these : "Quid? non in fpecies fuccedere quattuor annum Afpicis, ætatis peragentem imitamina noftræ ? "Nam tener et lactens, puerique fimillimus ævo, "Vere novo eft. Tunc herba recens, et roboris expers, Turget, et infolida eft, et fpe delectat agreftem." Spenfer in his Shepheard's Calender, (Feb.) applies the epithet lufty to green: "With leaves engrain'd in luftie green." MALONE. With an eye of green in't.] An eye is a small shade of colour: "Red, with an eye of blue, makes a purple." Boyle. Again, in Fuller's Church Hiftory, p. 237, xvii Cent. Book XI: "fome cole-black (all eye of purple being put out therein). Again, in Sandys's.Travels, lib. i: "-cloth of filver tiffued with an eye of green-." STEEVENS. |