not be old and fresh too-" the salt fish is an old coat." I give this with rather the more confidence, as a similar mistake has happened a little lower in the scene."Slice, I say!" cries out Corporal Nym, “ Pauca, pauca: Slice, that's my humour." There can be no doubt, but pauca, pauca should be spoken by Evans. Again, a little before this, the copies give us : Slender. You'll not confess, you'll not confess. Shallow. That he will not-'tis your fault, 'tis fault -'tis a good dog. Surely it should be thus: Shallow. You'll not confess, you'll not confess. Shallow. 'Tis your fault, 'tis your fault, &c. This fugitive scrap of Latin, pauca, &c. is used in several old pieces, by characters, who have no more of literature about them, than Nym. So Skinke, in Look about you, 1600: "But pauca Verba, Skinke." Again, in Every Man in his Humour, where it is called benchers phrase. STEEVENS. Shakspere seems to frolick here in his heraldry, with a design not to be easily understood. In Leland's Collectanea, vol. I. p. ii. p. 615. the arms of Geffrey de Lucy are "de goules poudre a croisil dor a treis luz dor." Can the poet mean to quibble upon the word poudré, that is, powdered, which signifies salted; or strewed and sprinkled with any thing? In Measure for Measure, Lucio says "Ever your fresh whore and your powder'dbawd.” TOLLET. The The luce is a pike or jak: "Ful many a fair partrich hadde he in mewe, "And many a breme, and many a luce in stewe.' In Ferne's Blazon of Gentry, 1586, quarto, the arms of the Lucy family are represented as an instance, that signs of the coat should something agree with the name. It is the coat of Geffrey Lord Lucy. He did bear Gules, three lucies hariant, Argent." Mr. William Oldys, (Norroy King at Arms, and well known from the share he had in compiling the Biographica Britannica) among the collections which he left for a Life of Shakspere, observes, that—“there was a very aged gentleman living in the neighbourhood of Stratford, (where he died fifty years since) who had not only heard, from several old people in that town, of Shakspere's transgression, but could remember the first stanza of that bitter ballad, which, repeating to one of his acquaintance, he preserved it in writing; and here it is, neither better nor worse, but faithfully transcribed from the copy which his relation very courteously communicated to me. "A parliament member, a justice of peace, "At home a poor scare-crow, at London an asse, "Yet an asse in his state, "We allowe by his ears but with asses to mate, "If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it, "Sing lowsie Lucy, whatever befall it.” Contemptible as this performance must now appear, at at the time when it was written it might have had sufficient power to irritate a vain, weak, and vindictive migistrate; especially as it was affixed to several of his park-gates, and consequently published among his neighbours.-It may be remarked likewise, that the jingle on which it turns, occurs in the first scene of the Merry Wives of Windsor. I may add, that the veracity of the late Mr. Oldys has never yet been impeached; and it is not very probable that a ballad should be forged, from which an undiscovered wag could derive no triumph over antiquariar credulity. STEEVENS. 35. The council shall hear it; it is a riot.] He alludes to a statute made in the reign of K. Henry IV. (13, chap. 7.) by which it is enacted, "That the justices, "three, or two of them, and the sheriff, shall certify "before the king, and his counselle, all the deeds "and circumstances thereof (namely the riot); which "certification should be of the like force as the pre"sentment of twelve: upon which certificate the tres'passers and offenders shall be put to answer, and "they which be found guilty shall be punished, according to the discretion of the kinge and counselle." 66 GREY. By the council is only meant the court of star-chamber, composed chiefly of the king's council sitting in Camera stellata, which took cognizance of atrocious riots. In the old 4to, "the council shall know it," follows immediately after "I'll make a star-chamber matter of it," BLACKSTONE. So, So, in sir John Harrington's Epigrams, 1618: 39. “ No marvel men of such a sumptuous dyet —your vizaments in that.] Advisement is now an obselete word. I meet with it in the ancient morality of Every Man: "That I may amend me with good advysement.” Again: “I shall smite without any advysement.” Again: "To go with good advysements and delyberacyon." It is often used by Spenser in his Faery Queene. So, b. ii. c. 9: 45. "Perhaps my succour and advizement meete.” STEEVENS. which is daughter to Master Thomas Page,] The whole set of editions have negligently blundered one after another in Page's Christian name in this place; though Mrs. Page calls him George afterwards in at least six several passages. THEOBALD. 48. -speaks SMALL like a woman. 2.] This is from the edition of 1623, and is the true reading. Thus Lear speaking of Cordelia, "Gentle and low-an excellent thing in woman." STEEVENS. In The Midsummer Night's dream, Quince tells Flute, who objects to playing a woman's part, "You shall play play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will." 57. Slend. Did her grandsire, &c. And afterwards, MALONE. "I know the young gentlewoman, &c.] These two speeches are in the old copy given by mistake to Slender. From the foregoing words it appears that Shallow is the person here addressed by sir Hugh, and that they both belong to him. On a marriage being proposed for his kinsman, he very naturally inquires concerning the lady's fortune. Slender should seem not to know what they are talking about; (except that he just hears the name of Anne Page, and breaks out into a foolish elogium on her :) for in a subsequent part of the scene, Shallow says to him :"Coz, there is, as it were, a tender, a kind of tender made afar off by Sir Hugh here, do you understand me." The tender, therefore, we see had been made to Shallow and not to Slender, the former of which names should, on that account, be prefixed to the two speeches before us. In this play, as exhibited in the first folio, many of the speeches are given to characters to whom they do not belong. Printers, to save themselves trouble, keep the names of the speakers in each scene ready composed, and are, in consequence, very liable to mistakes when two names begin (as in the present instance) with the same letter. This change was suggested by one of the modern editors. |