Hot. If he fall in, good night:—or sink or swim; North. Imagination of some great exploit Hot. By heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap, Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, Wor. He apprehends a world of figures here, Those same noble Scots, I'll keep them all; You start away, And lend no ear unto my purposes.- Hot. I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak Wor. Cousin; a word. Hot. Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'i Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear In Richard's time,-What do you call the place?— Hot. You say true: Why, what a candy deal of courtesy This fawning greyhound then did proffer me! me! Good uncle, tell your tale, for I have done. Hot. Of that same noble prelate, well belov'd, Hot. Of York, is't not? Wor. True; who bears hard His brother's death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop. Hear you, As what I think might be, but what I know Hot. All studies here I solemnly defy,4 Wales, But that I think his father loves him not, Wor. Farewell, kinsman! I will talk to you, North. Why, what a wasp-tongue and impatient Art thou, to break into this woman's mood; 1 Warburton observes that Euripides has put the same sentiment into the mouth of Eteocles:-' I will not, madam, disguise my thoughts; I would scale heaven, I would descend to the very entrails of the earth, if so be that by that price I could obtain a kingdom. Johnson says, Though I am far from condemning this speech, with Gildon and Theobald, as absolute madness, yet I cannot find in it that profundity of reflection, and beauty of allegory, which Warburton endeavoured to display. This sally of Hotspur may be, I think, soberly and rationally vindicated as the violent eruption of a mind inflated with ambition and fired with resentment; as the boasted clamour of a man able to do much, and eager to do more; as the dark expression of indetermined thoughts. The passage from Euripides is surely not allegorical; yexit is produced, and properly, as parallel.-In the Knight of the Burning Pestle, Beaumont and Fletcher have put this rant into the mouth of Ralph the apprentice, who, like Bottom, appears to be fond of acting parts to tear a cat in. 2 Half-faced, which has puzzled the commentators, seems here meant to convey a contemptuous idea of something imperfect. As in Nashe's Apology of Pierce Pennilesse: With all other ends of your half-faced English.' 3 Shapes created by his imagination. 4 To defy was sometimes used in the sense of to renounce, reject, refuse, by Shakspeare and his cotemporaries. 5Sword and buckler prince' is here used as a term of contempt. The following extracts will help us to the precise meaning of the epithet :- This field, commonly Hot. I smell it; upon my life, it will do well. slip.10 Hot. Why, it cannot choose but be a roble plot:- Wor. called West Smithfield, was for many years called Re fian's Hall, by reason it was the usual place for frayes and common fighting, during the time that sword and bucklers were in use; when every serving man, from the base to the best, carried a buckler at his back, which hung by the hilt or pomel of his sword.'-Stotte's Survey of London. 6 This is said in allusion to low pot-house company, with which the prince associated. 7 The first quarto, 1599, reads wasp-stung, which Steevens thought the true reading. The quarto of 1309 reads wasp-tongue, which Malone strenuously conters for; and I think with Mr. Nares that he is right. He who is stung by wasps has a real cause for impatience, but waspish, which is often used by Shakspeare, is pe tulant from temper; and wasp-tongue therefore very naturally means petulant-tongue, which was exactly the accusation meant to be urged. The folio altered unnecessarily to wasp-tongued. 8 i. e. what a deal of candy courtesy. 10 This phrase is taken from hunting. To let slip is to loose a greyhound. 11 A body of forces. 12 This is a natural description of the state of mind between those that have conferred, and those that have received obligations too great to be satisfied. That this would be the event of Northumberland's disloyalty was predicted by King Richard in the former play. And see already, how he doth begin Wor. Cousin,' farewell:-No further go in this, North. Farewell, good brother :--we shall thrive, I trust. Hot. Uncle, adieu :--O, let the hours be short, Till fields, and blows, and groans applaud our sport! [Exeunt. ACT II. quite starved."-What, ostler !--A plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy head? canst not hear? An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to break the pate of thee, I am a very villain.-Come, and be hang'd:-Hast no faith in thee? Enter GADSHILL.10 What's o'clock ? Gads. Good morrow, carriers. 1 Car. I think it be two o'clock. Gads. I pr'ythee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable. 1 Car. Nay, soft, I pray ye; I know a trick worth two of that, i'faith. Gads. I pr'ythee, lend me thine. 2 Car. Ay, when? canst tell?-Lend me thy lantern, quoth a ?--marry, I'll see thee hanged first. Gads. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London? 2 Car. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.-Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call SCENE I. Rochester. An Inn Yard. Enter a up the gentlemen; they will along with company, Carrier, with a lantern in his hand. 1 Car. Heigh ho! An't be not four by the day, I'll be hanged: Charles' wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not packed. What, ostler! Ost. [Within.] Anon, anon. 1 Car. I pr'ythee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in the point: the poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.3 Enter another Carrier. 