"As if thou never walked'st further than Finsbury." Act III. Sc. 1. Open walks and fields near Chiswell-street, London-wall, by Moorgate, the common resort of the citizens, as appears from many of our ancient co medies. STEEVENS. "Holland of eight shillings an ell."-Act III. Sc. 3. Falstaff's shirts, according to this calculation, would come to about 22s. each, and we learn from Stubbe's Anatomie of Abuses, that the shirt of the meanest man cost at least 5s. He thus concludes his invective on this subject:- "Insomuch as I have heard of shirts that have cost some ten shillings, some twentie, some fortie, some five pound, some twentie nobles, and (whiche is horrible to heare) some ten pound a piece, yea, the meanest shirt that commonly is worn of any doest cost a crowne, or a noble at the least; and yet this is scarcely thought fine enough for the simplest person that is." MALONE. "Maid Marian." -Act III. Sc. 3. It appears from the old play of Robert, earl of Huntingdon, 1601, that Maid Marian was originally a name assumed by Matilda, the daughter of Robert, Lord Fitzwater, while Robin Hood remained in a state of outlawry: "Next 'tis agreed (if therto shee agree) And while it is the chance of Robin Hoode Mat. I am contented; reade on, little John: Henceforth let me be nam'd Maide Marian." This lady was poisoned by King John, at Dunmow priory, after he had made several fruitless attempts on her chastity.--STEEVENS. "I saw young Harry with his beaver on." The beaver of a helmet is the lower part of it, adapted to the purpose of giving the wearer an opportunity of taking breath when oppressed with heat; or, without putting off the helmet, of taking his repast.-DOUCE. "They'll find linen enough on every hedge." Act IV. Sc. 2. This propensity of soldiers on a march to purloin, is noticed by a writer contemporary with Shakspeare, Barnaby Riche says:-" Fyrste by the way as they travayle through the countrey where they chance to lye all night, the good wyfe hath spedde well if she fynde hyr sheets in the morning, or if this happe to fayle, yet a coverlet or curtens from the bed, or a carpet from the table, some bed clothes, or table napkins, or some other thing, must needs packe away with them; there comes nothing amisse if it will serve to by drinke."-REED. "Turk Gregory never did such deeds in arms." Act V. Sc. 3. Meaning Gregory VII., called Hildebrand. This furious friar surmounted almost invincible obstacles to deprive the emperor of his right of investiture of bishops, which his predecessors had long attempted in vain.-WARBURTON "If Percy be alive, I'll pierce him."-Act V. Sc. 3. The name of Percy, according to Boetius, was derived from piercing the king's eye: a most extraordinary etymology.-SKINNER. ! KING HENRY IV. (PART II.) "Fillip me with a three-man beetle."-Act I. Sc. 2. A diversion is common with boys in Warwickshire, on finding a toad, to lay a board, about two feet long, over a stick about three inches in diameter, at right angles; then placing the toad on the lower end of the board, the upper end is struck by a bat or large stick, which throws the reptile forty plement was very suitable for filliping so corpulent a subject as Falstaff. - STEEVENS. "A parcel gilt goblet."-Act II. Sc. 1. A "parcel gilt goblet" is a goblet, gilt only on such parts of it as are embossed. On the books of the Stationers' Company, among their plate 1560, is the following entry:- "Item, nine spoynes of silver, whereof vii gylte and ii parcel-gylte."-STEEVENS. " I must be fain to pawn my plate."-- Act II. Sc. 2. Mrs. Quickly is here in the same state as the earl of Shrewsbury, who, not having been paid for the diet of Mary, queen of Scots, while she was in his custody in 1580, writes as follows to Thomas or fifty feet perpendicular from the earth, and the Bawdewyn:-"I wold have you bye me glasses to violence of the fall usually kills it: this is called drink in. Send me word what old plat yelds the filliping the toad. A three-man beetle was an imple- ounce, for I will not leve me a cuppe of syleare to ment used for driving piles; it was made of a log of drink in, but I wyll see the next terme my creditors wood abrat twenty inches in diameter, and fifteen payde."-STEEVENS. in thickness, with one short and two long handles. A man at each of the long handles manages the fall of the beetle, and a third man at the short handle amists in raising it to strike the blow. Such an im said, for pastime and pleasure; which books, as some say, were made in monasteries by idle monks. As one for example, La Morte d'Arthure." In this romance Sir Dagonet is King Arthur's fool. Shakspeare would not have shewn his Justice capable of taking any higher character.