have found it very difficult, if not altogether impossible, to surmount. But, let it be placed where it may, the scene is clearly laid between 1402, when Shallow would be sixty-one, and 1412, when he had the meeting with Falstaff: Though one would not, to be sure, from what passes on that occasion, imagine the parties had been together so lately at Windsor; much less that the Knight had ever beaten his worship's keepers, kill'd his deer, and broke open his lodge. The alteration now proposed, however, is in all events necessary; and the rather so, as Falstaff must be nearly of the same age with Shallow, and fourscore seems a little too late in life for a man of his kidney to be making love to, and even supposing himself admired by, two at a time, travelling in a buck-basket, thrown into a river, going to the wars, and making prisoners. Indeed, he has luckily put the matter out of all doubt, by telling us in the First Part of King Henry IV. that his age was "some fifty, or, by'r lady, inclining to threescore." RITSON. P. 287. Among the whitsers.] A typographical error has escaped in the text of this edition: for whitsers, read whitsters; i. e. the blanchers of linen. DOUCE. P. 289. --that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.] May not the tire-valiant be so called from the air of boldness and confidence which it might give the wearer? A certain court divine (who can hardly be called a courtly one) in a sermon preached before King James the First, thus speaks of the ladies' head dresses: "Oh what a wonder it is to see a ship under saile with her tacklings and her masts, and her tops and top gallants, with her upper decks and her nether decks, and so bedeckt with her streames, flags, and ensigns, and I know not what; yea but a world of wonders it is to see a woman created in God's image, so miscreate oft times and deformed with her French, her Spanish, and her foolish fashions, that he that made her, when he looks upon her, shall hardly know her, with her plumes, her fans, and a silken vizard, with a ruffe, like a saile; yea, a ruffe like a rainbow, with a feather in her cap, like a flag in her top, to tell (I thinke) which way the wind will blow." The Merchant Royall, a sermon preached at Whitehall before the King's Majestie, at the nuptialls of Lord Hay and his Lady, Twelfth-day, 1607, 4to. 1615. Again, "---it is proverbially said, that far fetcht and deare bought is fittest for ladies; as now-a-daies what groweth at home is base and homely, and what every one eates is meate for dogs; and wee must have bread from one countrie, and drinke from another; and wee must have meate from Spaine, and sauce cut of Italy; and if wee weare any thing, it must be pure Venetian, Roman, or barbarian; but the fashion of all must be French." Ibid. REED. P. 289. --behind the arras.] The spaces left between the walls and the wooden frames on which arras was hung, were not more commodious to our ancestors than to the authors of their ancient dramatic pieces. Borachio in Much Ado about Nothing, and Polonius in Hamlet, also avail themselves of this convenient recess. STEEVENS. P. 291. How you drumble.] To drumble, in Devonshire, signifies to mutter in a sullen and inarticulate voice. HENLEY. P. 291.So, now uncape,] Is a term in fox-hunting, which signifies to dig out the fox when earthed. The Oxford editor reads---uncouple. WARBURTON. I believe that Hanmer's amendment is right, and that we ought to read---uncouple.---Ford, like a good sportsman, first stops the earths, and then uncouples the hounds. M. MASON. P. 291. who was in the basket] We should read---what was in the basket: for though in fact Ford has asked no such question, he could never suspect there was either man or woman in it. The propriety of this emendation is manifest from a subsequent passage, where Falstaff tells Master Brook-" the jealous knave asked them once or twice what they had in their basket." RITSON. P. 294. come cut and long-tail,] The last conversation I had the honour to enjoy with Sir William Blackstone, was on this subject; and by a series of accurate references to the whole collection of ancient Forest Laws, he convinced me of our repeated error, expeditation and genuscission, being the only established and technical modes ever used for disabling the canine species. Part of the tails of spaniels indeed, are generally cut off (ornamenti gratia) while they are puppies, so that (admitting a loose description) every kind of dog is comprehended in the phrase of cut and long-tail, and every rank of people in the same expression, if metaSTEEVENS. phorically used. P. 301. ---you must be preeches.] Sir Hugh means to say---you must be breeched, e. flogged. To breech is to flog. So, in The Taming of the Shrew: "I am no breeching scholar in the schools." STEEVENS. P. 302.