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As thou hast done with me ;-What, Jess And sleep and snore, and rend apparel Why, Jessica, I say!

Laun.

Why, Jessica! Shy. Who bids thee call? I do not bi

call. 2

Laun. Your worship was wont to tel that I could do nothing without bidding. Enter Jessica.

Jes. Call you? What is your will? Shy. I am bid forth 3 to supper, Jessi There are my keys :-But wherefore sho

go;

I am not bid for love; they flatter me: But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon 4

2 I do not bid thee call.] I much suspec some modern editors have restored the true wo did not bid thee, &c. E.

3 I am bid forth- -] I am invited. To old language meant to pray. MALONE.

That bid was used for invitation, may be se St. Luke's Gospel, chap. xiv. 24. " -none of "which were bidden shall taste of

-to feed upon

my supper."

The prodigal Christian.]

H

Shylock forgets his resolution. In a former he declares he will neither eat, drink, nor pray Christians. Of this circumstance the poet was a

The prodigal Christian.-Jessica, my girl, Look to my house :-I am right loath to go; There is some ill a brewing towards my rest, For I did dream of money-bags to-night.

Laun. I beseech you, sir, go; my young master doth expect your reproach.

Shy. So do I his.

Laun. And they have conspired together,I will not say, you shall see a mask; but if you do, then it was not for nothing that my nose fell a bleeding on Black-Monday last,5 at six

and meant only to heighten the malignity of the character, by making him depart from his most settled resolve, for the prosecution of his revenge.

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STEEVENS.

-then it was not for nothing that my nose fell a bleeding on Black-Monday last,] Black-Monday " is a moveable day; it is Easter-Monday, and was so called on this occasion: In the 34th of Edward "III. (1360) the 14th of April, and the morrow "after Easter-day, king Edward, with his host, lay "before the city of Paris, which day was full dark "of mist and hail, and so bitter cold, that many men died on their horses' backs with the cold. "Wherefore, unto this day, it hath been called the "Blacke-Monday." Stowe, p. 264—6. GREY.

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It appears from a passage in Lodge's Rosalynde, 1592, that some superstitious belief was annexed to the accident of bleeding at the nose: "As he stood gazing, his nose on a sudden bled, which made him "conjecture it was some friend of his." STEEVENS. Again, in The Duchess of Malfy, 1640, Act i. Scene 2 :

• How

six o'clock i'the morning, falling out that year on Ash-Wednesday was four year in the after

noon.6

Shy. What! are there masks? Hear you me, Jessica:

Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum,7

And the vile squeaking8 of the wry-neck'd fife,
Clamber not you up to the casements then,
Nor thrust your head into the public street,
To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces:

But

"How superstitiously we mind our evils? "The throwing downe salt, or crossing of a hare, Bleeding at nose, the stumbling of a horse, "Or singing of a creket, are of

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"To daunt whole man in us."

Again, Acti. Scene 3 :

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My nose bleeds.

power

One that was superstitious

"would count this ominous, when it merely comes

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by chance." REED.

6

falling out that year, &c.] Is this folly natural, or artificial?

E.

7 Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum, And the vile squeaking of the wry-neck'd fife-] "Primâ nocte domum claude; neque in vias "Sub cantu querulæ despice tibiæ."

Hor. Lib. iii. Od. 7. MALONE. હ -the vile squeaking] The folio and one of quartos read squealing. STEEVENS.

It appears from hence, that the fifes in Shakspeare's time, were formed differently from those now in use, which are straight, not wry-necked.

J. M. MASON.

But stop my house's ears, I mean, my case

ments;

Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter
My sober house.-By Jacob's staff, I swear,
I have no mind of feasting forth to-night:
But I will go.-Go you before me, sirrah;
Say, I will come.

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Laun.

I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at window, for all this;

There will come a Christian by,'

Will be worth a Jewess' eye.

[Exit. Laun.

Shy. What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?

Jes. His words were, Farewel, mistress; nothing else.

Shy. The patch is kind enough; 2 but a huge feeder,

Snail

9 But stop my house's ears,] Mr. Capell, without any notice of the variation, or authority assigned, reads" shut my house's ears," and is, perhaps singular in doing so. E.

I There will come a Christian by
Will be worth a Jewess' eye.]

It's worth a Jew's eye, is a proverbial phrase.

WHALLEY.

2 The patch is kind enough;] This term came into use from the name of a celebrated fool. This I learn from Wilson's Art of Rhetorique, 1553: "A word"making, called of the Grecians, Onomatopeia, is "when we make words of our own mind, such as be

"derived

Snail-slow in profit,3 and he sleeps by More than the wild cat; drones hive no me;

Therefore I part with him; and part wit
To one that I would have him help to w
His borrow'd purse.-Well, Jessica, go
Perhaps, I will return immediately;
Do, as I bid you, shut doors after you:
Fast bind, fast find:

A proverb never stale in thrifty mind. [

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"derived from the nature of things-As to ca Patche, or Cowlson, whom we see to do a foolishly; because these two in their times "notable fools."

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Probably the dress which the celebrated wore, was in allusion to his name, patched or coloured. Hence the stage fool has ever since exhibited in a motley coat. In Rowley's When see me you know me, or History of K. Henry 1632, Cardinal Woolsey's fool Patch is introdu He was the original Patch of whom Wilson speal MAL

Is it not more likely that he might have der his name from his patched or parti-coloured dress, that he assumed the latter in allusion to his na or, are there any documents to show that that kin garb was not common to persons of the same chara before his time? E.

3 Snail-slow in profit, &c.] In the performanc those duties whence profit might be expected to a to his master. E.

4 To one that I would have him help, &c.] T is here the relative and accusative case, as if he said" one whom I would have him help," &c.

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