petite moyenne et grande forme, nouvellement inventez et mis en lumiere. Imprimé à Montbeliard, 1598, 4to. It has an address to the ladies, and a poem exhorting young damsels to be industrious; but the author's name does not appear. Vincentio's work was published in England, and printed by John Wolf, under the title of New and singular patternes and workes of linnen, serving for paternes to make all sortes of lace, edginges and cut-workes. Newly invented for the profite and contentment of ladies, gentilwomen, and others that are desireous of this art. 1591, 4to. He seems also to have printed it with a French title. We have then another English book of which this is the title: Here foloweth certaine Patternes of Cut-workes: newly invented and never published before. Also sundry sortes of spots, as flowers, birdes and fishes, &c. and will fitly serve to be wrought, some with gould, some with silke, and some with crewell in coullers: or otherwise at your pleasure. And never but once published before. Printed by Rich. Shorleyker. No date, in oblong 4to. And, lastly, another oblong quarto entitled The needles excellency, a new booke wherin are divers admirable workes wrought with the needle. Newly invented and cut in copper for the pleasure and profit of the industrious. Printed for James Boler, &c. 1640. Beneath this title is a neat engraving of three ladies in a flower garden, under the names of Wisdom, Industrie, and Follie. Prefixed to the patterns are sundry poems in commendation of the needle, and describing the characters of ladies who have been eminent for their skill in needlework, among whom are Queen Elizabeth and the Countess of Pembroke. These poems were composed by John Taylor the water poet. It appears that the work had gone through twelve impressions, and yet a copy is now scarcely to be met with. This may be accounted for by supposing that such books were generally cut to pieces, and used by women to work upon or transfer to their samplers. From the dress of a lady and gentleman on one of the patterns in the last men

tioned book, it appears to have been originally published in the reign of James the First. All the others are embellished with a multitude of patterns elegantly cut in wood, several of which are eminently conspicuous for their taste and beauty. It is therefore apparent that the expression point-devise became applicable, in a secondary sense, to whatever was uncommonly exact, or constructed with the nicety and precision of stitches made or devised by the needle.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 97.

VIO. Dost thou live by thy tabor?

This instrument is found in the hands of fools long before the time of Shakspeare. With respect to the sign of the tabor mentioned in the notes, it might, as stated, have been the designation of a musick shop; but that it was the sign of an eating-house kept by Tarleton is a mistake into which a learned commentator has been inadvertently betrayed. It appears from Tarleton's Jests, 1611, 4to, that he kept a tavern in Gracious [Gracechurch] street, at the sign of the Saba. This is the person who in our modern bibles is called the queen of Sheba, and the sign has been corrupted into that of the bell-savage, as may be gathered from the inedited metrical romance of Alexander, supposed to have been written at the beginning of the fourteenth century by Adam Davie, who, in describing the countries visited by his hero, mentions that of Macropy (the Macropii of Pliny), and adds,

their.

"In heore lond is a cité

On of the noblest in Christianté† ;
Hit hotith Sabba in langage.

Thennes cam Sibely savage,

+ The mention of the region of Christianity is a whimsical anachronism as connected with the story of Alexander; but we must do our author the justice to admit that in his time the Ethiopians were Christians.

is called.

Of al theo world theo fairest quene,
To Jerusalem, Salamon to seone

For hire fairhed †, and for hire love,

Salamon forsok his God above."

Sibely savage, as a proper name, is another perversion of si belle sauvage; and though the lady was supposed to have come from the remotest parts of Africa, and might have been as black as a Negro, we are not now to dispute the superlative beauty of the mistress of Salomon, here converted into a Savage. It must be admitted that the queen of Sheba was as well adapted to a sign as the wise men of the East, afterwards metamorphosed into the three kings of Cologne.

