THE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. THE TEXT REVISED BY THE REV. ALEXANDER DYCE. IN NINE VOLUMES. VOL. IX. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 1867. 162851-B PREFACE. THE present volume contains a great variety of illustration, being a Glossary of uncommon words, of less uncommon words in their different significations, of passages which convey an obscure or doubtful sense, of proverbial expressions, of cant phrases, of manners and customs, of games and sports, of dresses and weapons, &c., and of numerous allusions with which only archæologists and antiquaries are supposed to be familiar. Among the difficulties incident to a glossarist not the least is that of determining the nicer shades of meaning in which many words are used; and very probably some philologers may think that I have occasionally made distinctions where none in fact exist, and sometimes confounded what ought to have been kept distinct. Nor do I feel sure that sundry other things will not be objected to, and perhaps with justice, in such a mass of omnigenous matter as the following pages comprise. In availing myself of the comments of my predecessors from Theobald downwards, I have throughout acknowledged my obligations whenever they were at all important; which I the rather mention because of late it has been too much the fashion to borrow largely and verbatim from the notes of the Variorum Shakespeare, and yet to conceal the debt. A. D. |