Act II.
Sc. 1.
"The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past."
So this place is pointed in the original and subsequent editions, making little or no sense. I punctuate—'As the last taste of sweets is sweetest—last'; in which I find I had been anticipated by Mason. The passage is one of the poet's obscurest. His meaning is that the concluding part of any impression on the senses is the most permanent in its effect on the mind; but how strangely expressed!
"As praises of his state. Then there are found
Lascivious metres," etc.
The two earliest 4tos read: "As praises, of whose taste the wise are found;" and by reading, as we should, fond, this also gives us very good sense.