It irks his heart: he cannot be reveng'd. dare. 5 4 Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish, Puffel means a dirty wench or a drab, from puzza, i. e. malus fætor, says Minsheu. In a tranflation from Stephen's Apology for Herodotus, in 1607, p. 98, we read Some filthy queans, especially our puzzles of Paris, use this other theft." TOLLET. So, Stubbs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1595 : "No nor yet any droye nor puzzel in the country but will carry a nosegay in her hand. " Again, in Ben Jonson's Commendatory Verses, prefixed to the works of Beaumont and Fletcher: "Lady or Pufill, that wears mask or fan. " As for the conceit, miferable as it is, it may be countenanced by that of James I. who looking at the ftatue of Sir Thomas Bodley in the library at Oxford, "Pii Thomæ Godly nomine infignivit, eoque potius nomine quam Bodly, deinceps merito nominandum esse cenfuit." See Rex Platonicus, &c. edit, quint. Oxon. 1635, p. 187. It should be remembered, that in Shakspeare's time the word dauphin was always written dolphin. STEFVENS. There are frequent references to Pucelle's name in this play: " I scar'd the dauphin and his trull." Again: "Scoff on, vile fiend, and shameless courtezan!" MALONE. 5 And then we'll try what these daftard Frenchmen dare.) Perhaps the conjunaion - and, for the fake of metre, should be omitted at the beginning of this line, which, in my opinion, however, originally ran thus: Then try we what these dastard Frenchmen dare. STEEVENS. SCENE V. The fame. Before one of the gates. Alarum. Skirmishings. TALBOT pursueth the Dauphin, and driveth him in: then enter JOAN LA PUCELLE, driving Englishmen before her. Then enter TALBOT. TAL. Where is my strength, my valour, and my force? Our English troops retire, I cannot stay them; A woman, clad in armour, chaseth them. Enter LA PUCELLE. Here, here she comes: - I'll have a bout with thee; thee. Devil, or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee: Puc. Talbot, farewell; thy hour is not yet come: men; * Blood will I draw on thee, The superftition of those times taught that he that could draw the witch's blood, was free from her power. JOHNSON. ber 6 hunger-Aarved - ) The same epithet is, I think, used by Shakspeare. The old copy has-hungry-ftarved, Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. 1 Help Salisbury to make his testament: [PUCELLE enters the town, with Soldiers. TAL. My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel; 4 I know not where I am, nor what I do: [A short alarum. Hark, countrymen! either renew the fight, As you fly from your oft-fubdued flaves. [Alarum. Another Skirmish. It will not be: - Retire into your trenches: In spite of us, or aught that we could do. The shame hereof will make me hide my head. 5 by fear, &c.] See Hannibal's stratagem to escape by fixing bundles of lighted twigs on the horns of oxen, recorded in Livy, Lib. XXII. c. xvi. HOLT WHITE. -so timorous-] Old copy - treacherous. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. SCENE VI. The fame. Enter, on the walls, PUCELLE, CHARLES, REIGNIER, Puc. Advance our waving colours on the walls; Rescu'd is Orleans from the English wolves : ' Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform'd her word. CHAR. Divinest creature, bright Astræa's daugh ter, How shall I honour thee for this success? 7 - from the English wolves: &c.] Thus the second folio. The firft omits the word - wolves. STEEVENS. The editor of the second folio, not perceiving that English was ufed as a trifyllable, arbitrarily reads - English wolves; in which he has been followed by all the subsequent editors. So, in the next line but one, he reads - bright Aftraa, not observing that Altræa, by a licentious pronunciation, was used by the author of this play, as if written Afterea. So monstrous is made a trifyllable; -monsterous. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's note, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Vol. IV. p. 191, n. 7. MALONE. Here again I must follow the second folio, to which we are indebted for former and numerous emendations received even by Mr. Malone. Shakspeare has frequently the same image. So, the French in King Henry V. speaking of the English: "They will eat like wolves, and fight like devils." If Pucelle, by this term, does not allude to the hunger or fierceness of the English, she refers to the wolves by which their kingdom was formerly infested. So, in King Henry IV. Part II: As Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants." no example of the proper name ---- Aftras, pronounced as a quadrifyllable is given by Mr. Malone, or has occurred to me, I also think myself authorised to receive - bright, the neceffary epithet fupplied by the second folio. STEEVENS. 1 A Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens,* 8 like Adonis gardens, It may not be impertinent to take notice of a difpute between four critics, of very different orders, upon this very important point of the gardens of Adonis. Milton had faid: " Spot more delicious than those gardens feign'd, " which Dr. Bentley pronounces spurious; for that the Κήποι Αδώνιδος, the gardens of Adonis, fo frequently mentioned by Greek writers, Plato, Plutarch, &c. were nothing but portable earthen pots, with some lettice or fennel growing in them. On his yearly festival every woman carried one of them for Adonis's worship; because Venus had once laid him in a lettice bed. The next day they were thrown away, &c. Το this Dr. Pearce replies, That this account of the gardens of Adonis is right, and yet Milton may be defended for what he says of them: for why (fays he) did the Grecians on Adonis' festival carry these small gardens about in honour of him? It was, because they had a tradition, that, when he was alive, he delighted in gardens, and had a magnificent one: for proof of this we have Pliny's words xix. 4. "Antiquitas nihil priùs mirata est quam Hesperidum hortes, ac regum Adonidis & Alcinoi." One would now think the question well decided: but Mr. Theobald comes, and will needs be Dr. Bentley's fecond. A learned and reverend gentleman (fays he) having attempted to impeach Dr. Bentley of error, for maintaining that there never was exiftent any magnificent or spacious gardens of Adonis, an Opinion in which it has been my fortune to fecond the doctor, I thought myself concerned, in some part, to weigh those authorities alledged by the objector, &c. The reader fees that Mr. Theobald mistakes the very question in dispute between these two truly learned men, which was not whether Adonis' gardens were ever exiftent, but whether there was a tradition of any celebrated gardens cultivated by Adonis. For this would fufficiently justify Milton's mention of them, together with the gardens of Alcinous, confeffed by the poet himself to be fabulous. But hear their own words. There was no such garden (fays Dr. Bentley) ever exiftent, or even feign'd. He adds the latter part, as knowing that that would juftify the poet; and it is on that affertion only that his adversary Dr. Pearce joins issue with him. Why (says he) did they carry the small earthen gardens? It was because they had a tradition, that when alive he delighted in gardens. Mr. Theobald, therefore, mistaking the queftion, it is no wonder that all he says, in his long note at the end of his fourth volume, is nothing to the purpose; it being to shew that Dr. Pearce's quotations from Pliny and others, do not 1 |