To hick and to hack, in Mrs. Quickly's language, fignifies to flammer or hesitate, as boys do in saying their leffons.'

In Measure for Measure, Mr. Malone makes a pertinent obfervation on

• But here they live to end.] So the old copy. Is it not probable that the author wrote:

But where they live to end.

The prophecy is not, that future evils should end ere or before they are born; or in other words, that there fhould be no more evil in the world (as Sir T. Hanmer by his alteration feems to have understood it); but, that they should end where they began; i.e. with the criminal, who being punished for his first offence, could not proceed by fucceffive degrees in wickedness, nor excite others, by his impunity, to vice.

So, in the next speech:

"And do him right, that anfw'ring this foul wrong,

"Lives not to act another.”

It is more likely that a letter fhould have been omitted at the prefs, than that one should have been added.'

The next note with which we fhail prefent our readers, is alfo the production of the ingenious editor. It relates to a paffage in Much ado about Nothing.

If fuch a one will fmile, &c.] What militates ftrongly against Dr. Johnson's pointing, and confequently against his interpretation, is, that in thefe plays, the words cry and hem are generally found joined together. So, in As you like It :

"If I could cry hem and have him.”

Again, in The Firf Part of Henry IV. act II. fc. iv. and in many other places.

A very flight alteration of the text will, I apprehend, make perfect fenfe:

If fuch a one will smile and stroke his beard ;

In forrow wag; cry hem, when he should groan;

And and in haltily or indiftinctly pronounced might easily have

been confounded, fuppofing (what there is great reason to believe) that these plays were copied for the prefs by the ear.

By this reading a clear fenfe is given, and the latter part of the line is a paraphrafe on the former.

To cry

hem was, as appears from the paffage cited by Mr. Tyrwhitt, a mark of feftivity. So alfo from Love's Cruelty, a tragedy by Shirley, 1640:

"Cannot he laugh and hem, and kiss his bride,

"But he must fend me word ?"

Again, in The Second Part of Henry IV :

"We have heard the bells chime at midnight-that we have, that we have our watch-word was, hem, boys.'

'On the other hand, to cry woe was used to denote grief. Thus, in the Winter's Tale:

66

but the laft, O Lords,

"When I have faid, cry woe."

There

With respect to the word wag, the ufing it as a verb, in the fenfe of to play the wag, is entirely in Shakspeare's manner. is fcarcely one of his plays in which we do not find fubftantives used as verbs. Thus we meet to teftimony, to boy, to couch, to grave, to bench, to voice, to nacer, to page, to dram, to tage, to fever, to fool, to palate, to mountebank, to god, to virgin, to paf

C 4

fion,

fion, to monster, to hiftory, to fable, to wall, to period, to spaniel, to ftranger, &c. &c.'

In Love's Labour Loft, we meet with an elucidating remark by Mr. Steevens, on the words

Guerdon,-Ofweet guerdon! better than remuneration; elevenpence farthing better, &c.] The following parallel paffage in A Health to the Gentlemanly Profeffion of Serving-men, or the Servingman's Comfort, &c. 1598, was pointed out to me by Dr. Farmer.

"There was, fayth he, a man, (but of what estate, degree, or calling, I will not name, leaft thereby I might incurre difpleasure of anie) that coming to his friendes houfe, who was a gentleman of good reckoning, and being there kindly entertained, and well ufed, as well of his friende the gentleman as of his fervantes: one of the fayd fervantes doing him fome extraordinarie pleasure during his abode there, at his departure he comes unto the fayd fervant, and fayth unto him, Holde thee, here is a remuneration for thy paynes; which the fervant receiving, gave him utterly for it (befides his paynes) thankes, for it was but a three-farthings peece: and I holde thankes for the fame a fmall price, howfoever the market goes. Now an other comming to the fayd gentleman's houfe, it was the forefayd fervant's good hap to be neare him at his going away, who calling the fervant unto him, fayd, Holde thee, here is a guerdon for thy deferts: now the fervant payde no deerer for the guerdon, than he did for the remuneration; though the guerdon was xid farthing better; for it was a billing, and the other but a three-farthinges."

'Whether Shakspeare, or the author of this pamphlet was the borrower, cannot be known, till the time when Love's Labour Loft was written, and the date of the earliest edition of the Serving-man's Comfort &c. fhall be ascertained by circumstances which at prefent are beyond our reach.'

