"Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love."
i.e. yet into this sieve, which catches at, and yet never holds them, I still pour the waters of my love.
There seems to me a double meaning of the word captious, indicating an under-current of thought in the author; first, the literal sense, then the inferential: "this sieve catches at and seems as if it would intercept the waters of my love, but takes me in, and disappoints me, because it will not uphold them." The objection to explaining captious by simply fallacious, is that the word means this by inference or consequence, rather than primarily. Because one who is eager to controvert, i.e. who is captious, generally, but not always, acts for a sophistical purpose and means to deceive. Cicero, I believe, uses fallax and captiosus as distinct, not as synonymous, terms.
E. A. D.
Boiling to Death (Vol. ii., p. 519.).—
"Impoysonments, so ordinary in Italy, are so abominable among English, as 21 Hen. 8. it was made high treason, though since repealed; after which the punishment for it was to be put alive in a caldron of water, and there boiled to death: at present it is felony without benefit of clergy."—Chamberlayne's State of England,—an old copy, without a title-page.
Judging from the list of bishops and maids of honour, I believe the date to be 1669.
Wedsecnarf.
Dozen of Bread (Vol. ii., p. 49.).—The Duchess of Newcastle says of her Nature's Picture: