4177 'air' (orig. 'ayre') is, I suppose, as before = 'breath' = 'words'.
4188 Albino's remarkably catholic conglomeration of classical and Christian wedding-rites might, in a more modern writer, be a satire on Renaissance habits. In him it is only a survival of them. [Return]
4230-6 In this stanza Whiting gives a final flourish of his wondrous diction. I feel sure he must have leant back in his chair and looked lovingly at
Hack on the quiet shore their brackèd sheaths,
and I should not presume to be too certain as to the exact meaning of 'half-wrack'd with eye-men', though I think I know. The insouciance with which he shuffles off the not impertinent question 'How did a somewhat "arbitrary gent" like Don Rivelezzo take this sort of thing?' is also rather charming.
TO THOSE WORTHY HEROES OF OUR
Age, whose noble Breasts are wet
and wat'red with the dew of
Helicon, N.W. wisheth ever-
flourishing Laurels.
You noble laureates, whose able quills
In framing odes, do drean the sacred rills
Of Aganippe dry, within whose breasts