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The other passage commences in the middle of the sixth line of P. 350: ""Tis the last key-stone," &c. He quotes the lines in his Reply to Junius of July 13, 1771, and calls them "the words of his ancient monitor."

P. 351. An Epistle to Master John Selden.] The version given by Selden himself, in his quarto of 1614, presents a few variations. Line 4, for instance, which now stands :

"Truth and the Graces best when naked are,”

was originally,

"Since naked, best, Truth and the Graces are."

Line 17 is now,

"But I to yours far otherwise shall do,"

but it stood originally,

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"But I to yours, far from this fault, shall doo." And in line 8 of p. 353, manly elocution" was in the first instance "masculine elocution." The image in p. 352, of "like a compass, keeping one foot still," was often present to Jonson's mind. See more particularly the use made of it in The Sad Shepherd, vol. vi. p. 282.

P. 356. Who can behold their manners, and not cloud

Like, on them lighten.] Let any reader turn to this passage, and, after being told that the folio has, "upon them lighten," ask himself which is the true reading. Some one of Gifford's predecessors had counted upon his fingers, and found that upon made eleven syllables, so out it went.

P. 356. Planting their purls, and curls, set forth like net.] This word is frequently used by Jonson, but I have not been able to arrive at any precise understanding of its meaning. See vol. ii. p. 146 and note.

P. 356. And then leap mad on a neat picardill,

As if a brize were gotten in their tail;

And firk, and jerk, and for the coachman rail.] For picardill, see vol. v. p. 52, and vol. vii. p. 217. It is always a word of great interest. A brize is a gadfly. Cotgrave has "Tahon, a Brizze, Brimsee, Gadbee, Dunflie, Oxeflie." For firk, see vol. iv. P. 75, p. 99. I would rather not say what I believe to be the meaning of rail.

P. 357. For man so spend his money on.] The folio reads, "to spend his money on."

P. 357. For less security. O heavens! for these.] The word

heavens is an insertion of Gifford's. dead blank there,

The folio leaves the space a

for these."

"For less security. O

Mr. Dyce mentions in a note to Middleton's Works, vol. ii. p. 122, that he possesses several pieces by Marston, in which objection. able words are thus left out, the printer being afraid to insert them. There will soon be another instance, post, p. 433.

P. 358. Well, let it go. Yet this is better, then

To lose the forms and dignities of men.] In the first line the last word merely represents the old way of spelling than, to which no doubt Gifford ought to have changed it, and have converted men into man, in the next line, if he so pleased it.

P. 365. An Elegy.] Mr. Tennyson would, I am sure, be proud to acknowledge that he was well acquainted with this noble Elegy before he commenced his In Memoriam.

P. 376. To the lady Mary Wroth.] The word exscribe in the third line is drawn direct from the Latin exscribo. Let us be thankful that it did not take root in our language.

P. 379. Still may syllabes jar with time.] Gifford's note here is very amusing. See, for instance, the bottom line of vol. v. p. 278, and the examples might be multiplied to any extent.

P. 400. Had I wrote treason here, or heresy.] The folio reads there for here, and I think rightly.

P. 400. Had I compiled from Amadis de Gaul.] Southey calls attention to this renewed expression of Jonson's contempt for

romances.

P. 401. Condemn'd me to the ovens with the pies.] This seems prophetic of the doings of Mr. Warburton and his cookmaid in the next century.

P. 402. All the mad Rolands, and sweet Olivers.] Why was this epithet of sweet always applied to Olivers? Young Knowell even uses it to Oliver Cob, the tankard bearer.

P. 409. Old Esop Gundomar.] My friend Don Pascual de Gayangos informs me that some few years ago he had an opportunity of examining the library of Count Gondomar. There were several English books, and among them a well-preserved copy of the First Folio of Shakspeare, full of MS. corrections in a contemporary English hand. In some instances, passages of many lines were scored out, and others substituted. This library has since been scattered to the winds, and this unique First Folio in all probability sold for waste paper.

P. 410. Nor marks of wealth so from a nation fled.] The folio has, "from our nation fled." The unwarranted change is meaningless.

P. 410. What a strong fort old Pimlico had been!

How it held out! how, last, 'twas taken in.] The "taking in" of Pimlico has been already proposed in The Devil is an Ass, vol. v. p. 82. The "powder corns shot at the Artillery Yard" are celebrated in The Alchemist, vol. iv. p. 13; and the couplet about training" the youth of London in the military truth," is also to be found in vol. v. p. 75.

