337. That hath to instrument this lower world, &c.] i. e. that makes use of this world, and every thing in it, as its instruments to bring about its ends. STEEVENS. 349. One dowle that's in my plume;] The old copy exhibits the passage thus: One dowle that's in my plumbe Bailey, in his Dictionary, says, that dowle is a feather, or rather the single particles of the down. Since the first appearance of this edition, my very industrious and learned correspondent, Mr. Tollet, of Betley, in Staffordshire, has enabled me to retract a too hasty censure on Bailey, to whom we were long indebted for our only English Dictionary. In a small book, entitled, Humane Industry: or, A History of most Manual Arts, printed in 1661, page 93, is the following passage: "The wool-bearing trees in Æthiopia, which Virgil speaks of, and the Eriophori Arbores in Theophrastus, are not such trees as have a certain wool or DOWL upon the outside of them, as the small cotton, but short trees that bear a ball upon the top, pregnant with wool, which the Syrians call Cott, the Grecians Grossypium, the Italians Bombagio, and we Bombase."-There is a certain shell-fish in the sea, called Pinna, that bears a mossy DOWL, or wool, whereof cloth was spun and made."-Again, page 95, "Trichitis, or the hayrie stone, by some Greek au, thors, and Alumen plumaceum, or downy alum, by the Latinists: this hair or powL is spun into thread, and weaved into cloth." I have since discovered the same same word in The Ploughman's Tale, attributed to Chaucer, v. 3202; "And swore by cock'is herte and blode, "He would tere him every doule." STEEVENS. Cole, in his Latin Dictionary, 1670, interprets " young dowle" by lanugo. MALONE. 363. -whose wraths to guard you from, &c.] The meaning, which is somewhat obscured by the expression, is--a miserable fate, which nothing but contrition and amendment of life can avert. MALONE. 366.clear life] Pure, blameless, inno cent. So, in Timon: « JOHNSON. STEEVENS. roots you clear heavens." 370. with good life,] This seems a corruption. I know not in what sense life can here be used, unless for alacrity, liveliness, vigour; and in this sense the expression is harsh. Perhaps we may read-with good list, with good will, with sincere zeal for my service. I should have proposed-with good lief, in the same sense, but that I cannot find lief to be a substantive. With good life may however mean, with exact presentation of their several characters, with observation strange of their particular and distinct parts. So we say, he acted to the life. JOHNSON. Thus in the 6th canto of the Barons' Wars, by Drayton : "Done for the last with such exceeding life, Good Good life, however, in Twelfth Night, seems to be used for innocent jollity, as we now say a bon vivant : "Would you (says the Clown) have a love song, or a song of good life?" Sir Toby answers, "A love song, a love song!" "Ay, ay, (replies Sir Andrew) I care not for good life." It is plain, from the character of the last speaker, that he was meant to mistake the sense in which good life is used by the Clown. It may therefore, in the Tempest, mean honest alacrity, or cheerfulness. Life seems to be used in the chorus to the fifth act of King Henry V. with some meaning like that wanted to explain the approbation of Prospero: "Which cannot in their huge and proper life STEEVENS. To do any thing with good life is still a provincial expression in the west of England, and signifies to do it with the full bent and energy of the mind :—“ And observation strange," is with such minute attention to the orders given, as to excite admiration. HENLEY. 384. me in a rough base sound. —bass my trespass.] The deep pipe told it JOHNSON. So, in Spenser's Faery Queen, B. II. ch. xii. -the rolling sea resounding soft, "In his big base them fitly answered." STEEVENS. 392. Like poison given, &c.] The natives of Africa have been supposed to be possessed of the secret how to temper poisons with such art as not to operate till several years after they were administered, and were then then as certain in their effect, as they were subtle in their preparation. So in the celebrated libel called Leicester's Commonwealth, "I heard him once myselfe in publique act at Oxford, and that in presence of my lord of Leicester, maintain, that poyson might be so tempered and given, as it should not appear presently, and yet should kill the party afterwards at what time should be appointed." STEEVENS. 395. --this ecstasy] Ecstasy meant not anciently, as at present, rapturous pleasure, but alienation of mind. Mr. Locke has not inelegantly styled it dreaming with our eyes open. STEEVENS. ACT IV. *Line 3. -A THIRD of mine own life,] The word thread was formerly spelt third; as appears from the following passage: "Long maist thou live, and when the sisters shall decree "To cut in twaine the twisted third of life, "Then let him die," &c. See comedy of Mucedorus, 1619, signat. c. 3. HAWKINS. "A thrid of my own life" is a fibre or a part of my own life. Prospero considers himself as the stock or parent parent-tree, and his daughter as a fibre or portion of himself, and for whose benefit he himself lives. In this sense the word is used in Markham's English Husbandman, edit. 1635, p. 146. "Cut off all the maine rootes, within half a foot of the tree, only the small thriddes or twist rootes you shall not cut at all." Again, ibid: "Every branch and thrid of the root." This is evidently the same word as thread, which is likewise spelt thrid by lord Bacon TOLLET. The late Mr. Hawkins has properly observed, that the word thread was anciently spelt third. So in Lingua, &c. 1607; and I could furnish many more instances: "For as a subtle spider closely sitting "In centre of her web that spreadeth round, The following quotation, however, should seem to place the meaning beyond all dispute. In Acolastus, a comedy, 1529, is this passage: "—one of worldly shame's children, of his countenaunce, and THREDE of his body." STERVENS. I meet with the same thought in Tancred and Gismund, a tragedy, 1592. Tancred, speaking of his intention to kill his daughter, says: "Against all law of kinde, to shred in twaine 7. strangely stood the test:-] Strangely is used by way of commendation, merveilleusement, to a wonder; the |