hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume :Ha! here's three of us are fophifticated!Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but fuch a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.-Off, off, you lendings:-Come'; unbutton here.[Tearing off his clothes.

Fool. Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented; this is a naughty night to swim in.-Now a little fire in a wild field, were like an old lecher's heart 2; a small fpark, and all the rest of his body cold.-Look, here comes a walking fire.

Edg. This is the foul fiend 3 Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks 'till the firft cock; he gives the web and the pin, fquints the eye, and

4

1 Come; unbutton here.] Thus the folio. One of the quartos reads:

2

Come on, be true. STEEVENS.

-an old lecher's heart.] This image appears to have been imitated by Beaumont and Fletcher in the Humourous Lieutenant; ·an old man's loose defire

66

"Is like the glow-worm's light the apes fo wonder'd at;
"Which when they gather'd sticks, and laid upon't,
"And blew and blew, turn'd tail, and went out presently."
STEEVENS.

3Flibbertigibbet ;] We are not much acquainted with this fiend. Latimer in his fermons mentions him; and Heywood, among his fixte hundred of Epigrams, edit. 1576, has the following, Of calling one Flebergibet:

Thou Flebergibet, Flebergibet, thou wretch!

"Wotteft thou whereto laft part of that word doth stretch?
"Leave that word, or I'le bafte thee with a libet ;
"Of all woords I hate woords that end with gibet,"

STEEVENS.

"Frateretto, Fliberdigibet, Hoberdidance, Tocobatto, were four devils of the round or morice..... Thefe four had forty affistants under them, as themselves doc confeffè." Harfenet, P. 49. PERCY.

4web and the pin,-] Difeafes of the eye. JOHNSON. So, in Every Woman in her Humour, 1600. One of the characters is giving a ludicrous description of a lady's face, and when he comes to her eyes he says, "a pin and web argent in hair du Toy." STEEVENS,

makes

makes the hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and
hurts the poor creature of earth.

5 Saint Withold footed thrice the wold;
He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold;

5 Saint Withold footed thrice the wold,

He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold,
Bid her alight, and her troth plight,
And aroynt thee, witch, aroynt thee !]

We should read it thus:

Saint Withold footed thrice the wold,
He met the night-mare, and her name told,
Bid her alight, and her troth plight,

And

aroynt thee, witch, aroynt thee right.

Bid

i. e. Saint Withold traverfing the wold or downs, met the nightmare; who having told her name, he obliged her to alight from those perfons whom the rides, and plight her troth to do no more mifchief. This is taken from a ftory of him in, his legend. Hence he was invoked as the patron faint against that distemper. And these verses were no other than a popular charm, or nightSpell against the Epialtes. The laft line is the formal execration or apoftrophe of the fpeaker of the charm to the witch, aroynt thee right, i. e. depart forthwith. Bedlams, gipfies, and fuch like vagabonds, ufed to fell these kinds of fpells or charms to the people. They were of various kinds for various disorders, We have another of them in the Monfieur Thomas of Fletcher, which he exprefsly calls a night-Spell, and is in these words: "Saint George, Saint George, our lady's knight, "He walks by day, fo he does by night;

"And when he had her found,

"He her beat and her bound;

"Until to him her troth fhe plight,

"She would not ftir from him that night."

WARBURTON.

This is likewife one of the "magical cures" for the incubus, quoted, with little variation, by Reginald Scott in his Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584. STEEVENS.

In the old quarto the corruption is fuch as may deserve to be noted. "Swithald footed thrice the olde anelthu night moore and her nine fold bid her, O light and her troth plight and arint thee, with arint thee." JOHNSON.

Her nine fold feems to be put (for the fake of the rime) instead of her nine foals. I cannot find this adventure in the common legend of St. Vitalis, who, I fuppofe, is here called St. Withold. TYRWHITT.

4

Shak

Bid her alight,
And her troth plight,

And, Aroynt thee, witch, aroynt thee!

Kent. How fares your grace?

Enter Glofter, with a torch.

Lear. What's he?

Kent. Who's there? What is't you feek?
Glo. What are you there? Your names?

Shakspeare might have met with St. Withold in the old fpurious play of King John, where this faint is invoked by a Francifcan friar. The wold I fuppofe to be the true reading. So in the Coventry Collection of Myfteries, Muf. Brit. Vefp. D. viii. p. 93, Herod fays to one of his officers:

"Seyward bolde, walke thou on wolde,

"And wyfely behold all abowte, &c."

Dr. Hill's reading, the cold, is the reading of Mr. Tate in his alteration of this play in 1681. STEEVENS.

