partitions in the argumentative writings of the time. Shakespeare himfelf, as well as his contemporaries, ufes difcourfe for reasoning: and he here avails himself of the double fense; as he had done before in the word, partition.

(P. 97. n. 7.) The old reading is certainly the true one: and alludes to the proverb, "Walls have ears." A wall between almoft any two neighbours would foon be down, were it to exercise this faculty without previous warning.

(P. 98. n. 8.) "Here come two noble beaft in, a moon and a "lion." I cannot help fuppofing that we should have it, a mooncalf. The old copies read a man: poffibly man was the marginal interpretation of moon-calf; and being more intelligible, got into

the text.

The man in the moon was no new character on the stage, and is here introduced in ridicule of such exhibitions. Ben Jonfon in one of his mafques, call'd, News from the new World in the Moon, makes his Factor doubt of the perfon, who brings the intelligence. "I muft fee his dog at his girdle, and the bufh of thorns at his "back, er'e I believe it."" Thofe, replies one of the heralds, are ftale enfigns o' the ftage."

(P. 102. n. 7.) Lilly lips are changed to lilly brows for the fake of the rhyme, but this cannot be right: Thibe has before celebrated her Pyramus, as

"Lilly-white of hue."

It should be

"Thefe lips lilly,

"This nofe cherry."

This mode of pofition adds not a little to the burlefque of the paffage.

(P. 104. n. 2.) I think, "now the wolf bebowls the moon," was the original text. The allufion is frequently met with in the works of our author and his contemporaries. "'Tis like the bowl"ing of Irish wolves againft the moon," fays he, in his As you like it: and Malfinger, in his New Way to pay old Debts, makes an ufurer feel only

"As the moon is moved

"When wolves with hunger pined, bowl at her brightness." (P. 105. n. 4.) To fweep the duft behind the door is a common expreffion, and a common practice in large, old houfes; where the doors of halls and galleries are thrown backward, and seldom or never fhut.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

I know not whether Dr. Johnson communicated to you a paffage in a letter, which I wrote to him above a year ago, relative to the bufinefs of the three cafkets in this play. I informed VOL X.

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him,

him, that the ftory was taken from an old translation of the Gefa Romanorum, first printed by Winkin de Worde. The book was very popular, and Shakespeare has closely copied some of the language: an additional argument, if we wanted it, of his track of reading.-Three wefels are exhibited to a lady for her choice— The first was made of pure gold, well befet with precious ftones without, and within full of dead mens bones; and thereupon was engraven this pofie: Whofo chufeth me, fhall find that be deferveth. The fecond veffel was made of fine filver, filled with earth and worms, the fuperfcription was thus, Whojo chufeth me shall find that his nature defireth. The third veffel was made of lead, full within of precious ftones, and thereupon was infculpt this pofie, Whofo chufeth me fhall find that God hath difpofed for him.-The lady after a comment upon each, chufes the leaden vessel.

In a MS. of Lidgate, belonging to my very learned friend, Dr. Afker, I find a Tale of tro Marchants of Egipt and of Baldad, ex Geftis Romanorum.

(P. 118.) It is ftrange, Mr. Theobald did not know, that in old English, fometimes is fynonymous with formerly. Nothing is more frequent in title-pages, than "fometimes fellow of fuch a college."

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(P. 121. n. 8.) You have confounded the Prince Palatine who married the daughter of James I. with Albert à Lafco (the Prince Lafkie, as Dr. Dee calls him) who was in England in the reign of Elizabeth.

(P. 128. n. 7.) Dr. Warburton very truly interprets this paffage. Old Meres fays, "Ufurie and encrease by gold and filver *is unlawful, because against nature; nature hath made them "ferill and barren, and ufurie makes them procreative."

(P. 148. n. 3.)" A Gentile, and no Jew." Dr. Johnson rightly explains this. There is an old book by one Ellis, entitled, "The Gentile Sinner, or England's brave Gentleman.”

