eyer 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. 41. 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. 43. 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 out 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. 43. 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. STE. P. 45. How you drumble.] To drumble, in Devonshire, signifies to mutter in a sullen and inarticulate voice. HENLEY. P. 45. —So, now uncape,] Is a term in fox-hunting, which signifies to dig out the fox when earthed. The Oxford editor reads-uncouple. WARB. 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. 45. 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. 48. 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 metaphorically used. STE. P. 55. you must be preeches.] Sir Hugh means to say-you must be breeched, i. e. flogged. To breech is to flog. So, in The Taming of the Shrew: "I am no breeching scholar in the schools." STE. P. 56. -watch the door with pistols,] This is one of Shakspeare's anachronisms. Thus, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Thaliard says : DOUCE. "Can get him once within my pistol's length," &c. and Thaliard was one of the courtiers of Antiochus the third, who reigned 200 years before Christ STE. P. 64. 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 no other meaning. STE. P. 64. wise woman of Brentford 2] In our author's time female dealers in palmistry and fortune-telling were usually denominated wise women. REED. This appellation occurs also in our version of the Bible: "Her wise ladies answered her, yea she returned answer to herself." Judges v. 29. STE. P. 69 —Ay, sir Tike; who more bold ?] The folio reads— Ay, sir, like, &c. MAL. P: 66. -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. 20 in a pit hard by Herne's oak, An oak, which may be that alluded to by Shakspeare, is still standing close to a pit in Windsor forest. It is yet shown as the oak of Herne. P. 5. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Then no more remains But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able, STE. And let them work.] To the integrity of this reading Mr. Theobald objects, and thinks a line has been acidentally 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." WARB. 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 A zeal as willing as your worth is able, And let them work. TYRWHITT. Sufficiency is skill in government; ability to execute his office. And let them work, a figurative expression; Let them fer ment. MAL. P. 6. Are not thine own so proper] i. e. are not so much thine own property. STE. 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 extra ordinary 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. MAL. P. 14. make me not your story.] Mr. Ritson explains this passage, "do not make a jest of me." REED. P. 16. 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. MAL. P. 17. 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 Excester'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." P.26. I am that way going to temptation, STE.. 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, be ing a premeditated exposure of himself to temptation, which it was the general object of prayer to thwart. HENLEY. P. 28. —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. Ibid. 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. 30. Whilst my intention,] read invention. By invention, I believe the poet means-imagination. So, in King Henry V : "O for a muse of fire, that would ascend STE. MAL. P. 31. '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 former. MAL. 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. MAL. P. 32. —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.46. —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. 51. false and most contrarious quests] mean lying and contradictory messengers, with whom run volumes of report. P. 74. RITSON. Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power.] That is, a premature discovery of it. M. MASON. COMEDY OF ERRORS. P. 14. 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 stalking-horse, pretence. I am, says Adriana, but his pretended wife, the mask under which he covers his amours. STE. P. 22. 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 M. MASON. go away without either. P. 25. Not mad but mated] I suspect there is a play upon words intended here. Mated signifies not only confounded, |