“Earthlier happy is the rose distilled
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.”
See also Shakespeare’s first six sonnets, which are pervaded by the idea in all its subtleties” (Masson).
[743.] let slip time, i.e. allow time to slip: see [note], l. 304. Comp. Par. Lost, i. 178. “Let us not slip the occasion.”
[744.] It = beauty. languished, languid or languishing: comp. Par. Lost, vi. 496, “their languished hope revived”; Epitaph on M. of W. 33. The suffix -ed is frequent in Elizabethan English where we now have -ing (Abbott, § 374).
[747.] most, as many as possible.
[748.] homely ... home. There is here a play upon words as in Two Gent. i. 1. 2: “Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.” Homely is derived from home.
[749.] Women with coarse complexions and dull cheeks are good enough for household occupations.
[750.] of sorry grain, not brilliant, of poor colour. ‘Grain’ is from Lat. granum, a seed, applied to small objects, and hence to the coccus or cochineal insect which yields a variety of red dyes. Hence grain came to denote certain colours, e.g. Tyrian purple, violet, etc., and is so used by Milton: see Il Pens. 33, “a robe of darkest grain”; Par. Lost, v. 285, “sky-tinctured grain”; xi. 242, “A military vest of purple ... Livelier than ... the grain Of Sarra,” etc. And as these were fast or durable colours we have such phrases as ‘to dye in grain,’ ‘a rogue in grain,’ ‘an ingrained habit.’ (See further in Marsh’s Lect. on Eng. Lang. p. 55).
[751.] sampler, a sample or pattern piece of needlework. It is a doublet of exemplar. tease the huswife’s wool. To tease is to comb or card: comp. the Lat. vexare. ‘Huswife’ = house-wife, further corrupted into hussy. Hussif (a case for needles, etc.) is a different word.
[752.] What need a vermeil-tinctured lip? See [note], l. 362, on ‘what need.’ Vermeil: a French spelling of vermilion. The name is from Lat. vermis, a worm (the cochineal insect, from which the colour used to be got); and as vermis is cognate with Sansk. krimi, a worm, it follows that vermilion, crimson, and carmine are cognate.