The Old Lady's jocularity, I am afraid, carries her beyond the bounds of decorum; but her quibbling allusion is more easily comprehended than explained. RITSON.

P. 60. To Asher-house, my lord of Winchester's,] Shakspeare forgot that Wolsey was himself Bishop of Winchester, unless he meant to say, you must confine yourself to that house which you possess as Bishop of Winchester. Asher, near Hampton-Court, was one of the houses belonging to that bishoprick. MAL.

Fox, Bishop of Winchester, died Sept. 14, 1528, and Wolsey held this see in commendam. Esher therefore was his own house. REED.

P.64. Or gild again the noble troops that waited

Upon my smiles.] The number of persons who composed Cardinal Wolsey's household, was one hundred and eighty.

MAL.

P. 72. Ipswich,] "The foundation-stone of the College which the Cardinal founded in this place, was discovered a few years ago. It is now in the Chapter-house of ChristChurch, Oxford." Seward's Anecdotes of distinguished Persons, &c. 1795.

STE.

P. 73. go to, kneel.] Queen Katharine's servants, after the divorce at Dunstable, and the Pope's curse stuck up at Dunkirk, were directed to be sworn to serve her not as a Queen, but as Princess Dowager. Some refused to take the oath, and so were forced to leave her service; and as for those who took it and stayed, she would not be served by them, by which means she was slmost destitute of attendants. See Hall, fol. 219. Bishop Burnet says, all the women about her still called her Queen. Burnet, p. 162. REED.

P. 74. This to my lord the king] This letter probably fell into the hands of Polydore Virgil, who was then in England, and has preserved it in the twenty-seventh book of his history. The following is Lord Herbert's translation of it:

"My most dear lord, king, and husband,

:

"The hour of my death now approaching, I cannot choose but, out of the love I bear you, advise you of your soul's health, which you ought to prefer before all considerations of the world or flesh whatsoever for which yet you have cast me into many calamities, and yourself into many troubles.But I forgive you all, and pray God to do so likewise. For the rest, I commend unto you Mary our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father to her, as I have heretofore desired. I must entreat you also to respect my maids, and give them

in marriage, (which is not much, they being but three,) and to all my other servants a years pay besides their due, lest otherwise they should be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things. Farewell." MAL.

The legal instrument for the divorce of Queen Katharine is still in being; and among the signatures to it is that of Polydore Virgil. STE.

P. 82. Chan. Speak to the business,] In the preceding scene we have heard of the birth of Elizabeth, and from the conclusion of the present it appears that she is not yet christened. She was born September 7, 1533, and baptized on the 11th of the same month. Cardinal Wolsey was Chancellor of England from September 7, 1516, to the 25th of October, 1530, on which day the seals were given to Sir Thomas More. He held them till the 20th of May, 1533, when Sir Thomas Audley was appointed Lord Keeper. He therefore is the person here introduced; but Shakspeare has made a mistake in calling him Lord Chancellor, for he did not obtain that title till the January after the birth of Elizabeth.

CORIOLANUS.

MAL.

P. 30. in Galen] An anachronism of near 650 years. Menenius flourished Anno U. C. 260, about 492 years before the birth of our Saviour. Galen was born in the year of our Lord 130, flourished about the year 155 or 160, and lived to the year 200.

GREY.

"The

-empiricutick,] The old copies-empirickqutique. most sovereign prescription in Galen (says Menenius) is to this news but empiricutick: an adjective evidently formed by the author from empiric (empirique, Fr.) a quack." RITSON.

VOL. VII.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

P. 29. though you bite so sharp at reasons, &c.] Here is a wretched quibble between reasons and raisins, which, in Shakspeare's time, were, I believe, pronounced alike. Dogberry, in Much Ado about Nothing, plays upon the same words: "If Justice cannot tame you, she shall never weigh more reasons in her balance." And Falstaff says, "If reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I." MAL.

P. 80. How the devil luxury, with his fat rump, and potatoe finger, tickles these together.] Luxuria was the appropriate

term used by the school divines, to express the sin of incontinence, which accordingly is called luxury in all our old English writers. Hence, in King Lear, our author uses the word in this particular sense :

"To't, Luxury, pell-mell, for I want soldiers."

But why is luxury, or lasciviousness said to have a potatoe finger 2-This root, which was in our author's time but newly imported from America, was considered as a rare exotick, and esteemed a very strong provocative As the plant is so common now, it may entertain the reader to see how it is described by Gerard, in his Herbal, 1597, p. 780 :

"This plant, which is called of some Skyrrits of Peru, is generally of us called Potatus, or Potatoes.-There is not any that hath written of this plant ;-therefore, I refer the description thereof unto those that shall hereafter have further knowledge of the same. They are used to be eaten roasted in the ashes. Howsoever they be dressed, they comfort, nourish, and strengthen the bodie, procure bodily lust, and that with great greediness."

Shakspeare alludes to this quality of potatoes in The Merry Wives of Windsor: "Let the sky rain potatoes, hail kissing comfits, and snow eringoes; let a tempest of provocation come.' COLLINS.

