The meaning of Lovelace was, “the fire that raved.” But what Mr. Hazlitt would make with “reaved o’er my purer thoughts,” we cannot conceive. On the whole, we think he must have written the note merely to make his surprising glossological suggestion. All that Worcester does for the etymology, by the way, is to cite Richardson, no safe guide.
“Where now one so so spatters, t’other: no!” (p. 112.)
The comma in this verse has, of course, no right there, but Mr. Hazlitt leaves the whole passage so corrupt that we cannot spend time in disinfecting it. We quote it only for the sake of his note on “so so.” It is marvellous.
“An exclamation of approval when an actor made a hit. The corruption seems to be somewhat akin to the Italian, ’si, si,’ a corruption of ’sia, sia.’”
That the editor of an English poet need not understand Italian we may grant, but that he should not know the meaning of a phrase so common in his own language as so-so is intolerable. Lovelace has been saying that a certain play might have gained applause under certain circumstances, but that everybody calls it so-so,—something very different from “an exclamation of approval,” one should say. The phrase answers exactly to the Italian così così, while sì (not si) is derived from sic, and is analogous with the affirmative use of the German so and the Yankee jes’ so.
“Oh, how he hast’ned death, burnt to be fryed!” (p. 141.)
The note on fryed is,—
“I. e. freed. Free and freed were sometimes pronounced like fry and fryed; for Lord North, in his Forest of Varieties, 1645, has these lines:—
’Birds that long have lived free,
Caught and cag’d, but pine and die.’