fashion; and fung those tunes to the over-fcutched 2

but on fome fubjects filence is lefs reprehenfible than information.

In the age of Shakspeare, however, (as I learn from Thomas Lupton's Third Booke of Notable Thinges, 4to. bl. 1.) it was cuftomary" to make counterfeat mandrag, which is fold by deceyuers for much money." Out of the great double root of briony (by means of a process not worth transcribing) they produced the kind of priapic idol to which Shallow has been compared. STEEVENS.

Bullein, in his Bullwark of Defence against all Sickneffe, &c. fol. 1597, p. 41, fpeaking of mandrake, fays: "-this hearbe is called alfo anthropomorphos, because it beareth the image of a man; and that is falfe. For no herbe hath the shape of a man or woman; no truly, it is not naturall of his owne growing: but by the crafty invention of some false men it is done by arte." "My friend Marcellus, the defcription of this mandrake, as I have fayd, was nothing but the impofterous fubtility of wicked people. Perhaps of fryers or fuperfticious monkes whych have wrytten thereof at length; but as for Diofcorides, Galen, and Plinie, &c. they have not wrytten thereof so largely as for to have head, armes, fyngers," &c. REED.

See a former scene of this play, p. 25, n. 9; and Sir Thomas Brown's Vulgar Errors, p. 72, edit. 1686. MALONE.

2

· over-scutched—] That is, whipt, carted. POPE. I rather think that the word means dirty or grimed. The word hufwives agrees better with this sense. Shallow crept into mean houses, and boafted his accomplishments to dirty women. JOHNSON,

Ray, among his north country words, fays that an overSwitched hufuife is a ftrumpet. Over-fcutched has undoubtedly the meaning which Mr. Pope has affixed to it. Over-fcutched is the fame as over-fcotched. A fcutch or Scotch is a cut or lash with a rod or whip. STEEVENS.

The following paffage in Maroccus Extaticus, or Bankes' Bay Horfe in a Traunce, 4to. 1595, inclines me to believe that this word is used in a wanton sense: "The leacherous landlord hath his wench at his commandment, and is content to take ware for his money; his private fcutcherie hurts not the common-wealth farther than that his whoore fhall have a house rent-free."

MALONE.

Now I bethink me, the pleasant Efquire aforefaid may have

hufwives that he heard the carmen whiftle, and fware they were his fancies, or his good-nights,3 And now is this Vice's dagger 4 become a fquire;

reafon on the fide of his enucleation; for is not the name of a procurefs Mrs. Overdone, in Measure for Measure? and hath not that feftive varlet Sir John Falstaff talked of his "white doe with a black fcut?" AMNER.

3 fancies, or his good-nights.] Fancies and Good-nights were the titles of little poems. One of Gafcoigne's Good-nights is published among his Flowers. STEEVENS.

4 And now is this Vice's dagger] By Vice here the poet means that droll character in the old plays (which I have several times mentioned in the course of these notes) equipped with affes ears and a wooden dagger. It was very fatirical in Falstaff to compare Shallow's activity and impertinence to fuch a machine as a wooden dagger in the hands and management of a buffoon. THEOBALD.

See Vol. V. p. 391, n. 9. STEEVENS.

Vice was the name given to a droll figure, heretofore much fhown upon our stage, and brought in to play the fool and make fport for the populace. His drefs was always a long jerkin, a fool's cap with afs's ears, and a thin wooden dagger, fuch as is ftill retained in the modern figures of Harlequin and Scaramouch. Minfheu, and others of our more modern criticks, ftrain hard to find out the etymology of the word, and fetch it from the Greek: probably we need look no further for it than the old French word Vis, which fignified the fame as Vifage does now. From this in part came Vifdafe, a word common among them for a fool, which Menage fays is but a corruption from Vis d'afne, the face or head of an afs. It may be imagined therefore that Vifdafe, or Vis d'afne, was the name firft given to this foolish theatrical figure, and that by vulgar use it was shortened to plain Vis or Vice. HANMER.

The word Vice is an abbreviation of Device; for in our old dramatick shows, where he was firft exhibited, he was nothing more than an artificial figure, a puppet moved by machinery, and then originally called a Device or 'Vice. In thefe reprefentations he was a conftant and the most popular character, afterwards adopted into the early comedy. The fmith's machine called a vice, is an abbreviation of the fame fort.- -Hamlet calls his uncle "a vice of kings," a fantastick and factitious

6

and talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt, as if he had been fworn brother to him and I'll be fworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head,5 for crouding among the marshal's men. I faw it; and told John of Gaunt, he beat his own name: for you might have trufs'd him, and all his apparel, into an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a manfion for him, a court; and now has he land and beeves. Well; I will be acquainted with him, if I return: and it fhall go hard, but I will make him a philofopher's two stones to me: If the young dace be a bait for the old

image of majefty, a mere puppet of royalty. See Jonfon's Alchymift, A& Í. fc. iii:

"And on your fall a puppet with a vice."

