Imagens das páginas
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cessaries on a journey.

Superfluous, over-clothed.

Supposed, counterfeit.

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warp.

Thrummed,made of coarse woollen
Tib, a strumpet.
Tickle, ticklish.

Tickle-brain, a strong drink.
Tilly-vally, pooh!
Tilth, tillage.
Timeless, untimely.
Tinct, tincture.

Tire, head-dress.
Tire, to fasten.

Tire, to be idly employed on.
Tired, adorned.

Tire-valiant, a head-dress.
Tirra-lirra, the song of the lark.
Toged, habited.
Tokened, spotted.
Tolling, taking toll.
Topless, supreme.

Topple, to tumble.

Table, a picture.

Touches, features.

Tables, tablets,

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books.

Toys, whims, rumours.

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Toze, to unravel.

Trade, established custom.

Take, to strike with disease, to Tradition, traditional usages.

blast.

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Talent, talon.

Tall, courageous.

Tallow-keech, tub of tallow.

Tame, ineffectual.

Tame-snake, a poltroon,
Tarre, to excite, provoke.
Tartar, Tartarus.

Task, to keep busied with scruples
Tassel Gentle, or Tercel Gentle,
a species of hawk.
Tasked, taxed.
Taurus, sides and heart in medi-
cal astrology.

Tawdry, necklaces

country girls.

worn by

Tawney Coat, the dress of an apparitor.

Taxation, censure, satire.

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Trail, scent left by game.
Traitress, a term of endearment.
Trammel, to catch.
Tranect, a ferry or sluice.
Translate, to transform.

Trash, to check.

Traverse, to march.
Traversed, across.

Tray-trip, a game at draughts.
Treachers, traitors.
Trenched, carved.
Trick, peculiarity of feature.
Trick, to dress out.
Tricking, dress.
Tricksy, adroit.

Trigon, Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius
in the Zodiac.

Trip, to defeat.
Triple, one of three.
Triumphs, revels.
Trojan, cant term for thief.
Trol-my-dames, the game of nine
holes.

Troll, to sing trippingly.
Trossers, trousers.
Trot, a term of contempt.
Trow, to imagine.
Truly-good, or turlupin, a gipsy.
Trundle-tail, a dog.
Trusted, thrusted.

Try conclusions, try experiments.
Tub-fast, the sweating process in
the venereal disease.
Tucket, or tucket sonnuance, a
flourish on a trumpet.
Tup, a ram.

Tether, a string by which any ani- Tup, to cover an ewe.

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V.
Vail, to bow, to sink, to conde-
scend to look.

Vailing, lowering.
Vain, vanity.

Vain, lying.

Valance, fringed with a beard.
Vanity, illusion.

Vantage, opportunity, advantage.

Vantbrace, armour for the arm.
Varlet, a servant.
Vast, waste, dreary. -

Vaunt, the avant, the fore-part.
Vaward, the fore-part.
Velure, velvet.

Venetian, admittance.
Vent, rumour.

Ventiges, holes of a flute.
Verbal, verbose.
Verify, to bear witness.
Venew, a bout (in fencing.)
Vengeance, mischief.
Veneys, hits.

Veronese, a ship from Verona.
Versing, writing verses.
Very, immediate.

Via, a cant phrase of exultation.
Vice, the fool of the old moralities.
Vice, grasp.
Vie, to brag.
Viewless, invisible.

Villain, a worthless fellow, a ser

vant.

Vild, vile.

Violenteth, rageth.

Virginal, a kind of spinnet.
Virtue, valour.

Virtuous, healthy.

Virtuous, well-bred.

Vixen, or Fixen, a female fox.

Vizament, advisement.
Vox, tone or voice.

Vulgar, common.

Vulgarly, commonly.

W.

Waft, to beckon.
Wage, to combat.
Wages, is equal to.
Waist, that part of a ship between
the quarter deck and the fore-
castle.
Waist, the middle.
Walk, a district in a forest.
Wanned, pale.

Wannion, vengeance.
Ward, posture of defence.

Ward, guardianship.

Warn, summon.

Warden, a pear.

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Whe'r, whether.
Where, whereas.

Whiffler, an officer in processions.
Whiles, until.

Whinidst, mouldy.
Whip, the crack, the best.
Whipstock, the carter's whip.
Whirring, hurrying.
Whist, being silent.

