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A band is likewise a nechcloth.

On this circumstance

I believe the humour of the passage turns.

So, in Histriomastix, 1610:

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"In statute staple, or these merchants' bands."

STEEVENS.

179. If time be in debt,] The old edition reads— If I be in debt. STEEVENS.

197. -what have you got the picture old Adam new apparell'd?] A short word or two must have slipt out here, by some accident in copying, or at press; otherwise I have no conception of the meaning of the passage. The case is this: Dromio's master had been arrested, and sent his servant home for money to redeem him: he, running back with the money, meets the twin Antipholis, whom he mistakes for his master, and seeing him clear of the officer before the money was come, he cries, in a surprise;

What, have you got rid of the picture of old Adam new apparell'd?

For so I have ventured to supply, by conjecture. But why is the officer called old Adam new apparell'd ? The allusion is to Adam in his state of innocence

going naked; and immediately after the fall, being cloath'd in a frock of skins. Thus he was new apparell'd: and, in like manner, the serjeants of the counter were formerly clad in buff, or calves-skin, as the author humorously a little lower calls it.

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The explanation is very good, but the text does not require to be amended.

JOHNSON. These jests on Adam's dress are common among our old writers. So in King Edward III. 1599 :

"The register of all varieties

"Since leathern Adam to this younger hour."

210.

STEEVENS.

-he that sets up his rest to do more exploits with his mace, than a MORRIS-pike.] Sets up his rest, is a phrase taken from military exercise. When gun-powder was first invented, its force was very weak compared to that in present use. This necessarily acquired firearms to be of an extraordinary length. As the artists improved the strength of their powder, the soldiers proportionably shortened their arms and artillery; so that the cannon which Froissart tells us was once fifty feet long, was contracted to less than ten. This proportion likewise held in their muskets; so that till the middle of the last century, the musketeers always supported their pieces when they gave fire, with a rest stuck before them into the ground, which they called setting up their rest, and is here alluded to. There is another quibbling allusion too to the serjeant's office of arresting. WARBURTON.

This conjecture is very ingenious, yet the commentator talks unnecessarily of the rest of a musket, by which he makes the hero of the speech set up the rest of a musket, to do exploits with a pike. The rest of a pike was a common term, and signified, I believe,

the manner in which it was fixed to receive the rush JOHNSON.

of the enemy.

Dr. Johnson's explanation of the rest of a pike is given without any clear idea of his subject; for how can a thing, which is represented by him as having a positive and distinct existence, be at the same time a mode only of some other thing, which depends for its efficacy upon it ?-But, exclusive of this confusion, if a pike EVER HAD a rest, its primary use must have been to support the staff in charging an enemy, unless the weapon were merely defensive; and if the pike were only a weapon of defence, as described by the doctor, it would ill suit the purpose to which Shakspere has applied it :-" he that sets up his REST to do more exploits with his mace, than a morris-pike."

The phrase, he that sets up his REST, in this instance, signifies only, I believe he that TRUSTS-is confident in his expectation. Thus, Bacon "Sea-fights have been final to the war, but this is, when princes set up their REST upon the battle." Again, Clarendon"they therefore resolved to set up their REST upon that stake, and to go through with it, or perish." This figure of speech is certainly derived from the REST which Dr. Warburton has described, as that was the only kind of rest which was ever SET UP. The REST for the SPEAR was of quite another nature. Dr. Johnson, however, seems to have supposed that the spear was the same weapon with the pike; but they were very different, and though the spear, in tilting, was

used

used with a rest, neither the pike, nor mace (on which Shakspere here quibbles) ever was. HENLEY.

212.

A morris-pike.] This is mentioned by the old writers as a formidable weapon. "Morespikes (says Langley in his translation of Polydore Virgil) were used first in the siege of Capua." And in Reynard's Deliverance of certain Christians from the Turks, "the English mariners laid about them with brown bills, halberts, and morrice-pikes.” FARMER.

Polydore Virgil does not mention morris-pikes at the siege of Capua, though Langley's translation of him advances their antiquity so high.

So in Heywood's King Edward IV. 1626:

"Of the French were beaten down

"Morris-pikes and bowmen," &c.

Again, in Holinshed, p. 816:

ris-pikes, and fought," &c.

TOLLET.

they entered the gallies again with morSTEEVENS. Morris-pikes, or the pikes of the Moors, were excellent formerly; and since, the Spanish pikes have been equally famous. See Hartlib's Legacy, p. 48. TOLLET.

243. if you do expect spoon-meat, or bespeak a long spoon.] Or, which modern editors have thrown out of the text, signifies, before. Of this use of the word many instances occur in ancient writers. So in Arden of Feversham, 1592:

"He shall be murdered or the guests come in." See a note on King Jɔkn, a&t iv. scene 3.

STEEVENS.

The

The author of the REMARKS thinks the passage erroneously pointed, and says, that or is a mistake for and.

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Cour. We'll mend our dinner here.

S. Dro, Master, if you do, expect spoon-meat, and bespeak a long spoon.

.

320.

a schoolmaster called Pinch,] Thus

the old copy : in many country villages the pedagogue is still a reputed conjurer.

So, in Ben Jonson's Staple of News:

"I would have ne'er a cunning schoole-master in England: mean a cunning man as a schoole-master; that is a conjurour,” &c. STEEVENS.

322.

Mistress, respice finem, respect your end; or rather the prophecy, like the parrot, Beware the rope's end.] These words seem to allude to a famous pamphlet of that time, wrote by Buchannan against the lord of Liddington; which ends with these words, Respice finem, respice funem. But to what purpose, unless our author could shew that he could quibble as well in English, as the other in Latin, I confess I know not. As for prophesying like the parrot, this alludes to people's teaching that bird unlucky words; with which, when any passenger was offended, it was the standing joke of the wise owner to say, Take heed, sir, my parrot prophesies. To this Butler hints, where, speaking of Ralpho's skill in augury, he says:

"Could tell what subtlest parrots mean,

"That speak and think contrary clean;

"What

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