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BOYET. An if my hand be out, then, belike

hand is in.

your

COST. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin * 7.

MAR. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul.

COST. She's too hard for you at prick, sir; challenge her to bowl.

my good owl.

BOYET. I fear too much rubbing"; Good night, [Ex. BoYET and MARIA. COST. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, lord! how the ladies and I have put him down!

O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar

wit!

When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.

Armatho o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man! To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan1! To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a' will swear 2!—

* So second folio; first folio and 4to. the is in. archers took their aim. The pin was the wooden nail that upheld it. STEEVENS.

7 - by cleaving the PIN.] Honest Costard would have befriended Dean Milles, whose note on a song in the Pseudo-Rowley's Ella has exposed him to so much ridicule. See his book, p. 213. The present application of the word pin, might have led the Dean to suspect the qualities of the basket. But what has mirth to do with archæology? STEEVENS. talk GREASILY,] i. e. - you

8

Satire :

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grossly. So, in Marston's third

when greasy Aretine,

"For his rank fico, is sirnam'd divine." STEEVENS. 9 I fear too much RUBBING ;] To rub is one of the terms of the bowling green. Boyet's further meaning needs no comment. MALONE.

I to bear her FAN!] See a note on Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. IV. where Nurse asks Peter for her fan. STEEVENS.

2

lost.

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a' will swear!] A line following this seems to have been MALONE.

And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit!
Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!

Sola, sola!

[Shouting within. [Exit CoSTARD, running.

SCENE II.

The Same.

Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. NATH. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience.

HOL. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of calo,—the sky, the

3 IN SANGUIS,-blood;] The old copies read-sanguis, in blood. The transposition was proposed by Mr. Steevens, and is, I think, warranted by the following words, which are arranged in the same manner : -in the ear of cœlo, the sky," &c. same expression occurs in King Henry VI. Part I:

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The

"If we be English deer, be then in blood." MAlone. 4-ripe as a POMEWATER,] A species of apple formerly much esteemed. Malus Carbonaria. See Gerard's Herbal, edit. 1597, p. 1273.

Again, in the old ballad of Blew Cap for Me:

"Whose cheeks did resemble two rosting pomewaters.” STEEVENS.

In the first Act of The Puritan, Pyeboard says to Nicholas : "The captain loving you so dearly, aye as the pome-water of his eye."-Meaning the pupil, or apple of it, as it is vulgarly called. M. MASON.

5 -in the ear of CŒLO, &c.] In Florio's Italian Dictionary, Cielo is defined "heaven, the skie, firmament, or welkin," and terra is explained thus: "The element called earth; anie ground, earth, countrie,—land, soile," &c. If there was any edition of this Dictionary prior to the appearance of Love's Labour's Lost, this might add some little strength to Dr. Warburton's conjecture, that Florio was attacked under the name of Holofernes [for which see the notes at the end of this play,] though it would by no

welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of terra,-the soil, the land, the earth.

NATH. Truly, master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: But, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head".

HOL. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

DULL. "Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket.

HOL. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or, rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination,-after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or, ratherest, unconfirmed fashion,—to insert again my haud credo for a deer.

DULL. I said, the deer was not a haud credo ; 'twas a pricket.

HOL. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus!-O thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

NATH. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as

means be decisive; but my edition is dated 1598, (posterior to the exhibition of his play,) and it appears to be the first.

MALONE.

¿ But, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the FIRST HEAD. 'twas a PRICKET.] In a play called The Return from Parnassus, 1606, I find the following account of the different appellations of deer, at their different ages:

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Amoretto. I caused the keeper to sever the rascal deer from the bucks of the first head. Now, sir, a buck is the first year, a fawn; the second year, a pricket; the third year, a sorrell; the fourth year, a soare; the fifth, a buck of the first head; the sixth year, a compleat buck. Likewise hart is the first year, a calfe; the second year, a brocket; the third year, a spade; the fourth year, a stag; the sixth year, a hart. A roe-buck is the first year, a kid; the second year, a gird; the third year, a hemuse; and these are your special beasts for chase."

your

Again, in A Christian turn'd Turk, 1612: "I am but a pricket, a mere sorell; my head's not harden'd yet." STEEVENS.

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it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts;

And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful should be

(Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts that do fructify in us more than he7. For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,

So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school 8:

7 And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful should be

(Which WE OF TASTE and feeling are) for those parts that do fructify in us more than he.] The length of these lines was no novelty on the English stage. The Moralities afford scenes of the like measure. JOHNSON.

The old copies read-" which we taste and feeling-." &c. I have placed Mr. Tyrwhitt's emendation in the text. STEEVENS. This stubborn piece of nonsense, as somebody has called it, wants only a particle, I think, to make it sense. I would read: And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful

should be,

(Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts that fructify in us more than he.

Which in this passage has the force of as, according to an idiom of our language, not uncommon, though not strictly grammatical. What follows is still more irregular; for I am afraid our poet, for the sake of his rhyme, has put he for him, or rather in him. If he had been writing prose, he would have expressed his meaning, I believe, more clearly thus-that do fructify in us more than in him. TYRWHITT.

Some examples confirming Dr. Johnson's observation may found at the end of The Comedy of Errors.

be

Mr. Tyrwhitt's last observation is fully supported by a subsequent passage:

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and then we,

"Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she." MALONE.

8 For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool, So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school:] The meaning is, to be in a school would as ill become a patch, or low fellow, as folly would become me. JOHNSON.

But, omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind, Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind. DULL. You two are book-men: Can you tell by your wit,

What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?

HOL. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna, good man Dull.

DULL. What is Dictynna ?

NATH. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. HOL. The moon was a month old when Adam

was no more;

1

And raught not to five weeks, when he came to fivescore.

The allusion holds in the exchange 2.

DULL. 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.

HOL. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds in the exchange.

DULL. And I say the pollusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old : and I say beside, that 'twas a pricket that the princess kill'd.

9 Dictynna,] Old copies-Dictisima. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

Shakspeare might have found this uncommon title for Diana, in the second Book of Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamor-, phosis;

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Dictynna garded with her traine, and proud of killing deere." It occurs also in the first satire of Marston, 1598, and in the 9th Thebaid of Statius, 632. STEEVENS.

1 And RAUGHT not—] i. e. reach'd not. So, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584:

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the fatal fruit

Raught from the golden tree of Proserpine."

STEEVENS.

→ The allusion holds in the exchange.] i. e. the riddle is as good when I use the name of Adam, as when I use the name of Cain. WARBURTON,

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