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keel is from the Anglo-Saxon cælan, to cool; and the word is so used by Chaucer and others.

LIBBARD. Act V., Sc. 2. Leopard.

LIE. Act I., Sc. 1.

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'She must lie here on mere necessity."

To lie is to reside. Sir H. Wotton gives the following punning definition of the duties of an ambassador. -"An honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country." LONG OF YOU. Act II., Sc. 1.

"'T is long of you that spur me with such questions." Through you--along of you. Dibdin has used the phrase: "I love [various things]

'Twas all along of loving these,

First made me doat on lovely Nan."

MANNER. Act I., Sc. 1.

"I was taken with the manner."

Costard here uses the law-French term mainour. To be taken with the mainour, is to be taken with a thing stolen in possession-hond-habend, having in the hand.

MEAN. Act V., Sc. 2.

"He can sing

A mean most meanly."

In vocal music a mean is an intermediate part between the highest and lowest.

NO POYNT. Act II., Sc. 1.

"No poynt, with my knife.

This is the French non point, the double negative, as it is termed. The phrase is again used in Act V., Sc. 2.

O'ERPARTED. Act V., Sc. 2.

"A little o'erparted."

Not equal to his part.

OWE. Act I., Sc. 2.

"Which native she doth owe."

Owe is constantly used by Shakspere and our early writers in the sense of possess.

PARITORS. Act III., Sc. 1.

"Great general

Of trotting paritors."

The paritor, or apparitor, is an officer of the ecclesiastical court, whose business it is to serve citations on parties to appear in court, often, no doubt, some whose offences had been prompted by the "liege of all loiterers."

PERJURE. Act IV., Sc. 3.

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'He comes in like a perjure, wearing papers."

The punishment for perjury was the pillory, and when the perjurer was exposed thereon, he wore "papers of perjury." PERSON. Act IV., Sc. 2.

"Give you good morrow, master person."

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Blackstone explains parson, as
persona ecclesia." 'He is
called parson, persona, because by his person the church,
which is an invisible body, is represented." The derivation
was, most probably, generally understood in Shakspere's
time.

PICKED. Act V., Sc. 1.

"He is too picked, too spruce."

Picked, says Stevens, is a metaphor derived from the action of birds in picking their feathers. The word occurs also in 'King John,' Act I., and there, as here, means coxcombical. POINT-DEVISE. Act V., Sc. 1. Nice to excess. The word is often used in our old writers, but the origin of the phrase is not known.

POMEWATER. Act IV., Sc. 2.

"Ripe as a pomewater."

Pomewater is a species of apple.

PRICKET. Act IV., Sc. 2.

""Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket."

Pricket is a term in hunting. The buck received a fresh name every year until the sixth. In the first year he was called a fawn; in the second, a pricket; in the third, a sorrell; in the fourth, a soare; in the fifth, a buck of the first head; and in the sixth, a buck. Dull, misunderstanding haud credo, contradicts Holofernes as to the age of the buck.

PRUNING. Act IV., Sc. 3.

"Or spend a minute's time In pruning me."

Preening; as a bird preens or trims his feathers.

QUILLET. Act IV., Sc. 3.

"Some tricks, some quillets."

Quillet-probably from the Latin quilibet or quodlibet—what you please is used to signify a fallacy or an argument without foundation. Milton says, "let not human quillets keep back divine authority."

RAUGHT. Act IV., Sc. 2. Reached.

SELF-SOVEREIGNTY. Act IV., Sc. 1.

"Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty
Only for praise sake?"

Self-sovereignty is here used in the sense of self-sufficiency.
Not a sovereignty over themselves, but in themselves.

SET OF WIT. Act V., Sc. 2.

"A set of wit well play'd."

A phrase borrowed from the game of tennis.

SIT YOU OUT. Act I., Sc. 1.

"Well, sit you out."

A term borrowed from card-playing. At some games, a person not taking a part in the game is allowed to sit out.

SQUIRE. Act V., Sc. 2.

"Do not you know my lady's foot by the squire?" Squire is here used for a rule or square-esquierre. STATUTE-CAPS. Act V., Sc. 2.