P. 83 the dreadful spout,

Which shipmen do the hurricano call,] A particular account of "a spout," is given in Captain John Smith's Sea Grammar, quarto, 1627: "A spout is, as it were, a small river falling entirely from the clouds, like one of our waterspouts, which make the sea, where it falleth, to rebound in flashes exceeding high; i. e. in the language of Shakspeare to dizzy the ear of Neptune. STE.

VOL. VIII.

KING LEAR.

P. 19. And well are worth the want that you have wanted.] You are well deserving of the want of dower that you are without. So, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. Act IV. sc.i: "Though I want a kingdom," i. e. though I am without a kingdom. Again, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 137: "Anselm was expelled the realm, and wanted the whole profits of his bishoprick," i. e. he did not receive the profits, &c. TOLLET.

P. 26. That can my speech diffuse,] We must suppose that Kent advances looking on his disguise. This circumstance very naturally leads to his speech, which otherwise would have no very apparent introduction. If I can change my

speech as well as I have changed my dress. signifies to disorder it, and so to disguise it.

To diffuse speech,

STE.

P. 32. Which they will make an obedient father.] Which, is on this occasion used with two deviations from present language. It is referred, contrary to the rules of grammarians, to the pronoun 7, and is employed according to a mode now obsolete, for whom, the accusative case of who. STE.

P. 34. That these hot tears, &c.] I will transcribe this passage from the first edition, that it may appear to those who are unacquainted with old books, what is the difficulty of revision, and what indulgence is due to those that endeavour to restore corrupted passages.-"That these hot tears, that breake from me perforce, should make the worst blasts and fogs upon the untender woundings of a father's curse, peruse every sense about the old fond eyes, beweep this cause again," &c.

P. 45. "and shall find time

From this enormous state,-seeking to give

Јон.

Losses their remedies:] I confess I do not understand this passage, unless it may be considered as divided parts of Cordelia's letter, which he is reading to himself by moonlight: it certainly conveys the sense of what she would have said. In reading a letter, it is natural enough to dwell on those circumstances in it that promise the change in our affairs which we most wish for; and Kent having read Cordelia's assurances that she will find a time to free the injured from the enormous misrule of Regan, is willing to go to sleep with that pleasing reflection uppermost in his mind. But this is mere conjecture.

STE.

P. 48. Of Bedlam beggars,] Randle Holme, in his Academy of Arms and Blazon, has the following passage descriptive of this class of vagabonds: "The Bedlam is in the same garb, with a long staff, and a cow or ox-horn by his side; but his cloathing is more fantastick and ridiculous; for, being a madman, he is madly decked and dressed all over with rubins, feathers, cuttings of cloth, and what not? to make him seem a mad-man, or one distracted, when he is no other than a dissembling knave."

In The Bell-man of London, by Decker, 5th edit. 1640, is another account of one of these characters, under the title of an Abraham-Man: "he sweares he hath been in Bedlam, and will talke frantickely of purpose: you see pinnes stuck in sundry places of his naked flesh, especially in his armes, which paine he gladly puts himselfe to, only to make you believe he is out of his wits. He calls himselfe by the name of Poore Tom, and comming near any body cries out, Poore Tom

is a-cold. Of these Abraham-men, some be exceeding merry, and doe nothing but sing songs fashioned out of their own braines some will dance, others will doe nothing but either laugh or weepe others are dogged, and so sullen both in loke and speech, that spying but a small company in a house, they boldly and bluntly enter, compelling the s ervants through feare to give them what they demand."

P.52. Corn. What trumpet's that?

Reg. 1 know't, my sister's] Thus, in Othello :
"The Moor,-I know his trumpet."

STE.

It should seem from both these passages, and others that might be quoted, that the approach of great personages was announced by some distinguishing note or tune appropriately used by their own trumpeters. Cornwall knows not the present sound; but to Regan, who had often heard her sister's trumpet, the first flourish of it was as familiar as was that of the Moor to the ears of Iago.

STE.

P. 87. There's your press-money.] It is evident from the whole of this speech, that Lear fancies himself in a battle: but, There's your press-money has not been properly explained. It means the money which was paid to soldiers when they were retained in the King's service; and it appears from some ancient statutes, and particularly 7 Henry VII. c. 1. and 3 Henry VIII. c. 6. that it was felony in any soldier to withdraw himself from the King's service after receipt of this money, without special leave. On the contrary, he was obliged at all times to hold himself in readiness. The term is from the French" prest," ready. It is written prest in King Henry VIIth's Book of household expences still preserved in the Exchequer. This may serve also to explain the following passage in Act V. sc. ii: "And turn our imprest lances in our eyes;" and in Hamlet, Act I. sc. i: "Why such impress of shipwrights ?" DOUCE.

P. 89. This a good block ?] Upon the king's saying, I will preach to thee, the poet seems to have meant him to pull off his hat and keep turning it and feeling it in the attitude of one of the preachers of those times, (whom I have seen so represented in ancient prints,) till the idea of felt, which the good hat or block was made of, raises the stratagem in his brain of shoeing a troop of horse with a substance soft as that which he held and moulded between his hands. This makes him start from his preachment. Block anciently signified the head part of the hat, or the thing on which a hat is formed, and sometimes the hat itself.-See Much Ado about Nothing: "He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it changes with the next block."

STE.