Scene 1. Page 325.

Of the various conjectures on the origin and real meaning of this phrase, that by Mr. Steevens seems deserving of the preference. In a rare little pamphlet entitled The cold yeare, 1614, 4to, being a dialogue in which the casualties that happened in the great fall of snow are enumerated, one of the interlocutors, a North-country man, relates that on his approach to London he overtooke a collier and his team, "walking as stately as if they scorned to carry coales." It was therefore a term of reproach to be called a collier; and thence, to carry coals was metaphorically used for any low or servile action. Barnaby Googe, in his New yeares gift to the Pope's holinesse, 1579, 4to, says he "had rather be a collyer at Croydon than a Pope at Rome."

A hint had been given, by a gentleman whose opinions are on all occasions entitled to the highest respect and attention, that the phrase in question might have originated from Proverbs xxv. 22. "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink; for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head." But this is a metaphor expressive of the pain which a man shall suffer from the reproaches of his conscience, and as such, has been adopted into our language. Thus, in Newes from the North, otherwise called The conference between Simon Certain and Pierce Plowman, 1579, 4to, "Now God forbid that ever a lawyer should heap coales upon a merchant's head, or that a merchant should not be as willing and as ready to doo a goodly deed as a lawyer."

Scene 2. Page 347.

Two of the commentators would read lusty yeomen, and make the passage refer to the sensations of the farmer on the return of spring. One of them, Dr. Johnson, to render the present text objectionable, has been obliged to invert the comparison. Capulet, in speaking of the delight which Paris is to receive in the society of the young ladies invited to his house, compares it to that which the month of April usually afforded to the youth of both sexes, when assembled in the green fields to enjoy their accustomed recreations. Independently of the frequent allusions in the writings of our old poets to April, as the season of youthful pleasures, and which probably occurred to Shakspeare's recollection, he might besides have had in view the decorations which accompany the above month in some of the manuscript and printed calendars, where the young folks are represented as sitting together on the grass; the men ornamenting the girls with chaplets of flowers. From the following lines in one of these, the passage in question seems to derive considerable illustration.

Scene 4. Pages 364, 367.

Froissart, describing a dinner on Christmas day in the hall of the castle of Gaston Earl of Foix, at Ortern, in the year 1388, has these words: "At mydnyght when he came out of his chambre into the halle to supper, he had ever before hym twelve torches brennyng, borne by twelve varlettes standyng before his table all supper." In Rankin's Mirrour of monsters, 1587, 4to, is the following passage: "This maske thus ended, wyth visardes accordingly appointed, there were certain petty fellows ready, as the custome is, in maskes to carry torches, &c." In the Weiss kunig, being a collection of wood engravings representing the actions of Maximilian the First, there is a very curious exhibition of a masque before the emperor, in which the performers appear with their visards, and one of them holds a torch in his hand. There is another print on the same subject by Albert Durer. The practice of carrying torch lights at entertainments continued even after the time of Shakspeare. See a future note on Hamlet, Act III. Scene 2.

Scene 4. Page 368.

There is no doubt that this is an allusion to some now forgotten sport or game, which gave rise to a proverbial expression, Dun is in the mire, used when a person was at a stand, or plunged into any difficulty. We find it as early as Chaucer's time in the Manciple's prologue:

How the above sport was practised we have still to learn. Dun is, no doubt, the name of a horse or an ass. There is an equivalent phrase, Nothing is bolder than blynde Bayard which falleth oft in the mire. See Dr. Bullein's dialogue between soarenesse and chirurgi, fo. 10; and there is also a proverb, As dull as Dun in the mire.

Scene 4. Page 376.

