1605:

but worn at weddings. Thus, in The Noble Spanish generally worn in England, that it was restrained Soldier, 1634:-"I meet few but are stuck with at last by proclamation, so long ago as the 5th of rosemary: every one asked me who was to be mar- Edward IV., when it was ordered, " That the beaks ried.” Pansies is for thoughts, because of its name or pykes of shoes and boots should not pass two pensées ; so, in All Fools, a comedy by Chapman, inches, upon pain of cursing by the clergy, and for.

feiting twenty shillings, to be paid, one noble to " What flowers are these ?

the king, another to the cordwainers of London, and

the third to the chamber of London: and for other The pansie this. O, that's for lovers' thoughts !"

countries and towns, the like order was taken. Be. Greene, in his Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1620, of shoes and boots were of such length, that they

fore this time, and since the year 1482, the pykes calls fennel, women's weeds, “ fit generally for that

were fain to be tied up to the knee with chains of sex, sith while they are maidens, they wish wantonly.” Columbines are thus mentioned by Chapman

silver, and gilt, or at least silken laces.-STEEVENS. in his All Fools:

* In the bilboes." --Act V. Sc. 2. “ What's that ?-a columbine ? No: that thankless flower grows not in my garden.”

The bilboes is a bar of iron with fetters annexed

to it, by which disorderly or mutinous sailors were Ophelia calls rue, the herb of grace: the following anciently linked together. The word is derived passage from a Quip for an Upstart Courtier, is much from Bilboa, a place in Spain, famous for its steel to the purpose :-"Some of them smiled and said, manufactures. The legs of persons suffering the rue was called herbe grace, which, though they punishment were connected so closely, that it was scorned in their youth, they might weare in their impossible for one to move without distressing the age, and that it was never too late to say miserere.” other; so that any attempt to rest under such cir. In the same work, the emblematical character of the cumstances was wholly fruitless. The bilboes are daisy is thus giren :-"Next them grew the dis still shewn in the Tower of London, among the sembling daisy, to warne such light-of-love wenches other spoils of the Spanish Armada.-STEEVENS. not to trust every faire promise that such amorous bachelors make them.” The violet is thus character. “ I once did hold it, as our statists do, ised in an old collection of sonnets, printed 1584:- A baseness to write fair.”

Act V. Sc. 2. “ Violet is for faithfulnesse,

I have, in my time (says Montaigne), seene Which in me shall abide;

some, who, by writing, did earnestly get both their Hoping likewise that from your heart titles and living, to disavow their apprentissage, You will not let it slide."

marre their pen, and affect the ignorance of so vul.

yar a qualitie.” So, in Fletcher's Woman-Hater: “ To play at loggats with them.”-Act V. Sc. l. " "Tis well, and you have learned to write a bad

This is a game still played in several parts of hand, that the readers may take pains for it. Your England. A stake is fixed into the ground; those lordship hath a secretary that can write fair when who play, throw loyyats at it, and he that is nearest you purpose to be understood.”-Boswell. the stake wins: we have seen it played at sheepshearing feasts, where the winner was entitled to a

“ Hangers."--Act V. Sc. 2. black feece, which he afterwards presented to the

Under this term were comprehended four gradufarmer's inaid to spin, for the purpose of making a ated straps, &c., that hung down in a belt on each petticoat, and on condition that she knelt down on side of its receptacle for the sword. I have seen a the fleece, to be kissed by all the rustics present.

most gorgeous belt of this description, at least as STEEVENS. old as the time of James I. It was of common vel.

vet, embroidered with gold, and had belonged to the “ The aye is grown so picked."-Act V. Sc. 1.

Soinerset family. Pope mistook the meaning of This alludes to a very absurd fashion. Shoes this term, conceiving it to signify " short pendulous with pointed toes of a monstrous length, were so I broad-swords."-STERVENS.

OTHELLO.

“ Special officers of night.”-Act I. Sc. 2.

never to entrust the command of an army to a native. Shakspeare must have read the Commonwealth " To exclude therefore (says Contareno, as transand Government of Venice, translated by Lewke-lated by Lewkenor, 1599,) from the Venetian state, nor, in which the following passage occurs :-“ For the danger or occasion of ambitious enterprises, ou: the greater expedition thereof, of these kinds of ancestors held it a better course to defend the dojudgements, the heads or chieftains of the officers by minions on the continent with foreign mercenary night do obtain the authority of which the advo- soldiers, than with the home-bred citizens. Their cators are deprived. These officers of the night are charges and yearly occasions of disbursement are six, and six likewise are those meane officers, that likewise very great; for alwaise they do entertain have only power to correct base vagabonds and tri- in honorable sort with great provision a captaine geding offences."-MALONE.

neralle, who alwaise is a stranger borne.”—MALONE. “ Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you, “ The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Against the general enemy Ottoman."

Do yrow beneath their shoulders.”-Act I, Sc. 3 Act. I. Sc. 3.

The Cannibals and Anthropophagi were known to It was part of the policy of the Venetian state, 'an English audience before Shakspeare introduced

them. In The History of Orlando Furioso, played stamped upon it; it is a Portuguese coin, in value before Elizabeth, they are mentioned; and Raleigh about three shillings of our money.--Grey. speaks of people whose heads appear not above their shoulders. Histories, says Gilpin, in a sermon be- “ And it was died in mummy."

