[145] We are not parallels; but, like lines divided,
Can ne'er meet in one centre.] Not only Massinger, but many of our old writers, use parallels for radii.
In the Proëme to Herbert's Travels, which were printed not long after The Maid of Honour, a similar expression is found: "Great Britaine—containes the summe and abridge of all sorts of excellencies, met here like parallels in their proper centre."
In the life of Dr. H. More (1710) there is a letter to a correspondent who had sent him a pious treatise, in which the same expression occurs, and is thus noticed by the doctor: "There is but one passage that I remember, which will afford them (the profane and atheistical rout of the age) a disingenuous satisfaction; which is in p. 489, where you say that straight lines drawn from the centre run parallel together. To a candid reader your intended sense can be no other than that they run παῥ αλλἡλας, that is, by one another; which they may do, though they do not run all along equidistantly one by another, which is the mathematical sense of the word parallel."—Gent. Mag. May, 1782. The good doctor is, I think, the best critic on the subject that has yet appeared, and sufficiently explains Massinger.—Gifford.
[146] One aerie with proportion ne'er discloses
The eagle and the wren.] Aerie is the nest of a bird of prey; disclose is to hatch: the meaning is, eagles and wrens are too disproportionate in bulk to be hatched in the same nest.—Gifford.
[147] The whole field wide.] This expression, however signior Sylli picked it up, is a Latinism: Erras, tota via aberras.—Gifford.
[148] A cat-stick.] This, I believe, is what is now called a buck-stick, used by children in the game of tip-cat, or kit-cat.—Gifford.
[149] Fewterer,] i. e. a dog-keeper, or one who lets the dogs loose in the chase. The word is a corruption of the French vautrier, or vaultier.
[150] Tamberlane in little!
Am I turned Turk!] Tamberlane was a proverbial term for a bully. To turn Turk, in our old dramatists, is generally used for a change of situation, occupation, mode of thought or action. The allusion, perhaps, is to the story of Tamberlane, who is said to have mounted his horse from the back of Bajazet, the Turkish emperor.—Gifford.
[151] Peat,] i. e. a delicate person. The modern word pet is supposed to be the same, probably from the French petit.
[152] Haggard,] i. e. a wild hawk.