manner as to take up each other's men as they are called, and the area of the inner fquare is called The Pound, in which. the men taken up are impounded. These figures are by the country people called Nine Men's Morris, or Merrils, and are fo called, because each party has nine men. These figures are always cut upon the green turf or leys, as they are called, or upon the grafs at the end of ploughed lands, and in rainy feasons never fail to be choaked up with mud.

Dr. JAMES.

(VOL. III. p. 224.) Since this note was written, I have found among the Harleian MSS. (n. 7333.) an English tranf lation of the Gefta Romanorum, which contains the two stories of the Jew and of the caskets. I have also met with a printed copy in the black letter, but not older than 1600, as I guess, for the title-page is loft. This has only the story of the cafkets. However it is not improbable that the story of the Jew may have been in fome of the former impreffions; as R. Robinson says exprefsly, that the book, as published by him in 1577, contained twenty-one sheets, whereas my copy contains only fifteen.

Upon the whole, if any English translation of the Pecorone can be produced of an earlier date than the Merchant of Venice, it will be very clear, I think, that Shakespeare took his fable from thence, as there the two ftories are worked up into one, as they are in the play; but it will scarce be doubted, that Ser Giovanni, the author of the Pecorone, was obliged to the Gefta Romanorum for the materials of his novel.

T. T.

(VOL. IV. p. 245.) The Pavan from pavo a peacock, is a grave and majestick dance. The method of dancing it was antiently by gentlemen dressed with a cap and sword, by those of the long robe in their gowns, by princes in their mantles, and by ladies in gowns with long trains, the motion whereof in the dance resembled that of a peacock's tail. This dance is fupposed to have been invented by the Spaniards, and its figure is given with the characters for the fteps in the Orchefographia of Thoinet Arbeau. Every pavan has its galliard, a lighter kind of air, made out of the former. The courant, the jig, and the hornpipe are fufficiently known at this day.

Of the paffamezzo little is to be faid, except that it was a favourite air in the days of Q. Elizabeth. Ligon in his history

of

of Barbadoes, mentions a passamezzo galliard, which in the year 1647 a Padre in that island played to him on the lute; the very fame, he fays, with an air of that kind which in Shakefpeare's play of Henry IV. was originally played to Sir John Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet, by Sneak, the mufician, there named. This little anecdote Ligon might have by tradition, but his conclufion, that because it was played in a dramatic representation of the history of Henry IV. it must be so ancient as his time, is very idle and injudicious.Paffy-measure is therefore undoubtedly a corruption from paffamezzo. Sir J. HAWKINS.

(VOL. IV.

p. 178.)

three merry men we be.

The wife men were but feaven, ne'er more shall be for me;
The mufes were but nine, the worthies three times three;
And three merry boyes, and three merry boyes, and three
merry boyes are wee.

The vertues) they were feven, and three the greater bee;
The Cæfars they were twelve, and fatall fifters three.
And three merry girles, and three merry girles, and three
merry girles are wee.

Sir J. HAWKINS.

(VOL. VII. p. 148.) The Latin play of Richard III. (MS. Harl. n. 6926) has the author's name-Henry Lacey, and is dated-1586.

The paffage, which I would mention, is upon the appearance of Richard to Buckingham and the others who came to offer him the crown.

Sed nunc duobus cinctus ecce epifcopis

ipparet in fummâ domo princeps pius.

It is difficult, 1 think, to account for fuch a co-incidence, in a circumftance of mere invention, without fuppofing that one of the poets must have profited by the others performance. T. T.

This circumftance is not an invention of either poet, bút taken from Hall's Chronicle.

"At the last he came out of his chambre, and yet not "doune to theim, but in a galary ouer theim, with a bishop "on euery hande of hym, where thei beneth might se bym "and fpeke to hym, as thoughe he woulde not yet come nere them til he wift what they meante, &c." FARMER.

A

LETTER

FROM THE REV.

Mr. FARMER of Emanuel College, Cambridge,

I

AUTHOR OF

AN ESSAY ON THE LEARNING OF SHAKESPEARE,

Dear Sir,

то

MR. STEEVEN S.

HAVE long promifed you a fpecimen of fuch obfervations, as I think to be still wanting on the works of our favourite poet. The edition you now offer to the publick, approaches much nearer to perfection, than any that has yet appeared; and, I doubt not, will be the ftandard of every future one. The track of reading, which I fometime ago endeavoured to prove more immediately necessary to a commentator on Shakespeare, you have very fuccefsfully followed, and have confequently fuperfeded fome remarks, which I might otherwife have troubled you with. Those I now send you, are fuch as I marked on the margin of the copy you were fo kind to communicate to me, and bear a very fmall proportion to the miscellaneous collections of this fort, which I may probably put together fome time or other : if I do this I will take care by proper references to make them peculiarly useful to the readers of your edition.

