[108] Here,] i. e. in Syracuse.
[109] Leost. You were never proved.] The whole of this scene is eminently beautiful; yet I cannot avoid recommending to the reader's particular notice the speech which follows. Its rhythm is so perfect, that it drops on the ear like the sweetest melody.—Gifford.
[110] Owe,] i. e. own.
[111] And spoil him of his birthright?] This is a happy allusion to the history of Jacob and Esau. It is the more so, for being void of all profaneness; to which, indeed, Massinger had no tendency.—Gifford.
[112] Rouse,] i. e. full glass, bumper.
[113] That Thing of Things.] A literal translation, as Mr. M. Mason observes, of Ens Entium. I know not where Pisander acquired his revolutionary philosophy: his golden chain, perhaps, he found in Homer.—Gifford.
[114] For commodities, &c.] i. e. for wares, of which the needy borrower made what he could. Our old writers are extremely pleasant on the heterogeneous articles which the usurers of their days forced on the necessity of the thoughtless spendthrift in lieu of the money for which he had rashly signed. Fielding has imitated them in his Miser, without adding much to their humour; and Foote, in The Minor, has servilely followed his example. The spectators of those scenes probably thought that the writers had gone beyond real life, and drawn on imagination for their amusement: but transactions (not altogether proper, perhaps, to be specified here) have actually taken place in our own times, which leave their boldest conceptions at an humble distance; and prove, beyond a doubt, that, in the arts of raising money, the invention of the most fertile poet must yield to that of the meanest scrivener.—Gifford.
[115] Mar. Why, think you that I plot against myself?] The plot opens here with wonderful address; and the succeeding conference, or rather scene, between Pisander and Cleora, is inimitably beautiful.—Gifford.
[116] Moppes,] i. e. the quick and grinning motions of the teeth and lips which apes make when they are irritated.
[117] What for ourself, your lord?] Here Asotus must be supposed to leap, or rather tumble, in token of obedience. Our ancestors certainly excelled us in the education which they bestowed on their animals. Banks's horse far surpassed all that have been brought up in the academy of Mr. Astley; and the apes of these days are mere clowns to their progenitors. The apes of Massinger's time were gifted with a pretty smattering of politics and philosophy. The widow Wild had one of them: "He would come over for all my friends, but was the dogged'st thing to my enemies! he would sit upon his tail before them, and frown like John-a-napes when the pope is named." The Parson's Wedding.—Gifford.