IRE, famine, and fell fury met.] The folio reads, "Sword, fire and famine with fell fury met,"

which I think I prefer.

P. 12. It is not growing like a tree.] The note here, like some others I have noticed, and many more that I have not pointed out, is aimed at Walter Scott, whose inimitable temper and sound sense led him to care less for what was written about him than any great man that ever lived, not even excepting Samuel Johnson. I think he felt too, that throughout his hasty edition of Dryden he had done scant justice to Ben Jonson.

P. 17. And made those strong approaches by false brays.] The folio has false braies, and when reduicts in the next line was modernized into redouts, this surely might have been made into the familiar word fausse braies.

P. 23. Epithalamion.] Southey notes, Common Place Book, Fourth Series, p. 327. "In this Epithalamion, Jonson seems to have had Spenser in mind."

P. 24. Porting the ensigns of united two.] The word to port has a pleasant martial sound about it. Milton has

"Sharpening in mooned horns.

Their phalanx, and began to hem him round

With ported spears."

"Port arms" was one of the words of command in the old Manual and Platoon Exercise, and perhaps still serves to indicate some graceful mode of carrying the last new rifle.

P. 33. Where nature such a large survey hath ta'en,

As other souls, to his, dwelt in a lane.] Southey pronounces this to be a "sad conceit," and nobody will dispute the point with him. Sir Kenelm Digby was a man of vast bulk, as may be seen in his portrait.

P. 34. Witness his action done at Scanderoon,

Upon his birthday, the eleventh of June.] Old Antony's words are 66 Kenelm Digby was born at Gothurst, on the eleventh day of July, 1603, yet Ben Johnson for rhyme sake will have it June." But surely the allusion to Saint "Barnaby the bright," and Ferrar's Epitaph settle the question.

P. 41.

The dotes were such

Thereof, no notion can express how much

It is

Their caract was.] This word was used in the Silent Woman, vol. iii. p. 364. I have not seen another instance of it. direct from the Latin, and means endowments.

P. 43. Speaks heaven's language, and discourseth free

To every order, every hierarchy.] I am not aware of Gifford's authority for the word discourseth in the first line. The folio has discovereth, and I have no doubt it is right.

P. 58. T'were time that I dy'd too, now she is dead,

Who was my Muse, and life of all I said.] The folio has "did" in the place of "said" at the end of the second line. P. 62. Nor dare we under blasphemy conceive

He that shall be our supreme judge, shall leave, &c.] The folio has, and surely rightly,

"He that shall be our supreme judge should leave," &c.

P. 71. Let our wines without mixture or stum, be all fine.] Stum is strong new wine, used to give strength and spirit to what is vapid. It is supposed to be contracted from the Latin mustum. Dryden employs it very characteristically in The Medal, 1. 269-270, speaking of Shaftesbury's friends

"That preach up thee for God, dispense thy laws,

And with thy stum ferment their fainter cause."

P. 73. Cries old Sim, the king of skinkers.] A skinker was a tapster or drawer. On April 22nd, 1661, Pepys tells us that "Wadlow, the vintner at The Devil in Fleet Street, did lead a fine company of soldiers, all young comely men, in white doublets." But this one would think must be Simon the Second. That noble Bacchanalian line,

"Wine it is the milk of Venus," was improved by William Howitt into

"Wine it is the cream of Venus"!

NOTES TO HORACE OF THE ART

OF POETRY.

SHALL limit my notes here to the citation of a few lines
in which the unchangeable Latin helps to explain some
fluctuating English.

P. 83. Feign words unheard of to the well-truss'd race.
Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis.

P. 83. Still in their leaves, throughout the sliding years.
Ut sylvæ foliis pronos mutantur in annos.

P. 85. The gests of kings, great captains and sad wars.
Res gesta regumque, ducumque, et tristia bella.

P. 87. Their bombard-phrase and foot and half-foot words.
Projicit ampullas, et sesquipedalia verba.

P. 87. By the tongue her truchman.

Interprete linguâ.

P. 91. As if he knew it raps his hearer.

Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit.

P. 93. Looks after honours, and bewares to act.

Commisisse cavet, quod mox mutare laboret.

[The word beware is always now used as if its two component parts were independent.]

