Jack and Jill, which signify two drinking measures, as well as men and maid servants. P. 312, c. 2, l. 69. the carpets laid,] In our author's time it was customary to cover tables with carpets. Floors, as appears from the present passage and others, were strewed with rushes. P. 313, c 1. . 15. bemoiled:] i. e. be

draggled; bemired.

Id. 1. 21. --was burst:] i. e, broken. Id. l. 25. he is more shrew than she.] The term shrew was anciently applicable to either

sex.

Id. l. 30. their blue coats brushed,] The dress of servants at the time.

Id. 1. 31.

garters of an indifferent knit:] Perhaps by garters of an indifferent knit," the author meant parti-colour'd garters; garters of a different knit. In Shakspeare's time indifferent was sometimes used for different. Id. l. 76. -no link to colour Peter's hat,] A link is a torch of pitch.

Id. c. 2, l. 7. Where, &c.] A scrap of some old ballad. Ancient Pistol elsewhere quotes the same line. In an old black letter book intituled, A gorgious Gallery of gallant Inventions, London, 1578, 4to. is a song to the tune of Where is the life that late I led.

Id. 1. 9. Soud, soud, &c.] This, I believe, is a word coined by our poet, to express the noise made by a person heated and fatigued. MA

LONE.

Id. l. 14. It was the friar of orders grey,] Dispersed through Shakspeare's plays are many little fragments of ancient ballads, the entire copies of which cannot now be recovered. Many of these being of the most beautiful and pathetic simplicity, Dr. Percy has selected some of them, and connected them together with a few supplemental stanzas; a work, which at once demonstrates his own poetical abilities, as well as his respect to the truly venerable remains of our most ancient bards. STEEVENS. Id. l. 27. Come, Kate, and wash,] It was the custom in our author's time (and long before). to wash the hands immediately before dinner and supper, as well as afterwards. As our ancestors eat with their fingers, which might aot be over-clean before meals, and after them must be greasy, we cannot wonder at such repeated ablutions. STEEVENS. Id. l. 76. --full gorg'd, &c.] A hawk too much fed was never tractable. The lure was only a thing stuffed like that kind of bird which the hawk was designed to pursue. The use of the lure was to tempt him back after he had flown.

Id., l. 77. -to man my haggard,] A haggard is a wild-hawk; to man a hawk is to tame her. P. 314, c. 1, l. 3. That bate,] To bate is to flutter as a hawk does when it swoops upon its prey. Id. l. 10. —— amid this hurly, I intend,] Intend is sometimes used by our author for pretend.

SCENE II.

Id. 1. 22. "that mistress Bianca"-MALONE. Id. l. 46. - cullion:] A term of degradation. with no very decided meaning: a despicable fellow, a fool, &c.

Id. c. 2, l. 17. An ancient angel-] For angel Mr. Theobald, and after him Sir T. Hanmer and Dr. Warburton, read engle, or a gull, but angel may mean messenger.

Id. 1. 20. Master, a mercatante,] The old editions read marcantant. The Italian word mercatantè is frequently used in the old plays

P.

for a merchant, and therefore I have made no 315, c. 1, l. 2. To pass assurance-] To pass scruple of placing it here. STEEVENS. assurance means to make a conveyance or deed. Deeds are by law-writers called, "The common assurances of the realm," because thereby each man's property is assured to him.

Id. 1.5. Go with me, &c.] There is an old comedy called Supposes, translated from Ariosto, by George Gascoigne. Thence Shakspeare borrowed this part of the plot (as well as some of the phraseology), though Theobald pronounce it his own invention. There, likewise, he found the names of Petruchio and Licio. My young master and his man exchange habits, and suade a Scenæse, as he is called, to personate the father, exactly as in this play, by the pretended danger of his coming from Sienna to Ferrara, contrary to the order of the go

Id.

vernment.

SCENE III.

per

l. 49. — What, sweeting, all amort?] This gallicism is common to many of the old plays. That is, all sunk and dispirited.

