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SIR AND. Fie on him, Jezebel!

What we should read is hard to fay. Here is an allufion to fome old story which I have not yet discovered. JOHNSON.

Straccio (fee Torriano's and Altieri's dictionaries) fignifies clouts and tatters; and Torriano in his grammar, at the end of his dictionary, fays that fraccio was pronounced fratchi. So that it is probable that Shakspeare's meaning was this, that the lady of the queen's wardrobe had married a yeoman of the king's, who was vaftly inferior to her. SMITH.

Such is Mr. Smith's note; but it does not appear that trachy was ever an English word, nor will the meaning given it by the Italians be of any use on the present occafion.

yeo

Perhaps a letter has been mifplaced, and we ought to readftarchy; i. e. the room in which linen underwent the once most complicated operation of starching. I do not know that fuch a word exifts; and yet it would not be unanalogically formed from the fubftantive ftarch. In Harfnet's Declaration, 1603, we meet with a yeoman of the Sprucery;" i. e. wardrobe; and in the Northumberland Household-Book, nursery is fpelt nurcy. Starchy, therefore, for ftarchery, may be admitted. In Romeo and Juliet, the place where pafte was made, is called the paftry. The lady who had the care of the linen may be fignificantly opposed to the man, i. e. an inferior officer of the wardrobe. While the five different coloured ftarches were worn, fuch a term might have been current. In the year 1564, a Dutch woman profeffed to teach this art to our fair country-women. "Her ufual price (fays Stowe) was four or five pounds to teach them how to ftarch, and twenty fhillings how to feeth ftarch." The alteration was fuggefted to me by a typographical error in The World tofs'd at Tennis, no date, by Middleton and Rowley; where ftraches is printed for ftarches. I cannot fairly be accused of having dealt much in conjectural emendation, and therefore feel the less reluctance to hazard a guess on this desperate paffage. STEEVENS.

The place in which candles were kept, was formerly called the chandry; and in B. Jonfon's Bartholomew Fair, a ginger-bread woman is called lady of the basket.-The great objection to this emendation is, that from the ftarchy to the wardrobe is not what Shakspeare calls a very "heavy declenfion," In the old copy the word is printed in Italicks, as the name of a place,-Strachy.

The yeoman of the wardrobe is not an arbitrary term, but was the proper defignation of the wardrobe-keeper, in Shakspeare's time. See Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: "Veftiario, a wardrobe-keeper, or a yeoman of a wardrobe."

The story which our poet had in view is perhaps alluded to by

FAB. O, peace! now he's deeply in; look, how imagination blows him."

MAL. Having been three months married to her, fitting in my ftate,—"

SIR TO. O, for a ftone-bow, to hit him in the eye!

MAL. Calling my officers about me, in my branch'd velvet gown; having come from a daybed, where I have left Olivia fleeping:

Lily in Euphues and his England, 1580: "affuring myfelf there was a certain feafon when women are to be won; in the which moments they have neither will to deny, nor wit to miftruft. Such a time I have read a young gentleman found to obtain the love of the Dutchefs of Milaine: fuch a time I have heard that a poor yeoman chofe, to get the faireft lady in Mantua." MALONE. 6 blows him.] i. e. puffs him up. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

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on her breaft

"There is a vent of blood, and fomething blown."

STEEVENS. 7my ftate,] A ftate, in ancient language, fignifies a chair with a canopy over it. So, in K. Henry IV. P. I:

"This chair fhall be my ftate."

STEEVENS.

-ftone-bow,] That is, a cross-bow, a bow which shoots ftones. JOHNSON.

This inftrument is mentioned again in Marfton's Dutch Cour tefan, 1605: "whoever will hit the mark of profit, muft, like those who shoot in flone-bows, wink with one eye." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's King and no King:

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children will shortly take him

"For a wall, and set their stone-bows in his forehead."

STEEVENS.

come from a day-bed,] i. e. a couch. Spenfer, in the first canto of the third book of his Faery Queen, has dropped a stroke of fatire on this lazy fashion:

"So was that chamber clad in goodly wize,
"And round about it many beds were dight,
"As whilome was the antique worldes guize,

"Some for untimely ease, fome for delight." STEEVENS. Eftifania, in Rule a Wife and have a Wife, A&t I. fays, in anfwer to Perez:

SIR TO. Fire and brimftone!

FAB. O, peace, peace!

MAL. And then to have the humour of state: and after a demure travel of regard,-telling them, I know my place, as I would they should do theirs,to ask for my kinsman Toby:

SIR TO. Bolts and fhackles!

FAB. O, peace, peace, peace! now, now.

MAL. Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for him: I frown the while; and, perchance, wind up my watch, or play with fome rich jewel.' Toby approaches; court'fies there to me:*

"This place will fit our talk; 'tis fitter far, fir;
"Above there are day-beds, and fuch temptations
"I dare not trust, fir.".

REED.

wind up my watch,] In our author's time watches were very uncommon. When Guy Faux was taken, it was urged as a circumstance of fufpicion that a watch was found upon

him.