White, the white mark in the tar-
get.
White-death, the green sickness.
Whiting-time, bleaching time.
Whitsters, linen bleachers.
Whittle, a pocket knife.
Whooping, measure and reckon-
ing.

Wide, remote from.
Wilderness, wildness.
Will, wilfulness.

Wimple, a hood or veil.
Winchester Goose, a strumpet.
Winking-gates, gates hastily
closed from fear of danger.

Wassel candle, candle used at Winnowed, examined.

festivals.

Wassels, rustic revelry.

Winter-ground, to protect against

winter.

Wis, to know.

Wise woman, a witch, a fortareteller.

Wish, to recommend.
Wit, to know.
Witch, to bewitch.
Withy, judicious, canning.
Wits, senses.

Wittol, knowing, conscious of
Wittol, a contented cuckold.
Woe, to be sorry.
Woman, to affect deeply.
Woman-tired, henpecked.
Wondered, able to perform wo
ders.

Wood, crazy, frantic.

Wooden thing, awkward business.
World to see, wonderful.
Woodman, an attendant on the
forester.

Woolward, wearing wool.
Work, fortification.
Workings, thoughts.
Worm, a serpent.
Worth, wealth.
Worship, dignity.

Wreak, to revenge; resentment Wrest, an instrument for tening the harp.

Wrested, obtained by force.
Wretch, a term of fondness.
Writ, writing.

Write, to pronounce confidently.
Writhled, wrinkled.
Wry, to deviate.
Wrong, hurt.
Wroth, misfortune.
Wrought, agitated.
Wrung, pressed, strained.

Y.
Yare, nimble, handy.
Yarely, nimbly, adroitly.
Yearn, to grieve or vex.
Yeild, to inform of.
Yellowness, jealousy.
Yeoman, a bailiffs follower.
Yerk, to kick.
Yesty, foaming, frothy.
Young, early."

Zany, a buffoon.
Zealous, pious.

Z.

Zed, a term of contempt.

EXPLANATORY NOTES.

L

TEMPEST.

"A rotten carcass of a boat.”—Act I. Sc. 2. Shakspeare might have read the following in Holinshed:-" After this, was Edwin, the king's brother, accused of some conspiracie by him begun against the king: whereupon he was banished the land; and sent out in an old rotten vessel, without rowers or mariner, onlie accompanied with one esquier: so that being launched forth from the shore, through despaire, Edwin leapt into the sea, and drowned himself."

"Setebos."-Act I. Sc. 2.

We learn from Magellan's Voyages, that Setebos was the supreme god of the Patagons. This fabulous deity is also mentioned in Hackluyt's Voyages, 1598. Barbot says, "The Patagons are reported to dread a great horned devil, called Setebos." And, in Eden's Historye of Travayle, 1577, we are told, that the giantes, when they found themselves fettered, roared like bulls, and - cried upon Setebos to help them.

For no kind of traffic Would I admit, no name of magistrate."-Act II.Sc.1. Shakspeare has here followed a passage in Montaigne, as translated by John Florio, 1003:-"It is a nation that hath no kind of trafficke, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politic superioritie; no use of service, of riches, or of povertie; no contracts, no successions, no partitions, no occupation, but idle; no respect of kindred but common; no apparel but natural; no use of wine, corn, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulations, covetousness, envie, detraction, and pardon, were never heard amongst them." "Sometime like apes, that mow and chatter at me, And after bate me; then like hedge-hogs, which Lie tumbling in my bare-foot way."-Act II. Sc. 2. Perhaps taken from a passage in Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures. They make antike faces, grin, mow and mop, like an ape; tumble like an hedge-hog."-DOUCE.

"A dead Indian."- Act II. Sc. 2. Sir Martin Frobisher, when he returned from his voyage of discovery, brought with him some native Indians. In his History of the First Voyage for the Discoverie of Cataya, we have the following account of a savage taken by him:Whereupon, when he founde himself in captivitie, for very choler and disdain, he bit his tong in twaine, within his mouth: notwithstanding, he died not thereof, but lived untill he came in Englande, and then he died of colde, which he had taken at sea.”—STEEVENS.

"Nor scrape trenchering.”—Act III. Sc. I. In our author's time, trenchers were in general use, and male domestics were employed in cleansing them. "I have helped, (says Lyly in his History of his Life and Times, 1620,) to carry eighteen tubs of water in one morning; all manner of drudgery, I willingly performed; scrape-trenchers," &c.-MALONE.

