Thou that waft feal'd in thy nativity She calls him hog, as an appellation more contemptuous than boar, as he is elsewhere termed from his enfigns armorial. JOHNSON. In The Mirror for Magiftrates is the following Complaint of Collingbourne, who was cruelly executed for making a rime : "For where I meant the king by name of hog, "I only alluded to his badge the bore ; "These metaphors I us'd with other more, "As cat and rat, the half-names of the reft, "To hide the sense that they so wrongly wreft." That Lovel was once the common name of a dog may be likewife known from a paffage in The Hiftorie of Jacob and Efau, an interlude, 1568: "Then come on at once, take my quiver and my bowe; "Fette lovell my hounde, and my horne to blowe." The rhyme for which Collingbourne suffered, was: "A cat, a rat, and Lovel the dog, "Rule all England under a hog.” STEEVENS. The rhyme of Collingbourne is thus preserved in Heywood's Hiftory of Edward IV. P. II: "The cat, the rat, and Lovell our dog, "Doe rule all England under a hog. "The crooke backt boore the way hath found "To root our roles from our ground, "Both flower and bud will he confound, "Till king of beafts the fwine be crown'd: "And then the dog, the cat, and rat, "Shall in his trough feed and be fat.” The propriety of Dr. Warburton's note, notwithstanding what Dr. Johnson hath fubjoined, is fully confirmed by this fatire : HENLEY. The perfons levelled at by this rhyme were the King, Catesby, Ratcliff, and Lovel, as appears in The Complaint of Colling bourn: 66 Catesbye was one whom I called a cat, The flave of nature,3 and the son of hell! of honour thou detefted GLO. Margaret. Thou rag "Whom I therefore did rightly terme our dog, MALONE. 3 The flave of nature,] The expreffion is ftrong and noble, and alludes to the ancient custom of mafters branding their profligate flaves; by which it is infinuated that his misshapen perfon was the mark that nature had fet upon him to ftigmatize his ill conditions. Shakspeare expreffes the fame thought in The Comedy of Errors: "He is deformed, crooked, &c. But as the speaker rises in her refentment, the expresses this contemptuous thought much more openly, and condemns him to a ftill worse ftate of flavery: "Sin, death, and hell, have fet their marks on him." Only, in the first line, her mention of his moral conditions infinuates her reflections on his deformity: and, in the last, her mention of his deformity infinuates her reflections on his moral condition: And thus he has taught her to scold in all the elegance of figure. WARBURTON. Part of Dr. Warburton's note is confirm'd by a line in our author's Rape of Lucrece, from which it appears he was acquainted with the practice of marking flaves: "Worfe than a flavish wipe, or birth-hour's blot." MALONE. 4 Thou rag of honour! &c.] This word of contempt is used again in Timon: "If thou wilt curfe, thy father, that poor rag, Again, in this play: "Thefe over-weening rags of France." STEEVENS. GLO. I cry thee mercy then; for I did think, That thou had'ft call'd me all these bitter names. Q. MAR. Why, fo I did; but look'd for no reply. O, let me make the period to my curse. GLO. 'Tis done by me; and ends in-Margaret. Q. ELIZ. Thus have you breath'd your curfe against yourself. Q. MAR. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune !5 Why ftrew'st thou fugar on that bottled spider,6 flourish of my fortune!] This expreffion is likewise ufed by Maffinger in The Great Duke of Florence: 66 I allow thefe "As flourishings of fortune." STEEVENS. bottled Spider'] A fpider is called bottled, because, like other infects, he has a middle flender, and a belly protuberant. Richard's form and venom, made her liken him to a fpider. JOHNSON. A critick, who ftyles himfelf Robert Heron, Efquire," (though his title to Efquirefhip is but ill fupported by his language, puppy, booby, wife-acre," &c. being the ufual diftinctions he bestows on authors who are not his favourites,) very gravely affures us that " a bottled fpider is evidently a spider kept in a bottle long fafting, and of confequence the more fpiteful and venomous." May one atk if the infuriation of our Efquire originates from a fimilar caufe? Hath he newly efcaped, like Afmodeo, from the phial of fome Highland forcerer, under whofe difcipline he had experienced the provocations of lenten imprisonment?-Mrs. Raffald differts on bottled gooseberries, and George Falkener warns us against bottled children; but it was referved for our Efquire (every one knows who our Efquire is) to discover that spiders, like ale, grow britker from being bottled, and derive additional venom from being ftarved.—It would be the intereft of every writer to wifh for an opponent like the Efquire Heron, did not the general credit of letters oppofe the production of fuch another critick. So far I am from withing the lucubrations of our Efquire to be forgotten, that I counsel thee, gentle reader, (and especially, provided thou art a hypochondriac,) to perufe, and (if thou canft) to re-perufe them, and finally to Whofe deadly web enfnareth thee about? Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself. HAST. Falfe-boding woman, end thy frantick curfe; Left, to thy harm, thou move our patience. Q. MAR. Foul fhame upon you! you have all mov'd mine. RIV. Were you well ferv'd, you would be taught your duty. Q. MAR. To ferve me well, you all should do me duty, Teach me to be your queen, and you my fubjects: O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty. DOR. Difpute not with her, fhe is lunatick. Q. MAR. Peace, mafter marquis, you are malapert: Your fire-new ftamp of honour is fcarce current :7 O, that your young nobility could judge, What 'twere to lose it, and be miserable! thank me as thy purveyor of a laugh.-Every man fhould court a fresh onfet from an adverfary, who, in the act of ridiculing others, exposes himself to yet more obvious ridicule. STEEVENS, A bottled fpider is a large, bloated, gloffy fpider; supposed to contain venom proportionate to its fize. The expreffion occurs again in A& IV : "That bottled spider, that foul hunch-back'd toad." RITSON. 7 Your fire-new Stamp of honour is fcarce current ;] Thomas Grey was created Marquis of Dorfet, A. D. 1476. PERCY. The present scene, as has been already obferved, is in 1477-8. MALONE. They that ftand high, have many blafts to fhake them; And, if they fall, they dafh themselves to pieces. GLO. Good counfel, marry ;-learn it, learn it, marquis. DOR. It touches you, my lord, as much as me. GLO. Ay, and much more: But I was born fo high, Our aiery buildeth in the cedar's top, And dallies with the wind, and scorns the fun. Q. MAR. And turns the fun to fhade;-alas ! alas! Witness my fon, now in the fhade of death;8 Your aiery buildeth in our aiery's neft :9- BUCK. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity. Witness my fon, &c.] Her distress cannot prevent her quibbling. It may be here remarked, that the introduction of Margaret in this place, is againft all hiftorical evidence. She was ranfomed and fent to France foon after Tewksbury fight, and there paffed the remainder of her wretched life. RITSON. Witnefs my fon,] Thus the quarto of 1598, and the folio. The modern editors, after the quarto of 1612, read-fun. MALONE. 9 Your aiery buildeth in our aiery's neft :] An aiery is a hawk's or an eagle's neft. So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608: "It is a fubtle bird that breeds among the aiery of hawks." Again, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630: "His high-built aiery fhall be drown'd in blood." Again, in Maflinger's Maid of Honour : "One aiery, with proportion, ne'er discloses "The eagle and the wren." STEEVENS. |