No attempt has hitherto been made to explain this line, which alludes to a very singular superstition not yet forgotten in some parts of the country. It was believed that certain malignant spirits, whose delight was to wander in groves and pleasant places, assumed occasionally the likenesses of women clothed in white; that in this character they sometimes haunted stables in the night time, carrying in their hands tapers of wax, which they dropped on the horses' manes, thereby plaiting them in inextricable knots, to the great annoyance of the poor animals, and vexation of their masters. These hags are mentioned in the works of William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris in the 13th century. There is a very uncommon old print by Hans Burgmair relating to this subject. A witch enters the stable with a lighted torch: and previously to the operation of entangling the horse's mane, practises her enchantments on the groom, who is lying asleep on his back, and apparently influenced by the night-mare. The Belemnites, or elf-stones, were regarded as charms against the last-mentioned disease, and against evil spirits of all kinds; but the cerauniÆ or bÆtuli, and all perforated flint-stones, were not only used for the same purpose, but more particularly for the protection of horses and other cattle, by suspending them in stables, or tying them round the necks of the animals.

The next line,

seems to be unconnected with the preceding, and to mark a superstition which, as Dr. Warburton has observed, may have originated from the plica Polonica, which was supposed to be the operation of wicked elves; whence the clotted hair was called elf-locks and elf-knots. Thus Edgar talks of "elfing all his hair in knots." Lodge, in his Wit's miserie, 1599, 4to, describing a devil whom he names Brawling-contention, says, "his ordinary apparell is a little low-crown'd hat with a fether in it like a forehorse; his haires are curld, and full of elves locks and nitty for want of kembing."

ACT II.

Scene 2. Page 398.

This line in particular, and perhaps the whole of the Scene, has been imitated by the ingenious author of the Latin comedy of Labyrinthus. In Act III. Scene 4, two lovers meet at night, and the Romeo of the piece says to his mistress, "Quid mihi noctem commemoras, mea salus? Splendens nunc subitÒ illuxit dies, ubi tu primum, mea lux, oculorum radiis hasce dispulisti tenebras." This excellent play was acted before King James I. at Cambridge, and for bustle and contrivance has perhaps never been exceeded.

Scene 2. Page 398.

Dr. Johnson would have substituted then for though; but without necessity, because in that sense the latter word was anciently written tho: unskilful printers, deceived by sound, substituted though; whence the ambiguity has arisen. Thus Chaucer in his Canterbury tales, v. 2214,

And again, v. 2392,

Thus much in explanation of though, if put here for then, which is by no means clear. Mr. Malone's quotations on the other side of the question carry great weight with them.

Scene 2. Page 400.

On this occasion Shakspeare recollected the 104th psalm, "Who maketh the clouds his charet, who walketh upon the wings of the winde."

Scene 2. Page 405.

This Shakspeare found in Ovid's Art of love, perhaps in Marlow's translation, book I,

With the following beautiful antithesis to the above lines, every reader of taste will be gratified. It is given memoriter from some old play, the name of which is forgotten;

Scene 2. Page 410.

In Pericles, Act V., we have silver-voic'd. Perhaps these epithets have been formed from the common notion that silver mixed with bells softens and improves their tone. We say likewise that a person is silver-tongued.

Scene 3. Page 414.

Thus all the copies. But in Swan's Speculum mundi, the first edition of which was published in 1635, they are quoted with the following variations;

Scene 4. Page 427.

When the physical conformation of idiots is considered, the latent but obscene allusion which this speech conveys will be instantly perceived. What follows is still less worthy of particular illustration. Mercutio riots in this sort of language. The epithet driveling is applied to love as a slavering idiot; but Sir Philip Sidney has made Cupid an old drivell. See the lines quoted from the Arcadia by Dr. Farmer, Much ado about nothing, Act III. Scene 2.

Scene 4. Page 431.

Mr. Steevens has justly observed that the term merchant was anciently used in contradistinction to gentleman. Whetstone, in his Mirour for majestrates of cyties, 1584, 4to, speaking of the usurious practices of the citizens of London who attended the gaming-houses for the purpose of supplying the gentlemen players with money, has the following remark: "The extremity of these men's dealings hath beene and is so cruell as there is a natural malice generally impressed in the hearts of the gentlemen of England towards the citizens of London, insomuch as if they odiously name a man, they foorthwith call him, a trimme merchaunt. In like despight the citizen calleth every rascall a joly gentleman. And truly this mortall envie betweene these two woorthie estates, was first engendred of the cruell usage of covetous merchaunts in hard bargaines gotten of gentlemen, and nourished with malitious words and revenges taken of both parties."

