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Laun. Turn up on your right hand, next turning, but, at the next turning on your left; marry, at the very next ti turn of no hand, but turn down indire the Jew's house.

Gob. By God's sonties,2 'twill be a ha to hit. Can tell me whether one I you

I Turn up on your right hand, &c.] This a perplexed direction to puzzle the enquirer, s imitate that of Syrus to Demea, in the Bro Terence:

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ubi eas præterieris, "Ad sinistram hac recta platea : "Dianæ veneris,

"Ito ad dextram: prius quam ad

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venias," &c. THEOBALD. 2 God's sonties,] I know not exactly of w this is a corruption. I meet with God's Decker's Honest Whore, 1635 :

Again, in The longer thou livest the more F art, a comedy, bl. I. without date:

"God's santie, this is a goodly book ind Perhaps it was once customary to swear by th i. e. health, of the Supreme Being, or by his or, as Mr. Ritson observes to me, by his Oaths of such a turn are not unfrequent am ancient writers. All, however, seem to ha so thoroughly convinced of the crime of p swearing, that they were content to disgui meaning by abbreviations which were permi lently to terminate in irremediable corruption

ST

"God's sonties," means,-offenders again -sinners. Sontis, Lat. We now say, as

sinner. CONCORDANCE TO SHAKSP.

lot, that dwells with him, dwell with him, or no?

Laun. Talk you of young master Launcelot?-Mark me now; [Aside.] 3 now will I raise the waters-Talk you of young master Launcelot ?

Gob. No master, sir, but a poor man's son ; his father, though I say it, is an honest exceeding poor man, and, God be thanked, well to live.

Laun. Well, let his father be what he will, we talk of young master Launcelot.

Gob. Your worship's friend, and Launcelot, sir.4

Laun. But I pray you ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you; talk you of young master Launcelot ?

Gob. Of Launcelot, an't please your mastership?

Laun. Ergo, master Launcelot; talk not of master Launcelot, father; for the young gentleman (according to fates and destinies, and such odd sayings, the sisters three, and such branches of learning,) is, indeed, deceased;

or,

3 now will I raise the waters :] i.e. draw forth the old man's tears.

E.

4 Your worship's friend, and Launcelot, sir.] i.e. Plain Launcelot; and not, as you term him, master Launcelot. MALONE,

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or, as you would say, in plain terms, gone to heaven.

Gob. Marry, God forbid! the boy was the very staff of my age, my very prop.

Laun. Do I look like a cudgel, or a hovelpost, a staff, or a prop?-Do you know me, father?

Gob. Alack the day! I know you not, young gentleman: but, I pray you, tell me, is my boy, (God rest his soul!) alive, or dead? Laun. Do you not know me, father? Gob. Alack, sir, I am sand-blind, I know you not.

Laun. Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the knowing me: it is a wise father, that knows his own child. Well, old man, I will tell you news of your son: Give me your blessing: truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long, a man's son may; but in the end, truth will out.

Gob. Pray you, sir, stand up; I am sure, you are not Launcelot, my boy.

Laun. Pray you, let's have no more fooling about it, but give me your blessing; I am Launcelot, your boy that was, your son that is, your child that shall be.5

5

"

Gob.

-your child that shall be.] Launcelot, by

your child that shall be," may mean, that his duty

to

Gob. I cannot think, you are my son.

Laun. I know not what I shall think of that: but I am Launcelot, the Jew's man; and, I am sure, Margery, your wife, is my mother.

Gob. Her name is Margery, indeed : I'll be sworn, if thou be Launcelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipp'd might he be! what a beard hast thou got! thou hast got more hair on thy chin, than Dobbin, my thill-horse, has on his tail.

Laun.

to his father shall, for the future, shew him to bę his child. It became necessary for him to say something of that sort, after all the tricks he had been playing him; or, perhaps, by " child that shall be," he alludes to the proverb, "Once a man and twice "a child." STEEVENS.

The latter of the opinions advanced in the foregoing note is so likely to be right, that I am surprised there should have been any hesitation as to its propriety, and still more that it should have been omitted in all the editions subsequent to that of 1778. It is not, however, impossible that Launcelot, in a sportive and quibbling vein, in order to vary and contrast the terms of his speech, and, at the same time, to give it a more preposterous and enigmatical air, uses the word child in a more extensive sense to signify son. E.

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-my thill-horse] Thill or fill, means the shafts of a cart or waggon. So, in A Woman never Vexed, 1632:

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I will

"Give you the fore-horse place, and I will be “I' the fills.”

F 2

Again,

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Laun. It should seem then, that Dc tail grows backward; I am sure, he had hair on his tail, than I have on my face, I last saw him.

Gob. Lord, how art thou chang'd! dost thou and thy master agree? I have b him a present; how agree you now?

Laun. Well, well; but, for mine ow as I have set up my rest to run away, so not rest till I have run some ground: my ter's a very Jew: Give him a present him a halter: I am famish'd in his se you may tell every finger I have with my Father, I am glad you are come; gi your present to one master Bassanio, wh deed, gives rare new liveries; if I ser him, I will run as far as God has any gr -0

Again, in Fortune by Land and Sea, 165 Thos. Heywood and W. Rowley: "

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you with Jock the fore-horse, and Fibb "horse," &c. STEEVENS.

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All the ancient copies have phil-horse, but n tionary that I have met with acknowledges the It is, I am informed, a corruption used in counties for the proper term, thill-horse. MA

See Christie's Catalogue of the effects of P Esq." 1794, p. 6, lot 50: "Chain-h "for two horses, and phill-harness for two hor STEE

Phill or fill is the term in all the midland cou -thill would not be understood. HARRIS.

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