---watch the door with pistols.] This is one of Shakespeare's anachronisms. Thus, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Thaliard says "Can get him once within my pistol's length," &c. DOUCE. and Thaliard was one of the courtiers of Antiochus the third, who reigned 200 STEEVENS. vears before Christ. P. 310. ---Anthropophaginian---] i. e. a cannibal. See Othello, Act I. sc. iii. It is here used as a sounding word to astonish Simple. Ephesian, which follows, has STEEVENS. no other meaning. P. 310. ---wise woman of Brentford ?] In our author's time female dealers in palREED. mistry and fortune-telling were usually denominated wise women. This appellation occurs also in our version of the Bible: "Her wise ladies anSTEEVENS. swered her, yea she returned answer to herself." Judges v. 29. P. 311. Ay, sir Tike; who more bold?] The folio reads-Ay, sir, like, &c. MALONE. P. 312.---at primero.] Primero and primavista, two games of cards. Primum et primum visum, that is, first and first seene, because he that can show such an order of cardes, wins the game." See Minsheu's DICT. 1617. REED. P. 316. in a pit hard by Herne's oak,] An oak, which may be that alluded to by Shakespeare, is still standing close to a pit in Windsor forest. It is yet shown as STEEVENS. the oak of Herne. VOL. II. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. P. 11. Then no more remains But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able, And let them work. To the integrity of this reading Mr. Theobald objects, and thinks a line has been accidentally dropped, which he attempts to restore thus: But that to your sufficiency you add Due diligence, as your worth is able, &c. But I am of opinion that by sufficiency is meant authority, the power delegated by the Duke to Escalus. The plain meaning of the word being this: "Put your skill in governing (says the Duke) to the power which I give you to exercise it, and let them work together." WARBURTON. Some words seem to be lost, the sense of which, perhaps, may be thus supplied : -Then no more remains, But that to your sufficiency you put And let them work. TYRWHITT. Sufficiency is skill in government; ability to execute his office. And let them work, a figurative expression; Let them ferment. MALONE. P. 12 Are not thine own so proper] i. e. are not so much thine own property. STEEVENS. Ibid. Both thanks and use] i. e. She (Nature) requires and allots to herself the same advantages that creditors usually enjoy,-thanks for the endowments she has bestowed, and extraordinary exertions in those whom she hath thus favoured, by way of interest for what she has lent. Use, in the phraseology of our author's age signified interest of money. MALONE. P. 20. make me not your story.] Mr. Ritson explains this passage, "do not REED. make a jest of me." P. 22. What know the laws, That thieves do pass on thieves?] How can the administrators of the laws take cognizance of what I have just mentioned? How can they know, whether the jurymen, who decide on the life or death of thieves, be themselves as criminal as those whom they try? To pass on is a forensic term. MALONE. P. 23. Some run from brakes of vice, and answer none ;] I find from Holinshed that the brake was an engine of torture. "The said Hawkins was cast into the Tower, and at length brought to the brake, called the Duke of Excestor's Daughter, by means of which pain he showed many things," &c. "When the Dukes of Exeter and Suffolk, says Blackstone, in his Commentaries, Vol. IV. chap. xxv. and other ministers of Henry VI. had laid a design to introduce the civil law into this kingdom as the rule of government, for a beginning thereof they erected a rack for torture; which was called in derision the Duke of Exeter's Daughter, and still remains in the Tower of London, where it was occasionally used as an engine of state, not of law, more than once in the reign of Queen Elizabeth." STEEVENS. P. 33. I am that way going to temptation, Where prayers cross.] The petition of the Lord's Prayer-"lead us not into temptation"-is here considered as crossing or intercepting the onward way in which Angelo was going; this appointment of his for the morrow's meeting, being a premeditated exposure of himself to temptation, which it was the general object of prayer to thwart. HENLEY. P. 34. --And pitch our evils there?] No language could more forcibly express the aggravated profligacy of Angelo's passion, which the purity of Isabella but served the more to inflame.-The desecration of edifices devoted to religion, by converting them to the most abject purposes of nature, was an eastern method of expressing contempt. See 2 Kings x. 27 HENLEY. P. 35. ---O, injurious love,] Hanmer reads law, the trace of the letters in the words law and love being so nearly alike.