Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853

"Whoso spareth the spring (i. e. rod, switch), spilleth his children."—Visions of Piers Plowman, v. 2554., ed. Wright.

Perhaps this is also the meaning in—

"Shall, Antipholus,
Even in the spring of love thy love-springs rot?"

    Com. of Errors, Act III. Sc. 2.
and in "Time's Glory"—

"To dry the old oak's sap and cherish springs."

    Rape of Lucrece.
Spring afterwards came to be used for underwood, &c. Perhaps it answered to the present coppice, which is composed of the springs or shoots of the growth which has been cut down:

"The lofty high wood and the lower spring."

    Drayton's Muses' Elysium, 10.
"The lesser birds that keep the lower spring."

    Id., note.
It was also used as equivalent to grove:

"Unless it were
The nightingale among the thick-leaved spring."

    Fletcher's Faith. Shep., v. 1.
where, however, it may be the coppice.

"This hand Sibylla's golden boughs to guard them,
Through hell and horror, to the Elysian springs."

    Massinger's Bondman, ii. 1.
In the following place Fairfax uses spring to express the "salvatichi soggiorni," i. e. selva of his original:

"But if his courage any champion move
Too try the hazard of this dreadful spring."

    Godf. of Bull., xiii. 31.
and in

"For you alone to happy end must bring
The strong enchantments of the charmed spring."

    Id., xviii. 2.
it answers to selva.

When Milton makes his Eve say—

"While I
In yonder spring of roses intermix'd
With myrtles find what to redress till noon."

    Par. Lost, ix. 217.
he had probably in his mind the cespuglio in the first canto of the Orlando Furioso; for spring had not been used in the sense of thickets, clumps, by any previous English poet. I am of opinion that spring occurs for the last time in our poetry in the following lines of Pope:

"See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabæan springs."

    Messiah, 93.
Johnson renders the last line—

"Cinnameos cumulos, Nabathæi munera veris;"

and this is probably the sense in which the place has generally been understood. But let any one read the preceding quotations, and reflect on what a diligent student Pope was of the works of his predecessors, and perhaps he will think with me.

    Thomas Keightley.

NOTES AND QUERIES ON BACON'S ESSAYS, NO. III

(Vol. vii., pp. 6. 80.)

Essay IX. p. 21. (note a). "They used the word 'præfiscini.'" See e. g., Plaut. Asin., ii. 4. 84. (Weise):

"Præfiscini hoc nunc dixerim: nemo etiam me adcusavit
Merito meo."

(Leonida boasts of his integrity.)

Ditto, p. 22. (note c). "From the Stichus of Plautus," ii. 1. 54.

Ditto, p. 23. "Which has the character of Adrian the Emperor." See Hist. Aug. Script., i. 149., ut supr. (Spartian. Vit. Hadrian. cap. 15.)

Ditto p. 26. "It was well said." By whom?

Essay X. ditto. "A poor saying of Epicurus." Where recorded?

Ditto, p. 27. "It hath been well said, 'That the arch flatterer,'" &c. By whom, and where?

Ditto, ditto. "It hath been well said, 'That it is impossible,'" &c. By whom and where?

Ditto, ditto. "The poet's relation." Ovid. Heroid. xvi. 163.

Essay XI. p. 28. "Cum non sis qui fueris," &c. Whence?

Ditto, p 29. "Illi mors gravis incubat," &c. Seneca, Thyest. 401. (ed. Lemaire), Act II. extrem.

Ditto, p. 31. "That was anciently spoken." By whom?