Kent. Fellow, I know thee. Stew. What doft thou know me for? Kent. A knave, a rafcal, an eater of broken meats; a bafe, proud, fhallow, beggarly, three-fuited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lillyliver'd, action-taking knave; a whorfon, glassgazing, fuper-ferviceable, finical rogue; one-trunkinheriting flave; one that would't be a bawd, in way of good fervice, and art nothing but the compofition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the fon and heir of a mungrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deny'ft the least fyllable of thy addition 7. Stew. Why, what a monftrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one, that is neither known of thee, nor knows thee? Kent. What a brazen-fac'd varlet are thou, to deny thou know'ft me? Is it two days ago, fince I tript up thy heels, and beat thee, before the king? Draw, you rogue: for, though it be night, yet the moon fhines; I'll make a fop o' the moonshine of you: Draw brother this town craves maintenance; filk ftockings must be had, &c." Silk stockings were not made in England till 1560, the fecond year of queen Elizabeth's reign. Of this extravagance Drayton takes notice in the 16th fong of his Pulyolbion: "Which our plain fathers erft would have accounted fin "Before the coftly coach and filken flock came in." STEEVENS. 5-hundred-pound,-] A hundred-pound gentleman is a term of reproach used in Middleton's Phanix, 1607. STEEVENS. —aƐion-taking knave;-] i. e. a fellow who, if you beat him, would bring an action for the affault, instead of resenting it like a man of courage. MOCK MASON. -addition.] i. e. titles. The act 1 Hen. V. ch. v. which directs that in certain writs, a description should be added to the name of the defendant, expreffive of his eftate, mystery, degree, &c. is called the statute of Additions. MALONE. 8 -I'll make a fop o' the moonshine of you.. -] This is equivalent to our modern phrase of making the jun shine through Draw you whorefon cullionly barber-monger, draw. [Drawing his fword. Stew. Away; I have nothing to do with thee. Kent. Draw, you rafcal: you come with letters against the king; and take ' vanity the puppet's part, against the royalty of her father: Draw, you rogue, or I'll fo carbonado your fhanks:-draw, you rascal; come your ways. Stew. Help, ho! murder! help! any one. But, alluding to the natural philofophy of that time, it is obfcure. The Peripatetics thought, though falfely, that the rays of the moon were cold and moift. The fpeaker therefore fays, he would make a fop of his antagonist, which should abforb the humidity of the moon's rays, by letting them into his guts. For this reafon Shakspeare, in Romeo and Juliet, fays: -the moonshine's watry beams.' And, in the Midfummer Night's Dream: Quench'd in the chaft beams of the watry moon." WARBURTON. I'll make a fop o' the moonshine of you.] Perhaps here an equivoque was intended. In the Old Shepherd's Kalendar, among lithes recommended for Prymetyne, "One is egges in monefhine." FARMER. the Again, in fome verfes within a letter of Howell's to Sir Thomas How: 9 Could I thofe whitely ftars go nigh, STEEVENS. barber-monger,] Of this word I do not clearly fee the force. JOHNSON. Barber-monger may mean, dealer in the lower tradesmen: a flur upon the iteward, as taking fees for a recommendation to the bufinefs of the family. FARMER. vanity the puppet's] Alluding to the myfteries or allegorical fhews, in which vanity, iniquity, and other vices, were perfonified. JOHNSON. So, in Velpone, or The Fox: "Get you a cittern, Lady Vanity." STEEVENS. The defeription is applicable only to the old moralities, between which and the myleries there was an effential difference. REMARKS. Kent Kent. Strike, you slave; ftand, rogue, ftand; you * neat flave, ftrike. [Beating him. Enter Edmund, Cornwall, Regan, Glofter, and Servants. Edm. How now? What's the matter? Part. He dies, that ftrikes again: What is the matter? Kent. No marvel, you have fo beftirr'd your valour. Corn. Thou art a ftrange fellow: A tailor make a man? Kent. Ay, a tailor, fir: aftone-cutter, or a painter, 2 -neat flave, -] You mere flave, you very flave. JOHNSON. You neat flave, I believe, means no more than you finical raf cal, you who are an affemblage of foppery and poverty. Ben Jonfon ufes the fame epithet in his Poetafter: By thy leave, my neat fcoundrel." STEEVENS. 3 -nature difclaims in thee;] So the quartos and the folio. The modern editors read, without authority: nature difclaims her share in thee. The old reading is the true one. So, in R. Brome's Northern Lafs, 1633: "I will difclaim in your favour hereafter." Again, in The Cafe is Alter'd, by Ben Jonfon, 1609: "Thus to difclaim in all th' effects of pleasure." Again: "No, I difclaim in her, I fpit at her." Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. III. chap. xvi: "Not thefe, my lords, make me difclaim in it which all purfue." STEEVENS. VOL. IX. Gg could could not have made him fo ill, though they had been but two hours at the trade. Corn. Speak yet, how grew your quarrel? Stew. This ancient ruffian, fir, whofe life I have fpar'd, At fuit of his grey beard, 4 Kent. Thou whorefon zed! thou unneceffary letter! My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the • Thou whorefon zed! thou unneceffary letter I-] I do not well understand how a man is reproached by being called zed, nor how Z is an unnecessary letter. Scarron compares his deformity to the shape of Z, and it may be a proper word of infult to a crook-backed man; but why fhould Goneril's steward be crooked, unless the allufion be to his bending or cringing posture in the prefence of his fuperiors. Perhaps it was written, thou whorefon C (for cuckold) thou unnecessary letter. C is a letter unneceffary in our alphabet, one of its two founds being reprefented by S, and one by K. But all the copies concur in the common reading. JOHNSON. Thou whorefon zed! thou unnecessary letter!] Zed is here probably used as a term of contempt, because it is the laft letter in the English alphabet, and as its place may be fupplied by S, and the Roman alphabet has it not; neither is it read in any word originally Teutonic. In Barret's Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580, it is quite omitted, as the author affirms it to be rather a fyllable than a letter. C cannot be the unnecessary letter, as there are many words in which its place will not be fupplied by any other, as charity, chastity, &c. STEEVENS. Thou whorefon zed! thou unneceffary letter. This is taken from the grammarians of the time. Mulcafter fays, "Z is much harder amongst us, and feldom feen :-S is become its lieutenant general. It is lightlie expreffed in English, faving in foren enfranchifments." FARMER. 5-this unbolted villain-] i. e. unrefined by education, the bran yet in him. Metaphor from the bakehouse. WARBURTON. 6 into mortar,] This expreffion was much in ufe in our author's time. So, Maflinger, in his New Way to pay old Debts, A& I. scene i: -I will help your memory, "And tread thee into mortar." STEEVENS. Unbelied mortar is mortar made of unfifted lime, and there fore the wall of a jakes with him.-Spare my grey beard, you wagtail? Corn. Peace, sirrah! You beaftly knave, know you no reverence? Corn. Why art thou angry? Kent. That fuch a flave as this should wear a sword, Who wears no honefty. Such fmiling rogues as thefe, 7 Like rats, oft bite the holy cords in twain Too fore to break the lumps it is neceffary to tread it by men in wooden fhoes. This unbolted villain is therefore this coarse rascal. TOLLET. 7 Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwaine, Which are t' intrince, t' unloofe ;] Thus the first edi tors blundered this paffage into unintelligible nonfenfe. Mr. Pope fo far has difengaged it, as to give us plain fense; but by throwing out the epithet boly, it is evident that he was not aware of the poet's fine meaning. I will first establish and prove the reading, then explain the allufion. Thus the poet gave it: Like rats, oft bite the holy cords in twain, Too intrinficate t' unloofe : This word again occurs in our author's Antony and Cleopatra, where the is speaking to the afpick: -Come, mortal wretch; "With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinficate "Of life at once untie.". And we meet with it in Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonfon.Yet there are certain punctilios, or. as I may more nakedly infinuate them, certain intrinficate ftrokes and words, to which your activity is not yet amounted, &c. It means, inward, hidden, perplext; as a knot, hard to be unravelled: it is derived from the Latin adverb intrinfecus; from which the Italians have coined a very beautiful phrafe, intrinsicurfi çol une, i. e. to grow intimate with, to wind one felf into another. And now to our author's fenfe. Kent is rating the fteward, as a parafite of Goneril's; and fuppofes very juftly, that he has fomented the quarrel betwixt that princefs and her father: in which office he compares him to a facrilegious rat: and by a fine metaphor, as Mr. Warburton obferved to me, ftiles the union between parents and children the holy cords. THEOBALD. Like rats, oft bite the holy cords in twain Too intrinficate' unloose:] By thefe holy cords the poet means the natural union between parents and children. G g 2 The |