---The law affected the life of the man only, not that of the woman; and this is the injury that Juliet complains of, as she wished to die with him. M. MASON. P. 36. Whilst my intention,] read invention. means---imagination. So, in King Henry V: By invention, I believe the poet "Ö for a muse of fire, that would ascend MALONE. P. 37. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth] What you have stated is undoubtedly the divine law: murder and fornication are both forbid by the canon of scripture ;---but on earth the latter offence is considered as less heinous than the forMALONE. mer. Ibid. Stand more for number than accompt] Actions to which we are compelled, however numerous, are not imputed to us by heaven as crimes. If you cannot save your brother but by the loss of your chastity, it is not a voluntary but compelled sin, for which you cannot be accountable. MALONE. P. 38. as these black masks] The phrase these black masks signifies nothing more than black masks; according to an old idiom of our language, by which the demonstrative pronoun is put for the prepositive article. TYRWHITT. P. 52. her clack-dish :] A custom is still kept up in the villages near Oxford, about Easter, for the poor people and children to go a clacking: they carry wooden bowls, salt boxes, &c. and make a rattling noise at the houses of the principal inhabitants, who give them bacon, eggs, &c. HARRIS. P. 57. ---false and most contrarious quests] mean lying and contradictory messengers, with whom run volumes of report. RITSON. P. 80. ---Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power. That is, a premature discovery of it. M. MASON. COMEDY OF ERRORS. P. 100. Poor I am but his stale] "Stale to catch thieves" in The Tempest, undoubtedly means a fraudulent bait. Here it seems to imply the same as stalkinghorse, pretence. I am, says Adriana, but his pretended wife, the mask under which he covers his amours. STEEVENS. P. 108. We shall part with neither] To part does not signify to share or divide, but to depart or go away; and Balthazar means to say, that whilst debating which is best, they should go away without either. M. MASON, P. 111 Not mad but mated] I suspect there is a play upon words intended here. Mated signifies not only confounded, but matched with a wife and Antipholis, who had been challenged as a husband by Adriana, which he cannot account for, uses the word mated in both these senses. M. MASON. P. 124. your customers? A customer is used in Othello for a common woman. Here it seems to signify one who visits such women. MALONE. P. 131. His man with scissars nicks him like a fool:] The force of this allusion I am unable to explain with certainty. Perhaps it was once the custom to cut the hair of idiots close to their beads. STEEVENS. There is a penalty of ten shillings in one of King Alfred's ecclesiastical laws, if one opprobriously shave a common man like a fool. TOLLET. The hair of idiots is still cut close to their heads, to prevent the consequences of uncleanliness. RITSON. MERCHANT OF VENICE. P. 149. ---And I am prest unto it :] Prest may not here signify impress'd, as into military service, but ready, Pret. Fr. STEEVENS. P. 150. the Neapolitan prince.] The Neapolitans in the time of Shakespeare, were eminently skilled in all that belongs to horsemanship; nor have they, even now, forfeited their title to the same praise. STEEVENS. P. 173. ---embraced heaviness.] We say of a man now, that he "hugs his sorrows," and why might not Antonio embrace heaviness? JOHNSON. P. 191. ---It is much, that the Moor should be more, &c.] Shakespeare, no doubt, had read or heard of the old epigram on Sir Thomas More: "When More some years had chancellor been, "No more suits did remain; "The like shall never more be seen, The man that hath no music in himself, RITSON. P. 207. Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,] Let not this capricious sentiment of Shakespeare descend to posterity, unattended by the opinion of the Jate Lord Chesterfield on the same subject. In his 148th letter to his son, who was then at Venice, his lordship, after having enumerated music among the illiberal pleasures, adds---" if you love music, hear it; go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you; but I must insist on your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentleman in a very frivolous and contemptible light; brings him into a great deal of bad company, and takes up a great deal of time, which might be much better employed. Few things would mortify me more, than to see you bearing a part in a concert, with a fiddle under your chin, or a pipe in your mouth." Again, Letter 153: A taste of sculpture and painting is, in my mind, as becoming as a taste of fiddling