his respect to the truly venerable remains of our most ancient bards. STEEVENS.

P. 59, first 1. And bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither:] This cousin Ferdinand, who does not make his personal appearance on the scene, is mentioned, I suppose, for no other reason than to give Katharine a hint, that he could keep even his own relations in order, and make them obedient as his spaniel Troilus. STEEVENS.

P. 59, 1. 7. Come, Kate, and wash,] It was the custom in our author's time, (and long before,) to wash the hands immediately before dinner and supper, as well as afterwards. So, in Ives's Select

Papers, p. 139: And after that the Queen [Eliza beth, the wife of K. Henry VII.] was retourned and washed, the Archbishop said grace." Again, in Florio's Second Frutes, 1591: C. The meate is coming, let us sit downe. S. I would wash first

What ho, bring us some water to wash our hands. Give me a faire, cleane and white towel." From the same dialogue it appears that it was customary to wash after meals likewise, and that setting the water on the table was then (as at present) peculiar to Great Britain and Ireland. Bring some water (says one of the company) when dinner is ended, to wash our hands, and set the bacin upon the board, after the English fashion, that all may wash."

That it was the practice to wash the hands immediately before supper, as well as before dinner, is ascertained by the following passage in The Fount ayne of Fame, erected in an Orcharde of amorous adventures, by Anthony Munday, 1580: Then was our supper brought up very orderly, and she brought me water to washe my handes. And after I had washed, I sat downe, and she also; VoL.Vi

but concerning

what good cheere we had, I need not make good report." MALONE.

As our ancestors eat with their fingers, which might not be over clean before meals, and after them must be greasy, we cannot wonder at such repeated ablutions. STEEVENS.

P. 60, l. 17. 18.

she must not be full gorg'd, For then she never looks upon her lure.] A hawk too much fed was never tractable.

The lure was only a thing stuffed like that kind of bird which the hawk was designed to pursue. The use of the lure was to tempt him back after he had flown. STEEVENS.

P. 60, 1. 19. A haggard is a wild hawk; to man a hawk is to tame her. JOHNSON.

P. 60, 1. 22. That bate, i. e. flutter. STEEEVENS.

To bate is to flutter as a hawk does when it swoops upon its prey. Minsheu supposes it to be derived either from batre, Fr. to beat, or from s'abatre, to descend. MALONE.

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P. 60, 1. 29. Intend is sometimes used by our author for pretend, and is, I believe, so used here. P. 61, 1. 20. Quick proceeders,] Perhaps here an equivoque was intended. To proceed Master of Arts, etc. is the academical term. MALONE.

P. 63, 1. 11. An ancient angel coming down the hill,] For angel Mr. Theobald, and after him Sir T. Hanmer and Dr. Warburton, read engle. JOHNSON.

It is true that the word enghle, which Sir T. Hanmer calls a gull, (deriving it from engluer, Fr. to catch with bird-lime," is sometimes used by Ben Jonson. It cannot, however, bear that meaning at present, as Biondello confesses his ignorance of the quality of the person who is afterwards persuaded to

1

represent the father of Lucentio. The precise meaning of it is not ascertained in Jonson, neither is the word to be found in any of the original copies of Shakspeare. I have also reason to suppose that the true import of the word enghle is such as can have no connection with this passage, and will not bear explanation.

Angel primitively signifies a messenger, but perhaps this sense is inapplicable to the passage before us. So, Ben Jonson, in The Sad Shepherd: the dear good angel of the spring, The nightingale

And Chapman, in his translation of Homer, always calls a messenger an angel.

In The Scornful Lady of Beaumont and Fletcher, an old usurer is indeed called

old angel of gold."

-

It is possible, however, that instead of ancient angel, our author might have written angelmerchant, one whose business it was to negociate money. He was afterwards called a mercatante, and professes himself to be one who has bills of exchange about him. STEEVENS.

P. 63, 1. 14. - a mercatantè, or a pedant,] The old editions read marcantant. The Italian word mercatante is frequently used in the old plays for a merchant, and therefore I have made no scruple of placing it here. The modern editors, who printed the word as they found it spelt in the folio, were obliged to supply a syllable to make out the verse, which the Italian pronunciation renders unnecessary. A pedant was the common name for a teacher of languages. So, in Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonson: He loves to have a fencer, a pedant, and a musician, seen in his lodgings." STEEVENS.

Mercatante,] So, Spenser, in the third Book

of his Fairy Queen:

Sleeves dependant Albanesè wise.” And our author has Veronese in his Othello.

FARMER.

Charon, the sage Charon, as Pope calls him, describes a pedant, as synonymous to a household schoolmaster, and adds a general character of the fraternity by no means to their advantage. REED.

B

P. 63, 1. 15. 16. I know not what; but formal in apparel,

In gait and countenance surely like a father.} I know not what he is, says the speaker however, this is certain, he has the gait and countenance of a fatherly man. WARBURTON.

P. 65, 1. 3. To pass assurance means to make a conveyance or deed. Deeds are by law-writers called, The common assurances of the realm," because thereby each man's property is assured to him. in a subsequent scene of this act, they are busied about a counterfeit assurance." MALONE.

So,

P. 65, 1. 6. Go with me, etc.] There is an old comedy called Supposes, translated from Ariosto, by George Gascoigne. Thence Shakspeare borrowed this part of the plot, [as well as some of the phraseology] though Theobald pronounces it his own invention. There likewise he found the quaint name of Petruchio. My young master and his man exchange habits, and persuade a Scendese, as he is called, to personate the father, exactly as in this play, by the pretended danger of his coming from Sienna to Ferrara, contrary to the order of government.

FARMER.

In the same play our author likewise found the
MALONE.

name of Licio.

P. 65, I. 30. it is too cholerick a meat:] The editor of the second folio arbitrarily reads too phlegmatik a meat; which has been adopted by all the subsequent editors. MALONE.

Though I have not displaced the oldest reading, that of the second folio may be right. It prevents the repetition of cholerick, and preserves its meaning; for phlegmatick, irregularly derived from Oleymon, might anciently have been a word in physical use, signifying inflammatory, as phlegmonous is at present. STEEVENS.

In

P. 66, 1. 4.-but the mustard is too hot a little.] This is agreeable to the doctrine of the times. The Glass of Humors, no date, p. 60, it is said, But note here, that the first diet is not only in avoiding superfluity of meats, and surfeits of drinks, but also in eschewing such as are most obnoxious, and least agreeable with our happy, temperate state; as for a cholerick man to abstain from all salt, scorched, dry meats, from mustard, and such like things as will aggravate his malignant humours," etc.

So Petruchio before objects to the over-roasted mutton. REED.

P. 66, 1. 20. What, sweeting, all amort?] That is all sunk and dispirited. MALONE.

P. 66, 1. 29. And all my pains is sorted to no proof: And all my labour has ended in nothing, or proved nothing. ..We tried an experiment, but it sorted not." Bacon: JOHNSON. P. 67, 1. 10. With ruffs and cuffs, and farthingales, and things;] Though