Bless thee from whirlwinds, ftar-blafting, and taking! Do poor Tom fome charity, whom the foul fiend vexes: There could I have him now,-and there,-and there,and there again, and there. [Storm fill. Lear. What, have his daughters brought him to this pafs? Could't thou fave nothing? Didft thou give them all? Fool. Nay, he referved a blanket, elfe we had been all fhamed. Lear. Now, all the plagues that in the pendulous air Hang fated o'er men's faults, light on thy daughters! Kent. He hath no daughters, fir. Lear. Death, traitor! nothing could have fubdu'd na ture To fuch a lownefs, but his unkind daughters.- Should have thus little mercy on their flesh? Edg. Pillicock fat on pillicock's-hill";— Halloo, halloo, loo, loo! Fool. This cold night will turn us all to fools and mad men. Edg. Take heed o' the foul fiend: Obey thy parents; keep thy word juftly'; fwear not; commit not with 4-taking!] To take is to blaft, or strike with malignant in fluence: 66 ftrike her young bones, "Ye taking airs, with lameness!" JOHNSON. 5-pelican daughters.] The young pelican is fabled to fuck the mother's blood. JOHNSON. So, in Decker's Honeft Whore, 1630, fecond part: "Shall a filly bird pick her own breast, to nourish her young ones? the pelican does it, and fhall not I?" STEEVENS. 6 Pillicock fat, &c.] I once thought this a word of Shakspeare's formation; but the reader may find it explained in Minfheu's Dict. P. 365, Article, 3299-2.-Killico is one of the devils mentioned in Harfenet's Declaration. The folio reads-Pillicock-hill. I have followed the quartos. MALONE. 7 -keep thy word justly;] Both the quartos, and the folio, have words. The correction was made in the fecond folio. MALONE. man's man's fworn fpoufe; fet not thy fweet heart on proud array: Tom's a-cold. Lear. What haft thou been? Edg. A ferving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curl'd my hair; wore gloves in my cap', ferved the luft of my mistress's heart, and did the act of darkness with her; fwore as many oaths as I fpake words, and broke them in the fweet face of heaven: one, that slept 8 Commit not, &c.] The word commit is used in this fenfe by Middlein Women beware Women : ton, "His weight is deadly who commits with strumpets." STEEV. 9 - proud in heart and mind; that curl'd my hair; &c.] "Then Ma. Mainy, by the inftigation of the first of the feaven [Spirits], began to fet his hands unto his fide, curled his hair, and ufed fuch geftures, as Ma. Edmunds [the exorcift] prefently affirmed that that spirit was Pride. Herewith he began to curfe and banne, faying, What a poxe do I heere? I will ftay no longer amongst a company of rafcal priests, but goe to the court, and brave it amongst my fellows, the noblemen there aflembled." Harfnet's Declaration, &c. 1603. fhortly after they [the feven fpirits] were all caft forth, and in fuch manner as Ma. Edmunds directed them, which was, that every devil fhould depart in fome certaine forme reprefenting either a beaft or fome other creature, that had the refemblance of that finne whereof he was the chief author: whereupon the fpirit of pride departed in the forme of a peacock; the spirit of floth in the likeness of an afle; the fpirit of envie in the fimilitude of a dog; the fpirit of gluttony in the forme of a wolfe, and the other devils had alfo in their departure their particular likeneffes agreeable to their natures." Ibid. MALONE. -wore gloves in my cap,-] i. e. His miftrefs's favours: which was the fashion of that time. So, in the play called Campafpe: "Thy men turned to women, thy foldiers to lovers, gloves worn in velvet caps, inftead of plumes in graven helmets." WARBURTON. It was anciently the custom to wear gloves in the hat on three diftin&t occafions, viz. as the favour of a mistress, the memorial of a friend, and as a mark to be challenged by an enemy. Prince Henry boafts that he will pluck a glove from the commoneft creature, and fix it in his helmet; and Tucca fays to fir Quintilian, in Decker's Satiromaftix: "Thou shalt wear her glove in thy worshipful bat, like to a leather brooch" and Pandora in Lylly's Woman in the Moon, 1597: he that first prefents me with his head, Portia, in her affumed character, afks Bafianio for his gloves, which the fays the will wear for bis fake and King Henry V. gives the pretended glove of Alençon to Fluellen, which afterwards occafions his quarrel with the English foldier. STEEVENS. in the contriving of luft, and waked to do it: Wine loved Lear. 2-light of ear,] Credulous of evil, ready to receive malicious reports. JOHNSON. 3 - Hog in floth, fox in fealth, wolf in greediness, &c.] The Jefuits pretended to caft the feven deadly fins out of Mainy in the shape of those animals that reprefented them; and before each was caft out, Mainy by geftures acted that particular fin; curling his hair to fhew pride, vomiting for gluttony, gaping_and fnoring for flotb, &c.-Harfenet's book, pp. 279, 280, &c. To this probably our author alludes. STEEVENS. 4thy band out of plackets,] It appeareth from the following paffage in Any thing for a quiet life, a filly comedy, that placket doth not fignify the petticoat in general, but only the aperture therein: "-between which is difcovered the open part, which is now called the placket." Bayly in his Dictionary, giveth the fame account of the word. Yet peradventure, our poet hath fome deeper meaning in the Winter's Tale, where Autolycus faith—“ You might have pinch'd a placket, it was fenfelefs." AMNER. Peradventure a placket fignified neither a petticoat nor any part of one; but a fromacher. See the word Torace in Florio's Italian Dict. 1598. "The breft or bulke of a man.