into the pit; it afforded no side entrances, but was reached by two doors opening from the back, which would serve as the studies here. There was a gallery above, which was used for many purposesJuliet's balcony, Palamon and Arcite's prison, Jessica's window, or as a vantage-ground for actor spectators as those in Act 4. 6.

30. a couple of studies. This room seems to have been a part of many Elizabethan houses. Jul. Caesar 2. 1. 7: 'Get me a taper in my study, Lucius.' Rom. and Jul. 3. 3. 75: 'Run to my study.' Beaum. and Fletch. Elder Brother 1. 2.

31. tragi-comody. Plays contemporary with Epicone bear this classification, which the author of several defines in his Preface to the Reader, The Faithful Shepherdess, a pastoral tragi-comedy. Fletcher there writes: A tragi-comedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy, which must be a representation of familiar people, with such kind of trouble as no life to be questioned; so that a god is as lawful in this as in a tragedy, and mean people as in a comedy.' Guelphes, and the Ghibellines. A comical application of the names designating in Italy, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, the two striving parties of the state. The former were the papal and popular party, the latter the aristocratic and imperial party.

33. you two shall be the chorus. The Greek custom of introducing in tragedies a chorus to witness and comment on the action of a drama was not quite obsolete in English plays. The first English tragedy, Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex, printed 1565, has a chorus, and Shakespeare varied the device in Henry V, where Chorus is almost synonymous to Prologue, being a speaker who appears to outline the action of each Act. Jonson, in the intermeans of his comedies, often makes use of groups of people, whose function he tends to narrow to critical comment, but who, nevertheless, are analogous to the classic chorus.

34. the arras. These tapestry hangings, with their designs of landscapes and human groups, covered the walls of the rooms in the better houses. In early days the arras was hung close to the walls, but later, in order to preserve the fabric from the damp, it was attached to wooden frames, leaving between it and the wall a space large enough for a person to conceal himself in. As

a device for dramatists it became popular to place eaves-dropping persons behind the arras; cf. Hamlet 3. 3. 28; King John 4. 1. 2 ; Much Ado 1. 3. 63, &c.

42. betweene whom. Shakespeare keeps the nominative case in the same question, Hamlet 2. 2. 194:

POL. What is the matter, my lord?

HAM. Between who?

71. protested a coward. So in Beaum. and Fletch. Little French Lawyer I. 1: Thou wouldst not willingly live a protested coward, or be call'd one?' Cf. note, 4. 2. 116.

98-9. set out to take possession. In the days when property might be begged on various pretexts (cf. 4. 7. 5 and note) the new owners sometimes had a dangerous time in entering on their

estates.

107. some-bodies old two-hand-sword. This is here merely the ordinary long sword, sometimes called two-hand, because of its length and awkwardness in comparison to the more modern rapier. Taine, Eng. Lit. 1. 172, says: 'About the twentieth year of Elizabeth's reign the nobles gave up shield and two-handed sword for the rapier.' The real two-hand sword was at one time the distinctive weapon of the German lansquenets, mercenary footsoldiers taking part in the French religious wars. It was an enormous weapon, with a straight expanding blade of portentous size, double-edged, sharp at the point, long in the hilt, with massive cross-guard, and spiked at the base of the blade.

108-9. that sword hath spawn'd such a dagger. The same comic allusion is repeated New Inn 2. 2, p. 338: FLY. He has the father of swords within, a long sword. As for the dagger, it was worn as a sign of gentility in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; it was often richly ornamented and jeweled. It was generally worn at the girdle, a little in front of the sword, as many illustrations show; but there seems to have been a time, at least in Italy, when it was worn at the back. Cf. Rom. and Jul. 5. 3. 205:

CAP. This dagger hath mista'en-for, lo, his house
Is empty on the back of Montague.

110. calliuers. An interesting history of the word is found in Maitland, History of London, and quoted by Fairholt: 'Before the

battle of Mountguntur, the princes of the religion caused several thousand harquebusses to be made, all of one calibre, which was called Harquebuse de Calibre de Monsieur le Prince: so I think some man, not understanding French, brought hither the name of the height of the bullet of the piece, which word calibre is yet continued with our good canoniers.' Whether this is an entirely true account or not, it is at least certain that it was a light harquebus introduced into England in the sixteenth century, and was the lightest portable firearm, excepting the pistol, and was fired without a rest. muskets. The home of these weapons, which succeeded the awkward harquebus, was Spain. It was not until 1851 that their successors arrived in the shape of the Enfield rifle, which was a welcome change, since the musket was so heavy that it was often fired on a rest, and so poor a mechanism that the soldier had to carry with him a powder-flask, bullet-bag, bandoleers, and a matchcord or twisted tow, in order to use it at all.

111. Iustice of peace's hall. There is a description of one of these official weapon-museums in Drake, Sh. and his Times, p. 24, taken from Malcolm, Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London, part 1. 220: The halls of the justice of peace were dreadful to behold. The skreen was garnished with corselets and helmets, gaping with open mouths, with coats of mail, launces, pikes, halberts, brown bills, bucklers.'