"He were a brave monster indeed, if they were set En his tail."-Act III. Sc. 2.

Probably in allusion to Stowe. It seems in the year 1574 a whale was thrown ashore near Rams

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"This is the tune of our catch, played by the picture of Nobody."-Act III. Sc. 2.

A ridiculous figure, sometimes painted on signs. Westward for Smelts, a book which our poet seems to have read, was printed for John Trundle, in Barbican, at the sign of the No-body; or the allusion may be to the print of No-body, as prefixed to the anonymous comedy of No-body and Some-body, without date, but printed before the year 1600.-MALONE.

"One tree, the phanix' throne."-Act III. Sc. 3.

In Holland's Pliny, the following passage occurs: "I myselfe verily have heard straunge things of this kind of tree; and, namely, in regard of the bird Phoenix, which is supposed to have taken that name of this Date Tree; for it was assured unto me, that the said bird died with that tree, and revived of itselfe as the tree sprung again." Mountaineers, Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at

them

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“Each putter-out of one for five."—Act III. Sc. 3.

The custom here alluded to was as follows:It was a practice of those who engaged in long and hazardous expeditions, to place out a sum of money, on condition of receiving great interest for it at their return home. So in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour:-"I do intend this I will not altogether go upon expence) I am deyear of jubilee coming on, to travel; and (because termined to put some five thousand pound, to be paid me five for one, upon the return of my wife, myself, and my dog, from the Turk's court, in Constantinople."

"Like poison, given to work a great time after." Act III. Sc. 3.

sessed of the secret how to temper poisons with The natives of Africa were supposed to be possuch art, as not to operate till several years after they were administered. Italian travellers relate similar effects of the aqua tofana, a subtle, colourless and tasteless poison, which ladies carry about them, and have at their toilets, among their perfumed waters, for the purpose of administering in the drink of faithless lovers. In the chapel at Arundel, is the effigy of a nobleman of the Howard family, who, having incurred the jealousy of an Italian lady during his travels, was poisoned in this manner, and died after lingering many years. The effigy represents him nearly naked, his bones scarcely covered by his skin, and presenting altogether a most deplorable spectacle.

"And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes." Act IV. Sc. 1. Caliban's barnacle is the clakis or tree-goose.

Collins very simply tells us, that the barnacle which grows on ships was meant; and quotes the following passage to support his opinion:-"There are, in the north parts of Scotland, certaine trees, whereon do grow shell-fishes, which, falling in the water, do become fowls, whom we call barnakles; in the north of England, brant-geese; and in Lancashire, tree-geese."-DOUCE.

"Some subtilties o' the isle.”—Act V. Sc. 1. This is a phrase adopted from ancient cookery and confectionery. When a dish was so cue trived as to appear unlike what it really was they called it a subtilty. Dragons, castles, trees, &c. made out of sugar, had the like denomination

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

"Nay, give me not the boots."-Act I. Sc. 1. The boot was an instrument of torture used only in Scotland. Bishop Burnet mentions one Maccael, a preacher, who being suspected of treason, underwent the punishment so late as 1666. "He was put to the torture, which, in Scotland, they call the boots; for they put a pair of iron boots close on the leg, and drive wedges between these and the leg. The common torture was only to drive these on the calf of the leg, but I have been told they were sometimes driven upon the shin bone."-REED.

"A laced mutton.”—Act I. Sc. 1.

A laced mutton was, in our author's time, so usual a term for a courtezan, that a street in Clerkenwell much frequented by prostitutes, was called Mutton Lane.-MALONE.

"I see you have a month's mind to them."-Act I.Sc.2.

A month's mind was an anniversary in times of popery; or a less solemnity directed by will. There was also a year's mind, and a week's mind. So in Strype's Memorials, "July 1556, was the month's mind of Sir William Saxton, who died the last month, his hearse burning with wax, and the morrow mass celebrated, and a sermon preached." GREY.

"Sir Valentine and servant."-Act II. Sc. I. Here Silvia calls her lover, servant, and again below, her gentle servant. This was the language of ladies to their lovers when Shakspeare wrote.

HAWKINS.