(P. 162. n. 8.) So Donne in one of his elegies,

"As a compaffionate turcoyfe, which doth tell

By looking pale, the wearer is not well."

(P. 167. n. 8.) It may be that Dr. Warburton has altered the wrong word, if any alteration be neceffary. I would rather give the character of filver,

"Thou ftale, and common drudge

"Tween man and man."

The palenefs of lead is for ever alluded to.

"Diane declining, pale as any ledde."

Says Stephen Hawes. In Fairfax's Tasso, we have

"The Lord Tancredie, pale with rage as lead."

Again, Sackville in his Legend of the Duke of Buckingham,

ftone."

"Now pale as lead, now cold as any And in the old ballad of the King and the Beggar,

She blushed scarlet red,

"Then ftraight again, as pale as lead."

As to the antithefis, Shakespeare has already made it in the
Midfummer Night's Dream:

"When, fays Thefeus, I have feen great clerks look pale,
"I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
"Of faucy and audacious eloquence."

AS YOU LIKE IT.

(P. 241.) "With bills on their necks," fhould be the conclufion of Le Beau's fpeech. Mr. Edwards ridicules Dr. Warburton, "As if people carried fuch inftruments of war, as bills and guns, "on their necks, not on their shoulders!" But unluckily the ridicule falls upon bimfelf. Laffels, in his Voyage of Italy, fays of Tutors, "Some perfuade their pupils, that it is fine carrying a gun upon their necks." But what is ftill more, the expreffion is taken immediately from Lodge, who furnished our author with hist plot. "Ganimede on a day fitting with Aliena (the affumed names, as in the play) caft up her eye, and faw where Rofader came pacing towards them with his foreft-bill on his necke."

(P. 262. n. 6.) In a schedule of jewels in the 15th vol. of Rymer's Fadera, we find," Item, two peafcoddes of gold, with 17 "pearles."

(P. 265. n. 2.) If duc ad me were right, Amiens would not have afked its meaning, and been put off with " a Greek invocation.” It is evidently a word coined for the nonce. We have here, as Butler fays, "One for fenfe, and one for rhyme."—Indeed we must have a double rhyme; or this ftanza cannot well be fung to the fame tune with the former. I read thus,

"Ducdame, Ducdamè, Ducdamè,
"Here fhall he fee

"Grofs fools as he,

"An' if he will come to Ami."

That is, to Amiens. Jaques did not mean to ridicule himself:
(P. 274. n. 5. Tho' the old text may be tortured into a mean-
ing, perhaps it would be as well to read,

с

"Because the heart's not feen."

y barts according to the ancient mode of writing, was eafily corrupted.

(P. 285.) Of for off is frequent in the elder writers. A SouthSea of difcovery is a difcovery a South-Sea off as far as the South

Sea.

(P. 294.) " Doth my fimple feature content you?" fays the Clown to Audrey. "Your features, replies the wench, Lord "warrant us, what features ?" I doubt not, this fhould be your feature! Lord warrant us, what's feature?

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(P. 297

(P. 297. n. 4.) I often find a part of this fong applied to Cromwell. In a paper called, A Man in the Moon, difcovering a World of Knavery under the Sun," the juncto will go near to give us the bagge, if O brave Oliver come not fuddenly to relieve them." The fame allufion is met with in Cleaveland. Wind away, and wind off are ftill ufed provincially and I believe, nothing but the provincial pronunciation is wanting to join the parts together. I read,

"Not-O fweet Oliver!

:

"O brave Oliver! "Leave me not behi' thee. "But-wind away,

"Begone, I fay,

"I will not to wedding wi” thee.”

(P. 300.) "A puny tilter, that breaks his ftaff like a noble goofe." Sir 1. Hanmer altered this to a nofe-quill'd goose, but no one feems to have regarded the alteration. Certainly nefequill'd is an epithet likely to be corrupted: it gives the image wanted, and may in a great measure be fupported by a quotation from Turberville's Falconrie. "Take with you a ducke, and flip "one of her wing feathers, and having thruft it thro' her nares, "throw her out unto your hawke."