2 Car. Pease and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots: this house is turned upside down, since Robin ostler died. 1 Car. Poor fellow! never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was the death of him. 2 Car. I think, this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas : I am stung like a tench. 1 Car. Like a tench? by the mass, there is ne'er a king in Christendom could be better bit than I have been since the first cock. for they have great charge. [Exeunt Carriers. Gads. What, ho! chamberlain ! Cham. [Within.] At hand, quoth pick-purse.11 Gads. That's even as fair as-at hand, quoth the chamberlain for thou variest no more from picking of purses, than giving direction doth from labour ing; thou lay'st the plot how.12 Enter Chamberlain. Cham. Good morrow, master Gadshill. It holds current, that I told you yesternight: There's a franklin13 in the wild of Kent, hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold: I heard him tell it to one of his company, last night at supper; a kind of auditor; one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call for eggs and butter: They will away presently. Gads. Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas' clerks, 14 I'll give thee this neck. Cham. No, I'll none of it: I pr'ythee, keep that for the hangman; for, I know, thou worship'st Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may. Gads. What talkest thou to me of the hangman? if I hang, I'll make a fat pair of gallows: for, if I 2 Car. Why, they will allow us ne'er a jorden, and then we leak in your chimney; and your cham-hang, old Sir John hangs with me; and, thou knowber-lie breeds fleas like a loach. 1 Car. What, ostler! come away and be hanged, come away. 2 Car. I have a gammon of bacon, and two razes of ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing Cross. 1 Car. 'Odsbody! the turkeys in my pannier are 1 This was a common address in Shakspeare's time to nephews, nieces, and grand-children. See Holinshed, passim. Hotspur was Worcester's nephew. 2 Charles' wain was the vulgar name for the constellation called the great bear. It is a corruption of Chorles or Churl's wain. Chorl is frequently used for a countryman in old books, from the Saxon ceorl. 3 Out of all cess' is out of all measure.' Excessively, præter modum. To cess, or assess, was to number, muster, value, measure, or appraise. 4 Dank is moist, wet, and consequently mouldy. 5 Bots are worms; a disease to which horses are very subject. est, he's no starveling. Tut! there are other Trojans that thou dreamest not of, the which, for sport sake, are content to do the profession some grace; that would, if matters should be looked into, for their own credit sake, make all whole. I am joined with no foot land-rakers, 15 no loug-staff, sixpenny strikers;16 none of these mad, mustachio, purple occurred. Such a package was much more likely to be meant than a bale. The poet perhaps intended to mark the petty importance of the carrier's business. 9 This is one of the poet's anachronisms. Turkeys were not brought into England until the reign of Hen. ry VIII. 10 Gadshill has his name from a place on the Kentish Road, where robberies were very frequent. A curious narrative of a gang, who appear to have infested that neighbourhood in 1590, is printed from a MS. paper of Sir Roger Manwood's in Boswell's Shakspeare, vol. xvi. p. 431. 11 This is a proverbial phrase, frequently used in old 6 Dr. Farmer thought tench a mistake for trout; pro-plays. bably alluding to the red spots with which the trout is covered, having some resemblance to the spots on the skin of a flea-bitten person. 7 It appears from a passage in Holland's translation of Pliny's Nat. Hist. b. ix. c. xlvii. that anciently fishes were supposed to be infested with fleas. Last of all some fishes there be which of themselves are given to breed fleas and lice; among which the chalcis, a kind of turgot, is one.' Mason suggests that breeds fleas as fast as a loach breeds loaches,' may be the meaning of the passage; the loach being reckoned a peculiarly prolific fish. 12 Thus in the life and death of Gamaliel Ratsey, 1605 :— “. -he dealt with the chamberlaine of the house, to learn which way they went in the morning, which the chamberlaine performed accordingly, and that with great care and diligence, for he knew he should partake of their fortunes if they sped.' 13 A freeholder or yeoman, a man above a vassal or villain, but not a gentleman. This was the Franklin of the age of Elizabeth. In earlier times he was a person of much more dignity. See Canterbury Tales, v. 333, and Mr. Tyrwhitt's note upon it. 14 In a note on The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iii. Sc. 1, is an account of the origin of this expression as applied to scholars; and as Nicholas or old Nick is a cant name for the devil, so thieves are equivocally callSaint Nicholas' clerks. 15 Footpads. 16 A striker was a thief. 