branch with the cods open, but the peas out, as it is upon his robe in his monument at Westminster." Camden's Remains, 1614. Here we see the cods and not the peas were worn. Why Shakespeare used the former word rather than pods, which appears to have had the same meaning, is obvious. MALONE.

The peascod certainly means the whole of the pea as it hangs upon the stalk. It was formerly used as an ornament in dress, and was represented with the shell open exhibiting the peas. DOUCE. "Come peascod time" is my Hostess's phrase, II H. IV. (II. 4.)

(15) weeping tears] This phrase is said to be found in a sonnet in Lodge's Rosalynd, and his Dorastus and Fawnia, on which the Winter's Tale is founded. Peele's Jests, &c. are also mentioned; but this, as well as numberless similar pleonasms, is to be found in almost every publication of that day.

(16) little wreaks] Heeds.

"And reakes not his own reade." Haml. I. 3. Ophel. The word is written in Spenser as in the text above.

"What wreaked I of wintrie ages' waste?

Sheph. Cal. Decemb. Todd. I. 196.

(17) my voice is ragged] Rough, harsh. Our author has

"Approach

"The ragged'st hour, that time and spite dare bring."
II H. IV. Northum. I. 1.

"Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name."

Rape of Lucrece.

Mr. Malone cites the Epistle prefixed to the Shepherd's Calend. 1579. Thinking them fittest for the rustical rudeness of shepheards; for that their rough sound would make his rimes more ragged and rustical:" and Mr. Steevens, Nash's Apologie of Pierce Pennilesse, 4to. 1593:

"The false gallop of his ragged verses, if I should retort the rime doggrel aright, I must make my verses run hobbling.”

(18) dog-apes] "Some be called cenophe; and be lyke to an hounde in the face, and in the body lyke to an ape." Bartholomæus, XVIII. 96. Douce's Illustrat. 1. 298.

(19) loves to live i' the sun] "He who makes his pleasures consist in the enjoyment of the sunshine, and simple blessing of the elements."

The manner of life denoted by this phrase, is probably the same as Othello describes in these lines:

(20) ducdame] If duc ad me, the reading of Hanmer, were right, Amiens would not have asked its meaning, and been put off with "a Greek invocation." It is evidently a word coined for the nonce. We have here, as Butler says, One for sense,

and one for rhyme." Indeed we must have a double rhyme ; or this stanza cannot well be sung to the same tune with the former. I read thus:

"Ducdàme, Ducdàme, Ducdame,

"Here shall he see

"Gross fools as he,

"An' if he will come to Ami.”

That is, to Amiens. Jaques did not mean to ridicule himself. FARMER.

Duc ad me has hitherto been received as an allusion to the burthen of Amiens's song

Come hither, come hither, come hither.

In confirmation of the old reading, however, Dr. Farmer observes to me, that, being at a house not far from Cambridge, when news was brought that the hen-roost was robbed, a facetious old squire who was present, immediately sung the following stanza, which has an odd coincidence with the ditty of Jaques :

"Damè, what makes your ducks to die?

"duck, duck, duck.

"Damè, what makes your chicks to cry?

"chuck, chuck, chuck.".

STEEV ENS.

Mr. Whiter, who has recovered other verses of this or some other such old song, supposes Ducdame to have been the cry of the dame to gather her ducks about her; as ducks come to your dame, or, to make it rhyme, Dame: and that, meaning as Jaques does, and in the character of such a humourist, to expose the folly both of himself and his companions, it is made, as a ridiculous parody, to answer to the burden of the former song, Come hither, come hither, come hither.

He adds, that, if Shakespeare is to be explained, neither the writer nor the reader should become fastidious at the serious discussion of such trifling topics. Ib. p. 21.

(21) Here lie I down, and measure out my grave]

fall upon the ground, as I do now,

"Taking the measure of an unmade grave."

Rom, and Jul. STEEVENS.

(22) Call me not fool, till heaven hath sent me fortune] In allusion to a maxim proverbial in many languages, and to which Mr. Reed refers in Jonson's Every Man out, &c.

"Sog. Why, who am I, sir?

"Mac. One of those that fortune favours.
"Car. The periphrasis of a foole." I. 3.

(23) Motley's the only wear] A particoloured dress.

"A foole in motley-in motley cotes goes Jacke Oates." Rob. Armine's Nest of Ninnies, fo. 1, b.

"Po

There was a species of mercery known by that name. lymitus. He that maketh motley. Polymitarius." Wythal's little Dict. 1568, fo. 34, b. Frisadoes, Motleys, bristowe frices" are in the number of articles recommended for northern traffic in 1580. Hakluyt's Voyages, 1582.

And it was the dress of Chaucer's Marchant :

"A Marchant was ther with a forked berd
"In mottelee." C. T. 272, Tyrwh.

Mr. Steevens, who rightly interprets" out of motleys" in B. Jonson's Epigr. 53, to mean "not cloathed in the garb of a fool," thinks the 3d Satire of Donne,

"Your only wearing is your grogaram,"

might have suggested this turn of phrase.

(24) Not to] Unless these words, supplied by Theobald, were accepted, the sense would halt, as well as the measure. Olivia, in Tw. Night, has much this sentiment: "To be guiltless, is to take those things for bird-bolts, that you deem cannon bullets: there is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail." I. 5.

