B. i. c. i. f. xliii.

A fit false dream that can delude the fleepers' fent.

Mr. Upton proposes to read fleepers SHENT, i. e. fleepers ill-treated or abused. But I rather think, that we should preferve the common reading, SENT, which is the proper and original spelling of scent. Sent, fays Skinner, which we falfely write fcent, is derived a fentiendo*. Thus the meaning of this verse is, "A falfe dream that could deceive or impose upon "the fleeper's perception." So that fent, if we confider its radix, fentio, is here plainly made to fignify perception in general. Scent is often thus fpelt in our

Scent is often thus written by Milton, in the genuine editions; and, as Dr. Newton obferves, with great propriety.

The season prime for sweetest SENTS and airs †.

* Thus E. K. in the EPISTLE prefixed to our author's Paftorals. "So Marot, Sanazzari, and also diverfe other excellent both italian and "french poets, whofe footing this author every where followeth : yet "fo as few, but they be well SENTED, can follow him."

† Paradife Loft, 9. 200.

The

The SENT

Of that alluring fruit *.

Such a SENT I drew

Of carnage +.

With SENT of living carcaffes .

I confess that SENT is fomewhat harsh in this sense: but what will not rhyme oblige the poet to say?

B. i. c. ii. f. xix.

And at his haughtie helmet making mark,
So hugely ftrooke, that it the fteele did rive,
And rent his head; he tumbling downe ALIVE,
With bloody mouth his mother earth did kiss,
Greeting his grave; his grudging ghost did strive
With the fraile flesh; at last it flitted is,

Whither the foules, &c.

Mr. Upton would alter alive, in the third verse, to BILIVE, i. e. immediately: for, fays he, did he tumble down alive after his head was cleft afunder§? Without entering into an anatomical difquifition concern

Par. Loft. 9. 587. + Ibid. 10. 267.

Ibid. 10. 277.

§ Such a question reminds one of Burmannus's note on the GEMITU

of the dying Turnus, in the laft verfe of the Æneid. "Illuftrat bunc GEMITUM R. Titius; et de illo fone, et RAUCO MURMURE quod

r

<< ex occlufa vocali arteria editur, explicat.”

VOL. II.

L

ing

ing the poffibility of living after fuch a blow; we may remark, that the poet himself intimates to us, that he fell down alive, and did not die till after his fall, in these lines,

His grudging ghoft did ftriue

With the fraile flesh; at last it flitted is.

The fame commentator would enforce and confirm the juftness of this correction, by remarking, that the poet, in these verses, copied from Virgil,

Procubuit MORIENS, et HUMUM femel ore MOMORDIT.

Where the word moriens doth not imply, that the man who fell down, was dead. I muft confefs that alive is fuperfluous; but Spenfer has run into many other superfluities, on account of his repetition of the fame rhyme. Mr. Upton proposes likewife to write Earth [his mother Earth] with an initial capital, fuppofing it a PERSON; however, we had, perhaps, better suppose it a THING: for if we understand it to be a PERSON, what an abfurd mixture arifes ?

GRAVE cannot be referred to Earth as a PERSON, but very properly to Earth as a THING. However, it must

be

be confeffed, that this is fuch an abfurd mixture as Spenfer was very likely to have fallen into; and we have numberless inftances of this fault, in his account of the rivers which attended the marriage of Thames and Medway, 4. II. where god and river, that is, person and thing, are often indifcriminately put, the one for the other.

Horace in one line, affords a concise and appofite exemplification of the fault here imputed to Spenfer.

Sic tauriformis VOLVITUR Aufidus.

Ovid in the speech of the Earth, forgets the perfonification, and makes her talk of being PLOUGHED, RAKED, and harrowed.

Adunci vulnera aratri,

Raftrorumque fero, totoque exerceor anno*.

B. xxiii. c. iv. f. i.

And a DRY DROPSIE through his flesh did flow.

How can a Dropfy flow, fays Mr. Upton, if it be dry? He propofes to remove this contradiction by reading dire Dropfy, the dirus Hpdrops of Horace. But it is plain, that dry Dropfie is the species of the Dropfy

*Metam. 2. ver. 286.

fo called, the dry Dropfy or Tympanites; which Spenfer has inaccurately confounded with the other fpecies of the Dropfy, and which may not improperly be said to flow through the flesh; not confidering the inconsistency of making a dry thing flow. As to Mr. Upton's correction dire, I cannot perceive how DIRE could be easily mistaken by the compofitors for DRY. Mr. Upton might, with equal propriety, have objected to the following words, DRY Drops.

And with DRY DROPS congealed in her eye.

2. 1. 49.

By the way, it will be difficult alfo to determine what Spenfer means by congealed, which occurs again in the fame sense, and on the fame occafion,

In whofe faire eye

The crystal humour ftood congealed round. 3. 5. 29.

But upon fuppofition that the tears were actually frozen in her eye, we should think dry a very oddepithet for ice.

To return: By DRY Dropfie, may not the poet alfo mean, a Dropfie, which is the CAUSE of thirst?

B. i. c. iv. f. xlii.

Him little answer'd th' angry elfin knight.

Mr.