Nor under every bank and every tree, As mought the Graces move my mirth to praise, SATIRE II". WHILOME" the Sisters Nine were vestall maides, •Trumpet, and reeds, and socks, and buskins fine, A beautiful imitation of the Prologue to Persius's Satires Heliconidasque pallidamque Pyrenen Illis remitto, quorum imagines lambunt I them bequeath-The Oxford Editor refers this to the Earl of Surrey, Wyat, Sidney, Dyer, &c. Whose statues wand'ring twine &c. Whose statues th' wand'ring twine &c. W. circlen-encircle. 10 They haunt the tyded Thames and salt Medway, Ere since the fame of their late bridall day : Alluding to Spenser's beautiful episode, in the Fairy Queen, B. iv. Canto 11, on the marriage of the Thames and Medway. E. Willows, the types of desertion. W. See the close of Sat. 4. of this Book. 12 forlore-forlorn. 13 In this Satire our author poetically laments that the Nine Muses are no longer Vestal Virgins. W. 14 Whilome-formerly. Of faire Parnassus, that two-headed hill, Was the coole streame, that tooke his endles name, And, ever since, disdaining sacred shame, Done ought that might their heav'nly stock defame And on bay-stocks the wanton myrtle grewes; Each bush, each bank, and ech base apple-squire" From common trulls and loathsom brothelry! SATIRE III. WITH Some pot-fury, ravisht from their wit, They sit and muse on some no-vulgar writ. -fault-blame. 16 Pyrene-Two syllables. E. 17 18 19 -stole-garment. -woxen—become. apple-squire.-A cant term, formerly in use to denote a pimp. "Of her gentleman-usher I became her Apple-Squire, to hold the door, and keep centinel at taverns." Nabbe's Microcosmus, quoted by Mason in his Supplement to Johnson. 20 As frozen dung-hils in a winter's morne, Graced with huf-cap termes" and thundring threats, 22 As it might be the Turkish Tamberlaine. -fore-barren-barren before. See Malone's Shakespeare.-Ed. 1790. pp. 115, 116. E. 23 24 huf-cap termes-blustering, swaggering terms. Soouping-flaunting proudly: alluding, perhaps, to the swooping or descent of a bird of prey on his quarry. 25 -skrub-look mean and filthy: taken, probably, from scrub, a short and dirty fellow. See Reed's Shakespeare, vol. vii. p. 383. 26 There if he can with termes ITALIANATE. Alluding to the prevailing custom of innovating on our native tongue from the Italian. See also, in B. v. Sat. 2. When Mavio's first page of his poesy, Nail'd to a hundred postes for novelty, Layes siege unto the backward buyer's groat. So Marston, in his Satires, 1598 I cannot quote A MOTTE ITALIANATE Or brand my Satires with a SPANISH TERME. E. 27 He ravishes the gazing scaffolders: Those who sat on the Scaffold; a part of the Play-House, which answered to the Upper Gallery. So, again, B. iv. Sat. 2. When a CRAZ'D SCAFFOLD, and a rotten stage, Was all rich Nænius his heritage. See the conformation of an old English Theatre accurately investigated in the Supplement to Shakespeare: I. 9. seq. W. Then, certes, was the famous Corduban", Now, least such frightfull showes of Fortune's fall", 30 With gladsome noyse of that applauding croud. When each base clown his clumbsie fist doth bruise", To curse and ban, and blame his likerous eye, SATIRE IV. 28 Too popular is Tragicke Poesie, Strayning his tip-toes for a farthing fee, The famous Corduban. Seneca. 29 Now, least such frightfull showes of Fortune's fall, &c. &c. But, adds the critical Satirist, that the minds of the astonished audience may not be too powerfully impressed with the terrors of tragic solemnity, a VICE, or Buffoon, is suddenly, and most seasonably introduced. W. See Malone's Shakespeare. Ed. 1790. pp. 115, 116. 30 Russettings-a coarse kind of stuff. 31 When each base clown his clumbsie fist doth bruise. In striking the benches to express approbation. W. 32 33 gesturement-gesture. geare-a general word for things or matters. See Reed's Shake speare: vol. vii. 240. xiii. 261. And doth besides on Rimelesse numbers tread, And maketh up his hard-betaken tale With straunge enchantments, fetcht from darksom vale, To Tuscans' soyle transporteth Merlin's Toombe 35. Write what you wil, and write not what you might: Th' eternall Legends of thy Faery Muse, SATIRE V 37. ANOTHER, whose more heavie hearted Saint From these lines Warton supposes Hall was no friend to blank verse. And he soon after condemns such licentious fictions as occur in Orlando Furioso. E. Yet, in his Postscript, he speaks pretty decisively against rhyme, at least as applicable to satire:-" the fettering together the series of the verses, with the bonds of like cadence or desinence of rhyme, which if it be unusually abrupt, and not dependent in sense upon so near affinity of words, I know not what a loathsome kind of harshness and discordance it breedeth to any judicial ear &c." And maketh up his hard-betuken tale With straunge enchantments, fetcht from darksom vale, Of some Melissa, that, by magicke doome, To Tuscans' soyle transporteth Merlin's Toombe. Referring to the beginning of the Third Book of Orlando Furioso; where the Tomb of Merlin is transferred by the poet from Wales to France. Compare Warton's Observations on the Fairy Queen. I. 37. E. Salust of France Guillaume Salluste, Seigneur du Bartas, the translation of whose "Semaines" was once popular, and to which Hall prefixed Commendatory Verses. E. "The Book, to which this Satire alludes, is the "Mirrour of Magistrates :" in which poem many of the most eminent characters in English History are intro |