An appendix has little room for quotation-I will be therefore as concife as poffible.

VOL. I.

(P. 4.) The romance alluded to is not ORELIA, but AUREL10 and Isabella. I know not by what mistake the late Mr. Collins in his information to Mr. Warton, could give it the epithet of chemical. There is an edition of it in four languages, printed at Antwerp, 1556.

Mr. Theobald tells us, that the Tempest muft have been written after 1609, because the Bermuda Itlands, which are mentioned in it, were unknown to the English until that year; but this is a mistake. He might have feen in Hackluit, 1600, folio, a defcription of Bermuda, by Henry May, who was fhipwrecked there in 1593.

It was however one of our author's laft works. In 1598 he played a part in the original Every Man in his Humour. Two of the characters are Profpero and Stephano. Here Ben Jonson taught him the pronunciation of the latter word, which is always right in the Tempeft.

"Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler?"

And always wrong in his earlier play, the Merchant of Venice, which had been on the stage at least two or three years before its publication in 1600.

"My friend Stephano, fignify, I pray you," &c.

So little did a late editor know of his author, when he idly fuppofed his fchool literature might perhaps have been loft by the diffipation of youth, or the bufy fcenes of publick life!

(P. 7.) An acre of barren ground, long heath, brown, furze," &c. Sir T. Hanmer reads ling, heath, broom, furze.- -Perhaps rightly, though he has been charged with tautology. I find in Harrison's Defcription of Britain, prefixed to our author's good friend Holingfhead, p. 91. "Brome, heth, firze, brakes, whinnes, ling," &c.

(P. 27.)—" My dam's god, Setebos."

A gentleman of great merit, Mr. Warner, has obferved on the authority of John Barbot, that "the Patagons are reported to "dread a great horned devil, called Setebos."- -It may be asked however, how Shakespeare knew any thing of this, as Barbot was a voyager of the prefent century?--Perhaps he had read Eden's Hiftory of Travayle, 1577, who tells us, p. 434. that the giantes, when they found themfelves fettered roared like "bulls, and cryed upon Setebos to help them."-The Metathefis "in Caliban from Canibal is evident.

(P. 31. note 3.) A paffage in Lilly's Gallathea feems to countenance the prefent text, "The queftion among men is common, “are you a maide ?"--yet I cannot but think, that Dr. Warbur

Oo 3

ton

ten reads very rightly, "If you be made, or no." When we meet with an harth expreffion in Shakespeare, we are usually to look for a play upon words. Fletcher clotely imitates the Tempest in his Sea Voyage: and he introduces Albert in the fame manner to the ladies of his Defert Island,

"Be not offended, goddesses, that I fall
"Thus proftrate," &c.

Shakespeare himself had certainly read, and had probably now in his mind, a paffage in the third book of the Fairy Queen, between Timias and Belphabe,

Angel or goddess! do I call thee right ?"

"There-at the blufhing, faid, ah! gentle fquire,

Nor goddess I, nor angel, but the maid

"And daughter of a woody nymph," &c.

(P. 60.) "He were a brave monfter indeed, if they were fet "in his tail."

I believe this to be an allufion to a flory that is met with in Store, and other writers of the time. It feems, in the year 1574, a whale was thrown afhore near Ram/gate. "A monftrous fb (fays the chronicler) but not fo monftrous as fome reported -for his eyes were in his head, and not in his back.”

Summary, 1575, p. 562.

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA:

(Vol. I. p. 105.) Mrs. Lenox obferves, and I think not improbably, that the story of Protheus and Julia might be taken from a filar one in the Diana of George of Montemayor. "This paftoral romance, fays fhe, was tramlated from the Spanish "in Shakespeare's time."-I have feen no earlier tranflation, than that of Bartholomew Yong, who dates his dedication in Nevember 1598, and Meres, in his Wit's Treafury, printed the fame year, exprefsly mentions the Two Gentlemen of Verona. Indeed, Montemayor was tranflated two or three years before by one Thomas Wiljon; but this work, I am perfuaded, was never publithed entirely; perhaps fome parts of it were, or the tale might have been tranflated by others. However you fay very truly, that this kind of love-adventure is frequent in the old novelifts.

(P. 153.) "My mafter, fays Launcelot, is a kind of knave, but that's all one, if he be but one knave".

This paffage has been altered, with little difference, by Dr. Warburton and Sir Tho. Hanmer.-Mr. Edwards explains it,"if he only be a knave, if I myself be not found to be another." I agree with Dr. Johnson, and will fupport the old reading and his interpretation with indifputable authority. In the old play of Damon and Pythias, Ariftippus declares of Carifophus, "you

" lofe