B. v. c. xi. f. v. The whilst at him fo dreadfully did drive That feem'd a marble rocke afunder could have rive. Spenfer, although guilty in too many places of the elleipfis, undoubtedly wrote, The The whilst at him fo dreadfully he did drive. y in dreadfully being flurred, or cut off. So, Saint George of merry' England the figne of victory. 1. 10. 61. There are many other inftances of the cefura of this letter, in our author, as likewife in Milton. In the following verse e in idle is funk. What idl' errand haft thou earth's manfions to forfake? 6. 6. 25. In this verse, That feem'd a marble rock asunder could have RIVE, there is an elleipfis of IT before feem'd, and of HE before could; and rive fhould have been RIV'D, unlefs he wrote it rive for RIVEN. As thus: That ftony hart could RIVEN have in twaine. 1. 3. 44. B. iv. f. iv. INTROD. To please the eye of them that pafs Which fee not perfect things, but in a glass. St. Paul to the Corinthians *, "For now we see "through a glass; darkly.” B. vi. c. i. f. xiii. And that knight's beard. I have obferved above †, that an old fong is printed in Morte Arthur, on which this fiction was partly founded. But this is a mistake, arifing from my finding that fong written upon an inferted leaf, before the twenty-fourth chapter of the first book of the Bodleian of that romance. This I looked upon as copy a manufcript fupplement of a leaf torn out. It is there entitled, In Imitation of old Rhyme. At the end is this note. "This was found pafted on the in"fide of the cover of a great bible, in the earl of Shrewsbury's ftudy, fome years fince. But it is And alfo from the ambiguous expreffions of the paffage cited pag. 32. V. I. "A minstrell cam forth with a folemn fong, warranted for ftory out of king Arthur's As, the first book, 24. [leg. 23] &c." i. e. the story, not the fong, was in king Arthur's Acts. However, the doctrine I endeavour to prove from that quotation, is equally illuftrated by this sense. "likewife "likewise printed in P. Enderbie's [Enderbury's] Bri"tish and Welch Antiquities; though not well." Is this the hope that to my hoary heare Aladine is brought home dead upon a bier to his father Aldus, who bursts out into these exclamations over his fon's body: In like manner Evander mourns over his fon Pallas; Feretro Pallanta repoftum *. But these exclamations are fomewhat fimilar to those which Æneas, in the fame book, utters over Pallas, Hi noftri reditus, expectatique triumphi, B. vi. c. iii. f. xxviii. With carefull hands Did her sustaine, fofting foot her befide. Softing-foot is a typographical blunder, which, I think runs through all the old editions, for soFT. * Æn. 11. 149. ‡ Ibid. 11. 54. FOOTING; FOOTING; William Ponfonby's edition in quarto, 1596, not excepted. B. vi. c. vi. f. iv. For whylome he had been a doughty knight. That is the hermit had been, &c. Many of the hermits in romance are represented to have been very valorous knights in their youth. Hence it is that Don Quixote is introduced gravely debating with Sancho, whether he shall turn faint or archbishop. B. vi. c. vi. f. xxx. The tempred steele did not into his braine-pan bite. Brain-pan was a common phrase for head. Thus Skelton; With a whim wham, Knit with a trim tram, Like an egypian*. And in the bible of Henry VIII. « And a certain woman caft a piece of milftone on Abimeleck, and "all to brake his BRAYNE-PANNE +." E. Ruming. pag. 125. edit. 1736. VOL. II. + Judges, 9. 53. G g B. vi. So, B. vi. c. vii. f. i. A vile dunghill mind. The dearest to his dunghill mind. So in an Hymne of Love; 3. 10. 15% His dunghill thoughts which do themselves enure And in Tears of the Mufes; Ne ever dare their dunghill thoughts afpire. And Chaucer, Now fie churle (quoth the gentle Tercelet) B. vi. c. vii. f. xlvii. The whiles the carle did fret, And fume in his disdainfull mind the more, These faracen oaths are likewife to be met with in Taffo and Arioffo. Hall perhaps points out our author in the following verses. Nor fright the reader with the pagan vaunt Of mightie Mahound, and great Termagaunt †... * Aff. F. Satires, b. i. f. 1. Bat |