"Better wits have worn plain statute-caps."

In 1571 a statute was passed for the encouragement of trade, providing that all persons above six years of age, except the nobility and other persons of degree, should on Sundays and holidays wear caps of wool manufactured in England. This law was repealed in 1597, as, like all laws of a similar character, it had been either evaded or openly violated. As, however, the law applied to artisans and labourers, the sarcasm of Rosaline is palpable enough.

SUGGESTIONS. Act I., Sc. 1. Temptations.

TALENT. Act IV., Sc. 2.

"If a talent be a claw."

The talon of a bird was formerly written talent.

THARBOROUGH. Act I., Sc. 1.

"I am his grace's tharborough."

A purposed corruption of thirdborough, a local peace-officer. THRASONICAL. Act V., Sc. 1. From Thraso, the boasting soldier of Terence.

TIRED. Act IV., Sc. 2.

"So doth

the tired horse his rider."

Attired, caparisoned, adorned with trappings.

TREAD A MEASURE. Act V., Sc. 2.

The measure was a dance, somewhat like the minuet, of which the steps were slow and measured.

UTTER. Act II., Sc. 1.

"Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues."

To utter is to put forth, to issue, as we use still the phrase "to utter base coin." Chapman is a trader, from cheap, a market. It was formerly used for both seller and buyer; the bargainer was a cheapman, chapman, or copeman. We still use the term in legal proceedings, as in "dealer and chapman."

VAILING. Act V., Sc. 2.

"Their damask sweet commixture shewn,

Are angels vailing clouds."

To vail-to avale-to cause to fall down; the clouds open as the angels descend.

VENEW. Act V., Sc. 1.

"A quick venew of wit.

Venew is a term from the fencing-school, and means a bout o. hit.

WAX. Act V., Sc. 2.

"That was the way to make his god-head wax.”

To wax is to grow, as we still say the moon waxeth and waneth.

WELL-LIKING. Act V., Sc. 2.

'Well-liking wits they have."

Wits in good condition. In Job, chap. xxxix. the young of the wild goats are said to be "in good liking, they grow up with corn."

WHALES' BONE. Act V., Sc. 2.

"To show his teeth as white as whales' bone."

The tooth of the walrus is here meant by whales' bone.

WIMPLED. Act III., Sc. 1. Veiled.

WOOLWARD. Act V., Sc. 2.

"I go woolward for penance."

Towards the wool; i. e. without a shirt, so as to have the woollen cloth of the coat next the skin.

PLOT AND CHARACTERS.

IF Shakspere had been asked for the Plot of 'Love's Labour's Lost,' he might have answered, anticipating Canning's "knife-grinder,"

"Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, Sir."

We have endeavoured, in these notices, to deviate from the merely critical form, and seek chiefly to present the dramatic action as a narrative. The structure of 'Love's Labour's Lost' is at variance with this plan; and we therefore abridge what we have formerly written in 'The Pictorial Shakspere:

Molière, in his 'Précieuses Ridicules,' has admirably hit off one affectation that had found its way into the private life of his own times. The ladies aspired to be wooed after the fashion of the Grand Cyrus. Madelon will be called Polixène, and Cathos Aminte. They dismiss their plain honest lovers, because marriage ought to be at the end of the romance, and not at the beginning. But in 'Love's Labour's Lost' Shakspere presents us almost every variety of affectation that is founded upon a misdirection of intellectual activity. We have here many of the forms in which cleverness is exhibited as opposed to wisdom, and false refinement as opposed to simplicity. The affected characters, even the most fantastical, are not fools; but, at the same time, the natural characters, who, in this play, are chiefly the women, have their intellectual foibles. All the modes of affectation are developed in one continued stream of fun and drollery; -every one is laughing at the folly of the other, and the laugh grows louder and louder as the more natural characters, one by one, trip up the heels of the more affected. The most affected at last join in the laugh with the most natural; and the whole comes down to "plain kersey yea and nay," from the syntax of Holofernes, and the "fire-ne words" of Armado, to "greasy Joan" and "roasted crabs."

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