113. fencer challeng'd at so many seuerall foiles. Strutt, Sports and Past., p. 261, quotes from The Third University of England (1615): In this city there be manie professors of the science of defence, and very skilful men in teaching the best and most offensive and defensive use of verie many weapons, as of the long-sword, backsword, rapier, and dagger, single rapier, the case of rapiers, the sword and buckler, or targets, the pike, the halberd, the long-staff, and others.' Cf. note, 1. 1. 181, for Pepys's account of a fencing bout at eight weapons'. Henry VIII made the professors of fence a company or corporation by letters patent, in which fencing is called The Noble Science of Defence'. Practice of it grew so widespread that in 1595 the queen issued a proclamation to limit and control "the schools of fence" in which "the multitude and the common people" were being taught "to play at all kinds of weapons", and the size of the rapier and dagger were regulated'. Traill, Social Eng. 3. 574.

114-15. Saint Pvlchres parish. St. Sepulchre, in the ward of Farringdon Without, was an unwholesome locality, for Traill, Social Eng., quotes a medical writer of the year 1564 to the effect that twice in his memory the plague had begun in St. Sepulchre's parish (S. Poulkar) 'by reason of many fruiterers, poor people, and stinking lanes, as Turnagain Lane, Sea-coal Lane, and other such places'. Pie Corner, famous in story, was in this parish, a few yards north of the church.

Every one

115-16. victuall himselfe .. in his breeches. familiar with pictures of James I knows what great, awkward nether garments he affected, partly for fashion and partly for protection against assassination. Planché writes: 'The costume of England in the reign of James I was little more than a continuation of the dress in the latter portion of Queen Elizabeth. The long-waisted, peascod bellied doublet remained in vogue, and the conical hat, and large Gallic or Venetian hose, slashed, quilted, stuffed, and guarded (laced) were worn as before, but increased in size, from the quantity of stuffing used in them, which owes its adoption, according to a contemporary writer, to the pusillanimity of the new monarch, who "had his cloathing made large, and even the doublets quilted, for fear of stellets (stilettoes). His breeches in great plaits and full stuffed". Great breeches had, however, been worn even before the days of Elizabeth, and in the fourth and fifth years of Philip and Mary an order was made by the Society of the Middle Temple that no member should wear 'great breeches' in their hose, after the Dutch, Spanish, or Alman fashion on pain of forfeiting 3s. 4d. for the first and second offence. The fashion was not ignored by the satirists. Lodge and Greene's Looking Glasse for London and England (1594), has a character who hides. beef and beer in his breeches to sustain him on fast days; Samuel Rowland, Knaves of Spades and Diamonds, compares' the great large abhominable breech' to' brewers hop-sackers'; Butler, Hudibras 1.1: With a huge pair of round-trunk hose, In which he carried as much meat As he and all his knights could eat.

N. E. D. quotes an

167-8. broke some iest vpon him. occurrence of this expression as late as 1833, Fraser's Mag. 8. 54: The landlord and waiter . . . were not suffered to do anything, save to break their jokes on the members.' It is very common at

the time of our play, and before. Lyly, Campaspe 2. 1; Much Ado 1. 1. 328; Two G. of Ver. 3. 1. 58. We still speak of 'breaking news'.

170-1. went away in snuffe. G. thinks this phrase is derived from the offensive manner' in which a candle goes out; Southey thinks it refers rather 'to a sudden emotion of anger, seizing a man, as snuff takes him, by the nose'. The last supposition is supported by the many plays on the word found in the writers of this day, but especially by the pun in 1 Hen. IV 1. 3. 39, where Hotspur jokes about the pouncet-box, which a certain lord

Gave his nose and took 't away again;

Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff.

Poet. 2. 1, p. 393: 'For I tell you true, I take it highly in snuff to learn how to entertain gentlefolks of you, at these years.'

175. walkes the round. From a quotation of G., The Castle or Picture of Policy (1581), this is found to be a reminiscence of a military expression: The general, high marshall with his provosts, serjeant-general, gentlemen in a company or of the rounde, launce passado. These', says the author, are special; the other that remain, private or common soldiers'. The duty of these men, W. explains, was to inspect such men as 'centinels, watches, and advanced guards; and from their office of going their rounds, they derive their name'. Cf. Every Man In 3. 5, p. 81: 'Your decayed, ruinous, worm-eaten gentlemen of the round'; and Alchem. 3. 2, p. 96: 'I have walk'd the round'.

191. Hee'll out-wait a sargeant. Neither for well-known persistence nor for less commendable characteristics was this officer admired by his contemporaries. Earle, Micro-C. p. 57: A sergeant or Catch-pole is one of Gods Iudgements; and which our Roarers doe only conceiue terrible.' In Overbury's Characters, The Sergeant has a place for detailed consideration: The devil calls him his white son ... For Sergeant is quasi, See-argent, look you, rogue, here is money.' Then Dekker, A Paradox in praise, Pr. Wks. 1. 353 ff.: 'What should I say more of Sergeants, though I cannot speake too much of them? they are the painfullest members of the common-wealth: they are the lawes Factors, the citizens men of warre, that bring in bad Dettors, who like pirates

R