"A waxen image 'gainst a fire.”—Act II. Sc. 4. Alluding to the figures made by witches, as representatives of those whom they designed to torment or destroy. King James ascribes these images to the devil, in his Treatise of Daemonologie: " to some others at these times he teacheth how to make pictures of waxe or claye, that by the roasting thereof, the persons that they bear the name of may be continually melted, and dried away by continual sicknesse."-WESTON.

"With a cod-piece."-Act II. Sc. 7. Whoever wishes to be informed respecting this particular relative to dress, may consult Buliver's Artificial Changeling. It is mentioned, too, in Tyro's Roaring Megge, 1598 :—

MERRY WIVES

"How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say he was out-run on Cotsale."-Act. I. Sc. 1.

He means Cotswold, in Gloucestershire. In the beginning of James the First's reign, by permission of the king, oue Dover, a public-spirited attorney of Barton-on-the-Heath, in Warwickshire, instituted on the hills of Cotswold an annual celebration of games, consisting of rural sports and exercises. These he constantly conducted in person, well mounted and accoutred in a suit of his majesty's old clothes; and they were frequented above forty years by the nobility and gentry for sixty miles round, till the grand rebellion abolished every liberal establishment.-T. WARTON.

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STEEVEN

"Tyro's round breeches have a cliffe behind, And that same perking longitude before; Which, for a pin-case, antique plowmen wore." Ocular instruction may be had from the armor shewn as John of Gaunt's, in the Tower of Leeda. The custom of sticking pins in this ostentation piece of indecency was continued by the Tower wardens, till forbidden by authority.—STEEVESS, Saint Nicholas be thy speed!"—Act III. Se. L. ̧

46

That this saint presided over young scholars, may be gathered from Knight's Life of Dean Collett; for by the statutes of Paul's School thert service at the cathedral on his anniversary. The inserted, the children are required to attend dive reason, probably, was, that the legend of this saist makes him to have been a bishop, while he was a boy.-HAWKINS.

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The cover of the salt hides the salt.”—Act III. Sc. lThe ancient English salt-cellar was very different from the modern, being a large piece of plate, generally much ornamented, with a cover to keep the salt clean.

"Upon whose grave thou vow'd'st pure chastity." Act IV. Sc. &

It was common in former ages for widowers and widows to make vows of chastity, in honour of their deceased wives or husbands. In Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, there is the form of a commission by the bishop of the diocese for taking a vow of chastity by a widow. It seems that, besides observing the vow, the widow was for lite to wear a veil, and a mourning habit. The same distinction we may suppose to have been made in respect of male votarists.-STEEVENS. "But since she did neglect her looking glass, And threw her sun-expelling mask away.”

Act IV. Sc. 4

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"Go, sircah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin Shallow."-Act I. Sc. 1.

This passage shews that it was formerly the cas

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om in England, as it is now in France, for persons o be attended at dinner by their own servants, "wherever they dined.-MASON.

"A master of fence."-Act I. Sc. 1. Fencing was taught as a regular science. Three degrees were usually taken in this art, a master's, a rovost's, and a scholar's. For each of these a rize was played, as exercises are kept in univerities for similar purposes. The weapons they ised were the axe, the pike, rapier and target, apier and cloak, two-swords, the two-hand sword, he bastard-sword, the dagger and staff, the sword and buckler, the rapier and dagger, &c. The places where they exercised were, commonly, theatres, alls, or other enclosures sufficient to contain a umber of spectators; as Ely-place, in Holborn; he Belle Sauvage, on Ludgate-hill; Hamptoncourt, the Artillery-garden, &c.-STEEVENS.

"Sackerson."-Act I. Sc. 2.

Sackerson or Sacarson was the name of a bear,

exhibited in our author's time, at Paris Garden. See an old book of Epigrams by Sir John Davies: "Publius, a student of the common law, To Paris Garden doth himself withdraw; Leaving old Ploy den, Dyer, and Broke, alone, To see old Harry Hunkes, and Sacarson."

MALONE.

"She discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation."-Act I. Sc. 3.

Anciently, the young of both sexes were instructed in carving, as a necessary accomplishment. It seems tohave been considered a mark of kindness when a lady carved to a gentleman. So in Vittoria Corombona: "Your husband is wondrous discontented. I did nothing to displease him; I carved to him at supper-time."-STEEVENS and BOSWELL.

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- for gourd and fullam holds,

And high and low beguile the rich and poor."
Act I. Sc. 3.