P. 415. Like Solon's self, explat'st the knotty laws.] Gifford says that the word explation is in Coles, but Nares sought for it there in vain. The adjective explete is in the Manipulus Vocabulorum of Peter Levins, a curious old Rhyming Dictionary of 1570, which has been reprinted for the Camden Society, and most carefully edited by Mr. H. B. Whestley.

P. 419. Dedication of the King's new cellar to Bacchus.] This is the same building of which Jonson speaks so contemptuously as cave for wine" in his Expostulation with Inigo Jones, ante,

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p. 114.

P. 420. And Charles brings home the lady.] Charles embarked February 14, 1623, Valentine's day.

P. 420. On the Court Pucelle.] This word Pucelle was more commonly used in Jonson's day than ours, when it seems to be confined to Joan of Arc, and to fortresses that have never been captured. The French (see Cotgrave) had also the verb puceler, to deflower, which I don't find in modern dictionaries, but Bacon used it in writing to Queen Elizabeth (Spedding, Letters, ii. 165), "the best of your possessions useth to be pucelled and deflowered." Richard Brome also made another verb out of it, see ante, p. 324,

note.

Drummond

This set of verses was a source of trouble to Jonson. reports, in the Conversations, "That piece of the Pucelle of the Court was stolen out of his pocket by a gentleman who drank him drousie, and given Mrs. Boulstraid; which brought him great displeasure. Donne, in his Elegy on the death of this lady, speaks of her as young, beautiful, and witty, and proof against the sins of youth."

P. 421. What though with tribade lust she force a muse.] From the Greek тpißás, "an immodest woman of a most abandoned kind."

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P. 422. To the honoured countess of ] The phrase "widowed wife" leaves little doubt that this is addressed to the Countess of Rutland, the only child of Sir Philip Sidney. See vol. ix. p. 385.

P. 424. On lord Bacon's birth-day.] Although the poet expressly

says,

"This is the sixtieth year

Since Bacon, and thy lord, was born and here,"

he means us to understand that it was written on the Chancellor's fifty-ninth birthday; i.e. on what we should now call the 22nd January, 1620. For some reason this particular anniversary of the birthday was kept with special care, as Camden thought it worthy of note in his Annalium Apparatus, 1620, January 12:Franciscus Baconus, Cancellarius Angliæ, natalem diem LIX. ætatis celebrat."

P. 425. Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.] See the same expressions in Love's Welcome at Bolsover, ante, p. 139.

P. 427. To William Earl of Newcastle.] This affords an opening for another attack upon Horace Walpole, about the importance, historical, literary and artistic, of whose collections people have altered their opinions a good deal since 1816.

"Bold Sir Bevis and his horse Arundel" were celebrated in Every Man in his Humour, vol. i. p. 79.

P. 429. To master Arthur Squib.] I can find nothing regarding Arthur Squib, except that on September 21, 1616, he received a grant of a Tellership in the Exchequer for life; and that on December 27, 1623, the surrender of this Tellership was brought into the Enrolment Office.

P. 430. To master John Burges.] The Mr. Alexander Glover, mentioned in the note, was most probably the same who on April 18, 1616, was appointed "keeper of the game," in Lambeth, and throughout the county of Surrey, for life. He was still in the office in 1620.

P. 432. My woeful cry

To Sir Robert Pie.] Sir Robert Pye was not appointed to the Auditorship of the Exchequer so early as Gifford supposes. Chamberlain writes to Carleton, January 22, 1620, "Lady Bingley gone to Newmarket to solicit against her husband's loss of his place, but she will fail, the place being given to Sir Robert Pye, a creature of Buckingham's." Though a creature of the favourite's, he appears to have been an honest and an out-spoken one, warning him against his personal extravagance, as well as the impolicy

of his public conduct. In 1627 he lost his seat for Westminster, "the feeble cry of his for a Pye! a Pye! being overwhelmed with derisive shouts for a Pudding! a Pudding!" Forster's Life of Eliot, vol. ii. p. 100. According to Clarendon he was holding Leicester

for the king in 1645.

P. 433. As if that part lay for a

most fit.] Here in the folio there is no dash -, but simply a blank space. See ante, P. 357.

P. 440. On the Prince's birth, 1630.] According to the note on this epigram, the moon on this occasion had the singular power of being able to eclipse itself. The king was on his way to St Paul's to return thanks for the birth of his son, when the star made its appearance.

P. 443. With touch of learned thumbs.] The folio has "dainty thumbs," which is surely preferable; and in the last line of the page, instead of "put the ceston on," the folio reads, "got the ceston on," which I also like better.

END OF VOLUME VIII.

CHISWICK PRESS-PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS,

TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY lane.

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