."-Act III. Sc. 4 fore Edward IV. notice “ a people called Anthropophagi, eaters of men.' In Hackluyt's Voyages,

The balsamic liquor running from mummies, was 1598, we find this passage :-“On that branch formerly celebrated for its anti-epileptic virtues, which is called Caora, are a nation of people whose We are now wise enough to know that the qualities heades appear not above their shoulders: they are ascribed to it are all imaginary. Mummy, however reported to have their eyes in their shoulders, and is still much coveted by painters, as a transparent their mouthes in the middle of their breastes."

brown colour which throws a warmth into their Reed and STEEVENS.

shadows.-STEEVENS. “ Thrice driven bed of down.”—Act I. Sc. 3.

"If that the earth should teem with woman's tears.

Each drop she falls, would prove a crocodile.” A driven bed is a bed for which the feathers are

Act IV. Sc. 1 selected, by driving with a fan, which separates the light from the heavy.—Johnson.

Shakspeare here alludes to the fabulous accounts

of crocodiles. “ It is written (says Bullokar), that “ As luscious as locusts." -Act I, Sc. 3. he shall weep over a man's head, when he hath de

voured The fruit of the locust tree is a long black pod, Wherefore, in Latin there is a proverb, crucodili

body, and then will eat up the head too. that contains the seeds, among which there is a very lachrymæ, crocodile's tears, to signify such tears as sweet luscious juice, of much the same consistency are fained.” It appears, that a dead crocodile, but as fresh honey.-STEEVENS.

in perfect forme,” of about nine feet long, had been

exhibited in London in our poet's time.-Malone, Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings.”

Act III. Sc. 3.

“ for a joint ring.”—Act IV Sc. 3. Jesses are short straps of leather tied about the foot of a hawk, by which she is held on the fist.

The nature of a joint ring will be best explained

Hanmer. by a passage in Dryden's Don Sebastian :if the general camp,

a curious artist wrought them,

With joints so close as not to be perceiv'd; Pioneers and all." -Act III. Sc. 3.

Yet are they both each other's counterpart: Pioneers were generally degraded soldiers, ap- Her part had Juan inscrib’d, and his had Zayda, pointed to the office of pioneer as a punishment for (You know those names are theirs) and in the misbehaviour. “A soldier ought ever to retaine

midst, and keepe his armes in saftie and forthcoming, for A heart divided in two halves was plac'd. he is more to be detested than a coward, that will Now if the rivets of those rings inclos'd, lose or play away any part thereof, or refuse it for Fit not each other, I have forg'd this lye: his ease, or to avoid paines; wherefore such a one But if they join, you must for ever part' is to be dismissed with punishment, or to be made some abject pioneer.” The Art of War, by E. Da.

"Chrysolite.”-Aci V. Sc. 1. ries, 1619.- Grose.

Pliny informs us, that Ptolemy Philadelphus had

a statue of his wife, Arsinoe, made of one topas, four “ Crusadoes."-Act III. Sc. 4.

cubits in length. Topaz and chrysolite were once The crusado is so called from the cross which is used as synonymous terms.-PLUMTREE.

POEMS.

“Mine eyes are grey.”—Page 906. “ Even as poor birds, decew'd with jaintea grapes. What we now call blue eyes, were, in Shakspeare's

Page 910. time, called grey eyes, and were considered as emi. An allusion to a picture of Xeuxis, mentioned by nently beautiful.-Malone.

Pliny, in which some grapes were so well repre

sented, that birds lighted on them to peck at them. “ To drive infection from the dangerous year."

STEEVENS Page 909.

“ To tread the measures.”—Page 9]4. I have somewhere read, that in rooms where plants are kept in a growing state, the air is never

The measures was a very stately dance, and, there. unwholesome. -STEEVENS.

fore, was peculiarly suited to elders, if they engaged

at all in such kind of amusement.---MALONE Say for non-payment that the debt should double.”

Page 909.

“ Some loathsome dash the herald will contrive." It was once usual when a sum of money, secured

Page 917. by bond, remained unpaid at the prescribed time, In the books of heraldry, a particular mark of o leave the lender at liberty to recover twice the disgrace is mentioned, by which the escutcheons of amount.--MALONE.

those persons were anciently distinguished, who "discourteously used a widow, maid, or wife, ayainst “Shew me your imaye in some antique book." hem will."-- MALONE.

Sonnet Lix. “ Feast-finding minstrels.”—Page 922.

It was an ancient custom to insert real portraits

among the ornaments of illuminated manuscripts Our ancient minstrels were the constant attend- with inscriptions under them.-STEEVENS. ents on feasts.-STEEVENS. “ To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel.”

“Before the golden tresses of the dead, Paye 923.

The right of sepulchres, were shorn away, An allusion to the costly monuments of our an.

To live a second life on second head."

Sonnet !XVIII. cient kings and nobles, which were frequently made of iron or copper, wrought with great nicety, many In our author's time, the false hair usually worn, of which, even in Shakspeare's time, had begun to perhaps in compliment to the queen, was of a sandy decay. There are some of these monuments still colour. Hence the epithet, golden.-Malone. Lo be seen in Westminster-abbey, and other old ca. Thedrals.-MALONE.

" Which is not mir'd with seconds." “ Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this Will.”

Sonnet CXXVI. Page 925.

Seconds is a provincial term for the second kind of The oversee

urill was designed as a check flour, which is collected after the smaller bran is upon the executurs. Our author appoints John Hall sifted.-STEEVENS. and his wife for his executors, and Thomas Russel and Francis Collins as his overseers.-STEEVENS.

“ With sieided silk feat and affectedlu “ At Ardea, to my lord, with more than haste.”

Enswathed, and sealed to curious secrecy." Page 926.

Page 950. About a century and a half ago, all our letters Anciently, the ends of a piece of narrow ribbon that required speed were superscribed, Withe post were placed under the seals of letters, to connect post kaste -MALONE,

them more closely,-- STEEVENS.

J. BILLING,
PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER

WOKING, SURREY.