4

At this hour reigning there.
ANT.

I'll believe both;
And what does else want credit, come to me,
And l'll be sworn 'tis true : Travellers ne'er did

lie, 3 Though fools at home condemn them. GON.

If in Naples I should report this now, would they believe me? If I should say, I saw such islanders, ( For, certes, s these are people of the island,) Who, though they are of nionstrous shape, yet, note, Their manners are more gentle-kind, 6 then of Our human generation you shall find Many, nay,

almost

any. Pro.

Honest lord, Thou hast said well; for some of you there present, Are worse than devils.

( Afide, phoenix in the so is there but one tree in Arabia wherein she buildeth. ,; See allo Florio's Italian Di&ionary, 1598 : « Rasin, a tree in Arabia, whereof there is but one found, and, upon it the phænix fits. » MALONE.

3. And I'll be sworn 'tis true : Travellers ne'er did lie, ) I suppose this redundant line originally stood thus :

« And I'll be sworn to't: Travellers ne'er did liem." Hanmer reads, as plausibly16 And I'll be sworn 'tis true. Travellers ne'er lied.

STEEVENS. 4 --fuch islanders, ) The old copy has islands. The emendation was made by the editor of the second folio. MALONE.

5. For, certes, &c.) Certes is an obsolete word, signifying cero tainly. So, in Othello :

15 ---Certes, says he, « I have already chose my

officer.. STEEVENS. 6 Their manners are more genile-kind,) The old copy has – « gentle, kind --, - I read (in conforipity to a pra&ice of our author, who delights in such compound epithets, of which the first adje&ive is to be considered as an adverb ) gentle-kind. Thus in K. Richard III. we have childish-foolish, Senfelyfs-obftinate, and more tal-ftaring. STEEVENS.

ALON,

I cannot too much muse, Such shapes, such gesture, and such found, ex

preffing (Although they want the use of tongue,) a kind Of excellent dumb discourse. PRO.

Praise in departing: 8 Fran. They vanish'd strangely. SEB.

No matter, since They have left their viands behind; for we have

stomachs. -Will't please you taste of what is here ? ALON.

Not I. Gon. Faith, fir, you need not fear : When we

were boys, Who would believe that there were mountaineers, Dew-lapp'd like buils, whose throats had hanging

at thein

7 too much muse, ) To muse, in ancient language, is to admire, to wonder. So, in Macbeth : Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends. »

STEEVENS. 8 Praise in departing. ) i. e. Do not praise your entertainment too soon, lest you should have reason to retra& your commenda. tion. It is a proverbial saying. So, in The Two angry Women of Abingdon, 1599 :

“ And so she doth ; but praise your luck at parting. » Again, in Tom Tyler and his wife, 1561 :

« Now praise at thy parting. Stephen Gofion, in his pamphlet entitled, Playes confuled in fire Actions, &c. (no date ) acknowledges himself to have been the au

( thor of a morality called, Praise at Parting. STEEVENS.

that there were mountaineers, &c.) Whoever is curious to know the particulars relative to these morentaineers, may consult Maundeville's Travels, printed in 1503, by Wynken de Worde ; but it is yet a known truth that the inhabitants of the Alps have been long accustom'd to such excrescences or tumours.

Quis tumidum guttur miratur in Alpibus? STEEVENS.

9

Wallets of flesh ? or that there were such men, Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now

we find

Each putter-out on five for one, 'will bring us

Whose heads food in their breasts?) Our author might have had this intelligence likewise from the tranilation of Pliny, B. V. chap. 8.

- The Blenmyi, by report, have no heads, but mouth and eięs both in their breasts. STEEVENS.

Or he might have had it from Hackluyt's Voyages, 1598 : “ On that branch which is called Caora are a nation of people, whose heads appear not above their shoulders. They are reported to have their eyes in their shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts. MALONE.

3 Each putter-out, &c.) The ancient custom here alluded to was this. In this age of travelling, it was a pra&ice with those who engaged in long and hazardous expeditions, to place out a sum of money on condition of receiving great interest for it at their return home. So Tuntarvolo (it is Theobald's quotation ) in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour: “I do intend, this year of jubilee coming on, to travel ; and ( because I will not altogether go upon expence) I am determined to put some five thousand pound, to bę paid me five for one, upon the return of my wife, myself, and my dog, from the Turk's court in Constantinople.

