said of this book, it was probably one of Shakspeare's authorities on the occasion. Sc. 2. p. 106. GON. Who would believe that there were mountaineers, Dewlapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at them Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men, Whose heads stood in their breasts ? The "dewlapp'd mountaineers" are shown to have been borrowed from Maundeville's travels, and the same author doubtless supplied the other monsters. In the edition printed by Thomas Este, without date, is the following passage: In another ile dwell men that have no heads, and their eyes are in their shoulders, and their mouth is on their breast." A cut however which occurs in this place is more to the purpose, and might have saved our poet the trouble of consulting the text, for it represents a compleat head with eyes, nose, and mouth, placed on the breast and stomach. ACT IV. Scene 1. Page 122. CER. Hail many-coloured messenger, that ne'er Who with thy saffron wings upon my flowers And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown An elegant expansion of these lines in Phaer's Virgil. Æn. end of book 4. "Dame rainbow down therefore with safron wings of dropping showres. Whose face a thousand sundry hewes against the sunne devoures, From heaven descending came ARI. Sc. 1. p. 131. so I charm'd their ears, That calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through Dr. Johnson has introduced a passage from Drayton's Nymphidia, as resembling the above description. It is still more like an incident in the well known story of the friar and the boy. "Jacke toke his pype and began to blowe Then the frere, as I trowe, Began to daunce soone; The breres scratched hym in the face And in many another place That the blode brast out, He daunced among thornes thycke In many places they dyde hym prycke, &c." Sc. 1. p. 136. CAL. And all be turn'd to barnacles, or apes. Mr. Collins's note, it is presumed, will not be thought worth retaining in any future edition. His account of the barnacle is extremely confused and imperfect. He makes Gerarde responsible for an opinion not his own; he substitutes the name of Holinshed for that of Harrison, whose statement is not so ridiculous as Mr. Collins would make it, and who might certainly have seen the feathers of the barnacles hanging out of the shells, as the fish barnacle or Lepas anatifera is undoubtedly furnished with a feathered beard. The real absurdity was the credulity of Gerarde and Harrison in supposing that the barnacle goose was really produced from the shell of the fish. Dr. Bullein not only believed this himself, but bestows the epithets, ignorant and incredulous on those who did not; and in the same breath he maintains that christal is nothing more than ice. See his Bulwarke of defence, &c. 1562. Folio. fo. 12. Caliban's barnacle is the clakis or treegoose. Every kind of information on the subject may be found in the Physica curiosa of Gaspar Schot the Jesuit, who with great industry has collected from a multitude of authors whatever they had written concerning it. See lib. ix. c. 22. The works of Pennant and Bewick will supply every deficiency with respect to rational knowledge. ACT V. Scene 1. Page 140. PRO. Ye elves of hills The different species of the fairy tribe are called in the Northern languages elfen, elfen, and alpen, words of remote and uncertain etymology. The Greek anos, felix, is not so plausible an original as the Teutonic helfen, juvare; because many of these supernatural beings were supposed to be of a mischievous nature, but all of them might very properly be invoked to assist mankind. Some of the northern nations regarded them as the souls of men who in this world had given themselves up to corporeal pleasures, and trespasses against human laws. It was conceived therefore that they were doomed to wander for a certain time about the earth and to be bound in a kind of servitude to mortals. One of their occupations was that of protecting horses in the stable. See Olaus Magnus de gentibus septentrionalibus, lib. iii. cap. xi. It is probable that our fairy system is originally derived from the Fates, Fauns, Nymphs, Dryads, Deæ matres, &c. of the ancients, in like manner as other Pagan superstitions were corruptedly retained after the promulgation of Christianity. The general stock might have been augmented and improved by means of the crusades and other causes of intercourse with the nations of the East. PRO. Sc. 1. p. 141. you demy-puppets, that Green sour, if the genuine reading, should be given, as in the first folio, without a hyphen; |