(67) That liberal shepherds] That, to which free spoken shepherds, &c.

Puttenham, speaking in his Arte of Engl. Poesie of the Figure, Parisia or the Licentious, says, when the "intent is to declare in broad and liberal speeches, which might breede offence or scandall, he will seeme to bespeake pardon before hand, wherby licentiousness may be the better borne withall." 4to. 1589, p. 199.

"He gives her liberall scandal a deafe eare."

Heywood's Britaine's Troy, p. 107. Malone cites Field's Woman's a Weathercock, 1612:

"Of your neglect, and liberal-talking tongue,
"Which breeds my honour an eternal wrong."

See Othel. II. 1. Desd.

(68) As one incapable of her own distress] i. e. unconscious, insensible of." In III. 4. Haml. we have " making stones capable;" but a more apt instance occurs in Henry Brereton's Newes of the present Miseries of Rushia, 4to. 1614. "The wretched state and miserable condition of this untimely widdowed lady, and two sonnes, both so young, that they were not capable of their calamity." P. 29. See also" alongst the galupin or silver paved way of heaven, conducted into the great hall of the gods, Mercury sprinkled me with water, which made me capable of their divine presence." Greene's Orpharion, 4to. 1599, p. 7. "Poore little brat, incapable of care." Drayton's Moses his Birth, 4to. 1630.

(69) Or like a creature native and indu'd

Unto that element] i. e. " with qualities naturally adapted to."

Malone says, our old writers used indued and endowed indiscriminately. "To indue," says Minshieu in his Dict. sæpissime refertur ad dotes animo infusas, quibus nimirum ingenium alicujus imbutum et initiatum est, unde et G. instruire est L. imbuere. Imbuere proprie est inchoare et initiari.”

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In Cotgrave's French Dict. 1611, instruire is interpreted to fashion, to furnish with." So Othel.

"For let our finger ache and it endues

"Our other healthful members, ev'n to that sense
"Of pain." III. 4. Desd.

where it means fashions, moulds, adapts by communicating or imparting congenial sensations; makes to participate of.

(70) I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,

But that this folly doubts it] i. e. "douts, does out, extinguishes." My rage had flamed, if this flood of tears had not extinguished it." The quartos and folio of 1632 read drowns for doubts. In this sense, so spelt, it is found, as was the orthography of that age, I. 4. Haml.: but see H. V. IV. 2. Dauph.

ACT V.

(1) an act hath three branches; it is to act, to do, and to perform: Argal, &c.] Warburton says, this is ridicule upon scholastic divisions without distinction: and distinctions without difference. The quartos, instead of " perform argal," read "perform, or all; she," &c.

(2) Even christian] i. e. equal, fellow. The phrase occurs throughout Chaucer. "Despitous is he that hath disdain of his neighbour, that is to sayn, of his even cristen." The Persones Tale, Tyrwh. III. 181, and ib. 207, 209, 236, 237. Steevens quotes also Chaucer's Jack Upland, and Gower's Confess. Amant. :

"Of beautie sighe he never hir even." Lib. V. p. 102. And the Paston Letters, III. 421, &c. as does Malone Hall's Chronicle, fo. 261, H. VIII. to his parliament : you might say that I, beyng put in so speciall a trust as I am in this case, were no trustie frende to you, nor charitable man to mine even christian,-."

And see Chapman's Works and Days of Hesiod,

Give never to thy friend an even respect

"With thy borne brother." 4to. 1629, p. 32.

Μηδε κασιγνητῳ ισον ποιεισθαι εταιρον. v. 705.

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(3) Was he a gentleman] Undoubtedly, says Douce, a ridicule this of heraldry. He cites Gerard Leigh's Accedence of Armourie, 4to. 1591, p. 13. “ For that it might be known, that even anon after the creation of Adam, there was both gentlenes and ungentlenes, you shall understand, that the second man that was born was a gentleman, whose name was Abell;" and elsewhere, "Jesus Christ, a gentleman of great linage." Ib. He adds the very ancient proverbial saying:

Illustr. II. 262.

"When Adam delv`d, and Eve span, "Where was then the gentleman ?" See Gerv. Markham's Gentleman's Academie in Hawking, Hunting, and Armourie 1595, republished from Juliana Barnes and cited by Dr. Farmer elsewhere. The first ch. of the B. of Armourie is the difference 'twixt " Chorles and Gentlemen ;" and it ends thus" From the offspring of gentlemanly Japhet came Abraham, Moyses, Aaron and the Prophets; and also the King of the right line of Mary, of whom that only absolute Gentleman, Jesus, was borne-Gentleman, by his Mother, Mary, Princesse of coat armour." Mr. Hamper observes that in her Boke of St. Albans Dame Juliana says "Criste was a gentylman of his moder be halve, and bare Cotarmure of an auṣeturys."

(4) a stoup of liquor] i. e. a jug. Stoup, stoip. A deep and narrow vessel for holding liquids. S. A. S. stoppa. Jamieson's Sc. Dict. Stoppa batiolus (batiola, Adam's Dict.) a kind of cup or bowl. Benson's A. S. Vocab. "Stoup is a common word in Scotland at this day, and denotes a pewter vessel, resembling our wine measure, but of no determinate quantity; that being ascertained by an adjunct, as gallon-stoup, pint-stoup, mutchkin-stoup. The vessel, in which they fetch or keep water, is also called the water-stoup. A stoup of wine is therefore equivalent to a pitcher of wine." RITSON.

See Tw. N. II. 3. Sir Toby.

