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SLEN. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter: I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick: if I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.

EVA. So Got 'udge me, that is a virtuous mind. FAL. You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.

Enter Mistress ANNE PAGE with Wine; Mistress FORD and Mistress PAGE following.

PAGE. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within. [Exit ANNE PAGE.

trary, as it shows his ignorance in that language. Fap, however, certainly means drunk, as appears from the glossaries. Douce.

9 Pass'd the CAREIRES.] I believe this strange word is nothing but the French cariere; and the expression means, that the common bounds of good behaviour are overpassed. JOHNSON.

To pass the cariere was a military phrase, or rather perhaps a term of the manege. I find it in one of Sir John Smythe's Discourses, 1589, where, speaking of horses wounded, he says "they, after the first shrink at the entering of the bullet, doo pass the carriere, as though they had verie little hurt." Again, in Harrington's translation of Ariosto, b. xxxviii. stanza 35:

"To stop, to start, to pass carier, to bound." STEEVENS. Bardolph means to say, "and so in the end he reel'd about with a circuitous motion, like a horse, passing a carier." To pass a carier was a technical term. So, in Nashe's Have with You to Saffron Walden, &c. 1596: " her hottest fury may

be resembled to the passing of a brave cariere by a Pegasus." We find the term again used in King Henry V. in the same manner as in the passage before us: "The king is a good king, but he passes some humours and cariers." MALONE.

We are told that this is a technical term in the manege; but no explanation is given. It was the same as running a career, or galloping a horse violently backwards and forwards, stopping him suddenly at the end of the career; "which career the more seldom it be used and with the lesse fury, the better mouth shall your horse have," says Master Blundeville in his Arte of Riding, b. 1. 4to, where there is a whole chapter on the subject, as well as in "The Art of Riding," translated by Thomas Bedingfield from the Italian of Claudio Corte, 1584, 4to. DOUCE.

SLEN. O heaven! this is mistress Anne Page.
PAGE. How now, mistress Ford?

FAL. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met: by your leave, good mistress.

[Kissing her. PAGE. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome :-Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

[Exeunt all but SHAL., SLENDER, and EVANS. SLEN. I had rather than forty shillings, I had my book of Songs and Sonnets here 1

Enter SIMPLE.

1

How now, Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on myself, must I ? You have not The Book of Riddles about you, have you?

2

SIM. Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it

my book of SONGS AND SONNETS here :] It cannot be supposed that poor Slender was himself a poet. He probably means the Poems of Lord Surrey and others, which were very popular in the age of Queen Elizabeth. They were printed in 1567, with this title: " Songes and Sonnettes, written by the Right Honourable Lord Henry Howard, late Earle of Surrey, and others."

Slender laments that he has not this fashionable book about him, supposing it might have assisted him in paying his addresses to Anne Page. MALONE.

evi

Under the title mentioned by Slender, Churchyard very dently points out this book in an enumeration of his own pieces, prefixed to a collection of verse and prose, called Churchyard's Challenge, 4to. 1593: “ and many things in the booke of songes and sonets printed then, were of my making," By then he means "in Queene Maries raigne;" for Surrey was first published in 1557. STEEVENS.

2- The Book of Riddles -] This appears to have been a popular book, and is enumerated with others in The English Courtier, and Country Gentleman, bl. 1. 4to. 1586, Sign. H 4. See quotation in note to Much Ado About Nothing, Act II. Sc. I.

REED.

to Alice Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas ?

SHAL. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with you, coz; marry, this, coz: There is, as 'twere, a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by sir Hugh here ;-Do you understand me?

be

SLEN. Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it So, I shall do that that is reason.

SHAL. Nay, but understand me.

SLEN. So I do, sir.

EVA. Give ear to his motions, master Slender: I will description the matter to you, if you be сараcity of it.

SLEN. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says: I pray you, pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country, simple though I stand here.

EVA. But that is not the question; the question is concerning your marriage.

SHAL. Ay, there's the point, sir.

Eva. Marry, is it; the very point of it; to mistress Anne Page.

SLEN. Why, if it be so, I will marry her, upon any reasonable demands.

EVA. But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to know that of your mouth, or of your lips; for divers philosophers hold, that the lips is

3

upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight AFORE Michaelmas ?] Sure, Simple's a little out in his reckoning. Allhallowmas is almost five weeks after Michaelmas. But may it not be urged, it is designed Simple should appear thus ignorant, to keep up the character? I think not. The simplest creatures (nay, even naturals,) generally are very precise in the knowledge of festivals, and marking how the seasons run: and therefore I have ventured to suspect our poet wrote Martlemas, as the vulgar call it: which is near a fortnight after All-Saints day, i. e. eleven days, both inclusive. THEOBALD.

This correction, thus seriously and wisely enforced, is received by Sir Thomas Hanmer; but probably Shakspeare intended to blunder. JOHNSON.

parcel of the mouth *;-Therefore precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?

SHAL. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

SLEN. I hope, sir, I will do, as it shall become one that would do reason.

EVA. Nay, Got's lords and his ladies, you must speak possitable, if you can carry her your desires towards her.

SHAL. That you must: Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?

SLEN. I will do a greater thing than that, upon your request, cousin, in any reason.

SHAL. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what I do, is to pleasure you, coz: Can you love the maid?

SLEN. I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married, and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt 5: but if you say, marry her,

the lips is PARCEL of the MOUTH ;] Thus the old copies. The modern editors read-" parcel of the mind."

To be parcel of any thing, is an expression that often occurs in the old plays.

So, in Decker's Satiromastix:

"And make damnation parcel of your oath."

Again, in Tamburlaine, 1590:

"To make it parcel of my empery."

This passage, however, might have been designed as a ridicule on another, in John Lyly's Midas, 1592:

"Pet. What lips hath she?

"Li. Tush! Lips are no part of the head, only made for a double-leaf door for the mouth." STEEVENS.

The word parcel, in this place, seems to be used in the same sense, as it was both formerly and at present in conveyances. "Part, parcel, or member of any estate," are formal words still to be found in various deeds. REED.

5 - I hope, upon familiarity will grow more CONTEMPT :] The old copy reads-content. STEEVENS.

I will marry her, that I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.

EVA. It is a fery discretion answer; save, the faul' is in the 'ort dissolutely: the 'ort is, according to our meaning, resolutely;-his meaning is good. SHAL. Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

SLEN. Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la.

Re-enter ANNE PAGE.

SHAL. Here comes fair mistress Anne :-Would I were young, for your sake, mistress Anne!

ANNE. The dinner is on the table; my father desires your worships' company.

the grace.

SHAL. I will wait on him, fair mistress Anne. EVA. Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at Exeunt SHALLOW and Sir H. EVANS. ANNE. Will't please your worship to come in, sir? SLEN. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.

ANNE. The dinner attends you, sir.

SLEN. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth: Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, go, wait upon my cousin Shallow: [Erit SIMPLE.] A justice

:

Certainly, the editors in their sagacity have murdered a jest here. It is designed, no doubt, that Slender should say decrease, instead of increase; and dissolved and dissolutely, instead of resolved and resolutely but to make him say, on the present occasion, that upon familiarity will grow more content, instead of contempt, is disarming the sentiment of all its salt and humour, and casappointing the audience of a reasonable cause for laughter. THEOBALD.

Theobald's conjecture may be supported by the same intentional blunder in Love's Labour's Lost:

"Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me."

6 Anne. The dinner attends you, sir.

STEEVENS.

Slen.-Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, go, wait upon my cousin Shallow :] This passage shews that it was formerly the

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