T. WARTON. 3 he burft his head,] Thus the folio and quarto. The modern editors read broke. To break and to burst were, in our poet's time, fynonymously ufed. Thus Ben Jonfon, in his Poetafler, tranflates the following paffage in Horace :

fracta pereuntes cufpide Gallos.

"The lances burft in Gallia's flaughter'd forces." So, in The Old Legend of Sir Bevis of Hampton:

"But fyr Bevis fo hard him thruft, that his shoulder-bone he burst."

Again, in The Second Part of Tamburlaine, 1590:

"Whose chariot wheels have burst th' Affyrian's bones." Again, in Holinfhed, p. 809: "that manie a speare was burst, and manie a great ftripe given."

To braft had the fame meaning. Barrett, in his Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictonary, 1580, calls a housebreaker “ a breaker and brafter of doors." The fame author conftantly uses burst as fynonymous to broken. See Vol. IX. p. 13, n. 5.

STEEVENS.

beat his own name :] That is, beat gaunt, a fellow fo flender, that his name might have been gaunt. JOHNSON.

7 philofopher's two ftones-] One of which was an univerfal medicine, and the other a tranfmuter of base metals into gold. WARBURTON.

I believe the commentator has refined this paffage too much.

pike, I fee no reason, in the law of nature, but I may Inap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.

[Exit.

A philofopher's two ftones is only more than the philofopher's ftone. The univerfal medicine was never, fo far as I know, conceived to be a stone before the time of Butler's ftone.

JOHNSON.

Mr. Edwards ridicules Dr. Warburton's note on this paffage, but without reason. Gower has a chapter in his Confeffio Amantis, "Of the three ftones that philofophres made:" and Chaucer, in his tale of the Chanon's Yeman, exprefsly tells us, that one of them is Alixar cleped; and that it is a water made of the four elements. Face, in the Alchymift, affures us, it is " a fione, and not a ftone.' FARMER.

That the ingredients of which this Elixir, or Univerfal Medicine, was compofed, were by no means difficult of acquifition, may be proved by the following conclufion of a letter written by Villiers Duke of Buckingham to King James I. on the fubject of the Philofopher's Stone. See the fecond Volume of Royal Letters in the British Museum, No. 6987, art. 101 :

66 I confefs, fo longe as he confeled the meanes he wrought by, I difpifed all he faid: but when he tould me, that which he hath given your fovrainship to preserve you from all ficknes ever hereafter, was extracted out of a t-d, I admired the fellow; and for theis reafons: that being a stranger to you, yett he had found out the kind you are come of, and your natural affections and apetis; and fo, like a skillful man, hath given you natural fificke, which is the onlie meanes to preferve the radicall hmrs and thus I conclude: My fow is healthfull, my divill's luckie, myself is happie, and needs no more than your bleffing, which is my trew Felofophers stone, upon which I build as upon a rocke:

:

Your Majefties most humble flave and doge

Stinie."

The following paffage in Churchyard's Commendation to them that can make Gold, &c. 1593, will fufficiently prove that the Elixir was fupposed to be a stone before the time of Butler:

much matter may you read

"Of this rich art that thoufands hold full deere:
"Remundus too, that long liud heere indeede,
"Wrate fundry workes, as well doth yet appeare,
"Of Stone for gold, and fhewed plaine and cleere,
"A ftone for health. Arnolde wrate of the fame,
"And many more that were too long to name."

ACT IV. SCENE I.

A Foreft in Yorkshire.

Enter the Archbishop of York, MoWBRAY, HASTINGS, and Others.

ARCH. What is this foreft call'd?

HAST. 'Tis Gualtree forest, an't fhall please your

grace.

ARCH. Here ftand, my lords; and fend discoverers

forth,

To know the numbers of our enemies.

HAST. We have fent forth already.

ARCH.

"Tis well done.

My friends, and brethren in these great affairs,
I must acquaint you that I have receiv'd
New-dated letters from Northumberland;

Again, in the Dedication of The Metamorphofis of Pigmalion's Image and certaine Satyres, 1598:

"Or like that rare and rich Elixar ftone,

"Can turne to gold leaden invention." STEEVENs.

I think Dr. Johnson's explanation of this paffage is the true one: "I will make him of twice the value of the philofopher's ftone." MALONE

If the young dace-] That is, if the pike may prey upon the dace, if it be the law of nature that the ftronger may feize upon the weaker, Falstaff may, with great propriety, devour Shallow. JOHNSON.

9 'Tis Gualtree foreft,] "The earle of Weftmoreland, &c. made forward against the rebels, and coming into a plaine, within Galtree foreft, caufed their standards to be pitched down in like fort as the archbishop had pitched his, over against them."

Holinfhed, p. 529. STEEVENS.