Id. l. 58. And all my pains is sorted to no proof` And all my labour has ended in nothing, or proved nothing.

Id. 1. 77.

rustling.

with his ruffling treasure.] i e

Id. c. 2, 1. 2. Come, tailor, let us see these er naments ;] In our poet's time, women's gowns were usually made by men.

Id.

l. 26. A custard-coffin,] A coffin was the cient culinary term for the raised crust of a pie

or custard.

COD

Id. 1. 36. - censer-] We learn from an ancient print, that these censers resembled in shape our modern brasières. They had pierced vex covers, and stood on feet. They not only served to sweeten a barber's shop, but to keep his water warm, and dry his cloths on.

Id. 1.55.

thou thread,

Thou thimble,] The tailor's trade, having an appearance of effeminacy, has always been, among the rugged English, liable to sarcasms and contempt. JOHNSON.

Id. l. 60. Id. 1. 70.

be-mete-1 i. e. be-measure thee. faced

many things] i, e. turned up many gowns, &c. with facings, &c.

Id. 1. 72.

braved many men ;] i. e. made many men fine. Bravery was the ancient term for elegance of dress.

P. 316, c. 1, l. 6. —— a small compassed cape;" A compassed cape is a round cape. To comis to come round. JOHNSON.

pass Id. yard. Id. I 74 Id. c. 2, 1. 32. "ready and willing."-MALONE. but I be deceived,] But, i e. unless. Id. 1. 34. For curious I cannot be with you,] Ca rious is scrupulous.

thy mete-yard,] i. e. thy measuring

Id. 1. 43. And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,] To pass is, in this place, synonymous to assure or convey; as it sometimes occurs in the covenant of a purchase deed, that the granter has power to bargain, sell, &c. and thereby to pass and convey" the premises to the grantee.

Id. 1. 41. "fully made,"-MALONE. Id. 1 47. We be affied;] i. e betrothed. Id. l. 52. And, happily Happily, in Shakspeare's time, signified accidentally, as well as fortu nately. Id. 1. 77. pose.

——or motal-] i. e. the secret par

Id. 1. 12. cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:] It is scarce necessary to observe, that these are the words which commonly were

on books where an exclusive right had been granted to particular persons for printing

them. REED.

Id. l. 13. -to the church;] i. e. go to the church, &c.

SCENE V.

Jd. l. 47. "I know it is the moon."-MALONE. Id c. 2, 1.5. That every thing I look on seemeth green:] Shakspeare's observations on the phænomena of nature are very accurate. When one has sat long in the sunshine, the surrounding objects will often appear tinged with green. The reason is assigned by many of the writers on opties. BLACKSTONE.

ACT V.

SCENE 1.

P. 318, c. 1, l. 46. --a copatain hat!] is, I believe, a hat with a conical crown, anciently worn by well-dressed men. JOHNSON.

Id. c. 2, l. 1. --coney-catched-] i. e. deceived, cheated.

Id. 1. 22. While counterfeit supposes blear'd thine eyne. To blear the eye was an ancient phrase signifying to deceive.

contrivance.

Id. 1. 47. My cake is dough:] A phrase generally used when any project miscarried, or rather when any disappoinment was sustained, contrary to every appearance or expectation.

SCENE II.

Id. 1. 76. My banquet-] A banquet, or (as it is called in some of our old books), an afterpast, was a slight refection, like our modern desert, consisting of cakes, sweetmeats, and fruit. P. 319, c. 1, 7. 8. fears his widow.] To fear, as has been already observed, meant in our author's time both to dread, and to intimidate. The widow understands the word in the latter sense; and Petruchio tells her, he used it in the former. MALONE. Id. 1. 10. "You are very sensible, &c. MALONE. that gird,] A gird is a sarcasm,

Id. 1. 58.

a gibe.

Id. c. 2, l. 30. Mr. Malone omits the word come. P. 318, c. 1, l. 5. “As frosts do bite," &c. MALONE. Id. c. 2, l. 2. -- our soft conditions,] The gentle qualities of our minds.

