III. ii. 24.

Where is but a humour or a worm.

Tooth

ache was popularly supposed to be caused by a worm at the root of the tooth.

III. iii. Enter DOGBERRY and VERGES with the Watch. It is an interesting fact that "Dogberry," the vulgar name of dogwood, was used as a surname as far back as the time of Richard II., and that "Verges," a provincial corruption for verjuice, occurs in an ancient Ms.1 as the name of a usurer whose epitaph is given :—

"Here lies father Varges,

Who died to save charges."

III. iii. 78, 79. keep your fellows' counsels and your own. It has been pointed out, by students of Shakespeare's legal acquirements, that these words still form part of the oath administered by judges' marshals to the grand jurymen at the present day,—indicating our poet's fa miliarity with legal forms and technicalities.

III. v. 15. Comparisons are odorous. An elaborate extension of this joke occurs in the old play of Sir Gyles Goosecappe (c. 1603).

III. v. 33.

When the age is in, the wit is out; a blunder for the old proverbial expression, "When the ale is in, wit is out,"

'When ale is in, wit is out;

When ale is out, wit is in.

The first thou showest out of doubt,

The last in thee hath not been."*

IV. ii. Nearly all the speeches of Dogberry throughout this scene are given [by the early editions] to the famous comedian " Kemp," and those of Verges to "Cowley." William Kemp and Richard Cowley are

1 Ms. Ashmol. 38.

"Heywood's Epigrams and Proverbs.

among the "principall actors" enumerated in the First Folio. The retention of the names of the actors "supplies a measure of the editorial care to which the several Folios were submitted." Dogberry's speech [in line 4] is assigned to " Andrew," probably a familiar appellation of Kemp, who, according to the Cambridge Edition, often. played the part of " Merry Andrew.”

IV. ii. 5, 6. we have the exhibition to examine. Verges' blunder is not quite clear. Possibly " exhibition" is used in the sense of "allowance or permission; otherwise he perhaps means "examination to exhibit."

The Quarto

V. i. 16. Bid sorrow wag, cry 'hem'! and the first and second Folios read, " And sorrow wagge, crie hem;" Folio 3, " And hallow, wag, cry hem;” Folio 4, “And hollow, wag, cry hem." Many emendations have been suggested. Johnson proposed "Cry, sorrow wag. ! and hem." ("Sorrow wag," like "care away," was probably a proverbial phrase.) One other suggestion is perhaps noteworthy: "And, sorry wag, cry' hem."" Capell's "Bid sorrow wag" is now generally adopted.

V. iii. 18, 21. Heavily, heavily; so reads the Quarto. The Folios'"Heavenly, heavenly," has been adopted by many editors. The same error, however, of “ "heavenly for "heavily" occurs in the Folio reading of Hamlet, ii. 2. 296. Halliwell remarks: "The slayers of the 'virgin knight' are performing a solemn requiem on the body of Hero, and they invoke Midnight and the shades of the dead to assist, until her death be uttered, —that is, proclaimed, published, sorrowfully, sorrowfully."

V. iv. 118, 119. there is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn; that is, having a ferrule of horn. There is, of course, a quibbling allusion in the words to the favourite Elizabethan joke.

ALEXANDER DYCE'S NOTES

TO

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

ACT I.

SCENE I. · Enter LEONATO, HERO, and BEATRICE, with & Messenger. The old editions have "Enter Leonato Gouernour of Messina, Innogen his wife, Hero his daughter, and Beatrice his Neece, with a messenger;" and again at the commencement of act ii. they make his "wife" enter with Leonato. "It is therefore clear," says Mr. Collier, "that the mother of Hero made her appearance before the audience, although she says nothing throughout the comedy;" and in his Notes and Emendations, he remarks that "the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has expunged the words 'Innogen his wife,' as if the practice had not then been for her to appear before the audience in this or in any other portion of the comedy."

The great probability is, that she never appeared before any audience in any part of the play; and that Theobald was right when he conjectured that "the poet had in his first plan designed such a character, which, on a survey of it, he found would be superfluous, and therefore he left it out." One thing I hold for certain, - that, if she ever did figure among the dramatis personæ, it was not as a

1

mere dummy: there are scenes in which the mother of Hero must have spoken; she could not have stood on the stage without a word to say about the disgrace of her daughter, etc.

1. Pedro. The old editions have "Peter," and again in line 8.

...

116. as yours were. Collier says: "In the corrected folio 1632, 'were' at the end of this speech is erased, though it was certainly the language of Shakespeare's day; therefore we preserve it." The old text may be right; but, I confess, I am not quite satisfied with it.

214. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. Walker (Shakespeare's Versification, p. 237) says: “I suspect, from the turn of the expression, that the words are verse, and that 'Shall see thee,' etc., is the true reading." Very doubtful, surely.

226. In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.' A line from Kyd's Spanish Tragedy (of which the earliest edition known is dated 1599), where it stands thus,

"In time the sauage bull sustaines the yoake."

Kyd, again, borrowed it from Watson's Hekatompathia, or Passionate Centurie of Love (printed in or after 1582), the 44th Sonnet of which begins thus,

"In time the bull is brought to weare the yoake.”

273. story? Walker (Crit. Exam. iii. 29) conjectures "string" (suggested by W. N. Lettsom).

279. The fairest grant is the necessity. Hanmer alters "grant" to "plea; " Collier's Ms. Corrector to "ground." Hayley conjectured "The fairest grant is to necessity" (Necessitas quod cogit defendit).