8 The commentators have puzzled themselves and their readers about this word razes: Theobald asserts that a raze is the Indian term for a bale. I have somewhere seen the word used for a fraile, or little rush based ket, such as figs, raisins, &c. are usually packed in; but I cannot now recall the book to memory in which it hued malt-worms: but with nobility, and tranquillity; burgomasters, and great oneyers; such as can hold in; such as will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray And yet I lie; for they pray continually to their saint, the commonwealth; or, rather, not pray to her, but prey on her; for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots,2 Cham. What, the commonwealth their boots? will she hold out water in foul way? Gads. She will, she will; justice hath liquored her. We steal as in a castle, cock-sure; we. have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible. Cham. Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholden to the night, than to fern-seed, for your walking invisible. Gads. Give me thy hand: thou shalt have a share of our purchase, as I am a true man. Cham. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief. Gads. Go to; Homo is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The Road by Gadshill. Enter PRINCE HENRY, and POINS; BARDOLPH and PETO, at some distance. Poins. Come, shelter, shelter: I have removed Falstaff's horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet." P. Hen. Stand close. Enter FALSTAFF. Fal. Poins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins! P. Hen. Peace, ye fat-guts! lie down; lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers. Fal. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? Sblood, I'll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again, for all the coin in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt1 me thus? P. Hen. Thou liest, thou art not colted, thou art uncolted. Fal. I pr'ythee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse: good king's son. P. Hen. Out, you rogue! shall I be your ostler! Fal. Go, hang thyself in thy own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison: When a jest is so forward, and afoot too,-I hate it. Enter GADSHILL. Gals. There's enough to make us all. P. Hen. Sirs, you four shall front them in the P. Hen. Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal; What a narrow lane; Ned Poins and I will walk lower: f brawling dost thou keep? Fal. Where's Poins, Hal? P. Hen. He is walked up to the top of the hill, I'll go seek him. [Pretends to seek POINS. Fal. I am accursed to rob in that thief's company: the rascal hath removed my horse, and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the squire further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I 'scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly, any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hang'd; it could not be else; I have drunk medicines.-Poins!-Hal!-a plague upon you both!-Bardolph!-Peto!-I'll starve, ere I'll rob a foot further. An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground, is threescore and ten miles afoot with me; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough: A plague upon't, when thieves cannot be true to one another! [They whistle.] Whew! -A plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues; give me my horse, and be hang'd. they 'scape from your encounter, they light on us. Peto. How many be there of them? Gads. Some eight, or ten. Fal. Zounds! will they not rob us? P. Hen. What, a coward, Sir John Paunch? Fal. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet no coward, Hal. P. Hen. Well, we leave that to the proof. Poins. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge; when thou needest him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast. Fal. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged. P. Hen. Ned, where are our disguises? [Exeunt P. HEN. and POINS Fal. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole," say I; every man to his business. Fal. Strike; down with them; cut the villains" throats: Ah! whoreson caterpillars! bacon-fed 1 Some of the commentators have been at great pains io conjecture what class of persons were meant by great 5 Fern-sced was supposed to have the power of renoneyers. One proposed to read moneyers; another myn-dering persons invisible: the seed of fern is itself invisi heers; and Malone coins a word, onyers, which he ble; therefore to find it was a magic operation, and in the says may mean a public accountant, from the term use it was supposed to communicate its own property. o-ni, used in the exchequer. The ludicrous nature of 6 Purchase was anciently understood in the sense of the appellations which Gadshill bestows upon his asso-gain, profit, whether legally or illegally obtained. The ciates might have sufficiently shown them that such at- commentators are wrong in saying that it meant stolen tempts must be futile; nobility and tranquillity, bur-goods. gomasters and great oneyers, Johnson has judiciously explained it. Gadshill tells the chamberlain that he is joined with no mean wretches, but with "burgomasters and great ones," or, as he terms them in merriment by a cant termination, great one-y-ers, or great one-eers, as we say privateer, auctioneer, circuiteer. 2 A quibble upon boots and booty. Boot is profit, advantage. 3 Alluding to boots in the preceding passage. In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff says:- They would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with me.' 7 This allusion we often meet with in the old comedies. Thus in The Malecontent, 1604:-'I'll come among you, like gum into taffata, to fret, fret. Velvet and taffata were sometimes stiffened with gum; but the consequence was, that the stuff being thus hardened, quickly rubbed and fretted itself out. 8 i. e. the square or measure. A carpenter's rule was called a square; from esquierre, Fr. 9 Alluding to the vulgar notion of love-powders. 