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308. -First, here's young master Rash; &c.] This enumeration of the inhabitants of the prison affords a very striking view of the practices predominant in Shakspere's age. Besides those whose follies are common to all times, we have four fighting men and a traveller. It is not unlikely that the originals of the pictures were then known.

JOHNSON.

-] All the names Rash was a stuff

First, here's young master Rashhere mentioned are characteristical. formerly used. So, in A Reply as true as Steele, to a rusty, rayling, ridiculous, lying Libell, which was lately written by an impudent unsoder'd Ironmonger, and called by the name of An Answer to a foolish Pamphlet, entitled, A Swarme of Sectaries and Schismatiques. By John Taylour, 1641:

"And with mockado suit, and judgment rash,
"And tongue of saye, thou'lt say all is but
trash."
MALONE.

309.

ger.

a commodity of brown paper and old ginThus the old copy. The modern editors read, brown pepper. The following passage in Michaelmas Term, a comedy, 1607, will justify the original reading

"I know some gentlemen in town have been glad, and are glad at this time, to take up commodities in hawk's-hoods and brown paper."

Again, in A New Trick to cheat the Devil, 1636:
-to have been so bit already

"With taking up commodities of brown paper,
"Buttons past fashion, silks, and sattins,

"Babies

"Babies and children's fiddles, with like trash "Took up at a dear rate, and sold for trifles." Again, in Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1620: "For the merchant, he delivered the iron, tin, lead, hops, sugars, spices, oyls, brown paper, or whatever else, from six months to six months. Which when

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he could not

the poor gentleman came to sell again, make threescore and ten in the hundred besides the usury." Again, in Greene's Defence of Coneycatching, 1592: -so that if he borrow an hundred pound, he shall have forty in silver, and threescore in wares, as lutestrings, hobby horses, or brown papers, or cloath," &c.

Again, in the Spanish Curate of Beaumont and Fletcher :

"Commodities of pins, brown papers, pack,

thread."

Again, in Gascoigne's Steele Glasse:

"To teach young men the trade to sell brown STEEVENS.

paper."

A commodity of brown paper. Mr. Steevens supports this rightly. Fennor asks, in his Compter's Commonwealth, suppose the commodities are delivered after Signior Unthrift, and Master Broaker have both sealed the bonds, how must those hobby-horses, reams of brown paper, Jewes trumpes and bables, babies and rattles be solde ?" FARMER.

324.

-in for the Lord's sake.] i. e. to beg for

the rest of their lives.

Iiij

WARBURTON.

The

The word in has been supplied by some of the modern editors. STEEVENS.

It appears from a poem entitled, Paper's Complaint, printed among Davies's epigrams, [about the year 1611] that this was the language in which prisoners, who were confined for debt, addressed passengers :

"Good gentle writers, for the Lord's sake, for the
Lord's sake,

"Like Ludgate prisoner, lo, I, begging make
"My mone."

Again, in Nashe's Apologie of Pierce Pennilesse, 1593: "At that time that thy joys were in the Fleeting, and thou crying for the Lord's sake, out at an iron window, in a lane not far from Ludgate-Hill."

MALONE.

373. -to transport him- -] To remove him from one world to another. The French trépas affords a kindred sense. JOHNSON. 396. To the under generation,] So Sir Thomas Hanmer, with true judgment. It was in all the for. mer editions:

To yonder

ye under and yonder were confounded.

JOHNSON.

The old reading is not yonder but yond. STEEVENS. 419. When it is least expected.] A better reason might have been given. It was necessary to keep Isabella in ignorance, that she might with more keenness accuse the deputy.

444. desire.

JOHNSON. your bosom--] Your wish; your heart's

JOHNSON.

455.

I am combined by a sacred vow,] Shakspere uses combine for to bind by a pa&t or agreement, so he calls Angelo the combinate husband of Mariana.

456.

JOHNSON.

-Wend you--] To wend is to go-An obsolete word. So, in the Comedy of Errors:

"Hopeless and helpless doth geon wend." Again, in Orlando Furioso, 1599: "To let his Daughter wend with us to France." STEEVENS. 469. if the old, &c.] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads, thee odd fantastical duke, but old is a common word of aggravation in ludicrous language, as, there was old revelling. JOHNSON. 472. he lives not in them.] i. e. his character deSTEEVENS. pends not on them.

-] A Woodman seems to have

474. ——woodman, been an attendant or servant to the officer, called Forrester. Mr. Reed, who makes this observation, cites in confirmation of it, Manhood on the Forest Laws, 4to. 1615. p. 46. but adds—It is here, however, used in a wanton sense, and was, probably in our author's time, generally so received. In like manner in The Chances, act i. sc. 9. the landlady says,

"Well, well, son John,

"I see you are a woodman, and can chuse
"Your deer tho' it be i' th' dark."

So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff asks his

mistresses:

Am I a woodman? ha!"

STEEVENS..

508.

-sort and suit,] Figure and rank.

JOHNSON.

512. ——makes me unpregnant,] In the first scene the Duke says that Escalus is pregnant, i. e. ready in the forms of law. Unpregnant, therefore, in this instance before us, is unready, unprepared. STEEVENS. 515. But that her tender shame

Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,

How might she tongue me? Yet reason dares her?
No:

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For my authority, &c.] Warburton explains this; dares her to reply No to me, whatever I say.' Theobald corrects the passage and reads: ́ dares her note.' Hanmer alters the pointing: 'dares her: No.' So does Upton: 'dares her-No.: Which he explains thus: Were it not for her modesty, how might she proclaim my guilt? yet (you'll say) she has reason on her side, and that will dare her to do it. I think not; for my authority, &c. Johnson says, he has nothing to offer worth insertion. Mr. Steevens would read: yet reason dares her not which he expounds, reason does not challenge or incite her to appear against me.' Mr. Henley says, the expression is a provincial one, and means, 'reason dares her [by which we suppose he understands defies her] to do it, as by this means she would not only publish her "maiden loss," but also as she would suffer from the imposing credit of his station and power.' We think Mr. Henley rightly understands the passage, but has not sufficiently explained himself. Reason, or reflection, is, we conceive, personified by

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Shakspere,

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