Of course, it should read,—
“Let twattling [twaddling] Fame cheate others’ rest,
I am no dish for Rumor’s feast.”
Mr. Halliwell comes to our assistance thus: “Page 244, line 21, [22 it should be,] I um,—a printer’s error for I am.” Dignus vindice nodus! Five lines above, we have “whole” for “who’ll,” and four lines below, “helmeth” for “whelmeth”; but Mr. Halliwell vouchsafes no note. In the “Fawn” we read, “Wise neads use few words,” and the editor says in a note, “a misprint for heads”! Kind Mr. Halliwell!
Having given a few examples of our “Editor’s” corrections, we proceed to quote a passage or two which, it is to be presumed, he thought perfectly clear.
“A man can skarce put on a tuckt-up cap,
A button’d frizado sute, skarce eate good meate,
Anchoves, caviare, but hee’s satyred
And term’d phantasticall. By the muddy spawne
Of slymie neughtes, when troth, phantasticknesse
That which the naturall sophysters tearme
Phantusia incomplexa—is a function
Even of the bright immortal part of man.
It is the common passe, the sacred dore,
Unto the prive chamber of the soule;
That bar’d, nought passeth past the baser court
Of outward scence by it th’inamorate
Most lively thinkes he sees the absent beauties
Of his lov’d mistres.” (Vol. I. p. 241.)
In this case, also, the true readings are clear enough:—
“And termed fantastical by the muddy spawn
Of slimy newts”;
and
“ ... past the baser court
Of outward sense”;—
but, if anything was to be explained, why are we here deserted by our fida compagna? Again, (Vol. II. pp. 55, 56,) we read, “This Granuffo is a right wise good lord, a man of excellent discourse, and never speakes his signes to me, and men of profound reach instruct aboundantly; hee begges suites with signes, gives thanks with signes,” etc. This Granuffo is qualified among the “Interlocutors” as “a silent lord,” and what fun there is in the character (which, it must be confessed, is rather of a lenten kind) consists in his genius for saying nothing. It is plain enough that the passage should read, “a man of excellent discourse, and never speaks; his signs to me and men of profound reach instruct abundantly,” etc.