Mr. Whiter, who professes (and we cannot enough applaud the principle) his determination to support, on all occasions, the old reading, and to resist the very mischievous doctrine of emendation, insists that even here we should punctuate and interpret thus:

Doth, very foolishly although he smart,

i. e. even though he should be weak enough really to be hurt by so foolish an attack, &c.

Although he truly adds, that it is "strange that our commentators should be desirous of making a text for the poet, when it is their business to explain that which is given," the above may be carrying a good principle too far; but, so far as respects the metro, either here or any where else, we give our most unqualified assent to what he further says on that point." It is not for us to disturb the text on the authority of our fingers. As the poet did not write with such a process, so he ought not to be tried by such a test." Ib. p. 22.

(25) What, for a counter] A trifle. Counters, Dr. Farmer says, were pieces of false coin from France, about that time brought into use to cast accounts with. See Wint. T. IV. 2. Clown.

(26) Or what is he,

That says, his bravery is not on my cost,

But therein suits his folly to, &c.] "Tells me, the cost of his expensive dress,

"His scarfs and fans, and double change of bravery,"
Tam. of Shr. IV. 3. Petruch,

ill suited to his condition, does not come out of my pocket, but [he who] in so doing shapes his folly to the fashion, adapts it to the spirit and aim, of my speech?"

Bravery is finery, display. See M. for M. I. 4. Duke.

(27) taxing] Charging, challenging. "Things much more satyricall have passed both the publicke stage and the presse, and never questioned by authority; and there are fewer that will find themselves touched or taxed." Chr. Brooke's funerall Poem on Sir Arthure Chichester, 1625. Brit. Bibliogr. II. 242.

See "taxation," I. 2. Rosal.

(28) inland bred] By no common application of the term, used in opposition to "uplandish;" which in our early writers. and dictionaries is interpreted" unbred, rude, rustical, clownish" "because," says Minshieu," the people that dwell among mountaines, are severed from the civilitie of cities." 1617.

It occurs again in III. 2. Rosalind. "Who was in his youth an inland man ;" where Mr. Steevens quotes Puttenham's Arte of Poesie:" in an uplandish village or corner of a realm, where is no resort but of poor, rusticall, or uncivill people." 4to. 1589, fo. 120.

(29) Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,

And give it food] So, in Venus and Adonis: "Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ake, "Hasting to feed her fawn." MALONE.

(30) Wherein we play in] These pleonasms, of which the writers of the age afford examples, often occur in our author. "In what enormity is Marcius poor in."

And,

Coriol. II. 1. Menen.

"That fair, for which love groan'd for."

Rom, and Jul. Chor. at the end of A. I.

(31) All the world's a stage] Totus mundus agit histrionem, is a common adage. Mr. Malone adds from The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, 1597 :

"Unhappy man

"Whose life a sad continual tragedie,
"Himself the actor, in the world, the stage;
"While as the acts are measur'd by his age.'

(32) His acts being seven ages] Dr. Warburton observes, that this was 68 no unusual division of a play before our author's time;" but forbears to offer any one example in support of his assertion. I have carefully perused almost every dramatick piece antecedent to Shakespeare, or contemporary with him; but so far from being divided into acts, they are almost all printed in an unbroken continuity of scenes. I should add, that there is one play of six acts to be met with, and another of twentyone; but the second of these is a translation from the Spanish, and never could have been designed for the stage. In God's Promises, 1577, "A Tragedie or Enterlude," (or rather a Mystery,) by John Bale, seven acts may indeed be found.

It should, however, be observed, that the intervals in the Greek Tragedy are known to have varied from three acts to seven. STEEVENS.

66

Dr. Warburton boldly asserts that this was no unusual division of a play before our author's time." One of Chapman's plays (Two wise Men and all the rest Fools) is indeed in seven acts. This, however, is the only dramatick piece that I have found so divided. But surely it is not necessary to suppose that our author alluded here to any such precise division of the drama. His comparisons seldom run on four feet. It was sufficient for him that a play was distributed into several acts, and that human life, long before his time, had been divided into seven periods. In The Treasury of ancient and modern Times, 1613, Proclus, a Greek author, is said to have divided the lifetime of man into SEVEN AGES; over each of which one of the seven planets was supposed to rule. "The FIRST AGE is called

Infancy, containing the space of foure yeares.-The SECOND AGE Continueth ten years, untill he attaine to the yeares of fourteene: this age is called Childhood.-The THIRD AGE consisteth of eight yeares, being named by our auncients Adolescencie or Youthhood; and it lasteth from fourteene, till two and twenty yeares be fully compleate.-The FOURTH AGE paceth on, till a man have accomplished two and fortie yeares, and is tearmed Young Manhood. The FIFTH AGE, named Mature Manhood, hath (according to the said authour) fifteene yeares of continuance, and therefore makes his progress so far as six and fifty yeares. Afterwards, in adding twelve to fifty-sixe, you shall make up sixty-eight yeares, which reach to the end of the SIXT AGE, and is called Old Age.-The SEAVENTH and last of these seven ages is limited from sixty-eight yeares, so far as four-score and eight, being called weak, declining, and Decrepite Age. If any man chance to goe beyond this age, (which is more admired than noted in many,) you shall evidently perceive that he will returne to his first condition of Infancy againe."