I
think it did not, as after diligent search I have not met with it; and,
if it did, and then had the same meaning, _floating sheet-ice_, how
would it apply to the illustration of this passage?
That the uniform meaning of _flaws_ in the poet's time was _sudden gust
of wind_, and figuratively sudden gusts of passion, or fitful and
impetuous action, is evident from the following passages:--
"Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd
Wreck to the seamen, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
_Gust_ and foul _flaws_ to herdsmen and to herds."
_Venus and Adonis._
"Like a great sea-mark standing every _flaw_."
_Coriolanus_, act v. sc. iii.
"--patch a wall to expel the winter's _flaw_."
_Hamlet_, act v. sc. i.
"Like to the glorious sun's transparent beams
Do calm the fury of this mad-bred _flaw_."
_3d Pt. Henry VI._, act iii. sc. i.
"--these _flaws_ and starts (impostors to true
fear)."
_Macbeth_, act iv. sc. iv.
"Falling in the _flaws_ of her own youth, hath
blistered her report."
_Meas. for Meas._, act ii. sc. iii.
So far for the poet's acceptation of its meaning.
Thus also Lord Surrey:--
"And toss'd with storms, with _flaws_, with wind, with weather."
And Beaumont and Fletcher, in _The Pilgrim_:--
"What _flaws_, and whirles of weather,
Or rather storms, have been aloft these three days.
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