and piping is unbecoming a man of fashion. The former is connected with history and poetry, the latter with nothing but bad company." STEEVENS. AS YOU LIKE IT. P. 251. Wherein we play in.] I believe, with Mr. Pope, that we should only read--Wherein we play. and add a word at the beginning of the next speech, to complete the measure; viz. "Why, all the world's a stage." Thus, in Hamlet: "Hor. So Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go to't. "Ham. Why, man, they did make love to their employment." Again, in Measure for Measure: Again, ibid: "Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once." 1 In twenty other instances, we find the same adverb introductorily used. P. 291. As those that fear they hope, and know they fear.] thus: As those that fear their hap, and know their fear. I read thus: As those that fear with hope, and hope with fear. STEEVENS. This should be read WARBURTON. Or thus, with less alteration: As those that fear, they hope, and now they fear. I would read: As those that fear, then hope; and know, then fear. I have little doubt but it should run thus: As those who fearing hope, and hoping fear. JOHNSON. MUSGRAVE. M. MASON. I believe this line requires no other alteration than the addition of a semi-colon: As those that fear; they hope, and know they fear. VOL. III. MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. HENLEY P. 18. ---by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen.] Shakespeare had forgot that Theseus performed his exploits before the Trojan war, and consequently long before the death of Dido. STEEVENS. P. 23. And never, since the middle summer's spring.] The middle summer's spring, is, I apprehend, the season when trees put forth their second, or, as they are frequently called, their midsummer shoots. Thus, Evelyn in his Silva: Cut off all the side boughs, and especially at midsummer, if you spy them breaking out." And again, "Where the rows and brush lie longer than midsummer, unbound, or made up, you endanger the loss of the second spring." HENLEY. P. 24. ---their winter here ;]__ Here, in this country.---I once inclined to receive the emendation proposed by Mr. Theobald, and adopted by Sir T. Hanmer,---their winter cheer; but perhaps alteration is unnecessary. "Their winter" may mean those sports with which country people are wont to beguile a winter's evening, at the season of Christmas, which, it appears from the next line, was particularly in our author's contemplation. MALONE. Ibid. No night is now with hymn or carol blest:] Since the coming of Christianity, this season, (winter,) in commemoration of the birth of Christ, has been particularly devoted to festivity. And to this custom, notwithstanding the impropriety, hymn or carol blest certainly alludes. WARBURTON. Hymns and carols, in the time of Shakespeare, during the season of Christmas, were sung every night about the streets, as a pretext for collecting money from house to house. STEEVENS. Ibid. Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, &c.] The repeated adverb there fore, throughout this speech, I suppose to have constant reference to the first time when it is used. All these irregularities of season happened in consequence of the disagreement between the king and queen of the fairies, and not in consequence of each other. Ideas crowded fast on Shakespeare; and as he committed them to paper, he did not attend to the distance of the leading object from which they took their rise. Mr. Malone concurs with me on this occasion. That the festivity and hospitality attending Christmas, decreased, was the subject of complaint to many of our ludicrous writers. STEEVENS. Ibid. ---Hyems' chin,] Dr. Grey, not inelegantly, conjectures, that the poet wrote. -on old Hyems' chill and icy crown. It is not indeed easy to discover how a chaplet can be placed on the chin. STEEVENS. Thinne is nearer to chinne (the spelling of the old copies) than chill, and therefore, I think, more likely to have been the author's word. MALONE. P. 28. And maidens call it, love-in-idleness.] It is called, in other counties the "Three-coloured violet," the " Herb of Trinity," "Three faces in a hood," "Cuddle me to you," &c. STEEVENS. Ibid. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant ; But yet you draw not iron,] I learn from Edward Fenton's Certaine Secret Wonders of Nature, bl. 1. 1569, that---" there is now a dayes a kind of adamant which draweth unto it fleshe, and the same so strongly, that it hath power to knit and tie together, two mouthes of contrary persons, and drawe the heart of a man out of his bodie without offendyng any parte of him." STEEVENS. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. P. 113. No, not to be so odd] I should read, nor to be so odd, &c. M. MASON. |