It is pleasant to fee the various readings of this paffage. In a book called the Actor, which has been afcribed to Dr. Hill, it is quoted" Savithin footed thrice the cold." Mr. Colman has it in his alteration of Lear,

"Swithin footed thrice the world."

The ancient reading is the olds: which is pompously corrected by Mr. Theobald, with the help of his friend Mr. Bishop, to the wolds: in fact it is the fame word. Spelman writes, Burton upon olds the provincial pronunciation is ftill the oles: and that probably was the vulgar orthography. Let us read then,

St. Withold footed thrice the oles,

He met the night-mare, and her nine foles, &c."

FARMER. Both the quarto and folio have old, and not olds. MALONE. I was furprised to fee in the Appendix to the last edition of Shakspeare, that my reading of this paffage was " Swithin footed thrice the world." I have ever been averfe to capricious variations of the old text; and, in the prefent inftance, the rhime, as well as the fenfe, would have induced me to abide by it. World was merely an error of the prefs. Wold is a word still in ufe in the North of England; fignifying a kind of down near the fea. A large tract of country in the Ealt-Riding of Yorkshire is called the Woulds. COLMAN,

Edg.

Edg. Poor Tom; that eats the fwimming frog; the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt', and the water-newt; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for fallets; fwallows the old rat, and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the ftanding pool; who is whipt from tything to tything, and ftock'd, punish'd, and imprison'd; who hath had three fuits to his back, fix fhirts to his body, horfe to ride, and weapon to wear,

But mice, and rats, and fuch fmall deer,
Have been Tom's food for feven long year.

-wall-newt,] The quarto reads wall wort

HENDERSON.

7-whipt from tything to tything,] A tything is a divifion of a place, a diftrict; the fame in the country, as a ward in the city. In the Saxon times every hundred was divided into tythings. Edgar alludes to the acts of Queen Elizabeth and James I. againit rogues, vagabonds, &c. In the Stat. 39 Eliz. ch. 4. it is enacted, that every vagabond, &c. fhall be publickly whipped and fent from parish to parish. STEEVENS.

8

-Small deer] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads geer, and is followed by Dr. Warburton. But deer in old language is a general word for wild animals. JOHNSON.

Mice and rats and fuch fmall deere

Have been Tom's food for ferven long yeare.]

Instead of

This diftich has excited the attention of the critics.
deere, Dr. Warburton would read, geer, and Dr. Grey cheer.
The ancient reading is, however, established by the old metrical
romance of Sir Bevis, which Shakspeare had probably often
heard fung to the harp, and to which he elsewhere alludes, as in
the following instances:

"As Bevis of Southampton fell upon Afcapart."
Hen. VI. A& II.

This distich is part of a description there given of the hardfhips fuffered by Bevis when confined for seven years in a dun

Beware my follower:-Peace, Smolkin'; peace,

2

thou fiend!

Glo. What, hath your grace no better company? Edg. The prince of darkness is a gentleman';

* Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.

Glo. Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown fo vile, That it doth hate what gets it.

Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold.

Glo. Go in with me; my duty cannot fuffer To obey in all your daughters' hard commands: Though their injunction be to bar my doors, And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you; Yet have I ventur'd to come feek you out, And bring you where both fire and food is ready. Lear. Firft let me talk with this philofopher :What is the caufe of thunder?

Kent. My good lord, take his offer;

Go into the house.

Lear. I'll talk a word with this fame learned Theban 3:

-Peace, Smolkin, peace,-] "The names of other punie fpirits caft out of Trayford were thefe: Hilco, Smolkin, Hillio, &c." Harfenet, p. 49. PERCY.

The prince of darkness is a gentleman ;] This is fpoken in refentment of what Gloiter had just said—“ Has your grace no better company?" STEEVENS.

Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.] So in Harfenet's Declaration, Maho was the chief devil that had poffeffion of Sarah Williams; but another of the poffeffed, named Richard Mainy, was molested by a ftill more confiderable fiend called Modu. See the book already mentioned, p. 268, where the faid Richard Mainy depofes: "Furthermore it is pretended, that there remaineth ftill in mee the prince of all other devils, whofe name fhould be Modu;" he is elsewhere called, "the prince Modu :" fo, p. 269,

When the faid priefts had dispatched theire bufinefs at Hackhey (where they had been exorcifing Sara Williams) they then returned towards mee, uppon pretence to caft the great prince Modu...out mee." STEEVENS.

3

-learned Theban.] Ben Jonfon in his Mafque of Pan's Anniverfary, has introduced a Tinker whom he calls a learned Theban, perhaps in ridicule of this paffage. STEEVENS.

What