In the Midfuminer Night's Dream, Mr. Malone makes the following plaufible conjecture:

No, I am no fuch thing; I am a man, as other men are:-and there indeed, let him name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.] There are probably many temporary allufions to particular incidents and characters fcattered through our author's plays, which gave a poignancy to certain paffages, while the events were recent, and the perfons pointed at, yet living. In the fpeech now before us, I think it not improbable that he meant to allude to a fact which happened in his time, at an enterainment exhibited before queen Elizabeth. It is recorded in a manufcript collection of anecdotes, ftories, &c. entitled, Merry Paffages and Jeafts, Ms. Harl. 6395 :

"There was a fpectacle prefented to queen Elizabeth upon the water, and among others Harry Goldingham was to reprefent Arion upon the dolphin's backe; but finding his voice to be very hoarfe and unpleasant, when he came to perform it, he tears off his dif guife, and fwears he was none of Arion, not he, but even honeft Har. Goldingham; which blunt difcoverie pleafed the queene better than if it had gone through in the right way: yet he could order his voice to an instrument exceeding well."

The collector of thefe Merry Paffages appears to have been nephew to Sir Roger L'Estrange.'

In

In the play laft mentioned, the fame gentleman makes the fubfequent remark, intended to follow Dr. Warburton's note

• And I have found Demetrius, like a jewel,
Mine own and not mine orn.]

An anonymous critick fuppofes that Shakspeare had in his thoughts the mine of rubies, belonging to the king of Zeylan mentioned by Le Blanc and other travellers) out of which the king had all that exceeded the weight of four or five carrats, and none under that weight-on which account the jewels of the mine might be called his own and not his own.

• I do not fuppofe any fuch allufion to have been intended. - Helena, I think, only means to fay, that having found Demetrius unexpectedly, the confidered her property in him as infecure as that which a perfon has in a jewel that he has found by accident; which he knows not whether he fhall retain, and which therefore may properly enough be called his own and not his own,

'Helena does not fay, as Dr. Warburton has represented, that Demetrius was like a jewel, but that he had found him, like a jewel, &c. A kindred thought occurs in Antony and Cleopatra:

by starts

"His fretted fortunes give him hope and fear

"Of what he has, and has not."

The fame kind of expreffion is found alfo in The Merchant of Venice:

"Where ev'ry fomething, being blent together,
"Turns to a wild of nothing, fave of joy,
"Expreff, and not expreft.”

The editor's note on the following paffage in the Merchant of Venice, is alfo worthy of observation.

Well, if any man in Italy] Dr. Johnfon's explanation appears to me perfectly juft. In fupport of it, it fhould be remem. bered, that which is frequently ufed by our author and his contemporaries, for the perfonal pronoun, who. It is till fo ufed in our Liturgy.

"The whole difficulty of this paffage, has, I believe, arifen from the omiffion of the particle no. The words, I shall have good fortune, are not, I believe, connected with what goes before, but with what follows and begin a new sentence. The author, I think, meant, that Launcelot, after this abrupt fpeech-Well if any man that offers to fwear upon a book, has a fairer table than mine-[I am much mistaken-] fhould proceed in the fame manner in which he began:-" I shall have no good fortune; go to, here's a fimple line of life, &c."

• So before:

"I cannot get a fervice, no;

"I have ne'er a tongue in my head

And afterwards:

Alas! fifteen wives is nothing."

"

The Nurse, in Romeo and Juliet, expreffes herself exactly in the fame ftyle: "Well, you made a fimple choice; you know not how to chofe a inan; Romeo! no, not he; he is not the flower of courtesy; go thy ways, wench, &c."

The fubfequent note, by Mr. Whalley, on a paffage in All's Well, &c. is obviously explanatory of the poet's meaning.

-He was whip'd for getting the sheriff's fool with child; a dumb innocent, that could not fay him nay.] Innocent does not here fignify a perfon without guilt or blame; but means, in the good-natured language of our ancestors, an ideot or natural fool. Agreeably to this fenfe of the word is the following entry of a burial in the parish Register of Charlewood in Surry: "Thomas Sole, an innocent about the age of fifty years and upwards, buried the 19th September, 1605."

We shall next present our readers with another annotation by the late learned Judge, whom we formerly mentioned. It is on the following paffage in Macbeth.

Safe toward your love and honour.]