Gourds were, probably, dice in which a secret cavity had been made; Fullams, (so called because chiefly made at Fulham,) those which had been loaded with a small bit of lead. High men and low men, which are also cant terms, explain themselves. High numbers on the dice, at hazard, are from five to twelve inclusive; low, from aces to four.-MALONE.

"Flemish drunkard."-Act II. Sc. 1.

It is not without cause that this reproachful phrase is used. Sir John Smythe, in Certain Discourses, 4to. 1590, says, that the habit of drinking to excess was introduced into England from the Low Countries, "by some of our such men of warre within these verie few years: whereof it is come to passe that now-a-dayes there are very few feastes where our said men of warre are present, but they do invite and procure all the companie, of what and because they will not be denied their challenges, calling soever they be, to carowsing and quaffing; they, with manie new conges, ceremonies, and reverences, drinke to the healthe and prosperitie of princes; to the healthe of counsellors, and unto the healthe of their greatest friends, both at home and abroad: in which exercise they never cease till they be deade drunke, or, as the Flemings say, doot dronken." He adds, "and this aforesaid detestable vice hath, within these six or seven years, taken wonderful roote amongst our English nation, that n times past was wont to be of all other nations in Christendome one of the soberest."-REED.

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terms and rules of the rapier. Shakspeare commits a great anachronism in making Shallow talk of the rapier in Henry IV.'s reign, an hundred and seventy years before it was used in England.-JOHNSON. "When Mistress Bridget lost the handle of her fan." Act II. Sc. 2.

It should be remembered that fans, in our author's time, were more costly than they are at present, as well as of a different construction. They consisted of ostrich feathers, (or others of equal length and flexibility,) which were stuck into handles. The richer sort of these were composed of gold, silver, or ivory, of curious workmanship, and frequently ornamented with precious stones. Mention is made in the Sydney Papers, of a fan presented to Queen Elizabeth, for a new year's gift, the handle of which was studded with diamonds. It was not uncommon among the foppish young noblemen of that age, to carry fans of this splendid description; a singular piece of effeminacy for that early period.

STEEVENS, &c.

"Red lattice phrases."-Act II. Sc. 2. Red lattice at the doors and windows were formerly the external denotements of an ale-house. Hence the present chequers. In one of Shackerley Marmion's plays we read "a waterman's widow at the signe of the Red Lattice in Southwark." It is a curious circumstance, that the sign of the Chequers was common among the Romans. It was found in several of the streets excavated at Pompeii. STEEVENS.

"Amaimon-Barbason.”—Act II. Sc. 2.

Reginald Scott informs us, that "the demon Amaimon, was king of the East, and Barbatos a great countie or earle." Randle Holme, however, in his Academy of Armory and Blazon, tells us that, Amaymon is the chief whose dominion is on the north side of the infernal gulph; and that Barbatos, is like a Sagittarius, and hath thirty legions under him."-STEEVENS.

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"That becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance."-Act III. Sc.3.

The extravagance of female dress is here satirized. We shall give an extract or two on this subject from contemporary authors:

lawne baby caps, and snow-resembled silver. "Their heads, with their top and top-gallant Their breasts they embushe up on hie, and their curlings, they make a plain puppet-stage of round roseate buds they immodestly lay forth, to shew at their hands there is fruit to be hoped." Nashe's Christ's Teares, 1594.-"Oh, what a wonder it is to see a ship under saile with her tacklings and her masts, and her tops and her top-gallants, and I know not what; yea, but a world of wonders with her upper decks and nether decks, and so bedeckt, with her streamers, flags and ensignes, it is to see a woman created in God's image, so miscreate oft times and deformed with her French, her Spanish, and her foolish fashions, that he who know her with her plumes, her fans, and her silken made her, when he looks upon her, shall hardly vizard, with a ruffe like a saile; yea, a ruffe like a rainbow, with a feather in her cap, like a flag in her top, to tell (I thinke) which way the wind will blow. It is proverbially said, that far-fetcht and dearbought is fittest for ladies; as now-a-daies what groweth at home is base and homely; and what everie one eates is meate for dogs; and wee must have breade from one countrie, and drinke from another; and wee must have meate from Spaine, and sauce out of Italy; and if wee weare anything, it must be pure Venetian, Roman, or barbarian; but the fashion of all must be French." The Merchant Royall, a sermon preached at White-hall, before

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