-JOHNSON. able benefactor to Magdalen College, Oxford, for which he is celebrated in an annual speech and though we cannot obtain the particulars at large, the Boar's Head, in Southwark, which still retains that name, though divided into tenements, yielding 150l. per annum, and Culdecot Manor, in Suffolk, were part of the lands he bestowed. The Boar's Head was very properly selected as the scene of Prince Henry's revellings, as it was close to his reTurnbull or Turnmill-street, is near Cow Cross, sidence. Rymer says:-" A mansion called Cold West Smithfield: it was infamous on account of the Harbour (near Allhallows church, Upper Thames- debauched characters, of both sexes, with which it street), was granted to the Prince of Wales, 11th abounded. Henry IV. 1410." Shakspeare must have passed this tavern daily, in his way to the Globe Theatre. "Do not speak like a death's head."-Act II. Sc. 4. It appears from a passage in Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1605, that it was the custom for the bawds of that age to wear a death's head in a ring, very probably with the common motto, Memento Mori. Cocledemoy, speaking of some of these, says:-" As for their death, how can it be bad, since their wickedness is always before their eyes, and a death's head most commonly on their middle finger?" STEEVENS. And master Scogan. Scogan? what was he? Oh, a fine gentleman, and a master of arts Scogan's Jests were published by Andrew Borde, a physician in the reign of Henry VIII. Shakspeare had probably met with this book; and as he was careless about anachronisms, this person might have been in his thoughts. Certainty, however, cannot be arrived at on such a subject. "Harry ten shillings." -Act III. Sc. 2. This is an anachronism; there were no coins of ten shillings value in the reign of Henry IV. Shakspeare's Harry ten shillings were those of Henry VII. or VIII.; but he thought those might do for any other Henry.-DOUCE. "I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show." Act III. Sc. 2. The story of Sir Dagonet is to be found in La Morte d'Arthure, an old romance, much read in our author's time, or a little before it. "When papistry (says Ascham), as a standing pool, overflowed all England, few books were read in our tongue, saving certain books of chivalry, as they SHAKS. NOS. 125 & 126. "Turnbull-street." -Act III. Sc. 2. "Philosopher's two stones."-Act III. Sc. 2. One of which (says Warburton) was an universal medicine, and the other a transmuter of base metals into gold. This interpretation has been ridiculed, and various others offered. We shall content ourselves with giving an extract from a letter on the subject of the Grand Elixir, written by Villiers, duke of Buckingham, to James I. "I confesse, so long as he conseled the meanes he wrought by, I despised all he said: but when he tould me that which he hath given your sovrainship to preserve you from all sickness ever hereafter, was extracted out of a t-d, I admired the fellow, and for theis reasons: that being a stranger to you, yett he hath found out the kind you are come of, and your natural affections and apetis: and so, like a skillful man, hath given you natural fisicke, which is the onlie means to preserve the radical humours; and thus I conclude: My sow is healthfull, my divill's luckie, myself is happie, and needs no more than your blessing, which is my trew felosopher's stone. upon which I build as upon a rocke. Your majesties most humble slave and doge, Stinie." STEEVENS. Formerly all bishops wore white, even when they travelled; but the white investment here meant must be the episcopal rochet, which should be worn by the theatric archbishop.-GREY and TOLLET. "Kept by a devil."-Act IV. Sc. 3. It was anciently supposed, and is still a vulgar superstition of the east, that mines, containing precious metals, were guarded by evil spirits. So, in Certaine Secrete Wonders of Nature, by Edward Fenton, 1569, "There appeare at this day many strange visions and wicked spirites in the metal mines of the Greate Turke. In the mine at Anneburg was a metal sprite which killed twelve workmen; the same causing the rest to forsake the myne, albeit it was very riche."-STEEVENS. "Therefore, thou best of gold, art worst of gold; Other, less fine in carat, is more precious, Preserving life in med' cine potable." Act IV. Sc. 4. There has long prevailed an opinion, that a solution of gold has great medicinal virtues, and that the incorruptibility of gold might be communicated to the body impregnated with it. Some have pretended to make potable gold, among other frauds practised on credulity.-JOHNSON. "Laud be to God!