VOL. X. THIERRY AND THEODORET. Page 127. THEODORET....... Your mind that grants no limit, And all your actions follow, which loose people This passage, as it is pointed, is very obscure; but a parenthesis makes it clear- Your mind that grants no limit, (And all your actions follow) which loose people, &c. Dare term ambitious. Page 128. THEODORET........ And let us all take heed; these most abuse us. The word these refers to greatness and power in the line preceding. Page 129. THEODORET....This is an impudence, To read this passage clearly intelligible, the second and third line should be inclosed in a parenthesis. Page 131. THEODORET.... They do but lay lust on you The sense requires that we should read--- Page 133. BRUNHALT.... The young courser, That unlick'd lump of mine, will win thy mistress. Win is the right reading; and means, Will make you lose her; will separate you from her. The expression is uncommon; but the word is used in the same sense in the 161st page, where Ordelia says to Thierry Strive not to win content from ignorance, Page 135. MARTELL....First, in the restraint, That is, pleasures now lost to her, which she is compelled to relinquish. No amendment is required. Page 140. THIERRY....But I grow glorious Page 143. THIERRY....Since thou dar'st strive Thine means, thy mother. Page 144. THEODORET........ And that there is no son, but tho' he owe I should read, in the first line, altho' he owe, instead of but tho'; for as the word but is repeated in the second line, it is superfluous in the other. a a a Page 150. MARTELL........ Unhonest, unaffected, undone fool. Unaffected here means, insensible of affec Come, my Protaldye, then thou glut me with. The word thou is arbitrarily introduced by Seward, and should be struck out. Ye wretched flames, which play upon my sight, The last Editors say, that they cannot conceive why Thierry's being composed of earth should prevent his being all one piece. This observation shews that they have totally mistaken the meaning of the passage. Thierry complains, that he has lost his natural heat in every part of him, except his eyes, which enable him to behold his miseries; he wishes, therefore, either to be entirely himself again, or to become totally insensible: to be all one piece, though that piece should be cold clay only. Page 163. ORDELIA........ Were but to praise the coolness of their streams. 'Twere but to praise, &c. Page 163. THIERRY... Posterity, &c. Th' earth uninhabited to people heaven. The old and true reading is inhabited, which Seward changes for uninhabited. He ought to have recollected, that inhabited and inhabitable, frequently means, in the old dramatic writings, uninhabited, and uninhabitable; having also in French the same meaning. In compound words, the adverb in generally implies a negative, as inadequate, insensible, &c. So, in Shakespeare's Richard the Second, Norfolk says-- Were I tied to run a foot Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps, And Jonson, in his Catiline, says--- Where the hot sunshine breedeth nought but monsters. Page 164. THIERRY....If honour unto shame, If wealth to want, enlarge the present sense, To the high offering of our mirth. I see no difficulty in this passage; the meaning being clearly this, If the accession of honour to a person condemned, to shame; if the accession of wealth to one in want, enlarge their feelings, my joys are unbounded. He considers himself as relieved, both from a sense of his own inability, or poverty, as he calls it, and a sense of shame also, by Ordelia's temperance. Instead of question means, instead of questioning whether I am happy or 1 not: let it be considered as malice, not to congratulate me on it. Page 165. THIERRY....I, in my want, (And such defective poverty, that to her bed From my first cradle brought no strength but thought) Have met a temperance beyond her's that rock'd me. This passage is clearly defective, and requires some amendment. That which I should propose, is to strike out the parenthesis, which destroys the meaning; and to read as, instead of from, in the second line: it will then run thus-- I, in my want And such defective poverty, that to her bed As my first cradle, brought no strength but thought, Have met a temperance beyond her's that rock'd me. As my first cradle means, as to my first cradle, the particle to referring to cradle, as well as to bed, in the preceding line: with this amendment the passage requires no explanation. That rocked here means, that nursed me. Page 166. BRUNHALT... .... Griefs but concealed are never dangerous. But concealed means, unless when concealed. Plague of the scrivener's running-hand. That is, Plague on the scrivener for leaving out in his hurry the blow. |