P. 95. The hau'boy, not as now with latten bound,

Tibia non, ut nunc, orichalcho vincta.

P. 95. But soft, and simple, at few holds breath'd time.] On reference to the folio this meaningless word holds of course turned out to be holes.

P. 99. I can out of known geer a fable frame.
Ex noto fictum carmen sequar, &c.

P. 101. Too patiently, that I not fondly say.
Ne dicam stultè.

P. 101. Whether the garded tragedy they wrought.
Vel qui prætextas, vel qui docuêre togatas.

P. 103. A great sort will not pare their nails.
Bona pars non ungues ponere curat.

P. 105. And I still bid the learned maker look.
Doctum imitatorem, &c.

P. 105. Orpheus, a priest, and speaker of the gods.] This ought to be, as in the folio:

"Orpheus, a priest, and speaker for the gods."

P. 107. Their minds to wars, and rhymes they did rehearse.] This exquisite nonsense ceases to be so by following the folio:

"Their minds to wars with rhymes they did rehearse."

P. 107. The docile mind might soon thy precepts know.] This ungrammatical stuff ceases to be so by following the folio:

"The docile mind may soon thy precepts know."

P. 113. Cry, and do more to the true mourners.] This is utter The folio reads:

nonsense.

"Cry, and do more than the true mourners."

NOTES TO TIMBER OR DISCOVERIES.

Page 130.

ISCOVERIES.] Gifford does not say one word too much in praise of this noble series of criticisms and reflections. Antony Wood tells us that Jonson and Bishop Hacket translated the Essays of Bacon into Latin, and we think it might be discovered that the writer of the Discoveries was filled with the very spirit of the great author of the Essays.

My notes are confined to verbal criticism.

P. 133. Only they set the sign of the cross over their outer doors.] See the Epigrams No. cxvii. and cxviii., vol. viii. p. 220.

P. 138. Men that see the caract and value.] The folio has, rightly of course, "Men that set the caract."

P. 138. The devil take all.] These words do not occur in the beginning of the paragraph to which they have been removed from almost the end: "with his four last words, The Divell take all, in his mouth."

P. 139. His arms set up in his last herborough.] From the Saxon hereberga. It is more usually written harborough. Queen Elizabeth makes a verb of it, on one occasion when lecturing James: "Far be it from kingly magnanimity to harbrough in their brest so unseemly a gest." (Letters, Cam. Soc. p. 162.)

P. 142. He is upbraidingly called a poet, as if it were a contemptible nick-name.] Jonson wrote most contemptible, why should the word "most" be left out?

P. 145. Indice of a fool.] Indice for index was a frequent form with Jonson :

"You know (without my flattering you) too much
For me to be your indice."

Underwoods, vol. viii. p. 350.

P. 146. The only person that said nothing.] Jonson wrote: "The only person had said nothing."

P. 148. Whole volumes dispatched by the umbratical doctors on all sides.] We cannot do better than quote Cooper's Thesaurus, the great Latin Dictionary of 1587, "Umbratica literæ, partes of learning touchyng school mattiers, and such as are only disputed in private conference."

P. 149. It is true, some men may receive a courtesy, and not know it.] Jonson wrote, 'some man," not men.

66

P. 153. Cloth of bodkin or tissue.] This should rather be cloth of baudkin, being derived from Baldekinus, meaning Babylonian, or of Bagdad. It was made of gold and silk woven together, like the kinkob of modern India. Minshew's derivation from bawd is very ludicrous, primum a lenis et meretricibus ad ornatum et mangonizationem inventum. As Baldachino is the same word, the derivation is flattering. Cotgrave defines it the "Canopy that's carried over a prince, or a cloth of estate."

P. 154. They who have but saluted her on the by, and now and then tendered their visits, she hath done much for.] Here he alludes to Donne and Hall, who had been advanced in the profession of the Gospel, and to Sir John Davies, who had been advanced in that of the law. The rise of the last led Jonson very often to think of what his own position might have been had he been content to love literature "only on the by."

P. 155. Indeed, the multitude commend writers.] This passage (with the difference of only two words) is found in the Address to the Reader, which precedes the Alchemist in the quarto, 1612, but was omitted in the folio. See vol. iv. p. 6.