At this hour reigning there.

ANT.

I'll believe both;

And what does elfe want credit, come to me,

And I'll be fworn 'tis true: Travellers ne'er did

lie, 3

Though fools at home condemn them.

GON.

If in Naples

I fhould report this now, would they believe me? If I fhould fay, I faw fuch iflanders,

4

(For, certes, these are people of the island,) Who, though they are of nonftrous fhape, yet, note, Their manners are more gentle-kind,

then of Our human generation you shall find Many, nay, almost any.

PRO.

Honeft lord,

Thou haft faid well; for fome of you there prefent, Are worse than devils.

(Afide,

phoenix in the world, fo is there but one tree in Arabia wherein the buildeth. " See alfo Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: " Rafin, a tree in Arabia, whereof there is but one found, and, upon it the phoenix fits. " MALONE.

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

"And I'll be fworn to't: Travellers ne'er did lie-.'

Hanmer reads, as plaufibly

"And I'll be fworn 'tis true. Travellers ne'er lied. '

STEFVENS.

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

5 For, certes, &c.) Certes is an obfolete word, fignifying cer tainly. So, in Othello:

-certes, fays he,

"I have already chofe my officer." STEEVENS.

6 Their manners are more gentle-kind,) The old copy has gentle, kind—. » I read (in conformity to a practice of our author, who delights in fuch compound epithets, of which the first adjective is to be confidered as an adverb) gentle-kind. Thus in K. Richard III. we have childish-foolish, fenfelefs-obftinate, and mortal-faring. STEEVENS.

ALON,

I cannot too much mufe,

Such fhapes, fuch gefture, and fuch found, ex

preffing

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

PRO.

Praise in departing. 8

FRAN. They vanifh'd frangely.

SEB.

No matter, fince They have left their viands behind; for we have ftomachs.

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 bulls, whofe throats had hanging at them

7

too much mufe,) To mufe, in ancient language, is to admire, to wonder.

So, in Macbeth:

"Do not mufe at me, my moft worthy friends."

STEEVENS.

8 Praife in departing. ) i. e. Do not praise your entertainment too foon, left you should have reafon to retra& your commenda

tion.

It is a proverbial faying.

So, in The Two angry Women of Abingdon, 1599:

"And fo fhe doth; but praife your luck at parting.

Again, in Tom Tyler and his Wife, 1561:

"Now praife at thy parting.

Stephen Goffon, in his pamphlet entitled, Playes confuted in five Actions, &c. (no date) acknowledges himself to have been the author of a morality called, Praife at Parting. STEEVENS.

9 that there were mountaineers, &c.) Whoever is curious to know the particulars relative to thefe mountaineers, may confult 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 accuftom'd to fuch excrefcences or tumours.

Quis tumidum guttur miratur in Alpibus? STEEVENS.

Wallets of flefh? or that there were fuch men,
Whose heads flood in their breafts?

we find,

2

which now

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

Whofe heads food in their breafts?) Our author might have had this intelligence likewife from the tranflation of Pliny, B. V. chap. 8. "The Blemmyi, by report, have no heads, but mouth and eies both in their breafts." 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 fhoulders. They are reported to have their eyes in their fhoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breafts. " MALONE.

Each putter-out, &c.) The ancient custom here alluded to was this. In this age of travelling, it was a practice with those who engaged in long and hazardous expeditions, to place out a fum of money on condition of receiving great intereft for it at their return home. So Funtarvolo (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 fome 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 Conftantinople.

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

"I did most politickly disburse my fums

« To have five for one at my return from Venice.

Again, in Amends for Ladies, 1639:

"I would I had put out fomething upon my return;

I had as lieve be at the Bermoothes,

So, in

on five for one means on the terms of five for one. Barnaby Riche's Faults, and nothing but Faults, 1607: "— those whipfters, that having spent the greatest part of their patrimony in prodigality, will give out the reft of their stocke, to be paid two or three for one, upon their return from Rome,,, &c. &c.

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

of five for one,”

STEEVENS.

I believe the words are only transposed, and that the author

wrote:

Each putter-out of one for five."

So, in The Scourge of Folly, by J. Davies of Hereford, printed about the year 1611:

Good warrant of.

ALON.

I will ftand to, and feed,

Although my laft: no matter, fince I feel

4

The beit is paft: - Brother, my lord the duke, Stand too, and do as we.

Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL like a harpy ;' claps his wings upon the table, and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes.

6

ARI. You are three men of fin, whom destiny

Sir Solus ftraight will travel, as they fay,

And gives out one for three, when home comes he.

It appears from Moryfon's ITINERARY, 1617, Part I. p. 198, that this cuftom of giving out money upon these adventures was firft used in court, and among noblemen; and that fome years before his book was published, bankerouts, stage-players, and men of base condition had drawn it into contempt," by undertaking journeys merely for gain upon their return.

4 I will fand to, and feed,

Although my laft: no matter, fince I feel

MALONE.

The best is past;) I cannot but think that this paffage was intended to be in rhyme, and fhould be printed thus:

I will ftand to and feed; although my last,

"No matter, fince I feel the best is paft., M. MASON.

5 Enter Ariel like a harpy; &c.) This circumftance is taken from the third book of the Eneid as tranflated by Phaer, bl. 1. 4to. 1558:

..

-faft to meate we fall.

« But fodenly from down the hills with grifly fall to syght, "The harpies come, and beating wings with great noys out

thei fhright,

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

with that

Both table and provifions vanish'd quite,

"With found of harpies' wings, and talons heard."

STEEVENS

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

(That hath to inftrument this lower world, 7 And what is in't) the never-furfeited' fea

Hath caused to belch up; and on this island Where man doth not inhabit; you'mongft men Being moft unfit to live. I have made you mad; (Seeing ALON. SEB. &c. draw their fwords. And even with fuch like valour, men hang and drown

Their proper felves. You fools! I and my fel

lows

Are minifters of fate; the elements

Of whom your fwords are temper'd, may as well Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs Kill the still-clofing waters, as diminish

One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow-minifters

I may observe that flying, rifing, and defcending fervices were to be found at entertainments given by the Duke of Burgundy, &c. in 1453 and by the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1600, &c. See M. Le Grand D'Auffi's Hiftoire de la vie privée des François, Vol. III. P. 294, &c. Examples therefore of machinery fimilar to that of Shakspeare in the prefent inftance, were to be met with, and perhaps had been adopted on the ftage, as well as at public festivals here in England. See my note on The Merry Wives of Windsor, A& V. fc. v. from whence it appears that a ftriking conceit in an entertainment given by the Vidame of Charters, had been tranfferred to another feaft prepared in England as a compliment to Prince Alafco in 1583. STEEVENS.

7 That hath to inftrument this lower world, &c.) i. e. that makes ufe of this world, and every thing in it, as its inftruments to bring about its ends. STEEVENS.

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

One dowle that's in my plumbe. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. Bailey, in his Didionary, fays, that dowle is a feather, or rather the fingle particles of the down.

Since the first appearance of this edition, my very induftrious and learned correfpondent, Mr. Tollet, of Betley, in Staffordshire, has enabled me to retract a too hafty senfure on Bailey, to whom