-even there my life must end." Aut IV. Sc. 4 "At length he recovered his speech, and under 4 R standing and perceiving himself to be in a strange piace, which he knew not, he willed to know if the chamber had any particular name, whereunto answer was made that it was called Jerusalem. Then said the king, Lauds be given to the Father of heaven, for now I know I shall die here in this chamber, according to the prophesie of me declared, that I should depart this life in Jerusalem." HOLINSHED. "If I cannot once or twice in a quarter bear out a knave against an honest man, I have very little credit with your lordship." -Act V. Sc. 1. This is no exaggerated picture of the course of justice in those days. The lord-keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, in his speech to both houses of parliament, 1559, says:-" Is it not a monstrous disguising, to have a justice a maintainer, acquitting some for gain, enditing others for malice, bearing with him as his servant, overthrowing the other as his enemy?" A member of the house of commons, in 1601, says:" A justice of peace is a living creature, that for half a dozen of chickens will dispense with half a dozen of penal statutes. If a warrant comes from the lord of the council to levy a hundred men, he will levy two hundred, and what with chopping in and chusing out, he'll gain a hundred pounds by the bargain: nay, he will write the warrant himself, and you must put two shillings in his pocket as his clerk's fee (when God knows he keeps but two or three hindes), for his better maintenance." BLAKEWAY. It seems to have been usual to serve up carraway seeas in sugar, as a part of the dessert. The custom is evident from a passage in Cogan's Haven of Health:-"This is a confirmation of our use in England, for the serving of apples and other fruites last after meals. How be it we are wont to eat carrawies or biskets, or some other kind of comfits or seeds, together with apples, thereby to breake winde engendered by them; and surely it is a very good way for students." - STEEVENS. "And welcome merry Shrovetido."-Act V. Sc. 3. Shrovetide was formerly a season of extraordinary sport and feasting. In the Romish church, there was a feast immediately previous to Lent, which lasted many days. In some cities of France, an officer was annually chosen to preside over the sports for six days before Ash-Wednesday. Some traces of these festivities may still be found in our universities. In the Percy Household Book, 1512, it appears, "That the clergy and officers of Lord Percy's chapel performed a play before his lordship upon Shrowftewesday at night."-T. WARTON. - Fig me like The bragging Spaniard."-Act V. Sc. 3. To fig in Spanish, higas dar, is to insult by putting the thumb between the fore and middle finger. This phrase is of Italian origin. When the Milanese revolted against the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, they placed the empress, his wife, upon a mule, with her head towards the tail, and ignominiously expelled her their city. Frederick afterwards besieged and took the place, and compelled every one of his prisoners, on pain of death, to take with his teeth a fig from the posteriors of a mule. The party was at the same time obliged to repeat to the exe cutioner the words, "Ecco la fica !?" (Behold the fig!) From this circumstance, "far la fica" became a term of derision, and was adopted by other nations.-JOHNSON and DOUCE. "Censers."-Act V. Sc. 4. censers The sluttery of ancient houses rendered e or fire-pans, in which coarse perfumes were burnt, most necessary utensils. Lodge tells us, that Lord Paget's house was so small that "after one month it would war unsavery for hym to contynue in it." In a letter of the earl of Shrewsbury's, respecting his prisoner, Mary, queen of Scots, we read, "That her majesty was to be removed for fyve or sixe days, to klense her chamber, being kept very unklenly." And in the Memoirs of Anne, countess of Dorset, we are informed of a party of lords and ladies, who "were all lowsy by sitting in Sir Thomas Erskin's chamber."-STEEVENS. "To pray for the queen."-EPILOGUE. It was usual, at the end of a play, for the actors to pray for their patrons. We will give an instance or two: "Preserve our noble Queen Elizabeth, and Her councell all." New Custom. "This shows like kneeling after the play; I praying for my lord Owemuch and his good countess, our honourable lady and mistress." Middleton's Mad World my Masters. "As duty bids us, for our noble queene let us pray, And for her honourable councel, the truth that they may use, To practise justice, and defend her grace eche day; To maintaine God's word they may not refuse, To correct all those that would her grace and grace's laws abuse: Beseeching God over us she may reign long, "Gun-stones." -Act I. Sc. 2. KING HENRY V. When ordnance was first used, they discharged balls, not of iron, but of stone. So, Holinshed:"About seven of the clocke, marched forward the light pieces of ordnance, with stone and powder." In the Brut of England, it is said, that when Henry V. before Hare-flete, received a taunting message from the dauphine of France, and a ton of tennis balls by way of contempt, "he anone lette make tenes balles for the Dolfin (Henry's ship), in all the hayste that they myght, and they were great younestones for the Dolfin to laye with alle. But this game of tennis was too rough for the besieged when Henry played at the tennis with his hard gonnestones." STEEVENS. "The man that was his bedfellow."