appears from a passage quoted on another occasion by Dr. Grey.

Dr. Grey's assertion may be supported by the following passage in an old comedy, called The Family of Love, 1608:

"Can you think I get my living by a bell and a

clack-dish?"

"By a bell and a clack-dish? how's that?" "Why, by begging, sir," &c.

Again, in Henderson's Supplement to Chaucer's Troilus and Cresseid:

"Thus shalt thou go begging from hous to hous, "With cuppe and clappir, like a Lazarous.”

And by a stage-direction in the Second Part of King Edward IV. 1619:

"Enter Mrs. Blague very poorly, begging with her basket and a clap-dish.”

There is likewise an old proverb to be found in Ray's Collection, which alludes to the same custom: "He claps his dish at a wrong man's door."

427.

an inward of his:

STEEVENS.

Inward is intimate.

So in Daniel's Hymen's Triumph, 1623:

"You two were wont to be most inward friends."

Again, in Marston's Malecontent, 1604:

"Come we must be inward, thou and I all one."

So, in Macbeth:

“the valued file.”

STEEVENS.

439. -the business he hath helmed,- -] The dif ficulties he hath steer'd through. A metaphor from navigation.

STEEVENS.

472. ungenitur'd agent-] This word seems to be form'd from genitoirs, a word which occurs in Holland's Pliny, Tom. II. p. 321, 560, 589,. and comes from the French genitoirs, the genitals.

479.

TOLLET.

-eat mutton on Fridays. -] A wench was

called a laced mutton.

THEOBALD.

So, in Doctor Faustus, 1604, Lechery says,

"I am one that loves an inch of raw mutton better

than an ell of Friday stockfish.”

STEEVENS.

494 mercy swear, and play the tyrant.] The idea of swearing agrees very well with that of a tyrant in our ancient mysteries. STEEVENS.

We still say to swear like an emperor; and from some old book, of which the writer unfortunately neglected to copy the title, he has noted to swear like To swear like a termagant is quoted elseREMARKS.

a tyrant. where.

519.

-from the see,] The folio reads,

from the sea.

JOHNSON.

See was anciently both written and pronounced sea. Hence the merit of Montague's pun, who, when king James complained of his embarrassment, arising from various competitors, in respect to the filling up a va

cant

cant bishoprick, replied-“ Your majesty may easily 'do it, if you have faith but as a grain of mustard seed: for no more is necessary than to say to this mountain (referring both to his name and his paunch), be removed into yonder sea, and it shall be done."

HENLEY.

548.resolved- -] i. e. satisfied. So, in Middleton's More Dissemblers besides Women, act i. sc. 3. "The blessing of perfection to your thoughts, lady;

"For I'm resolved they are good ones.’ REED. 554. he is indeed-justice.] Summum jus, summa injuria. STEEVENS.

563. Pattern in himself to know,

Grace to stand, and virtue go;] This passage is very obscure, nor can be cleared without a more licentious paraphrase than any reader may be willing to allow. He that bears the sword of heaven should be not less holy than severe: should be able to discover in himself a pattern of such grace as can avoid temptation, together with such virtue as dares venture abroad into the world without danger of seduction. STEEVENS.

"Pattern in himself to know,"

Is, to experience in his own bosom an original principle of action, which, instead of being borrowed or copied from others, might serve as a pattern to them. Our author, in The Winter's Tale, has again used the same kind of imagery :

"By the pattern of mine own thoughts, I cut out "The purity of his."

In another of his plays he uses an expression equally hardy and licentious :- "And will have no attorney but myself;"-which is an absolute catachresis, an attorney importing precisely a person appointed to act for another. MALONE.

570. To weed my vice, and let his grow!] i. e. to weed faults out of my dukedom, and yet indulge himself in his own private vices. STEEVENS.

My vice, for the vices of my dukedom, appears to me very harsh.

My, does not, I apprehend, relate to the duke in particular, who had not been guilty of any vice, but to any indefinite person.-The meaning seems to be→ to destroy by extirpation (as it is expressed in another place) a fault that I have committed, and to suffer his own vices to grow to a rank and luxuriant height. The speaker, for the sake of argument, puts himself in the case of an offending person. MALONE.

The duke is What he here

To weed my vice, and let his grow!] plainly speaking in his own person. terms "MY vice," may be explained from his conversation in act i. sc. 4. with Friar Thomas, and especially line 322.

"'twas my fault to give the people scope."The vice of Angelo requires no explanation.

HENLEY.

572. Though angel on the outward side!] Here we see what induced the author to give the outward sainted deputy the name of Angelo.

MALONE.

580. So disguise shall, by the disguis'd,] So disguise shall, by means of a person disguised, return an inju rious demand with a counterfeit person.

JOHNSON.

ACT IV.

Line 1. TAKE, oh, take, &c.] This is part of a little song of Shakspere's own writing, consisting of two stanzas, and so extremely sweet, that the reader won't be displeased to have the other:

Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow,

Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops, the pinks that grow,
Are of those that, April wears.
But my poor heart first set free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.

WARBURTON.

This song is entire in Beaumont's Bloody Brother, and in Shakspere's poems. The latter stanza is omitted by Mariana, as not suiting a female cha racter. THEOBALD.

Though Sewell and Gildon have printed this among Shakspere's poems, they have done the same to so many other pieces, of which the real authors are since known, that their evidence is not to be depended on. It is not found in Jaggard's edition of our author's sonnets, which was printed during his life-time.