MOTH. Since, Jupiter, our fon is good, Take off his miferies. SICI. Peep through thy marble mansion; help! To the fhining synod of the reft, 2 BRO. Help, Jupiter; or we appeal, JUPITER defcends in Thunder and Lightning, fitting upon an Eagle: he throws a Thunder-bolt. The Ghofis fall on their Knees. JUP. No more, you petty spirits of region low, No care of yours it is; you know, 'tis ours. 8 His comforts thrive, his trials well are spent. Jupiter defcends-] It appears from Acolaftus, a comedy by T. Palgrave, chaplain to King Henry VIII. bl. 1. 1540, that the defcent of deities was common to our stage in its earliest state: "Of whyche the lyke thyng is ufed to be fhewed now a days in ftage-plaies, when fome God or fome Saynt is made to appere forth of a cloude, and fuccoureth the parties which feemed to be towardes fome great danger, through the Soudan's crueltie." The author, for fear this defcription fhould not be fuppofed to extend itself to our theatres, adds in a marginal note, "the lyke maner used nowe at our days in ftage playes." STEEVENS. The more delay'd, delighted.] That is, the more delightful Our Jovial ftar reign'd at his birth, and in And happier much by his affliction made. [Afcends. SICI. He came in thunder; his celeftial breath Was fulphurous to smell: the holy eagle for being delayed.-It is fcarcely neceffary to obferve, in the eighteenth volume, that Shakspeare ufes indifcriminately the active and paffive participles. M. MASON. Delighted is here either used for delighted in, or for delighting. So, in Othello : "If virtue no delighted beauty lack." MALONE. Though it be hardly worth while to waste a conjecture on the wretched ftuff before us, perhaps the author of it, instead of delighted wrote dilated, i. e, expanded, rendered more copious. This participle occurs in King Henry V. and the verb in Othello. STEEVENS. my palace crystalline.] Milton has tranfplanted this idea into his verfes In Obitum Prafulis Elienfis : "Ventum eft Olympi & regiam chrystallinam." I STEEVENS He came in thunder; his celeftial breath Was fulphurous to Smell:] A paffage like this one may fuppofe to have been ridiculed by Ben Jonfon, when in Every Man in his Humour he puts the following ftrain of poetry into the mouth of Juftice Clement : - teftify, "How Saturn fitting in an ebon cloud, "Difrob'd his podex white as ivory, "And through the welkin thunder'd all aloud If, however, the dates of Jonfon's play and Chapman's tranflation of the eleventh Book of Homer's Iliad, are at all reconcileable, one might be tempted to regard the paffage laft quoted as a ridicule on the following: Stoop'd, as to foot us :3 his afcenfion is More fweet than our bless'd fields: his royal bird Prunes the immortal wing, and cloys his beak,5 As when his god is pleas'd. 3 ALL. Thanks, Jupiter! SICI. The marble pavement closes," he is enter'd bert: on a fable cloud (To bring them furious to the field) fat thundring out aloud." Fol. edit. p. 143. STEEVENS. to foot us:] i, e. to grasp us in his pounces. So, Her "And till they foot and clutch their prey." STEEVENS. 4 Prunes the immortal wing,] A bird is faid to prune himself when he clears his feathers from fuperfluities. So, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song I : "Some fitting on the beach, to prune their painted breafts." See Vol. VII. p. 115, n. 7; and Vol. XI. p. 189, n. 2. A cley is the fame with a claw in old language. FARMER. So in Gower, De Confeffione Amantis, Lib. IV. fol. 69: "And as a catte would ete fishes "Without wetyng of his clees." Again, in Ben Jonfon's Underwoods: from the feize "Of vulture death and those relentless cleys." Barrett, in his Alvearie, 1580, fpeaks" of a disease in cattell betwixt the clees of their feete." "And in The Book of Hawking, &c. bl. 1. no date, under the article Pounces, it is faid, "The cleis within the fote ye fhall call aright her pounces." To claw their beaks, is an accustomed action with hawks and eagles. STEEVENS. The marble pavement clofes,] So, in T. Heywood's Troia Britannica, Cant. xii. ft. 77, 1609: "A general fhout is given, "And ftrikes against the marble floors of heaven." HOLT WHITE, His radiant roof:-Away! and, to be bleft, [Ghofts vanish. POST. [Waking.] Sleep, thou haft been a grandfire, and begot A father to me: and thou haft created A mother, and two brothers: But (O fcorn!) That have this golden chance, and know not why. one! Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment [Reads.] When as a lion's whelp fhall, to himself known, without feeking find, and be embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a fiately cedar fhall be lopped branches, which, being dead many years, fhall after revive, be jointed to the old flock, and freshly grow; then Shall Pofthumus end his miferies, Britain be fortunate, and flourifh in peace and plenty. "Tis ftill a dream; or elfe fuch ftuff as madmen Tongue, and brain not: 7 either both, or nothing: Or fenfelefs fpeaking, or a speaking fuch 7 Tongue, and brain not:] To perfect the line we may read: Do tongue, and brain not :-. STEEVENS, As fenfe cannot untie.8 Be what it is, Re-enter Gaolers. GAOL. Come, fir, are you ready for death? POST. Over-roafted rather: ready long ago. GAOL. Hanging is the word, fir; if you be ready for that, you are well cooked. POST. So, if I prove a good repaft to the spectators, the dish pays the fhot. GAOL. A heavy reckoning for you, fir: But the comfort is, you fhall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern bills; which are often the fadnefs of parting, as the procuring of mirth: you come in faint for want of meat, depart reeling with too much drink; forry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are paid too much; purse and 'Tis ftill a dream; or elfe fuch stuff as madmen As fenfe cannot untie.] The meaning, which is too thin to be easily caught, I take to be this: This is a dream or madness, or both, or nothing,-but whether it be a speech without confcioufnefs, as in a dream, or a speech unintelligible, as in madness, be it as it is, it is like my courfe of life. We might perhaps read : Whether both, or nothing,-. JOHNSON. forry that you have paid too much, and forry that you are paid too much;] i. e. forry that you have paid too much out of your pocket, and forry that you are paid, or fubdued, too much by the liquor. So, Falstaff: " feven of the eleven I paid." Again, in the fifth fcene of the fourth A&t of The Merry Wives of Windfor. STEEVENS. The word has already occurred in this fenfe, in a former scene: |