-Act II. Sc. 2. Holinshed says:-" The said Lord Scroop was in such favour with the king, that he admitted him sometime to be his bedfellow." The familiar name of bedfellow, which seems strange to us, was common with the ancient nobility. There is a letter from the sixth earl of Northumberland (still preserved in the collection of the present duke), addressed "To his beloved cousyn, Thomas Arundel," which begins, "Bedfellow, after my most harté recommendacion." This unseemly custom continued common till the middle of last century, if not later. Cromwell obtained much of his intelligence during the civil wars from the mean men with whom he slept. STEEVENS and MALONE. Now of beards there be Of fashions such a throng; "The steeletto beard, O, it makes me afeard, It is so sharp beneath; For he that doth place, A dagger in his face, What wears he in his sheath? "The soldier's beard Doth match in this herd, In figure like a spade; With which he will make His enemies quake, To think their grave is made." MALONE. "I saw him fumble with the sheets."-Act II. Sc. 3. Catching and pulling at the bed-clothes has always "The feast of Crispian," -Act IV. Sc. 3. been considered as a sign of approaching dissolution. Pliny, in his Chapter on the Signs of Death, The battle of Agincourt was fought upon the 25th mentions, "a fumbling and pleiting of the bed- of October (1415), St. Crispin's day. The legend clothes." So also, in the Ninth Booke of Notable Things, by Thomas Lupton:-" If the foreheade of the sicke wax redde, and his nose waxe sharpe; if he pulls straws, or the cloathes of his bedde, these are most certain tokens of death." - STEEVENS. "At turning of the tide."-Act II. Sc. 3. It has been a very old opinion, which Mead, de imperio solis, quotes, as if he believed it, that nobody dies but in the time of ebb: half the deaths in London confute the notion; but it was common in Shakspeare's age. JOHNSON. "A pix."-Act III. Sc. 6. In Henry VIIIth's will, we read :- "Forasmoch as we have often and many tymes to our inwarde regrete and displeasure, seen at our Jen, in diverse manie churches of our reame, the holie sacrament of the aulter, kept in ful simple and inhonest pires, specially pizes of copre and tymbre; we have appointed and commaunded the treasurer of our chambre, and maistre of our juell-houss, to cause to be made furthwith, pires of silver and gilt, in a great nombre, for the keeping of the holie sacrament of the aulter, after the faction of a pire which we have caused to be delivered to theim. Every of the said pixes to be of the value of iiiil. garnished with our armes, and rede roses and poart-colis crowned." REED. "A beard of the general's cut." -Act III. Sc. 6. It appears from an old ballad, inserted in a miscellany, entitled Le Prince d'Amour, 8vo., 1600, that our ancestors were very curious in the fashion of their beards, and that a certain cut or form was appropriated to the soldier, the bishop, the judge, the clown, &c. The spade-beard and the stilettobeard belonged to the military profession. The earl of Southampton, our author's patron, who passed much of his time in camps, is drawn with the latter of these beards, and his hapless friend, Lord Essex, is represented with the former. The ballad is worth transeribing: upon which this is founded, follows:-" Crispinus and Crispianus were brethren, born at Rome; from whence they travelled to Soissons in France, about the year 303, to propagate the Christian religion; but because they would not be chargeable to others for their maintenance, they exercised the trade of shoemakers; but the governor of the town discovering them to be Christians, ordered them to be be headed. From which time, the shoemakers made choice of them for their tutelar saints."-GREY. "This day shall gentle his condition." Act IV. Sc. 3. King Henry V. inhibited any person but such as had right by inheritance, or grant, to assume coats of arms, except those who fought with him at the battle of Agincourt, and these last were allowed the chief seats of honour at all feasts and public meetings.