(5) In youth, when I did love, did love, Methought, it was very sweet,

To contract, 0, the time, for, ah, my behove

O, methought, there was nothing meet] This is part of Lord Vaux's "Sonnet" of "The aged Lover renounceth Love," published in Lord Surrey's Poems ; or rather scraps of it, ill strung together, and put into the mouth of a clown, and purposely, as Dr. Percy has observed, in this mangled state, the better to sustain the character: neither was it very likely or fitting that he should be found more at home in the department of elegant poetry, than he was in crowner's-quest law. Upon this subject see Warton's Hist. of Engl. Poetry, III. p. 45, and for the entire Sonnet, Percy's Reliques, I. 180, 1794.

vant.

Injudicious reforms and amendments of such incoherencies have been offered by the modern editors, as masters for his serTwo G. of V. IV. 4. Launce. and "confusion" M. of V. II. 2. Launcel. and in the beginning and end of the Clown's song in Tw. N. IV. 2., and are given too under the authority of Dr. Farmer. Behove is behoof.

(6) But age, with his stealing steps, Hath caught me in his clutch,

And hath shipped me intill the land

As if I had never been such] Instead of caught and

intill, the quartos read and into claw'd.

The originals of this, and the preceding stanza, are thus given in Dr. Percy's Ancient Songs :

"I lothe that I did love;

"In youth that I thought sweete :
"As time requires for my behove,
"Methinks they are not mete."

"For age with stealing steps

"Hath claude me with his crowche; "And lusty youthe away he leapes,

"As there had bene none such."

Another passage in the original, as given by Lord Surrey, in Surrey and Wyatt's Poems, 1717, 8vo. p. 155, runs thus:

K

The deviations in the text are very natural strokes of our great artist for so that the clown relieves his labour, and prevents those impressions or uneasy sensations, which the nature of that labour might subject him to, he is utterly regardless of the rhyme and sense; and accordingly is made to introduce a line that consists with neither. This line not being found in Lord Vaux, but being taken from another author, Lord Surrey, the clown could only be made to depart from the original, in order to be more in character. The same observations apply as well to passages in the M. W. of W. III. 1. Sir Hugh, as to Lear, 66 come o'er the broom," III. 6. Edg.

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;

(7) the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-offices one that could circumvent God] i. e. has official superiority over. O'er-reaches," the reading of the quarto, gives an idea more closely and immediately corresponding with the whole of this sentence, and the beginning of the next but one. Upon those readings Johnson has well observed, "I believe, both these words were Shakespeare's. An author, in revising his work, when his original ideas have faded from his mind, and new observations have produced new sentiments, easily introduces images which have been more newly impressed upon him, without observing their want of congruity to the general texture of his original design."

(8) This might be my lord such-a-one, that prais'd my lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it] See Tim. I. 2. T.

my lord, you gave

"Good words the other day of a bay courser

"I rode on; it is yours, because you lik'd it."

STEEVENS.

(9) but to play at loggats with them] i. e. but to be used, to be thought fit materials, to play with at a rustic game.

This is a game played in several parts of England even at this time. A stake is fixed into the ground; those who play, throw loggats at it, and he that is nearest the stake, wins: I have seen it played in different counties at their sheep-shearing feasts, where the winner was entitled to a black fleece, which he afterwards presented to the farmer's maid to spin for the purpose of making a petticoat, and on condition that she knelt down on the fleece to be kissed by all the rusticks present. So Jonson's Tale of a Tub, Act IV. sc. vi:

"Now are they tossing of his legs and arms,
"Like loggats at a pear-tree."

Again, in an old collection of Epigrams, Satires, &c.

"To play at loggats, nine holes, or ten pinnes." Again, in Decker's If this be not a good Play, the Devil is in it, 1612:

Loggeting in the fields is mentioned for the first time among other 66 new and crafty games and plays," in stat. 33 H. VIIÏ. c. 9. Not being mentioned in former acts against unlawful games, it was probably not practised long before this statute. MALONE.

A loggat-ground, like a skittle-ground, is strewed with ashes, but is more extensive. A bowl much larger than the jack of the game of bowls is thrown first. The pins, which I believe are called loggats, are much thinner, and lighter at one extremity than the other. The bowl being first thrown, the players take the pins up by the thinner and lighter end, and fling them towards the bowl, and in such a manner that the pins may once turn round in the air, and slide with the thinner extremity foremost towards the bowl. The pins are about one or twoand-twenty inches long. BLOUNT.

(10) A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,

For-and a shrouding sheet:

O, a pit of, &c.] For O, the quartos read Or.

The original song runs thus:

A pick-axe and a spade,

And eke a shrouding sheet;
A house of clay for to be made,

For such a guest most meet.

(11) quiddits] i. e. subtleties. A term, from the schools. "Entermedlyng and troubling their braynes with scrupulous quiddityes and diffuse questions." Newton's Lemnie's Touchstone of Complexions, 12mo. 1581, fo. 77. Plays with his sophemes and quyddities." Taverner's Garden of Wysdom, 12mo. 1539, sign. B. 4, b.

"Diogenes mockyng suche quidificall trifles (the Idees, as the tableitees and cuppytees of Plato), that wer all in the che. rubyns." Nic. Udall's Erasm. Apopthegms, 12mo. 1542, fo. 124. Steevens instances Soliman and Perseda.

"I am wise, but quiddits will not answer death." "No man should pry into the quiddities of Apollo's Delphian answere." Greene's Arcadia, 4to. 1616. sign. C. b.

Malone, Drayton's Owle, 1604 :

By some strange quiddit, or some wrested clause, "To find him guiltie of some breach of lawes."

(12) quillets] i. e. nice and frivolous points or distinctions. Cole renders it res frivola. Dict. 1679. MALONE. See L. L. L. IV. 3. Longuev.