Mr. Pegge, in his Anecdotes of the English language, p. 291, informs us that a friend had seen a lease of the Bell Savage inn to Isabella Savage; "which," says he, "overthrows the conjectures about a bell and a savage, la belle sauvage, &c." It is probable that the learned writer's friend was in some way or other deceived. The date of the instrument is not mentioned; and if the above name really appeared in the lease, it might have been an accidental circumstance at a period not very distant. Mr. Pegge was likewise not aware that the same sign, corrupted in like manner, was used on the continent.

SCENE 2. Page 109.

SIR TO. Go write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief.

Of the latter sentence Dr. Johnson has not given the exact explanation. It alludes to the proverb, "A curst cur must be tied short."

SCENE 4. Page 120.

SIR TO. What, man! defy the Devil: consider, he's an enemy to mankind.

It was very much the practice with old writers, both French. and English, to call the Devil, the enemy, by way of pre-emi

nence, founded perhaps on the words of Christ in Luke x. 19. Thus at the beginning of the Roman de Merlin, MS. "Mult fu iriez li anemis quant nre sires ot este en anfer;" and see other examples in Barbasan's glossary to the Ordene de chevalerie, 1759, 12mo, in v. Anemi. The cause of the Devil's wrath in the above instance, was the liberation of Adam, Noah, and many other saints and patriarchs from the purgatorial torments which they had endured. In a most curious description of hell in Examples howe mortall synne maketh the synners inobedyentes to have many paynes and doloures within the fyre of hell, b. 1. no date, 12mo, the Devil is thus referred to : "Come than after me, and I shal shewe unto the the ryght cursed enemye of humayne lygnage." And again, "About the enemy there were so many devyls and of cursed and myserable soules that no man myght beleve that of all the worlde from the begynnynge myght be yssued and brought forth so many soules." Sometimes he was called the enemy of hell, as in Larke's Boke of wisdome, b. 1. no date, 12mo, where it is said that "the enemye of hell ought to be doubted of every wise man." This note may serve also in further explanation of the line in Macbeth, Act III. Scene 1,

"Given to the common enemy of man."

It is remarkable that the Devil should be likewise called the enemy of mankind in the East. See Gladwin's Persian moonshee, part ii. p. 23.

SCENE 4. Page 120.

FAB. Carry his water to the wise woman.

Here may be a direct allusion to one of the two ladies of this description mentioned in the following passage from Heywood's play of The wise woman of Hogsdon; "You have heard of Mother Notingham, who for her time was prettily well skill'd in casting of waters: and after her, Mother Bombye." The latter is sometimes alluded to by Gerarde the

Herbalist, who, speaking of the properties of vervain, says, you must observe mother Bumbies rules to take just so many knots or sprigs, and no more, least it fall out so that it do you no good, if you catch no harme by it." Historie of plants, p. 581.

Lilly's comedy of Mother Bombie is well known. The several occupations of these impostors are thus described in the above play by Heywood: "Let me see how many trades have I to live by: First, I am a wise-woman, and a fortuneteller, and under that I deale in physicke and forespeaking, in palmistry, and recovering of things lost. Next, I undertake to cure madd folkes. Then I keepe gentlewomen lodgers, to furnish such chambers as I let out by the night: Then I am provided for bringing young wenches to bed; and, for a need, you see I can play the match-maker. Shee that is but one, and professeth so many, may well be tearmed a wise-woman, if there bee any." Such another character was Julian of Brentford, mentioned in the Merry wives of Windsor. These persons were sometimes called cunning and looming women.

SCENE 4. Page 121.

SIR TO. Come, we'll have him in a dark room, and bound. My niece is already in the belief that he is mad.

The reason for putting Malvolio into a dark room was to make him believe that he was mad; for a madhouse seems formerly to have been called a dark-house. In the next act Malvolio says, "Good Sir Topas, do not think I am mad, they have laid me here in hideous darkness." And again, "I say this house is dark." In Act V. he asks, "Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd, kept in a dark-house?" In As you like it, Act III. Scene 1, Rosalind says that "love is a madness, and deserves as well a dark-house and a whip, as madmen do." Edward Blount, in the second dedication to his Hospitall of incurable fooles, 1600, 4to, a translation from the Italian, requests of the person whom he addresses to