Leon. And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour.
This is not the only gross and offensive metaphor of the kind that our poet has used. In Measure for measure, we have "groping for trouts in a peculiar river."
Scene 2. Page 30.
Leon. ... I have trusted thee Camillo,
With all the nearest things to my heart——
... wherein, priest-like thou
Hast cleans'd my bosom.
So in Macbeth we have,
"Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart."
Scene 2. Page 39.
Cam. ... If I could find example
Of thousands that had struck anointed kings
And flourish'd after, I'd not do't.
If, as Mr. Blackstone supposes, this be an allusion to the death of the queen of Scots, it exhibits Shakspeare in the character of a cringing flatterer accommodating himself to existing circumstances, and is moreover an extremely severe one. But the perpetrator of that atrocious murder did flourish many years afterwards. May it not rather be designed as a compliment to King James on his escape from the Gowrie conspiracy, an event often brought to the people's recollection during his reign, from the day on which it happened being made a day of thanksgiving? See Osborne's traditional memoyres, and the almanacks of the time under the 5th of August.
Scene 2. Page 41.