Much is breeding;
Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life,
And not a serpent's poison.
This is so far true to appearance, that a horse-hair, 'laid,' as Hollinshed says, 'in a pail of water' will become the supporter of seemingly one worm, though probably of an immense number of small slimy water-lice. The hair will twirl round a finger, and sensibly compress it. It is a common experiment with school boys in Cumberland and Westmorland.
Act ii. sc. 2. Speech of Enobarbus:—
Her gentlewomen, like the Nereids,
So many mermaids, tended her i' th' eyes,
And made their bends adornings. At the helm
A seeming mermaid steers.
I have the greatest difficulty in believing that Shakspeare wrote the first 'mermaids.' He never, I think, would have so weakened by useless anticipation the fine image immediately following. The epithet 'seeming' becomes so extremely improper after the whole number had been positively called 'so many mermaids.'
TIMON OF ATHENS,
Act I. sc. 1.
'Tim'. The man is honest.
'Old Ath.' Therefore he will be, Timon. His honesty rewards him in
itself.—