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This appears to have been the burden of some song then well known. In Every Woman in her Humour, 1609, sign. E. 1. one of the characters says, "Hey good boies i'faith now a three man's song, or the old downe a downe."

REED.

467. Enter Doctor Caius.] It has been thought strange, that our author should take the name of Caius for his Frenchman in this comedy; but Shakspere was little acquainted with literary history; and without doubt, from this unusual name, supposed him to have been a foreign quack. Add to this, that the doctor was handed down as a kind of Rosicrucian: Mr. Ames had in MS. one of the "Secret Writings of Dr. Caius." FARMER.

This character of Dr. Caius might have been drawn from the life; as in Jacke of Dover's Quest of Enquirie, 1604 (perhaps a republication), a story called The Foole of Winsor begins thus " Upon a time there was in Winsor a certain simple outlandish dottor of phisiche belonging to the deane," &c. STEEVENS.

468. -un boitier verd;- -] Boitier in French signifies a case of surgeon's instruments. GREY.

I believe it rather means a box of salve, or case to hold simples, for which Caius professes to seek. The same word, somewhat curtailed, is used by Chaucer, in the Pardoneres Prologue, v. 12241:

"And every boist full of thy letuarie.”

Again, in the Skynner's Play, in the Chester Collec tion of Mysteries. MS. Harl. p. 149, Mary Magdalen

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"To balme his bodye that is so brighte,
"Boist here have I brought."

43.

STEEVENS.

-What, the goujere!] So in K. Lear:

"The goujeers shall devour them.” The goujere; i. e. morbus Gallicus. See Hanmer's note, K. Lear, act v.

STEEVENS.

457. You shall have an fool's-head-]Mrs. Quickly, I believe, intends a quibble between ann, sounded broad, and one, which was formerly sometimes pronounced on. In the Scottish dialect one is written, and I suppose pronounced, ane.

In 1603, was published Ane verie excellent and delectable treatise intitulit Philotus, &c.

In act ii. sc. i. of this play, an seems to have been misprinted for one:

"What an unweigh'd behaviour," &c.

The mistake there probably arose from the similarity of the sounds.

MALONE.

570. -but I detest, an honest maid as ever broke bread.] Dame Quickly means to say

-I protest.

ACT II.

MALONE.

Line 4.

THOUGH love use reason for his precisian,

he admits him not for his counsellor :— -] This is obscure: but the meaning is, though love permit reason to

ell

tell what is fit to be done, he seldom follows its advice.-By precisian, is meant one who pretends to a more than ordinary degree of virtue and sanctity. On which account they gave this name to the Puritans of that time. So Osborne-" Conform their mode, words, and looks to these PRECISIANS." And Maine, in his City

Match:

-I did commend

"A great PRECISIAN to her for her woman."

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WARBURTON.

-precisian,-] Of this word I do not see any meaning that is very apposite to the present intention. Perhaps Falstaff said, Though love use reason as his physician, he admits him not for his counsellor. This will be plain sense. Ask not the reason of my love; the business of reason is not to assist love, but to cure it. There may however be this meaning in the present reading, Though love, when he would submit to regulation, may use reason as his precisian, or director in nice cases, yet when he is only eager to attain his end, he takes not reason for his counsellor..

JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson wishes to read physician; and this conjecture becomes almost a certainty from a line in our author's 147th sonnet,

"My reason the physician to my love," &c.

FARMER. The character of a precisian seems to have been very generally ridiculed in the time of Shakspere. So in the Malcontent, 1604: "You must take her in the right

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vei

vein then as, when the sign is in Pisces, a fishmonger's wife is very sociable: in Cancer, a precisian's wife is very flexible." Again, Dr. Faustus, 1604:

"I will set my countenance like a precisian.” Again, in Ben Jonson's Case is alter'd, 1609: "It is precisianism to alter that,

"With austere judgment, which is given by naSTEEVENS.

ture."

If physician be the right reading, the meaning may be this: A lover, uncertain as yet of success, never takes reason for his counsellor, but, when desperate, applies to him as his physician. MUSGRAVE.

13. Thine own true knight,

By day or night.] This expression, which is ludicrously employed by Falstaff, anciently meant, at all times. So, in the third book of Gower, De Confessione Amantis:

"The sonne cleped was Machayre,
"The daughter eke Canace hight,

By daie bothe and eke by night."

Loud and still, was another phrase of the same meaning.

20.

STEEVENS.

What an unweigh'd behaviour, &c.] Thus the folio and 4to. 1630. It has been suggested to me, that

we should read, one.

21.

-Flemish drunkard

STEEVENS. -] It is not without

reason that this term of reproach is here used. Sir John Smythe in Certain Discourses, &c. 4to. 1590, says, that the habit of drinking to excess was introduced into England from the Low Countries, "by some of

" our

"our such men of warre within these very few years, "whereof it is come to passe that now-a-days there "are very fewe feastes where our said men of warre "are present, but that they do invite and procure all "the companie, of what calling soever they be, to "carowsing and quaffing; and, because they will not "be denied their challenges, they, with many new

66

conges, ceremonies, and reverences, drinke to the "health and prosperitie of princes; to the health of "counsellors, and unto the health of their greatest "friends both at home and abroad; in which exercise "they never cease till they be dead drunke, or, as the Flemings say, Doot dronken. He adds, " And this "aforesaid detestable vice hath within these sixe or "seven yeares taken wonderful roote amongest our English Nation, that in times past was wont to be of "all other nations of Christendome one of the so"berest."

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25.

mirth.

REED.

-I was then frugal of my mirth:] By breaking this speech into exclamations, the text may stand; but I once thought it must be read, If I was not then frugal of my JOHNSON. 48. What?-thou liest !-Sir Alice Ford!-These knights will HACK; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.] Hanmer says, to hack, means to hackney, or prostitute. I suppose he means-These knights will degrade themselves, so that she will acquire no honour by being connected with them. Perhaps the passage has been hitherto entirely misunderstood. To hack, is an expression used in the ridiculous scene be

tween

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