Chapter CVII: Act IV: SCENE 3. Page 587

TIM. She, [her] whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To the _April day_ again.

It had been better to have withdrawn Dr. Johnson's note, for he has entirely misconceived the meaning of this part of Timon's speech. He has mistaken the _person_ who was to be _embalmed to the April day again_, and supposed, without reason, that the wedding day is here called _April_ or _fools day_. Mr. Tollett has already corrected the first of these errors, and properly explained the _April day_ to mean the _freshness_ of youth. See a description of April from an old calendar in p. 45. The word _day_ in this instance is equivalent with _time_.

SCENE 3. Page 593.

TIM. To the _tub-fast_ and the _diet_.

What this _diet_ was may be seen at large in Dr. Bullein's _Bulwarke of defence_, fo. 57 b. and in his _Booke of compoundes_, fo. 42, 43.

In a former note a conclusion was too hastily drawn, concerning the origin of _Cornelius's tub_. It was stated that it took its name from the hero of Randolph's pleasant comedy of _Cornelianum dolium_; but the term is much older, being mentioned in Lodge's _Wit's miserie_, 1599, 4to, sig. F iiij b. Its origin therefore remains in a state of uncertainty; for what Davenant has left us in his _Platonick lover_ can only be regarded as a piece of pleasantry.

SCIOLT. As for _Diogenes_ that fasted much, and took his habitation
in a tub, to make the world believe he lov'd a strict and severe
life, he took the diet, sir, and in that very tub swet for the
French disease.

FRED. And some unlearned apothecary since, mistaking 's name,
called it _Cornelius tub_.

Act iii.

There is yet another passage which may be worth inserting, as it throws a gleam of light on this obscure term. It is from _The law of drinking_, 1617, 12mo, p. 55. "Like ivie they cling close about _Cornelius' bulke_; till sleepe surprize them, oblivion divide them, and _brave Cornelius_ guide them to his _tub_."

SCENE 3. Page 624.

TIM. The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears.

Some difficulty has arisen in the course of the notes on this passage to account for the manner in which the sea could despoil the moon of its moisture and change it into saline tears. It has been judiciously remarked by one of the commentators, that we are not to attend on these occasions merely to philosophical truth, but to consider what might have been the received or vulgar notions of the time: yet no example of such notions applicable to the present occasion has been produced. The following may perhaps serve to supply this defect, and to establish at the same time the genuineness of the text: "The moone gathereth deawe in the aire, for she printeth the vertue of hir moysture in the aire, and chaungeth the ayre in a manner that is unseene, and breedeth and gendereth deawe in the utter part thereof."--Bartholomæus _De propriet. rerum_, lib. viii, c. 29.