To this instance I may add another from The Ball, a comedy, by Chapman and Shirley, 1639 :

" I did most politickly disburse my sums

To have five for one at my return from Venice. Again, in Amends for Ladies, 1639 :

I would I had put out something upon my return;

I had as lieve be at the Bermoothes, on five for one » means on the terms of five for one. Barnaby Riche's Faults, and nothing but Faults, 1607: 66. those whipsters, that having spent the greatest part of their patrimony in prodigality, will give out the rest of their stocke, to be paid two or three for one, upon their return from Rome, &c. &c.

STEEVENS. Each putter-out on five for one, ) The old copy has :

of five for one,” I believe the words are only transposed, and that the author

So, in

:

wrote:

« Each putter-out of one for five." So, in I'he Scourge of Folly, by J. Davies of Hereford, printed about the year 1611 :

Good warrant of.
ALON.

I will stand to, and feed,
Although my last: no matter, since I feel
The beit is pait: * — Brother, my lord the duke,
Stand too, and do as we.

4

Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel like a harpy ;'

claps his wings upon the table, und, with a quaint
device, the banquet vanishes.
ARI. You are three men of sin, whom destiny

6

1

« Sir Solus straight will travel, as they say,

«. And gives out one for three, when home comes he. It appears from Moryson's ITINERARY, 1617, Part I. p. 198, that “ this custom of giving out money upon these adventures was first used in court, and among noblemen ;

and that some years before his book was published, " bankerouts, stage-players, and men of base condition had diawn it into contempt," by undertak. ing journeys merely for gain upon their return. MALONE. 4 1 will stand to, and feed,

Although my last: no matter, since I feel

The best is paft;) I cannot but think that this passage was intended to be in rhyme, and should be printed thus :

. I will stand to and feed; although my last,

“ No matter, since I feel the best is paft. » M. MASON. 5 Enter Ariel like a harpy; &c.) This circumstance is takea from the third book of the Æneid as translated by Phaer, bl. l. 4to. 1558:

faft to meate we fall. « But fodenly from down the hills with grily fall to syght, « The harpies come, and beating wings with great noys out

thei shright,
« And at our meate they fnach ; and with their clawes," &c.
Milton, Parad. Reg. B. II. has adopted the same imagery:

with that
6 Both table and provisions vanish'd quite,
6 With found of harpies' wings, and talons heard."

STEEVENS and with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes.) Though ! will not undertake to prove that all the culinary pantomimes exhibied in France and Italy were known and imitated in this kingdom,

6

(That hath to instrument this lower world, 7
And what is in't) the never-surfeited sea
Hath caused to belch up; and on this island
Where man doth not inhabit ; you'mongst men
Being most unfit to live. I I have made you mad;

( Seeing Alon. SEB. &c. draw their swords. And even with such like valour, men hang and

drown Their proper felves. You fools ! I and my fel

lows Are ministers of fate; the elements Of whom your swords are terper'd, may as well Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at ftabs Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow-mi

nisters

2

8

I may observe that flying, rising, and descending services were to be found at entertainments given by the Duke of Burgundy, &c. in 1453 and by the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 16oo, &c. See M. Le Grand D'Aussi's Histoire de la vie privée des François, Vol. III. p. 294, &c. Examples therefore of machinery fimilar to that of Shakspeare in the present instance, were to be met with, and perhaps had been adopted on the stage, as well as at public festivals here in England. See my note on The Merry Wives of Windsor, A& V. sc. v. from whence it appears that a striking conceit in an entertainment given by the Vidame of Charters, had been transferred to another feast prepared in England as a compliment to Prince Alasco in 1583. STEEVENS.

? That hath to instrument this lower world, &c.) i. e. that makes use of this world, and every thing in it, as its instruments to bring about its ends. STEEVENS.

8 One dowle that's iš my plume;) The old copy exhibits the passage thus :

so One dowle that's in my plumbe. Corre&ed by Mr. Rowe. Bailey, in his Didionary, says, that dowle is a feather, or rather the single particles of the down.

Since the first appearance of this edition, my very industrious and learned correspondent, Mr. Tollet, of Betley, in Staffordshire, has enabled me to retract a too balty sensure ou Bailey, to whom