Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin, Whose bear outbragged the web it seemed to wear; “His qualities were beauteous as his form, When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be. Did livery falseness in a pride of truth. "Well could he ride, and often men would say That horse his mettle from his rider takes: Proud of subjection, noble by the sway, What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes! And controversy hence a question takes, "But quickly on this side the verdict went; 1 Visage is the inverted nominative case to showed. 2 More. So the original: in all the modern editions we have most. 3 Case, outward show. 4 Can is the original reading; but Malone changed it to came, and he justifies the change by a passage in Macbeth, Act 1. Sc. "So on the tip of his subduing tongue "That he did in the general bosom reign "Many there were that did his picture get, To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind; Like fools that in the imagination set The goodly objects which abroad they find Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assigned; "So many have, that never touched his hand, Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart. III., where he supposes the same mistake occurred. In that passage we did not receive the proposed correction; nor do we think it necessary to receive it here. Can is constantly used by the old writers, especially by Spenser, in the sense of began; and that sense, began for additions, is as intelligible as came for additions. For is used in the sense of as. 1 There is a similar sarcastic thought in Timon, where the mis. anthrope, addressing himself to the gold he had found, says,— "Thou 'It go, strong thief, When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand." My wiful self, that did in freedom stand, “Yet did I not, as some my equals did, Demand of him, nor being desired yielded; Finding myself in honor so forbid, With safest distance I mine honor shielded: "But ah! who ever shunned by precedent "Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood, For further I could say, This man's untrue, And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling; Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew, Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling; Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling; Thought' characters and words, merely but art, "And long upon these terms I held my city, That's to you sworn, to none was ever said; "All my offences that abroad you see 2 Are errors of the blood, none of the mind; They sought their shame that so their shame did find "Among the many that mine eyes have seen, Not one whose flame my heart so much as warned, my affection put to the smallest teen,3 Or Or any of my leisures ever charmed: Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harmed, 1 Malone and he is followed in all modern editions - puts a comma after thought, and says, "It is here, I believe, a substantive." Surely thought is a verb. We have a regular sequence of verbs heard - saw - knew thought. How can thought be art? the art is in the expression of the thoughts by "characters and words." He who said "words were given us to conceal our thoughts" is a better commentator upon the passage than Malone. 2 Acture is explained as synonymous with action. 3 Teen, grief. VOL. VIII. 29 "Look here what tributes wounded fancies sent me, In bloodless white and the encrimsoned mood. Encamped in hearts, but fighting outwardly. "And lo! behold these talents' of their hair, "The diamond, why 't was beautiful and hard, "Lo! all these trophies of affections hot, Talents is here used in the sense of something precious. 3 Invised, invisible |