-Alfo a placket or ftomacher."The word seems to be used in the fame fenfe in The Wandering Whores, &c. a comedy, 1663: "If I meet a cull in Morefields, I can give him leave to dive in my placket." T. C. 5 Thy pen from lenders' books.] So, in All Fools, a comedy by Chapman, 1605: 6 "If I but write my name in mercers" books, "I am fure to have at fix months end "A rafcal at my elbow with his mace," &c. STEEVENS. Says fuum, mun, ba no nonny, dolphin my boy, my boy, feffa; lec bim trot by.] The quartos read-the cold wind; hay, no on ny, Dolphin my boy, my boy, ceafe, let him trot by. The folio:-the cold wind; fayes fuum, mun, nonny, Dolphin my boy, boy Seffey, let him trot by. Lear., Why, thou were better in thy grave, than to anfwer with thy uncover'd body this extremity of the by. The text is formed from the two copies. I have printed Seffa, inftead of Seffey, because the fame cant word occursjin the Induction to The Taming of the Shrew: "Therefore, paucas pallabris; let the world flide: Seffa. MALONE. Hey no nonny is the burthen of a ballad in The Two Noble Kinsmen, (faid to be written by Shakspeare in conjunction with Fletcher) and was probably common to many others. The folio introduces it into one of Ophelia's fongs. Dolpbin, my boy, my boy, It feemeth not that fuch a foe From me or you would fly. This is a ftanza from a very old ballad written on fome battle fought in France, during which the king, unwilling to put the suspected valour of his fon the Dauphin, i. e. Dolphin, (fo called and fpelt at those times) to the trial, is reprefented as defirous to restrain him from any attempt to establish an opinion of his courage on an adverfary who wears the least appearance of ftrength; and at laft aflifts in propping up a dead body against a tree for him to try his manhood upon. Therefore as different champions are fuppofed croffing the field, the king always discovers fome objection to his attacking each of them, and repeats these two lines as every fresh perfonage is introduced: Dolphin, my boy, my boy, &c. The fong I have never feen, but had this account from an old gentleman, who was only able to repeat part of it, and died before I could have fuppofed the discovery would have been of the least importance to me. As for the words, fays fuum, mun, they are only to be found in the first folio, and were probably added by the players, who, together with the compofitors, were likely enough to corrupt what they did not understand, or to add more of their own to what they already concluded to be nonfenfe. STEEVENS. Cokes cries out in Bartholomew Fair: "God's my life!-He shall be Dauphin my boy!" FARMER. It is obfervable that the two fongs to which Mr. Steevens refers for the burden of Hey no nenny, are both sung by girls distracted from difappointed love. The meaning of the burden may be inferred from what follows: Drayton's Shepherd's Garland, 1593, 4to. "Who ever heard thy pipe and pleafing vaine, "That doth not mufe." Again, in White's Wit of a Woman : "-thefe dauncers fometimes do teach them trickes above trenchmore, yea and sometimes fuch lavoltas, that they mount fo high, that you may fee their bey nony, nony, nony, no." HENLEY. VOL. VIII. fkies. fkies. Is man no more than this? Confider him well: Thou oweft the worm no filk, the beaft no hide, the fheep no wool, the cat no perfume:-Ha! here's three of us are fophifticated!-Thou art the thing itfelf: unaccommodated man is no more but fuch a poor, bare, forked annimal as thou art.-Off, off, you lendings:Come; unbutton here.— [tearing off his cloaths. Fool. Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented; this is a naughty night to swim in.-Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old letcher's heart; a small spark, all the reft of his body cold.-Look, here comes a walking fire. Edg.This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock*; he gives the web 7 Come; unbutton bere.] Thus the folio. One of the quartos reads: Come on, be true. STEEVENS. 8-an old letcher's beart;] This image appears to have been imitated by B. and Fletcher in the Humourous Lieutenant : 66 an old man's loofe defire "Is like the glow-worm's light the apes so wonder'd at; « And blew and blew, tnrn'd tail, and went out presently." STEEVENS. 9-Flibbertigibbet :] We are not much acquainted with this fiend. Latimer in his fermons mentions him; and Heywood, among his fixte hundred of Epigrams, edit. 1576, has the following, of calling one Flebergibet: "Thou Flebergibit, Flebergibit, thou wretch! "Wottest thou whereto laft part of that word doth ftretch? "Leave that word, or I'le baste thee with a libet; "Of all woords I hate woords that end with gibet." STEEV. "Frateretto, Fliberdigibet, Hoberdidance, Tocobatto, were four devils of the round or morrice..... These foure had forty affiftants under them, as themselves doe confeffe." Harfenet, p. 49. PERCY. *-be begins at curfew, and walks till the firft cock;] It is an old tradition that fpirits were relieved from the confinement in which they were held during the day, at the time of curfew, that is, at the clofe of day, and were permitted to wander at large till the first cock-crowing. Hence in The Tempeft they are faid to rejoice to hear the folemn curfew." See Hamlet, A& I. fc. i: 66 and at his [the cock's] warning, |