[24] Shakespeare has capricious, conversation, fatigate (if not fatigue), figure, gallant, good graces; incendiary is in Minshew's "Guide to the Tongues," ed. 1627. Tender often occurs in Shakespeare both as a substantive and verb. And many other of the above words may be detected by those who have time and inclination to search for them, in authors prior to Dryden's time. [See, for a discussion of Dryden's Gallicisms, vol. xviii. of the present edition.—ED.]
[24] The remarkable phrase, "to possess the soul in patience," occurs in "The Hind and Panther;" and in the Essay on Satire, vol. xiii., we have nearly the same expression. The image of a bird's wing flagging in a damp atmosphere occurs in Don Sebastian, and in prose elsewhere, though I have lost the reference. The same thought is found in "The Hind and Panther," but is not there used metaphorically:—
"Nor need they fear the dampness of the sky
Should flag their wings, and hinder them to fly."
Dryden is ridiculed by an imitator of Rabelais, for the recurrence of the phrase by which he usually prefaces his own defensive criticism: "If it be allowed me to speak so much in my own commendation;— see Dryden's preface to his Fables, or to any other of his works that you please." The full title of this whimsical tract, from which Sterne borrowed several hints, is "An Essay towards the theory of the intelligible world intuitively considered. Designed for forty-nine parts. Part Third, consisting of a preface, a postscript, and a little something between, by Gabriel Johnson; enriched by a faithful account of his ideal voyages, and illustrated with poems by several hands, as likewise with other strange things not insufferably clever, nor furiously to the purpose; printed in the year 17," etc. [The phrase mentioned first is perhaps less remarkable than Scott's apparent forgetfulness of its Biblical origin.—ED.]
[25] Introduction to Book Fifth of "Tom Jones."