-TOLLET. "Thou hast unwish'd five thousand men." Act IV. Sc. 3. The numbers engaged at the battle of Agincourt are variously stated; Holinshed makes the English army consist of 15,000, and the French of 60,000 horse, besides foot, in all 100,000; while Walsingham and Hardinge represent the English but as 9,000; and other authors say that the number of the French amounted to 150,000.- STEEVENS, "Monmouth caps." -Act IV. Sc. 7. Monmouth caps were formerly much worn. "Th. best caps (says Fuller, in his Worthies of Wales,) were formerly made at Monmouth, where the Capper's chapel doth still remain. If (he adds) at this day (1660), the phrase of 'wearing a Monmouth cap,' be taken in a bad acception, I hope the inhabitants of that town will endeavour to disprove the occasion thereof."-MALONE. "When Alençon and myself were down together. Act IV. Sc. 7. This circumstance is not an invention of Shak. speare's. Henry was felled to the ground at the battle of Agincourt, by the duke of Alençon, but recovered and slew two of the duke's attendants. Afterwards, Alençon was killed by the king's guard, contrary to Henry's intention, who wished to have saved him. MALONE. "Davy Gam, esquire."-Act IV. Sc. 8. This gentleman being sent by Henry, before the battle, to reconnoitre the enemy, and to find out their strength, made this report:-" May it please you, my liege, there are enough to be killed, enough to be taken prisoners, and enough to run away." He also saved the king's life during the engagement.-MALONE. "Do we all holy rites." -Act IV. Sc. 8. "The king, when he saw no appearance of enemies, caused the retreat to be blowen, and gathering his army together, gave thanks to Almighty God for so happy a victory, causing his prelates and chapelines to sing this psalme, In exitu Israel de Egypto; and commaunding every man to kneel downe at this verse, -Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam; which done, he caused Te Deum and certain anthems to be sung, giving laud and praise to God, and not boasting of his owne force, or any humaine power." HOLINSHED. KING HENRY VI. (PART IІ.) "Hung be the heavens with black."-Act I. Sc. 1. Alluding to our ancient stage practice, when a tragedy was to be performed. So in Sydney's Arcadia: "There arose even with the sunne, a vaile of darke cloudes, before his face which shortly had blacked over all the face of heaven, preparing (as it were) a mourrfel stage for a tragedie to be played upon." STEEVENS. "Sir John Fastolfe." -Act I. Sc. 1. The historical astolfe, here introduced, was a lieutenant-general, Deputy-regent to the duke of Bedford, in Normandy, and a knight of the garter. Hall and Holinshed say that he was degraded for cowardice; but Heylen, in his Saint George for England, tells, that "He was afterwards, upon good reason by him alledged in his defence, restored to his honour." "This Sir John Fastolfe," continues he,. "was, without doubt, a valiant and wise captain."-FARMER. "England all Olivers and Rowlands bred." Act I. Sc. 2. These were two of the most famous in the list of Charlemagne's twelve peers; and such an extravagant detail of their exploits is given by the old romancers, that from thence arose the saying, of "Giving one a Rowland for his Oliver," to signify the matching one incredible lie with another. WARBURTON. The terror of the French, "This man (Talbot) was to the French people a very scourge, and a daily terror, insomuch, that as his person was fearful, and terrible to his adversaries present, so his name and fame was spiteful and dreadful to the common people absent; insomuch, that women in France to feare their yong children, would crye, The Talbot commeth, the Talbot commeth."-HALL'S CHRONICLE. "Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens." Act I. Sc. 6. The gardens of Adonis, so frequently mentioned by Greek writers, Plato, Plutarch, &c., were nothing but portable earthen pots, with some lettuce or fennel growing in them. On his yearly festival, every woman carried one of them for Adonis's worship, because Venus had once laid him in a lettuce bed. The next day they were thrown away. It will be seen by the text, that the poet has totally misapplied this circumstance.-BENTLEY, &c, "Rhodope."-Act I. Sc. 6. Rhodope was a famous strumpet, who acquired immense riches by her trade. The least, but most finished of the Egyptian pyramids, was built at her cost. She is said afterwards to have married Psam metichus, king of Egypt.-STERVENS. "Coffer of Darius."-Act 1. Se. 6. When Alexander the Great took the city of Gaza. the metropolis of Syria, amidst the other sports an wealth of Darius, treasured up there, he found ar exceeding rich and beautiful little chest or casket and asked those about him what they thought fittest to be laid up in it. When they had severally deli |