Had roused him here, and shook his feathers, wet The sweet and fruitful dew fall on the ground The enamour'd earth with all her riches clad, So many lights and shadows, nor the rainResolving Iris, when the Sun doth court her, Nor purple pheasant while his aunt" doth sport her To hear him crow, and with a perched pride Wave his discolour'd neck and purple side. I have not seen the place could more surprise, It looks, methinks, like one of Nature's eyes, Or her whole body set in art : behold! How the blue bindweed doth itself infold' Maia to the king and queen, (vol. vi. p. 462,) there is a reference to this favourite poet: 6 "The spice that from Panchaia comes, Quidquid turiferis spirat Panchaia silvis, Quicquid odoratus longe blanditur Hydaspes. while his aunt doth sport her,] i. e. his wanton mistress. Thus Brome: Cicely. Is she your kinswoman-your aunt, or cousin? Toten. Court. But our old dramatists used this word in a very loose way. As the Gentleman's Recreation says of brach, it "seems to be a mannerly word," for an appellation peculiarly offensive to female ears. vol. vi. p. 86. 7 behold! How the blue bindweed doth itself infold See With honey-suckle, &c.] This passage settles the meaning of the speech of Titania, in Midsummer Night's Dream, on which With honey-suckle, and both these intwine Phan. How better than they are, are all things made By Wonder? But awhile refresh thine eye, Here, to a loud music, the Bower opens, and the Won. Thou wilt indeed; what better change appears? Whence is it that the air so sudden clears, And all things in a moment turn so mild? Of all the treasure that great Nature's worth, so much has been written, and which, after all, is so little understood. "So doth the woodbine the sweet honey-suckle The woodbine of Shakspeare is the blue bindweed of Jonson: in many of our counties the woodbine is still the name for the great convolvolus. If the reader will turn to this quotation, in the variorum Shakspeare, he will find three pages of nonsense, quotation heaped upon quotation to no purpose; and this place in Jonson, which gives an easy and intelligent explanation of it, not once noticed! It should be added, that Steevens and Malone, to make out even their no-meaning, have been compelled to corrupt the text. This, however, was infinitely preferable to having recourse to "old Ben," without any prospect of calumniating him. That seas are now more even than the land? How is't each bough a several music yields? Phan. Cho. 'Tis he, 'tis he, and no power else, Here they danced their ENTRY, after which they sung again. Cho. Again! again! you cannot be Of such a true delight too free, Which, who once saw, would ever see: And if they could the object prize, Would, while it lasts, not think to rise, Here they danced their Main DANCE, after which they sung. Cho. In curious knots and mazes so, And thence did Venus learn to lead The Idalian brawls, and so to tread As if the wind, not she, did walk; Here they danced with the Ladies, and the whole Aur. I was not wearier where I lay By frozen Tithon's side to-night;' 8 I was not wearier where I lay 8 By frozen Tithon's side to-night, &c.] The ingenious Mr. Chalmers, the Lepidus of the grand triumvirate of Jonson's enemies, would probably start, had he ever looked into his works, at discovering that there was something in them besides "malice to Shakspeare," something, in short, from which the critic himself, vast as his knowledge confessedly is, might occasionally derive information. In illustrating the word Titan, which he explains with laudable accuracy to be a "poetical name for the Sun," Mr. Chalmers brings forward this confirmation of it from the Phenix' Nest, "Aurora now began to rise again From watrie couch, and from old Tithon's side." Now though "Titan" may be old, it is not very likely, I think, that he should be frozen; and as Jonson is generally allowed to be pretty correct in his epithets, it will be worth Mr. Chalmers' while to consider, previously to the republication of his glossary, whether Titan and Tithon may not be distinct personages. |