"O thou dissembling cub, what wilt thou be
When time has sow'd a grizzle on thy case?"
_Twelfth Night_, Act. V. Sc. 1.
{256}
MR. SINGER (Vol. vi., p. 584.) by directing attention to the circumstance
of _cub_ being a young fox, has proved, at least to me, that _case_ is the
proper word,--a proof, among many, of the hazard of tampering with the text
when not palpably wrong.
_Cub_ is the young fox, and _fox_, _vixen_, _cub_ are like _dog_, _bitch_,
_whelp_,--_ram_, _ewe_, _lamb_, &c. The word is peculiar to the English
language, nothing at all resembling it being to be found in the
Anglo-Saxon, or any of the kindred dialects. Holland, in his _Plutarch_
(quoted by Richardson), when telling the story of the Spartan boy, says "a
little _cub_, or young fox;" and then uses only _cub_. It was by analogy
that the word was used of the young of bears, lions, and whales: and if
Shakspeare in one place (_Merchant of Venice_, Act II. Sc. 1.) says "_cubs_
of the she-bear," he elsewhere (_Titus Andronicus_, Act IV. Sc. 1.) has
"bear-_whelps_." I further very much doubt if _cub_ was used of boys in our
poet's time. The earliest employment of it that I have seen is in Congreve,
who uses "unlicked cubs," evidently alluding to young bears: and that is
the sense in which _cub_ is still used,--a sense that would not in any case
apply to Viola.