JOHNSON. Again, in an ancient MS. play, entitled The Second Maiden's Tragedy, written between the years 1610 and 1611:

"Like one that has a watche of curious making;

Thinking to be more cunning than the workman,
Never gives over tamp'ring with the wheels,

" "Till either spring be weaken'd, balance bow'd,
"Or fome wrong pin put in, and so spoils all."
In the Antipodes, a comedy, 1638, are the following paffages :
your project against

Again:

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"The multiplicity of pocket-watches."

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can carry

when every puny clerk
"The time o' th' day in his breeches."

Again, in The Alchemift:

"And I had lent my watch last night to one

"That dines to-day at the sheriff's." STEEVENS.

Pocket-watches were brought from Germany into England, about the year 1580. MALONE.

3

- or play with some rich jewel.] The old copy has

"Or play with my fome rich jewel." MALONE.

-court'fies there to me:] From this paffage one might fufpect

SIR To. Shall this fellow live?

FAB. Though our filence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace.

that the manner of paying refpect, which is now confined to females, was equally ufed by the other fex. It is probable, however, that the word court'fy was employed to exprefs acts of civility and reverence by either men or women indifcriminately. In an extract from the Black Book of Warwick, Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, p. 4, it is faid, "The pulpett being fett at the nether end of the Earle of Warwick's tombe in the faid quier, the table was placed where the altar had bene. At the coming into the quier my lord made lowe curtefie to the French king's armes." Again, in the book of kervynge and fewynge, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, fign. A. 1111: "And whan your Soverayne is fet, loke your towell be about your necke, then make your foverayne curtely, then uncover your brede and fet it by the falte, and laye your napkyn, knyfe, and fpone afore hym, then kneel on your knee," &c. Thefe directions are to male fervants. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in his Life, fpeaking of dancing, recommends that accomplishment to youth," that he may know how to come in and go out of a room where company is, how to make courtefies handfomely, according to the feveral degrees of perfons he shall encounter." REED.

Though our filence be drawn from us with cars,] i. e. though it is the greatest pain to us to keep filence. WARBURTON.

I believe the true reading is: Though our filence be drawn from us with carts, yet peace. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of the Clowns fays: "I have a mistress, but who that is, a team of horfes fhall not pluck from me." So, in this play: "Oxen and wainropes will not bring them together." JOHNSON.

The old reading is cars, as I have printed it. It is well known that cars and carts have the fame meaning. STEEVENS.

If I were to fuggeft a word in the place of cars, which I think is a corruption, it fhould be cables. It may be worth remarking, perhaps, that the leading ideas of Malvolio, in his bumour of ftate, bear a ftrong resemblance to those of Alnafchar in The Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Some of the expreflions too are very fimilar. TYRWHITT.

Many Arabian fictions had found their way into obfcure Latin and French books, and from thence into English ones, long before any profeffed verfion of The Arabian Nights' Entertainments had appeared. I meet with a ftory fimilar to that of Alnafchar, in The Dialoges of Creatures Moralyfed, bl. 1. no date, but probably printed abroad: It is but foly to hope to moche of vanyteys.-Wherof

MAL. I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar fmile with an auftere regard of control: SIR TO. And does not Toby take you a blow o'the lips then?

MAL. Saying, Coufin Toby, my fortunes having caft me on your niece, give me this prerogative of Speech;SIR. TO. What, what?

MAL. You must amend your drunkenness.

SIR TO. Out, fcab!

FAB. Nay, patience, or we break the finews of our plot.

MAL. Befides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish knight;

SIR AND. That's me, I warrant you.

MAL. One Sir Andrew:

SIR AND. I knew, 'twasI; for many do call me fool. MAL. What employment have we here?" [Taking up the letter.

it is tolde in fablys that a lady uppon a tyme delyuered to her mayden a galon of mylke to fell at a cite. And by the waye as the fate and reftid her by a dyche fide, fhe began to thinke yt with with ye money of the mylke the wolde bye an henne, the which fhulde bring forth chekyns, and whan they were growyn to hennys fhe wolde fell them and by piggis, and efchaunge them into thepe, and the fhepe into oxen; and fo whan fhe was come to richesse fhe fholde be maried right worshipfully vnto fome worthy man, and thus the reioycid. And whan the was thus meruelously comfortid, & rauifhed inwardely in her fecrete folace thinkynge with howe greate ioye fhe fhuld be ledde towarde the churche with her hufbond on horfebacke, the fayde to her felf, Goo wee, goo we, fodaynelye the fmote the grounde with her fote, myndynge to fpurre the horse; but her fote flypped and fhe fell in the dyche, and there laye all her mylke; and fo fhe was farre from her purpofe, and neuer had that the hopid to haue." Dial. 100. LL. îì. b. STEEVENS.

6 What employment have we here?] A phrafe of that time, equivalent to our common fpeech-What's to do here. WARBURTON.

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