Are like invulnerable :4 if you could hurt, from (Which here, in this most desolate ifle, else falls bears a moffy DOWL, or wool, whereof cloth was spun and made."-Again p. 95: "Trichitis, or the hayrie ftone, by fome Greek authors, and Alumen plumaceum, or downy alum, by the Latinists: this hair or DOWL is spun into thread, and weaved into cloth." I have since discovered the fame word in The Ploughman's Tale, erroneoufly attributed to Chaucer, v. 3202: "And swore by cock 'is herte and blode, "He would tere him every doule." STEEVENS. Cole in his Latin Dictionary, 1679, interprets "young dowle," by lanugo. MALONE. Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow ministers "Their swords by them they laid- "But fethers none do from them fal, nor wound for strok doth bleed, "Nor force of weapons hurt them can." RITSON. Upon your heads,) is nothing, but heart's forrow, And a clear life 5 enfuing.6 He vanishes in thunder: then, to foft musick, enter the Shapes again, and dance with mops and mowes and carry out the table. PRO. [Afide.] Bravely the figure of this harpy haft thou Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring: Of my inftruction haft thou nothing 'bated, In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life,& S -clear life-] Pure, blameless, innocent. JOHNSON. So, in Timon: "-roots you clear heavens." STEEVENS. 6 -is nothing, but heart's forrow, And a clear life enfuing.] The meaning, which is somewhat obfcured by the expreffion, is, -a miferable fate, which nothing but contrition and amendment of life can avert. 7 MALONE. -with mops and mowes-] So, in K. Lear : - and Flibbertigibbet of mopping and mowing." STEEVENS. The old copy, by a manifest error of the prefs, reads with mocks. So afterwards: " Will be here with mop and mowe." MALONE. To mock and to mowe, seem to have had a meaning fomewhat fimilar; i. e. to infult, by making mouths, or wry faces. STEEVENS. 8 - with good life,] With good life may mean, with exact presentation of their feveral characters, with observation Strange of their particular and diftinct parts. So we say, he acted to the life. JOHNSON. Thus in the 6th Canto of the Barons' Wars, by Drayton: "Done for the last with fuch exceeding life, "As art therein with nature seem'd at ftrife." Again, in our author's King Henry VIII. Act I. fc. i: the tract of every thing "Would by a good discourser lose some life, And observation strange, my meaner ministers Their several kinds have done:9 my high charms work, And these, mine enemies, are all knit up In their distractions: they now are in my power ; [Exit PROSPERO from above. GON. I' the name of fomething holy, fir, why stand you In this strange stare? Good life, however, in Twelfth Night, seems to be used for innocent jollity, as we now say a bon vivant : "Would you (fays the Clown) have a love fong, or a fong of good life?" Sir Toby anfwers, "A love fong, a love fong;"-" Ay, ay, (replies Sir Andrew,) I care not for good life." It is plain, from the character of the last speaker, that he was meant to mistake the sense in which good life is used by the Clown. It may, therefore, in the present instance, mean, honest alacrity, or cheerfulness. Life seems to be usedin the chorus to the fifth act of K. Henry V. with fome meaning like that wanted to explain the approbation of Profpero: "Which cannot in their huge and proper life The fame phrafe occurs yet more appofitely in Chapman's tranflation of Homer's Hymn to Apollo : "And these are acted with fuch exquisite life, To do any thing with good life, is still a provincial expreffion in the West of England, and fignifies, to do it with the full bent and energy of mind :-" And observation Strange," is with fuch minute attention to the orders given, as to excite admiration. HENLEY. Their feveral kinds have done :] i. e. have difcharged the several functions allotted to their different natures. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act V. fc. ii. the Clown fays-" You must think this, look you, that the worm will do his kind." STEEVENS, ALON. O, it is monftrous! monstrous! Methought, the billows spoke, and told me of it; The winds did fing it to me; and the thunder, That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd The name of Profper; it did bass my trespass. Therefore my fon i' the ooze is bedded; and I'll feek him deeper than e'er plummet founded, And with him there lie mudded.2 I [Exit. SEB. But one fiend at a time, I'll fight their legions o'er. I'll be thy second. [Exeunt SEB. and ANT. GON. All three of them are defperate; their great guilt, Like poison given 3 to work a great time after, -bass my trespass.] The deep pipe told it me in a rough JOHNSON. bass found. So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. II. с 12: the rolling fea refounding foft, " In his big base them fitly answered." STEEVENS. Again, in Davis's Microcosmos, 1605, p. 32: "He seemed as ravisht with an heavenly noise." REED. 2 And with him there lie mudded. But one fiend] As these hemistichs, taken together, exceed the proportion of a verse, I cannot help regarding the words -with him, and but, as playhouse interpolations. The Tempest was evidently one of the last works of Shakspeare; and it is therefore natural to suppose the metre of it must have been exact and regular. Dr. Farmer concurs with me in this supposition. STEEVENS. 3 Like poison given, &c.] The natives of Africa have been supposed to be poffefsed of the secret how to temper poisons with such art as not to operate till several years after they were administered. Their drugs were then as certain in their effect, as fubtle in their preparation. So, in the celebrated libel called Now 'gins to bite the spirits :- I do befeech you That are of fuppler joints, follow them swiftly, And hinder them from what this ecstacy 4 May now provoke them to. ADR. Follow, I pray you. [Exeunt. ACT IV. SCENE I. Before Profpero's Cell. Enter PROSPERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA. PRO. If I have too austerely punish'd you, Your compenfation makes amends; for I Have given you here a thread of mine own life,5 Leicester's Commonwealth: "I heard him once myselfe in publique act at Oxford, and that in presence of my lord of Leicester, maintain that poyfon might be so tempered and given, as it should not appear presently, and yet should kill the party afterwards at what time should be appointed." STEEVENS. 4 -this ecstacy-] Ecstacy meant not anciently, as at prefent, rapturous pleasure, but alienation of mind. So, in Hamlet, A& III. sc. iv: "Nor sense to ecstacy was e'er so thrall'd-." Mr. Locke has not inelegantly styled it dreaming with our eyes open. STEEVENS. - a thread of mine own life,] The old copy readsthird. The word thread was formerly so spelt, as appears from the following paffage : Long maist thou live, and when the fisters shall decree "To cut in twaine the twisted third of life, "Then let him die," &c. See comedy of Mucedorus, 1619, fignat. C 3. HAWKINS. "A third of mine own life" is a fibre or a part of my own |