"All plum'd like estriches that with the wind are fann'd."
It is plain that something has been lost here; it may be a line, but I think the slight addition I have made, and in the very place where the loss was most likely to occur, removes all difficulty. "The air of Paradise did fan the house" (All's Well, iii. 2). The poet had in his mind the Prince's plume, which he supposes to have been worn by his companions also; and it is quite evident—or else there is no force in the comparison—that he also supposed that it was on his head the ostrich carried his long bending feathers. So Drayton also: "The Mountfords all in plumes, like ostriches were seen" (Polyolb. xxii.). The following line of Tasso gives us the exact image:—"E ventolar sui gran cimier le penne" (Ger. Lib. xx. 28). Hanmer read 'and with the wind.' Rowe, who has been generally followed, read wing for 'with'; but the verb wing has but one sense in the poets, to fly, and the ostrich no more flies than the greyhound. Mr. Dyce, however, adopts this reading, which, he says, "affords a clear and good meaning," and he quotes in support of it these lines of Claudian, who, he thinks may, as a native of Egypt, be speaking as an eye-witness:—
"Vasta velut Libyæ venantum vocibus ales
Cum premitur calidas cursu transmittit arenas,
Inque modum veli sinuatis flamine pennis
Pulverulenta volat."
In Eutrop. ii. 310.
But surely this is sailing with, not winging the wind; and what has it to do with 'plum'd'? I very much doubt if Claudian ever saw an ostrich running; for that was only to be seen in the desert, which Egyptians rarely visited at any period.