Nam propriae telluris erum natura neque illum Nec me nec quemquam statuit; nos expulit ille, Ilium aut nequities, aut vafri inscitia juris Postremo expellet certe vivacior haeres. Nunc ager Umbreni sub nomine, nuper Ofelli Dictus, erit nulli proprius, sed cadet in usum Nunc mihi, nunc alii.
Gifford quotes a part of the passage and adds: ‘What follows is admirably turned by Pope:
Shades that to Bacon might retreat afford, Become the portion of a booby lord; And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham’s delight, Slides to a scrivener, or city knight.’
A much closer imitation is found in Webster, Devil’s Law Case, Wks. 2. 37:
Those lands that were the clients art now become The lawyer’s: and those tenements that were The country gentleman’s, are now grown To be his tailor’s.
2. 4. 32 not do’it first. Cf. 1. 6. 14 and note.
2. 5. 10 And garters which are lost, if shee can shew ’hem. Gifford thinks the line should read: ‘can not shew’. Cunningham gives a satisfactory explanation: ‘As I understand this it means that if a gallant once saw the garters he would never rest until he obtained possession of them, and they would thus be lost to the family. Garters thus begged from the ladies were used by the gallants as hangers for their swords and poniards. See Every Man out of his Humour, Wks. 2. 81: “O, I have been graced by them beyond all aim of affection: this is her garter my dagger hangs in;” and again p. 194. We read also in Cynthia’s Revels, Wks. 2. 266, of a gallant whose devotion to a lady in such that he
Salutes her pumps, Adores her hems, her skirts, her knots, her curls, Will spend his patrimony for a garter, Or the least feather in her bounteous fan.’
Gifford’s theory that ladies had some mode of displaying their garters is contradicted by the following:
Mary. These roses will shew rare: would ’twere in fashion That the garters might be seen too! —Massinger, City Madam, Wks., p. 317.