Bentley's Miscellany, Volume II

13

Singularly enough, when her body was discovered near the Ponte Rotto, she was untouched by the fish, as though they even ventured not to deface her celestial purity. She looked like a marble form that slept.

14

Faust.

15

We cannot explain this last passage; but it is so beautiful, that the reader will pardon the omission of sense, which the author certainly could have put in if he liked.

16

I know this is an anachronism; but I only mean that he was performing one of the popular melodies of the time. – G.G.

17

Two hills in the county of Wicklow, so called from their conical shape.

18

The residence of the late Mrs. Henry Tighe, the charming authoress of "Psyche."

19

This close imprisonment, it must be observed, was not the unauthorised act of a subordinate, but the result of an express order from the king: and his majesty was equally rigorous in enforcing as in issuing this order; for Winwood tells us that "Sir Robert Killigrew was committed to the Fleet from the council-table for having some little speech with Sir Thomas Overbury, who called to him as he passed by his window, as he came from visiting Sir Walter Raleigh."

20

The national, and still favourite game of golf.

21

The king afterwards stripped Raleigh of his estate for the purpose of bestowing it upon his favourite, Carr. "When the Lady Raleigh and her children on their knees implored the king's compassion, they could get no other answer from him but that he 'mun ha the land,' he 'mun ha it for Carr!' But let it be remembered, too, that Prince Henry, who had all the amiable qualities his father wanted, never left soliciting him till he had obtained the manor of Sherborne, with an intention to restore it to Raleigh, its just owner; though by his untimely death this good intention did not take effect." —Life of Raleigh.

22

Act iv. sc. 2. Athens. – Quince's House. – Enter Quince, Flute, Snout, and Starveling.

"Qui. Have you sent to Bottom's house yet, &c.?

Flu. He hath simply the best wit of any man in Athens.

Qui. Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.

Flu. You must say paragon; a paramour is, God bless us! a thing of naught."

I propose that the second admirer's speech be given to Snout, who else has not anything to say, and is introduced on the stage to no purpose. The few words he says elsewhere in the play are all ridiculous; and the mistake of "paramour" for "paragon" is more appropriate to him than to Quince, who corrects the cacology of Bottom himself. [Act iii. sc. 1.

"Pyr. Thisby, the flower of odious savours sweet.

Qui. Odours – odours."

["I'll get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream," says Bottom,]

is of too much importance in the company to be rebuked by so inferior a personage as Flute. In the original draft of their play Snout was to perform Pyramus's father, and Quince, Thisbe's father, but those parts are omitted; Snout is the representative of Wall, and Quince has no part assigned him. Perhaps this was intentional, as another proof of bungling.

23

In comparing the characters of Sly and Bottom, we must be struck with the remarkable profusion of picturesque and classical allusions with which both these buffoons are surrounded. I have quoted some of the passages from Midsummer Night's Dream above. The Induction to the Taming of the Shrew is equally rich. There, too, we have the sylvan scenery and the cheerful sport of the huntsman, and there we also have references to Apollo and Semiramis; to Cytherea all in sedges hid; to Io as she was a maid; to Daphne roaming through a thorny wood. The coincidence is not casual. Shakspeare desired to elevate the scenes in which such grovelling characters played the principal part by all the artificial graces of poetry, and to prevent them from degenerating into mere farce. As I am on the subject, I cannot refrain from observing that the remarks of Bishop Hurd on the character of the Lord in the Induction to the Taming of the Shrew are marked by a ridiculous impertinence, and an ignorance of criticism truly astonishing. They are made to swell, however, the strange farrago of notes gathered by the variorum editors. The next editor may safely spare them.

I have not troubled my readers with verbal criticism in this paper, but I shall here venture on one conjectural emendation. Hermia, chiding Demetrius, says, Act iii. sc. 2,

"If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
Being o'er shoes in blood, wade in the deep,
And kill me too,"

24

The usual spelling of this word is "huckaback;" but I suppose Mr. Kelly's excuse would be "licet facere verba."

25

Dudheen, short pipe.

26

Dartluker, the Irish name for a peculiar kind of leech that preys upon a small fish called pinkeen.

27

Dhuc-a-Dhurrish, the drink at the door.

28

The present King of the French.

29

The business of a porter in Paris is to open the gates of the house to comers and goers after dusk, by means of a cord, which is fixed in the lodge.

30

Germany is very rich in popular traditions. The nursery-tales collected by the brothers Grimm are known in this country by two translations. The present tale is written in the very words of an inhabitant of Steinbach, situate in Saxe-Meiningen, at one mile's distance from the watering-place of Liebenstein, and containing two hundred and seventy houses, with one thousand three hundred and thirty inhabitants, amongst whom are a hundred and sixty cutlers, and eighty lock-smiths. The inhabitants participate in the principal fancies of those regions, – singing-birds, flowers, song, and music. The music bands of Steinbach are some of the best of Germany, and are the delight of its principal fairs. In our translation we have kept as close as possible to the words of the man who related it.

31

Literally true.