SIR AND. 'Slight! will you make an ass o' me? FAB. I will prove it legitimate, fir, upon the oaths of judgement and reason.

SIR TO. And they have been grand jury-men, fince before Noah was a failor.

FAB. She did fhow favour to the youth in your fight, only to exafperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in your heart, and brimftone in your liver: You fhould then have accofted her; and with fome excellent jefts, fire-new from the mint, you should have bang'd the youth into dumbnefs. This was look'd for at your hand, and this was baulk'd: the double gilt of this opportunity you let time wafh off, and you are now failed into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman's beard, unlefs you do redeem it by fome laudable attempt, either of valour, or policy.

SIR AND. And't be any way, it must be with valour; for policy I hate: I had as lief be a Brownist,3 as a politician.

3

as lief be a Brownift,] The Brownifts were fo called from Mr. Robert Browne, a noted feparatift in Queen Elizabeth's reign. [See Strype's Annals of Queen Elizabeth, Vol. III. p. 15, 16, &c.] In his life of Whitgift, p. 323, he informs us, that Browne, in the year 1589, "went off from the feparation, and came into the communion of the church."

This Browne was defcended from an ancient and honourable family in Rutlandfhire; his grandfather Francis, had a charter granted him by K. Henry VIII. and confirmed by act of parliament; giving him leave to put on his hat in the prefence of the king, or bis heirs, or any lord fpiritual or temporal in the land, and not to put it off, but for his own eafe and pleasure."

Neal's Hiftory of New-England, Vol. I. p. 58. GREY. The Brownifts feem, in the time of our author, to have been the conftant objects of popular fatire. In the old comedy of Ramalley, 1611, is the following ftroke at them:

SIR TO. Why then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of valour. Challenge me the count's youth to fight with him; hurt him in eleven places; my niece fhall take note of it: and affure thyfelf, there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in man's commendation with woman, than report of valour.

FAB. There is no way but this, fir Andrew.

SIR AND. Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?

SIR TO. Go, write it in a martial hand; be curft 4 and brief; it is no matter how witty, fo it be eloquent, and full of invention: taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thou'st him fome thrice,' it

of a new fect, and the good profeffors will, like the Brownift, frequent gravel-pits fhortly, for they ufe woods and obfcure holes already."

Again, in Love and Honour, by Sir W. D'Avenant:

"Go kifs her :-by this hand, a Brownift is

"More amorous ———. 22

STEEVENS.

— in a martial hand; be curft-] Martial hand, seems to be a careless fcrawl, fuch as fhewed the writer to neglect ceremony. Curft, is petulant, crabbed. A curft cur, is a dog that with little provocation fnarls and bites. JOHNSON.

5 taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thou'ft him fome thrice,] There is no doubt, I think, but this paffage is one of those in which our author intended to fhew his refpect for Sir Walter Raleigh, and a deteftation of the virulence of his profecutors. The words quoted, feem to me directly levelled at the Attorneygeneral Coke, who, in the trial of Sir Walter, attacked him with all the following indecent expreffions:-"All that he did was by thy inftigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou traytor!" (Here, by the way, are the poet's three thou's.) "You are an odious man." "Is he bafe? I return it into thy throat, on his behalf."—" O damnable atheift."—" Thou art a monfter; thou haft an English face, but a Spanish heart."-" Thou haft a Spanish heart, and thyself art a Spider of bell."—" Go to, I will lay thee on thy back for the confident'ft traytor that ever came at a bar," &c. Is not here all the licence of tongue, which the poet fatirically prescribes to Sir Andrew's ink? And how mean an opinion Shakspeare had of these

shall not be amifs; and as many lies as will lie in thy fheet of paper, although the fheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England, fet 'em down; go, about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink; though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter: About it.

SIR AND. Where fhall I find you?

petulant invectives, is pretty evident from his clofe of this fpeech: Let there be gall enough in thy ink: though thou write it with a goofe-pen, no matter. A keener lafh at the attorney for a fool, than all the contumelies the attorney threw at the prifoner, as a fuppofed traytor! THEOBALD.

The fame expreffion occurs in Shirley's Opportunity, 1640:

"Does he thou me?

