Critical Notes.

BY ISRAEL GOLLANCZ.

I. i. 216. The English story of 'Mr. Fox' alluded to here was first written down by Blakeway, who contributed to Malone's Variorum Edition a version of the tale he had heard from an old aunt (cp. Jacobs' English Fairy Tales).

II. i. 80. sink a-pace,' etc.; Camb. Ed. following Q. ‘sink into his grave'; Folio 1, Folio 2, ' sinkes'; Capell, ‘sink-a-pace'; so MS. corrector of Collier's Folio.

II. i. 215. as melancholy as a lodge in a warren'; the phrase suggests "The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers," Isaiah i. 8.

II. i. 246. 'impossible,' Theobald, ‘impassable.'

II. ii. 44. Some editors substitute Borachio' for 'Claudio' in order to relieve the difficulty here, but, as the Cambridge editors point out, "Hero's supposed offence would not be enhanced by calling one lover by the name of the other. Perhaps the

author meant that Borachio should persuade her to play, as children say, at being Hero and Claudio.”

II. iii. 38. The Folio reads:- Enter Prince, Leonato, Claudio, and Jack Wilson': the latter was probably the singer who took the part of Balthasar.

III. ii. 27. 'Where is but a humour or a worm'; toothache was popularly supposed to be caused by a worm at the root of the tooth.

III. iii. It is an interesting fact that 'Dogberry,' the vulgar name of the dogwood, was used as a surname as far back as the time of Richard II., and that 'Verges,' a provincial corruption for verjuice, occurs in an ancient MS. (MS. Ashmol. 38) as the name of a usurer, whose epitaph is given :—

"Here lies father Varges

Who died to save charges."

III. iii. 89. Keep your fellows' counsels and your own. It has been pointed out by students of Shakespeare's legal acquirements

that these words still form part of the oath administered by judges' marshal to the grand jurymen at the present day.

III. v. 18. Comparisons are odorous. An elaborate extension of this joke occurs in the old play of Sir Gyles Goosecappe (c. 1603).

III. v. 37. When the age is in, the wit is out'; a blunder for the old proverbial expression,' when the ale is in, wit is out '

"When ale is in, wit is out,

When ale is out, wit is in,

The first thou showest out of doubt,
The last in thee hath not been."

HEYWOOD'S Epigrams and Proverbs.

IV. ii. Nearly all the speeches of Dogberry throughout the Scene are given to the famous comedian 'Kemp,' those of Verges to Cowley.' William Kemp and Richard Cowley are among the 'principall actors' enumerated in the First Folio. The retention of the names of the actors "supplies a measure of the editorial care to which the several Folios were submitted." Dogberry's speech is assigned to ' Andrew,' probably a familiar appellation of Kemp, who, according to the Cambridge Edition, often played the part of 'Merry Andrew.'

IV. ii. 5. we have the exhibition to examine.' Verges' blunder is not quite clear: possibly exhibition' is used in the sense of 'allowance' or 'permission,' otherwise he perhaps means 'examination to exhibit.'

V. i. 16. Bid sorrow wag, cry "hem"! The Quarto and the first and second Folios read,,' And sorrow wagge, crie hem'; Folio 3, And hallow, wag, cry hem'; Folio 4,' And hollow wag, cry hem.' Many emendations have been suggested. Capell's bid sorrow wag,' is now generally adopted. Johnson proposed 'Cry, sorrow wag! and hem.' ('Sorrow wag,' like ' care away,' was probably a proverbial phrase.) One other sugges

tion is perhaps noteworthy:-And, From a MS. Pontificale ad usum Ec

sorry wag, cry "hem.""

V. i. 315. key in his ear, and a lock hanging by it.'

V. i. 318. Lend, for God's sake.

V. iii. 21. 'Heavily, heavily'; so reads the Quarto; the Folios, Heavenly, heavenly,' adopted by many editors. The same error, however, of heavenly' for 'heavily' occurs in the Folio reading of Hamlet, II. ii. 309.

"The slayers of the virgin knight are performing a solemn requiem on the body of Hero, and they invoke Midnight and the shades of the dead to assist, until her death be uttered, that is, proclaimed, published, sorrowfully, sorrowfully" (Halliwell).

V. iv. 123. 'there is no staff more revered than one tipped with horn'; i.e. having a tip of horn, a horn handle; there is, of course, a quibbling allusion in the words to the favourite Elizabethan joke.

Explanatory Notes.

The Explanatory Notes in this edition have been specially selected and adapted, with emendations after the latest and best authorities, from the most eminent Shakespearian scholars and commentators, including Johnson, Malone, Steevens, Singer, Dyce, Hudson, White, Furness, Dowden, and others. This method, here introduced for the first time, provides the best annotation of Shakespeare ever embraced in a single edition.

ACT FIRST.

Scene I.

23. a badge of bitterness:-In Chapman's version of the 10th Odyssey, a somewhat similar expression occurs: "Our eyes wore the same wet badge of weak humanity." This is an idea which Shakespeare apparently delighted to introduce. It occurs again in Macbeth, I. iv.: "My plenteous joys, wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves in drops of sorrow."

54, 55. stuffed with all honourable virtues:-Mede in his Discourses on Scripture, speaking of Adam, says, "He whom God had stuffed with so many excellent qualities." Beatrice starts an idea at the words stuffed man, and prudently checks herself in the pursuit of it. A stuffed man appears to have been one of the many cant phrases for a cuckold.

184, 185. to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, etc. :-Do you scoff and mock in telling us that Cupid, who is blind, is a good hare-finder; and that Vulcan, a blacksmith, is a good carpenter?

216-218. Like the old tale, etc. :-In illustration of this passage, Mr. Blakeway has given his recollections of an old tale, which he thinks may be the one alluded to, very like some that we in our childhood have often lain awake to hear and been kept awake with thinking of after the hearing: "Once upon a time there lived a Mr. Fox, a bachelor, who made it his business to decoy or force young women to his house, that he might have their skeletons to adorn his chambers with. Near