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concluded the description of its ostentatious meanness. STEEVENS.

The broken points might be the two broken tags of the laces. TOLLET.

I suppose, the boots had been long left off, and after having been converted into cases to hold the ends of candels, returned to their first office.

STEEVENS.

P. 48, 1. 9-11. Fashions. So called in the West of England, but by the best writers on farriery, farcens, or farcy.

Fives. So called in the West: vives elsewhere, and avives by the French; a distemper in horses, little differing from the strangles. GREY.

P. 48, 1. 13. ne'er-legg'd before,] i. e. founder'd in his fore-feet; having, as the jockies term it, never a Fore leg to stand on. The subsequent words which, being restrain'd, to keep him from stumbling," - seem to countenance this interpretation. The modern editors read -near-legg'd be fore; but to go near before is not reckoned a defect, but a perfection, in a horse.

P. 48, 1. 17. Velure is velvet. Velours, Fr.

STEEVENS.

P. 48, 1. 24. 25. - an old hat, and The humour of forty fancies prick'd in't for a feather:] This was some ballad or drollery at that time, which the poet here ridicules, by making Petruchio prik it up in his foot-boy's hat for a feather. His speakers are perpetually quoting scraps and stanzas of old ballads, and often very obscurely; for, so well are they adapted to the occasion, that they seem of a piece with the rest. In Shakspeare's time, the kingdom was over-run with these doggrel compositions, and he seems to have borne them a particular grudge. He frequently ridicules both them and their makers,

with excellent humour. In Much ado about Nothing, he makes Benedick say, Prove that ever I lose more blood with love' than I get again with drinking, prick out my eyes with a ballad-maker's pen." As the bluntness would make the execution of it extremly painful. And again, in Troilus and Cressida, Pandarus in his distress having repeated a very stupid stanza from an old ballad, says, with the highest humour, There never was a truer rhyme; let's cast away nothing, for we may live to have need of such a verse. We see it, we see it."

WARBURTON.

I have some doubts concerning this interpretation. A fancy appears to have been some ornament worn formerly in the hat. So Peacham, in his Worth of a penny, describing an indigent and discontented soldat," says he walks with his arms folded, his belt without a sword or rapier, that perhaps being somewhere in trouble; a hat without a band, hanging over his eyes; only it wears a weather-beaten fancy for fashion- sake." This lackey therefore did not wear a common fancy in his hat, but some fantastical ornament, comprizing the humour of forty different fancies. Such, I believe, is the meaning.

A fancy, however, meant also a love-song or son. net, or other poem. If the word was used here in this sense, the meaning is, that the lackey had stuck forty ballads together, and made something like a feather out of them. MALONE.

Dr. Warburton might have strengthened his sup. position by observing, that the Humour of Forty Fancies was probably a collection of those short poems which are called Fancies, by Falstaff, in the Second Part of K. Henry IV: sung those tunes which he heard the carmen whistle, and swore they

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were his Fancies, his good-nights." Chance, at some future period, may establish as a certainty what is now offered as a conjecture. A penny book, containing forty short poems, would, properly mana ged, furnish no unapt imitation of a plume of feathers for the hat of a humourist's servant.

STEEVENS. P. 49, 1. 31. Though in some part enforced to digress;] to deviate from my promise. JOHNSON.

P. 50, 1. 20. 21. But, Sir, to her love concerneth

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folio reads But, Sir, love concerneth us to add, Her father's liking which, I think, should be thus corrected:

But Sir, to her love concerneth us to add
Her father's liking.

We must suppose, that Lucentio had before informed Tranio in private of his having obtained Bianca's love; and Tranio here resumes the conversation, by observing, that to her love it concerns them to add her father's consent; and then goes on to propose a scheme for obtaining the latter.

TYRWHITT.

P. 51, 1.7. As willingly as e'er I came from school.] This is a proverbial saying. See Ray's Collection. STEEVES.

P. 51, 1. 28-31. But after many ceremonies done, He calls for wine: etc. etc.] It appears from this passage, and from one in The History of the two Maids of Moreclacke, a comedy by Robert Armin, 1609, that it was the custom to drink wine immediately after the marriage ceremony.

In Ben Jonson's Magnetic Lady, the wine drank on this occasion is called a knitting cup."

Again, in No Wit like a Woman's, by Middleton:

Even when my lip touch'd the contracting

cup."

There was likewise a flower that borrowed its name from this ceremony:

Bring sweet carnations, and sops in wine,
Worne of paramours."

Hobbinol's Dittie, etc. by Spenser. Again, in the Articles ordained by K. Henry VII. for the Regulation of his Household: Article For the Marriage of a Princess." Then pottes of Ipocrice to bee ready, and to bee putt into the cupps with soppe, and to bee borne to the estates; and to take a soppe and drinke," etc.

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STEEVENS. So, in an old canzonet on a wedding, set to musick by Morley, 1606:

Sops in wine; spice cakes are a dealing."

FARMER.

The fashion of introducing a bowl of wine into the church at a wedding to be drunk by the bride and bridegroom and persons present, was very an ciently a constant ceremony; and, as appears from this passage, not abolished in our author's age. We find it practised at the magnificent marriage of Queen Mary and Philip, in Winchester cathedral, 1554: The trumpetts sounded, and they both returned to their traverses in the quire, and there remayned untill masse was done: at which tyme, wyne and sopes were hallowed and delyvered to them both.". Col lect. Append. Vol. IV. p. 400,. edit. 1770.

T. WARTON.

At

I insert the following quotation merely to show that the custom remained in Shakspear's time. the marriage of the Elector Palatine to King James's daughter in February, 1612, we are told by one who assisted at the ceremonial: In conclusion, a joy pronounced by the King and Queen, and seconded with congratulation of the lords there present, which crowned with draughts of Ippocras out of a great golden bowle, as an health to the prosperity of the marriage, (began by the Prince Palatine and answered by the Princess). After which were serv ed up by six or seven barons so many bowles filled with wafers, so much of that work was consummate." Finet's Philoxenis, 1656, p. 11. REED.

This custom is of very high antiquity; for it subsisted among our Gothick ancestors. MALONE. P. 52, 1.2. And kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack,] It appears from the following passage in Marston's Insatiate Countess, that this was also part of the marriage ceremonial:

The hiss thou gav'st me in the church, here take. STEEVENS. This also is a very ancient custom, as appears from the following rubrick, with which I'was furnished by the late Reverend Mr. Bowle. Surgant ambo, sponsus et sponsa, et accipiat sponsus pacem à sacerdote, et ferat sponsae, osculans eam, neminem alium, nec ipse, nec ipsa." Manuale Sacrum, Paris, 1535, 410. fol. 69. MALONE.

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P. 53, first 1. the oats have eaten the horses.] There is still a ludicrous expression used when horses have staid so long in a place as to have eaten more than they are worth viz. that their heads are to big for the stable-door. I suppose Grumio has some such meaning. STEEVENS.

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