"How would he domineer, an he were duke!”

The refentment of our author, as Dr. Farmer obferves to me, might likewife have been excited by the contemptuous manner in which Lord Coke has spoken of players, and the feverity he was always willing to exert against them. Thus, in his Speech and Charge at Norwich, with a difcoverie of the abufes and corruption of officers. Nath. Butter, 4to. 1607: "Because I must haft unto an end, I will requeft that you will carefully put in execution the ftatute against vagrants; fince the making whereof I have found fewer theeves, and the gaole leffe peftered than before.

"The abufe of flage-players wherewith I find the country_much troubled, may eafily be reformed; they having no commiffion to play in any place without leave: and therefore, if by your willingneffe they be not entertained, you may foone be rid of them."

STEEVENS.

Though I think it probable Lord Coke might have been in Shakspeare's mind when he wrote the above paffage, yet it is by no means certain. It ought to be obferved, that the conduct of that great lawyer, bad as it was on this occafion, received too mach countenance from the practice of his predeceffors, both at the bar and on the bench. The State Trials will fhew, to the difgrace of the profeffion, that many other criminals were THOU'D by their profecutors and judges, befides Sir Walter Raleigh. In Knox's Hiftory of the Reformation, are eighteen articles exhibited againft Mafter George Wifcharde, 1546, every one of which beginsTHOU falfe heretick, and fometimes with the addition of thief, traitor, runagate, &c. REED,

SIR TO. We'll call thee at the cubiculo: Go. [Exit SIR ANDREW.

FAB. This is a dear manakin to you, fir Toby. SIR TO. I have been dear to him, lad; fome two thousand strong, or fo.

FAB. We fhall have a rare letter from him: but you'll not deliver it.

SIR TO. Never truft me then; and by all means ftir on the youth to an anfwer. I think, oxen and wainropes cannot hale them together. For Andrew, if he were open'd, and you find fo much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the reft of the anatomy.

FAB. And his oppofite, the youth, bears in his vifage no great prefage of cruelty.

Enter MARIA.

SIR TO. Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes.R

6 at the cubiculo:] I believe we should read-at thy cubieulo. MALONE.

And his oppofite,] Oppofite in our author's time was used as a fubftantive, and fynonymous to adverfary. MALONE.

Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes.] The women's parts were then acted by boys, fometimes fo low in ftature, that there was occafion to obviate the impropriety by fuch kind of oblique apologies. WARBURTON.

The wren generally lays nine or ten eggs at a time, and the last hatch'd of all birds are ufually the smallest and weakest of the whole brood.

So, in a Dialogue of the Phoenix, &c. by R. Chefter, 1601: "The little wren that many young ones brings." The old copy, however, reads "wren of mine." STEEVENS. Again, in Sir Philip Sidney's Ourania, a poem, by N. Breton,

1606:

"The titmouse, and the multiplying wren."

The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

MAR. If you defire the fpleen, and will laugh yourfelves into stitches, follow me: yon' gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very renegado; for there is no Christian, that means to be fav'd by believing rightly, can ever believe fuch impoffible paffages of groffnefs. He's in yellow stockings.

SIR TO. And cross-garter'd?

MAR. Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school i'the church.-I have dogg'd him, like his murderer: He does obey every point of the letter that I dropp'd to betray him. He does fmile his face into more lines, than are in the new map, with the augmentation of the Indies: you have not feen fuch a thing as 'tis; I can hardly forbear hurling things at him. I know, my lady will ftrike him;" if the do, he'll fmile, and take't for a great favour. SIR TO. Come, bring us, bring us where he is. [Exeunt.

Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN.

SEB. I would not, by my will, have troubled you; But, fince you make your pleasure of your pains, I will no further chide you.

ANT. I could not stay behind you; my defire, More fharp than filed fteel, did fpur me forth; And not all love to fee you, (though fo much,

9 I know my lady will strike him;] We may fuppofe, that in an age when ladies ftruck their fervants, the box on the car which Queen Elizabeth is faid to have given to the Earl of Effex, was not regarded as a tranfgreffion against the rules of common behaviour.

STEEVENS.