Where I did leave him. He is strange and peevish."
I think 'desire' should be enquire.
"Join gripes with hands
Made hard with hourly falsehood—with falsehood as
With labour—then by peeping in an eye
Base and illustrious," etc.
Some critics read 'by-peeping'; but then a verb is wanting. We might for 'by' read be, or, with Johnson, lie; but I rather suspect the poet's word was bide; for 'bide peeping' would be pronounced 'bi peeping,' and the printer went by his ear (see Introd. p. [52]). A most unhappy conjecture, though adopted and greatly admired by Mr. Collier, is that of his folio 'bo-peeping'; for there is no such verb. 'Illustrous' may be the right word, but Rowe's 'unlustrous' has been generally adopted.
"With diseased ventures