10 To colt is to trick, fool, or deceive; perhaps from the wild tricks of a colt. 11 i. e. be his lot or portion happiness. This provet 4 As in a castle was a proverbial phrase for security.bial phrase has been already explained in the notes on Stevens has adduced several examples of its use in cotemporary writers. The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Taming of the knaves! they hate us youth: down with them; fleece them. 1 Trav. 0, we are undone, both we and ours, for ever. Fal. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves; Are ye undone? No, ye fat chuff's; I would, your store were here! On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves? young men must live: You are grand-jurors are ye? We'll jure ye, i'faith. [Exeunt FAL. &c. driving the Travellers out. P. Hen. The thieves have bound the true3 men: Now could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever. Poins. Stand close, I hear them coming. Re-enter Thieves. Fal. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day. An the prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there's no equity stirring: there's no more valour in that Poins, than in a wild duck. P. Hen. Your money. [Rushing out upon them. As they are sharing, the Prince and POINS P. Hen. Got with much ease. Now merrily to The thieves are scatter'd, and possess'd with fear -But, for my own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house. He could be contented,-Why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our house: -he shows in this, he loves his own barn better thau he loves our house. Let me see some more. The purpose you undertake is dangerous;-Why, that's certain; 'tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink! but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. The purpose you undertake is dangerous; the friends you have named, uncertain; the time itself unsorted; whole and your plot too light, for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.-Say you so, say you so! I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this? By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation: an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this? Why, my lord of York commends the plot, and the general course of the action. 'Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, 1 Gorbellied is big-paunched, corpulent. 2 A term of reproach usually applied to avaricious old citizens. It is of uncertain derivation. Cotgrave interprets Un gros marroufle, a big cat; also an ouglie luske or clusterfist; also a rich churl or fat chuffe." 3 True for honest: thus opposing the true men to the thieves. 4 Argument is subject matter for conversation. and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is there not, besides, the Douglas? Have I not all their letters, to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month; and are they not, some of them, set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this? an infidel? Ha! you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the king, and lay open all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skimmed milk with so honourable an action! Hang him! let him tell the king: We are prepared: I will set forward to-night. Enter LADY PERCY. How now, Kate? I must leave you within these Lady. O my good lord, why are you thus alone? Such as we see when men restrain their breath Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, Hot. What, ho! is Gilliams with the packet gone? Serv. He is, my lord, an hour ago. Serv. One horse, my lord, he brought even now. That roan shall be my throne. Well, I will back him straight: O esperance!—14 [Exit Servant. Lady. But hear you, my lord. In Virgil ferreus somnus.' Homer terms sleep brazen, 10 Retires are retreats. 11 Frontiers formerly meant not only the bounds of different territories, but also the forts built along or near those limits. Thus in Ives's Practice of Fortification, 1589:- A forte not placed where it were needful, might 5 This letter was from George Dunbar, Earl of skantly be accounted for frontier? Florio interprets March, in Scotland. 6 Richard Scroop, archbishop of York. 7 See note on the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act ii. Sc. 3. 8 Shakspeare either mistook the name of Hotspur's wife (which was not Katherine, but Elizabeth), or else designedly changed it, out of the remarkable fondness he seems to have had for the name of Kate. Hall and Holinshed call her erroneously Elinor. 9 In King Richard III. we have leaden slumber." 'frontiera, a frontire or bounding place: also a skonce, a bastion, a defence, a trench, or block-house, upon or about confines or borders.' 12 Basilisks are a species of orduauce, probably so named from the imaginary serpent or dragon, with figures of which it was ordinary to ornament great guns 13 Occurrences. 14 The motto of the Percy family. 'As quarrellous as the weasel.' About his title; and hath sent for you, In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry, Away, you triller!