Safe (i e. faved toward you love and honour; and then the fenfe will be-" Our duties are your children, and fervants or vaffals to your throne and ftate; who do but what they fhould, by doing every thing with a faving of their love and honour toward you." The whole is an allufion to the forms of doing homage in the feudal times. The oath of allegiance, or liege homage, to the king was abfolute and without any exception; but fimple homage, when done to a subject for lands holden of him, was always with a faving of the allegiance (the love and honour) due to the fovereign. "Sauf la foy que jeo doy a noftre feignor le roy," as it is in Lyttleton. And though the expreffion be fomewhat ftiff and forced, it is not more fo than many others in this play, and fuits well with the fituation of Macbeth, now beginning to waver in his allegiance. For, as our author elsewhere fays,

"When love begins to ficken and decay,
"It ufeth an enforced ceremony,"

Mr. Malone feems to have rectified a paffage in king John by a very small alteration.

-the fat ribs of peace

Muft by the hungry now be fed upon.] This paffage has, r think, been misunderstood, for want of a proper punctuation. There fhould be, I apprehend, a comma after the word hungry :

Muft by the hungry, now be fed upon.

i. e. by the hungry troops, to whom some share of this ecclesiastical fpoil would naturally fall. The expreffion, like many other of our author's is taken from the facred writings: "And there he maketh the hungry to dwell, that they may prepare a city for habitation.” 107th Pfalm.-Again: "He hath filled the hungry with good things, &c." St. Luke, c. i. 53.

This interpretation is fupported by the paffage in the old play, which is here imitated:

"Philip, I make thee chief in this affair;

"Ranfack their abbeys, cloysters, priories,

"Convert their coin unto my foldiers' ufe."

When I read this paffage in the old play, the first idea that fuggefted itself was, that a word had dropt out at the press, in the controverted line, and that our author wrote:

Muft by the hungry foldiers now be fed on.

But the punctuation above recommended renders any alteration un◄ neceffary,

La

In king Henry IV. p. 1. Mr. Malone makes a remark, relative to Sir John Oldcastle, which appears to be well founded and just.

From the following paffage in The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie, or the Walkes in Powles, quarto, 1604, it appears that Sir John Oldcastle (not, I conceive, the lord Cobham) was represented on the stage as a very fat man."Now fignors, how like you mine hoft? did I tell you he was a madde round knave and a merrie one too and if you chaunce to talke of fatte Sir John Oldcastle, he will tell you, he was his great grand-father, and not much unlike him in paunch."-The hot, who is here defcribed, returns to the gallants, and entertains them with telling them stories. After hiş first tale, he fays; " Nay gallants, I'll fit you, and now I will ferve in another, as good as vinegar and pepper to your roast beefe.”Signor Kickshawe replies: "Let's have it, let's tafte on it, mine hoft, my noble fat actor."

The caufe of all the confufion relative to thefe two characters, I believe, was this. Shakspeare appears evidently to have caught the idea of the character of Falstaff from a wretched play entitled The famous Victories of King Henry V. (which had been exhibited before 1589) in which there is a Sir John Oldcastle, ("a pamper'd glutton, and a debauchee," as he is called in a piece of that age) who appears to be the character alluded to in the paffage above quoted from The Meeting of Gallants, &c. Our author probably never intended to ridicule the real Sir John Oldcastle, lord Cob bam, in any respect; but thought proper to make Falstaff, in imi tation of his proto-type, a mad round knave alfo. From the first appearance of King Henry IV. the old play in which this Sir John Oldcastle had been exhibited, was probably never performed. Hence, I conceive, it is, that Fuller fays, "Sir John Faiftaff has relieved the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of late is fubftituted buffoon in his place;" which being mifunderstood, probably gave rife to the ftory, that Shakspear changed the name of the character.

Falstaff having thus grown out of, and immediately fucceeding, the other character, having one or two features in common with him, and being probably reprefented in the fame dress, and with the fame fictitious belly as his predeceffor, the two names might have been indifcriminately used by Field and others, without any mistake or intention to deceive. Perhaps, behind the fcenes, in confequence of the circumstances already mentioned, Oldcastle might have been a cant-appellation for Falstaff, for a long time, Hence the name might have crept, in fome play-houfe copy, into one of the fpeeches in The Second Part of King Henry IV3

In another paffage, in the fame play, Mr. Malone seems to eftablish the poet's meaning.

And then I fole all courtely from heaven.] Dr. Warburton's expla nation of this paffage appears to me very questionable. According to him, Henry steals a certain portion of courtely out of heaven, as Prometheus tole a parcel of fire from thence. But the poet had not, I believe, a thought of Promethus or the heathen gods, nor indeed was courtely (even understanding it to fignify affability) the. characteristick attribute of thofe deities.

The meaning, I apprehend, is-1 was fo affable and popular, that I engroyed the devotion and reverence of all men to myself, and thus defrauded Heaven of its worshippers.

4 Courtes