For close designs and crooked counsels fit, 5 Restless, unfixed in principles and place; And o'er informed its tenement of clay : 10 A daring pilot in extremity; Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high 15 And thin partitions do their bounds divide : Else, why should he, with wealth and honours blest, Punish a body which he could not please; 20 In friendship false, implacable in hate, 8. Pigmy: more correctly spelt pygmy, fr. Gk. muyμaios, one who is the size of a πʊуμý, or fist. 9. O'er-inform: one of the meanings of inform was to animate, to give energy or vitality to. 19. Bankrupt: a merchant who has had his bank (It. banco, E. bench), or place of business, broken up (ruptus). 22. The triple bond: a reference to the Triple Alliance, 1668, between England, Holland, and Sweden, to check the ambition of Louis XIV. 24. By becoming a consenting party to the infamous Treaty of Dover in 1670, when he was a member of the Cabal Administration. 29. Treason, fr. Fr. trahison, (Lat. traditio, fr. tradere, to betray). Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge; With more discerning eyes or hands more clean, Oh had he been content to serve the crown 40 With virtue only proper to the gown; Or had the rankness of the soil been freed 37. Unbribed: bribe is Fr. bribe (de pain), a piece, lump (of bread); from which, by an intelligible transition, it passed to mean some good thing thrown to a person to gain his favour or adhe sion. In Chaucer (Frere's Tale, 1. 69) bribour signifies a thief, a rogue; and even Bacon uses briber in the sense of "a taker of bribes." 43. David, King Charles II. 113. CHARACTER OF ZIMRI (VILLIERS, Duke of Buckingham). Some of their chiefs were princes of the land; In the first rank of these did Zimri stand: Railing and praising were his usual themes, That every man with him was God or Devil. 15 In squandering wealth was his peculiar art; Nothing went unrewarded but desert. Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late; 18. Jest this word is a notable example of the sad process of degradation through which many honourable English terms have passed. A gest was originally He laugh'd himself from court, then sought relief a gestum, or heroic exploit; and a gestour was a narrator of such deeds for the entertainment of great personages,' in which sense the word is used by Chaucer. As the tastes of his employers degenerated, and became frivolous or gross, the function of the gestour also got degraded; and the word jester and jest shared its fate. 19. Court: Lat. cohors, cors, first meant a cattle-yard; in mediæval Latin it took the form curtis, and was applied to the farms and castles built by the Roman settlers; then it came to mean the great enclosure, or royal residence, becoming in Italian corte, in French cour. See Max Müller's Lectures, 2nd series, pp. 252, 253. 114. From 'THE HIND AND THE PANTHER.' FAITH AND REASON. What weight of ancient witness can prevail, If private reason hold the public scale? But, gracious God, how well thou dost provide 5 Thy throne is darkness in th' abyss of light, O teach me to believe thee thus conceal'd, 10 Whom thou hast promis'd never to forsake! My thoughtless youth was wing'd with vain desires, Follow'd false lights; and, when their glimpse was gone, 5. This line is an echo of Milton's"Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear." Search, Fr. chercher, It. cercare, comes from Lat. circare, to traverse every accessible spot in a кíρкоs oг circle (Diez). Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame. Good life be now my task; my doubts are done; 5 10 10 15 20 20 115. ALEXANDER'S FEAST. (From An Ode in Honour of St. Cecilia's Day.') Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain; Fought all his battles o'er again; And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain. His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes; And, while he Heaven and Earth defied, Soft pity to infuse : He sung Darius great and good, By too severe a fate, And welt'ring in his blood; The various turns of Chance below; 3. Rout, It. rotta, Fr. route, is derived from Lat. rupta, and means literally the breaking up of an army. 7. Check'd: the Persian schach, chieftain, king; Fr. échec, is the word check that occurs so frequently in the game of chess (which is supposed to be another form of checks); check-mate means king-dead, and all the other uses of the word are but metaphors from the same game. 16. Bounty (Fr. bonté, Lat. bonitas), in accordance with its derivation, once signified goodness in general, but eventually came to be limited to a particular manifestation of goodness, charity; just as charity itself once was love, Lat. caritas. The mighty master smil'd, to see Softly sweet, in Lydian measures, Take the good the gods provide thee! Gaz'd on the fair Who caus'd his care, And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd, 45 At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd, 38. Skies: sky is properly cloud; then it was used of a mass of clouds, whence it was extended to the entire firmament. So welkin is a mere diminutive of welc, a cloud. See Manual of English Language, p. 64. Dryden's Prose. 116. SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON. To begin, then, with Shakespeare. He was the man, who, of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily when he describes any thing, you more than see it—you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: 1. Luckily, by a sort of inborn happy facility. |