-Love? I love thee not, Lady. Do you not love me? do you not indeed? Hot. Come, wilt thou see me ride? No lady closer; for I well believe, Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know; |clude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour, that I can drink with any tinker in his own lawguage during my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour, that thou wert not with me in thus acdn. But, sweet Ned,-to sweeten which name of Ner, I give thee this penny-worth of sugar, clapp 4 even now in my hand by an under-skinker;" on that never spake other English in his life, thanEight shillings and sixpence, and-You are welcome; with this shrill addition,-Anon, anon, sir! Sove a pint of bastard in the Half-moon, or so. But, Ned, to drive away the time till Falstaff come, I pr'ythor, do thou stand in some by-room, while I question my puny drawer, to what end he gave me the sugar; and do thou never leave calling-Francis, thai his tale to me may be nothing but-anon. Step aside, and I'll show thee a precedent. Poins. Francis! P. Hen. Thou art perfect. Enter FRANCIS. Fran. Anon, anon, sir. [Exit Poiss Look down into the P. Hen. Come hither, Francis. P. Hen. How long hast thou to serve, Francis? Fran. Anon, anon, sir! P. Hen. Five years! by'rlady, a long lease for the clinking of pewter. But, Francis, darest thou be so valiant, as to play the coward with thy indenture, Hot. Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate? and to show it a fair pair of heels, and run from it? Whither I go, thither shall you go too; To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you.— It must, of force. Lady. Poins. Where hast been, Ha!? P. Hen. With three or four loggerheads, amongst three or four score hogsheads. I have sounded the very base string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their Christian names, ass-Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, that, though I be but prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy; and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff; but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy,-by the Lord, so they call me; and when I am king of England, I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call-drinking deep, dying scarlet: and when you breathe in your watering, they cry-hem! and bid you play it off."-To con1 i. e. to strengthen. 2 Mammets were puppets or dolls, here used by Shakspeare for a female plaything; a diminutive of mam. Quasi dicat parvam matrem, seu matronulam.' -Icuncule, mammets or puppets that goe by devises of wyer or strings, as though they had life and moving, Junius's Nomenclator by Fleming, 1585.—Mr. Gifford has thrown out a conjecture about the meaning of mammets from the Italian mammetta, which signified a bosom as well as a young wench. See Ben Jonson's Works, vol. v. p. 66. I have not found the word used in English in that sense; but mammet, for a puppet or dressed up living doll, is common enough. 3 Eastcheap is selected with propriety for the scene of the prince's merry meetings, as it was near his own residence: a mansion called Cold Harbour (near All Hallows Church, Upper Thames Street), was granted to Henry Prince of Wales. 11 Henry IV. 1410. Rymer, vol. viii. p. 628. In the old anonymous play of King Henry V. Eastcheap is the place where Henry and his companions meet:- Hen. V. You know the old tavern in Eastcheap; there is good wine.' Shakspeare has hung up a sign for them that he saw daily; for the Boar's Head tavern was very near Blackfriars' Playhouse. Stowe's Survey. Sir John Falstaff was in his lifetime a considerable benefactor to Magdalen College, Oxford; and though the College cannot give the particulars at large, the Fran. O lord, sir! I'll be sworn upon all the books in England, I could find in my heartPoins. [Within.] Francis! Fran. Anon, anon, sir. P. Hen. How old art thou, Francis? Fran. Let me see,-About Michaelmas next 1 shall be Poins. [Within.] Francis! Fran. Anon, sir.-Pray you, stay a little, my lord. P.Hen. Nay, but hark you, Francis: For the sugar thou gavest me,-'twas a pennyworth, was't not? Fran. O lord, sir! I would it had been two. P. Hen. I will give thee for it a thousand pound: ask me when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it. Poins. [Within.] Francis! Fran. Anon, anon. Boar's Head in Southirark, and Caldecot Manor in Suffolk were part of the lands, &c. he bestowed. 4 A Corinthian was a wrencher a debauchee. The fame of Corinth, as a place of resort for loose womea, was not yet extinct. 5 Mr. Gifford has shown that there is no ground for the filthy interpretation of this passage which Steevens chose to give. To breathe in your watering,' is to stop and take breath when you are drinking.' 6 It appears from two passages cited by Steevens that the drawers kept sugar folded up in paper, ready w be delivered to those who called for sack. 7 An under-skinker is a tapster, an under-draurer. Skink is drink, liquor; from scene, drink, Saxou. 8 The prince intends to ask the drawer whether he will rob his master, whom he denotes by these com temptuous distinctions. 9 Nott-pated is shorn-pated, or cropped; having the hair cut close. 10 Puke-stockings are dark-coloured stockings. Puke is a colour between russet and black; pullus, Lat se cording to the dictionaries. By the receipt for dyeing ¤, it appears to have been a dark gray or state colur. 11 Caddis was probably a kind of ferret or worsted lace. A slight kind of serge still bears the name of cadis in France. In Glapthorne's Wit in a Constable, we are told of footmen in caddis. Garters being for. merly worn in sight were often of rich materials, to wear a coarse cheap sort was therefore reproachfah, |