Id. l. 10. "we indeed least are." MALONE. Id. l. 11. Then vail your stomachs,] i. e. abate your pride, your spirit.

Id. 1. 23. --you two are sped.] i e. the fate of you both is decided; for you have wives to exhibit early proofs of disobedience.

Id. 1. 24. though you hit the white ;] To hit the white is a phrase borrowed from archery: the mark was commonly white. Here it alludes to the name, Bianca, or white.

domes, that the player when he comes in, must ever begin with telling where he is, or else the tale will not be conceived.-Now of time they are much more liberal. For ordinarie it is, that two young princes fall in love, after many traverses she is got with childe, delivered of a faire boy he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and is ready to get another childe, and all this in two houres space: which how absurd it is in sence, even sence may imagine."

The Winter's Tale is sneered at by B. Jonson, in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair, 1614 "If there be never a servant-monster in the fair, who can help it, nor a nest of antiques? He is loth to make nature afraid in his plays, like those that beget TALES, Tempests and such like drolleries." By the nest of antiques, the twelve satyrs who are introduced at the sheepshearing festival, are alluded to.-In his conversation with Mr. Drummond, of Hawthornden, in 1619, he has another stroke at his beloved friend: "He (Jonson) said, that Shakspeare wanted art, and sometimes sense for in one of his plays he brought in a number of men, saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where is no sea near by 100 miles." Drummond's Works, fol. 225, edit. 1711.

When this remark was made by Ben Jonson, The Winter's Tale was not printed. These words, therefore, are a sufficient answer to Sir T. Hanmer's idle supposition that Bohemia was an error of the press for Bythinia.

This play, I imagine, was written in the year 1611. MALONE.

Sir Thomas Hanmer gave himself much needless concern that Shakspeare should consider Bohemia as a maritime country. He would have us read Bythinia; but our author implicitly copied the novel before him. Dr Grey, indeed, was apt to believe that Dorastus and Faunia might rather be borrowed from the play; but I have met with a copy of it which was printed in 1588.-Cervantes ridicules these geographical mistakes, when he makes the princess Micomicona land at Ossuna.-Corporal Trim's king of Bohemia "delighted in navigation, and had never a sea-port in his dominions;" and my lord Herbert tells us, that De Luines, the prime minister of France, when he was ambassador there, demanded, whether Bohemia was an inland country, or lay "upon the

sea?"-There is a similar mistake in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, relative to that city and Milan. FARMER.

The Winter's Tale may be ranked among the historic Plays of Shakspeare, though not one of his numerous critics and commentators have discovered the drift of it. It was certainly intended (in compliment to Queen Elizabeth as an indirect apology for her mother, Ann Boleyn. The address of the poet appears n where to more advantage. The subject was to delicate to be exhibited on the stage without: veil; and it was too recent, and touched the Queen too nearly, for the bard to have venture. so home an allusion on any other ground tha compliment. The unreasonable jealousy Leontes and his violent conduct in consequence form a true portrait of Henry the Eighth, wh generally made the law the engine of his bois terous passions. Not only the general plane the story is most applicable, but several passages are so marked, that they touch the real history nearer than the fable. Hermione on her tra says:

for honour,

'Tis a derivative from me to mine, And only that I stand for.

This seems to be taken from the very lett of Anne Boleyn to the king before her exec tion, where she pleads for the infant princes his daughter. Mamillius, the young princ an unnecessary character, dies in his infancy but it confirms the allusion, as Queen Ann before Elizabeth, bore a still-born son. F the most striking passage, and which had not ing to do in the tragedy, but as it pictur Elizabeth, is, where Paulina, describing t new-born princess, and her likeness to b father, says: " She has the very trick of frown." There is one sentence indeed so plicable, both to Elizabeth and her father, th I should suspect the poet inserted it after death. Paulina, speaking of the child, tells the king: