monstrous fish, that appeared in the form of a woman from her waist upward, seene in the sea.” 403. fortune. STEEVENS. make a man ;- -] That is, make a man's So in Midsummer Night's Dream———“ are all made men." So in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611; we JOHNSON. -She's a wench STEEVENS. "Was born to make us all.' 406. -a dead Indian.- -] And afterwardsMen of Inde. Probably some allusion to a particular occurrence, now obscured by time. In Henry VIII. the porter asks the mob, if they think Indian, &c. is come to court? -some strange In the year 1577 was entered on the books of the Stationers-Company "A description of the portrayture and shape of those strange kind of people which the wurthie Mr. Martin Fourbosier brought into England in Ao. 1576.” STEEVENS. 407. -let loose my opinion, &c.] So in Love's Labour's Lost: "Now you will be my purgation, and let me 411. loose." ; STEEVENS. his gaberdine ;] A gaberdine is properly the coarse frock or outward garment of a peasant. Spanish Gabardina. "I'll conjure his gaberdine." The gaberdine is still So in Look about you, 1600. worn by the peasants in Sussex. E ij STEEVENS. 451. 451. too much-] Too much means, any sum, ever so much. It has however been observed to me that when the vulgar mean to ask an extravagant price for any thing, they say, with a laugh, I won't make him pay twice for it. This sense sufficiently accommodates itself to Trinculo's expression. STEEVENS. 454.-I know it by thy trembling -] This tremor is always represented as the effect of being possess'd by the devil. So in the Comedy of Errors: "Mark how he trembles in his extasy!" STEEVENS. 457. --cat;-] Alluding to an old proverb, that good liquor will make a cat speak. STEEVENS. 465. His forward voice, &c.] The person of Fame was anciently described in this manner. So in Penelope's Web, by Greene, 1601: "Fame hath two faces, readie as well to back-bite as to flatter." 468. STEEVENS. -Amen!-] Means to stop your draught: come to a conclusion. I will pour some, &c. STEEVENS. 473. I have no long spoon.] Alluding to the proverb, A long spoon to eat with the devil. STEEVENS. See Comedy of Errors, act iv. and Chaucer's Squier's Tale, ver. 10916. of the late edit. "Therefore behoveth him a full long spoone TYRWHITT. 480. -to be the siege of this moon calf?] Siege signifies stool in every sense of the word, and is here used in the dirtiest. So in Holinshed, p. 705: "In this yeare also, a house on London-Bridge, called the common siege, or privie, fell downe into the Thames." A moon-calf is an inanimate shapeless mass, supposed by Pliny to be engendered of woman only. See his Nat. Hist. B. X. ch. 64. STEEVENS. 510. Hast thou not dropp'd from Heaven ?] The newdiscovered Indians of the island of St. Salvador, asked, by signs, whether Columbus and his companions were not come down from Heaven. TOLLET. 519. I afraid of him?—a very weak monster, &c.] It is to be observed, that Trinculo the speaker is not charged with being afraid; but it was his consciousness that he was so that drew this brag from him. This is nature. WARBURTON. 523. kiss thy foot :-] A sneer upon the Papists for kissing the Pope's pantofle. GREY. 5+9. scamels-] This word has puzzled the commentators: Dr. Warburton reads shamois; Mr. Theobald would read any thing rather than scamels. Mr. Holt, who wrote notes upon this play, observes, that limpets are in some places called scams, therefore I have suffered scamels to stand, JOHNSON. Theobald substitutes shamois for scamels; which last word, he says, has possessed all the editions. I am inclined to retain scamels; for in an old will, dated 1593, I find the bequest of "a bed of scammel colour;" ла п. i. e. of the colour of an animal so called, whose skin was then in use for dress or furniture. This at least shews the existence of the word at the time, and in Shakspere's sense. WARTÓN. I take Mr. Warton's bed of scammel colour to be a mistake for stammel colour, i. e. of a light red colour. The light pale stammel is mentioned in Ph. Holland's translation of Pliny's Natural History, and is also there styled the light red, and fresh lusty gallant, p. 260 and 261. See also stammel in Ainsworth's Dictionary. TOLLET. In Johnson's Underwoods, see the following passage: "Red-hood the first that doth appear "In stamel, scarlet is too dear." And in Fletcher's Woman-Hater : "Humble herself in an old stamel petticoat." and numberless other instances. Theobald had very reasonably proposed to read seamalls, or sea-mels. An e, by these careless printers, was easily changed into a c, and from this accident, I believe, all the difficulty arises, the word having been spelt by the transcriber seamels. Willoughby men. tions the bird as Theobald has informed us. Had Mr. Holt told us in what part of England limpets are called scams, more attention would have been paid to his assertion. I should suppose, at all events, a bird to have been design'd, as young and old fish are taken with equal facility; bur young birds are more easily surprised than old ones. Besides, Caliban had already proffered to fish for Trinculo. In Cavendish's second voyage, the sailors eat young gulls at the isle of Penguins. STEEVENS. Mr. Reed observes, on the authority of Sir Joseph Banks, that in Willoughby's or rather John Ray's Ornithology, p. 34, N° 3, is mentioned the common sea mall (Larus cinereus minor); and adds, that Sir Robert Sibbald, in his Ancient State of the Shire of Fife, mentioned, amongst the fowls which frequent a neighbouring island, several sorts of sea malls, and one in particular, the katiewake, a fowl of the Larus or mall kind, of the bigness of an ordinary pigeon, which, some hold, says he, to be as savoury and as good meat as a partridge is. REED. -] In our author's 557. Nor scrape trencheringtime trenchers were in general use; and the male domesticks were sometimes employed in cleansing them. "I have helped (says Lilly in his History of his Life and Times, sul. an. 1620), to carry eighteen tubs of water in one morning;—all manner of drudgery willingly performed, scrape trenchers, &c. MALONE. ACT |