(P. 339. n. 8.) It is the more remarkable, that old Adam is forgotten; fince at the end of the novel, Lodge makes him captaine of the king's guard.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

(P. 346.) In fupport of what I have faid relative to this play, let me only obferve further at present, that the author of Hamlet fpeaks of Gonzago, and his wife Baptifta; but the author of the Taming of the Shrew knew Baptifta to be the name of a MAN. -Mr. Capell indeed made me doubt, by declaring the authenticity of it to be confirmed by the teftimony of Sir Afton Cockayn. I knew Sir Afton was much acquainted with the writers immediately fubfequent to Shakespeare; and I was not inclined to dif pute his authority: but how was I furprifed, when I found that Cockayn afcribes nothing more to Shakespeare, than the InductionWincot-ale and the Beggar! I hope this was only a flip of Mr. Capell's memory.

(P. 373. n. 7.) "Be fhe as foul as was Florentius' love." I fuppofe, this alludes to the ftory of a Florentine, which is met with in an old book, called, A thousand notable Things, and perhaps in other collections. "He was ravished over-night with "the luftre of jewels, and was mad till the marriage was folem"nized: but next morning, viewing his lady before fhe was fo "gorgeoufly

gorgeoufly trim'd up.-She was fuch a leane, yellow, rivell'd, "deform'd creature, that he never lived with her afterwards."

(P. 393. n. 9.) Vye and revye were terms at cards, now fuperfeded by the more modern word, brag. Our author has in another place," time revyes us," which has likewife been unneceffarily altered. The words were frequently used in a sense somewhat remote from their original one. In the famous trial of the feven bishops, the chief juftice fays, "We must not permit vying "and revying upon one another."

(P. 408. n. 8.) In an old canzonet on a wedding, set to mu fick by Morley, 1606,

"Sops in wine, fpice-cakes are a dealing."

11

(P. 413. n. 1.) "Winter, fays Grumio, tames man, woman, " and beast: for it has tamed my old mafter, my new mistress, "and myself, Fellow Curtis."- Away, you three-inch'd fool, replies Curtis, I am no beaf." Why, afks Dr. Warburton, had Grumio call'd him one? he alters therefore myself to thyself, and all the editors follow him. But there is no neceffity; if Grumio calls himself a beef, and Curtis, Fellore; furely he calls Curtis a beaft likewife. Malvolio takes this fenfe of the word, "let this fellow be look'd to!-Fellow! not Malvolio, after my degree, but fellow !"

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In Ben Jonson's Cafe is altered, "what fays my Fellow Onion? quoth Chriftophero.-All of a house, replies Onion, but not fellows."

In the old play, call'd The Return from Parnaffus, we have a curious paffage, which fhews the opinion of contemporaries concerning the learning of Shakespeare; this ufe of the word fellow brings it to my remembrance. Burbage and Kempe are introduced to teach the university-men the art of acting, and are represented (particularly Kempe) as leaden Spouts very illiterate. "Few "of the univerfity, fays Kempe, pen plays well; they smell too "much of that writer, Ovid, and that writer, Metamorphofis :why, here's our Fellow Shakespeare put them all down."

(P. 424. n. 5.) Mercatantè. So Spenfer in the 3d book of his Fairy Queen,

"Sleeves dependant Albanefè-wife."

And our author has Veronefè in his Othello.

ALL'S WELL, THAT ENDS WELL.

(P. 29. n. 5.) Were you both our mothers,

"I care no more for, than I do for heaven,

"So I were not his fifter,"

There is a defigned ambiguity: I care no more for, is, I care as much for.-I wish it equally.

(P. 48. n. 2.) Thus Clove and Orange in Every Man out of his Humour,

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"You