n the room in which the tyrant lay.
Fit for his purpose on a lower floor,
He lodged, whose issue was an iron door;
From whence by stairs descending to the ground.
In the blind grot a safe retreat he found.
Its outlet ended in a brake o'ergrown
With brambles, choak'd by time, and now unknown.
A rift there was, which from the mountain's height
Convey'd a glimm'ring and malignant light,
A breathing place to draw the damps away,
A twilight of an intercepted day."

--"Sigismonda and Guiscardo." Dryden's Works, vol. iii. p. 251.

[76] See Milton's "Paradise Lost," Bk. i. l. 60.

[77] _Fetters_ or _chains_. So in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Beggar's
Bush," act iii. sc. 4--

"_Gyves_ I must wear, and cold must be my comfort."

Marston's "What You Will," act ii. sc. 1--

"Think'st thou a libertine, _an ungiv'd_ beast,
Scornes not the shackles of thy envious clogs?"

Milton's "Samson Agonistes," l. 1092--

"Dost thou already single me? I thought
_Gyves_ and the mill had tam'd thee."

See Dr Newton's note on the last passage; and Mr Steevens's note on
"First Part of Henry IV.," act iv. sc. 3.

[78] _Amate_ is to daunt or confound. Skinner, in his "Etymologicon,"
explains it thus: "Perterrefacere, Attonitum reddere, Obstupefacere,
mente consternare, Consilii inopem reddere." So in "Thule or Vertue's
Historic," by Francis Rous, 1598, sig. B--

"At last with violence and open force.
They brake the posternes of the Castle gate,
And entred spoyling all without remorce,
Nor could old Sobrin now resist his fate,
But stiffe with feare ev'n like a senceles corse
Whom grisly terror doth so much _amate_,
He lyes supine upon his fatall bed.
Expecting ev'ry minute to be dead."

Again, Ibid., sig. D--

"He would forsake his choyse, and change his fate,
And leave her quite, and so procure her woe,
Faines that a sudden grief doth her _amate_,
Wounded with piercing sicknes' Ebon bow."

[79] Astonished. So in "Euphues and his England," p. 102--"Philautus,
_astonied_ at this speech," &c. And again, in the "Fable of Jeronimi,"
by G. Gascoigne, p. 209: "When Ferdinando (somewhat _astonied_ with hir
strange speech) thus answered." And in "Thieves Falling Out," &c., 1615,
by Rob. Greene: "The gentleman, _astonied_ at this strange metamorphosis
of his mistress."

[80] _Sprent_ is sprinkled. So in Spenser's "Shepherd's Calendar