With respect to ropery,—the word seems to have been deemed unworthy of a place in our early dictionaries, and was probably coined in the mint of the slang or canting crew. It savours strongly of the halter, and appears to have signified a low kind of knavish waggery. From some other words of similar import, it may derive illustration. Thus a rope-rype is defined in HulÆt's Abcedarium to be "an ungracious waghalter, nequam;" and in Minsheu's dictionary, "one ripe for a rope, or for whom the gallowes grones." A roper has nearly the same definition in the English vocabulary at the end of Thomasii Dictionarium, 1615, 4to; but the word occasionally denoted a crafty fellow, or one who would practise a fraud against another (for which he might deserve hanging). So in the book of blasing of arms or coat armour, ascribed to Dame Juliana Bernes, the author says, "which crosse I saw but late in tharmes of a noble man: the whiche in very dede was somtyme a crafty man, a roper, as he himself sayd," sig. Aij. b. Roper had also another sense, which, though rather foreign to the present purpose, is so quaintly expressed in one of our old dictionaries, that the insertion of it will doubtless be excused:—"Roper, restio, is he that loketh in at John Roper's window by translation, he that hangeth himselfe."—HulÆt's Abcedarium Anglico-Latinum, 1552, folio. Rope-tricks, elsewhere used by Shakspeare, belongs also to this family.

Scene 4. Page 431.

This has been explained cut-throat companions, and frequenters of the fencing school, from skein, a knife or dagger. The objection to this interpretation is, that the nurse could not very well compare herself with characters which it is presumed would scarcely be found among females of any description. One commentator thinks that she uses skains-mates for kins-mates, and ropery for roguery; but the latter words have been already shown to be synonymous, and the existence of such a term as kins-mate may be questioned. Besides, the nurse blunders only in the use of less obvious words.

The following conjecture is therefore offered, but not with entire confidence in its propriety. It will be recollected that there are skains of thread; so that the good nurse may perhaps mean nothing more than sempstresses, a word not always used in the most honourable acceptation. She had before stated that she was "none of his flirt-gills."

ACT III.

Scene 1. Page 452.

"I am always running in the way of evil fortune, like the fool in the play," says Dr. Johnson. There is certainly no allusion to any play. See the note in p. 146.

Scene 2. Page 456.

A great deal of ingenious criticism has been expended in endeavouring to ascertain the meaning of this expression. Dr. Warburton thought the runaway in question was the sun; but Mr. Heath has most completely disproved this opinion. Mr. Steevens considers the passage as extremely elliptical, and regards the night as the runaway; making Juliet wish that its eyes, the stars, might retire to prevent discovery. Mr. Justice Blackstone can perceive nothing optative in the lines, but simply a reason for Juliet's wish for a cloudy night; yet according to this construction of the passage, the grammar of it is not very easily to be discovered.

Whoever attentively reads over Juliet's speech will be inclined to think, or even be altogether satisfied, that the whole tenor of it is optative. With respect to calling the night a runaway, one might surely ask how it can possibly be so termed in an abstract point of view? Is it a greater fugitive than the morning, the noon, or the evening? Mr. Steevens lays great stress on Shakspeare's having before called the night a runaway in The Merchant of Venice,

but there it was already far advanced, and might therefore with great propriety be said to play the runaway; here it was not begun. The same remark will apply to the other passage cited by Mr. Steevens from The fair maid of the Exchange. Where then is this runaway to be found? or can it be Juliet herself? She who had just been secretly married to the enemy of her parents might with some propriety be termed a runaway from her duty; but she had not abandoned her native pudency. She therefore invokes the night to veil those rites which she was about to perform, and to bring her Romeo to her arms in darkness and in silence. The lines that immediately follow may be thought to favour this interpretation; and the whole Scene may possibly bring to the reader's recollection an interesting part in the beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche.

Scene 5. Page 483.

Of the notes on this line, that by Mr. Malone is most to the point. He has shown from Cotgrave, that the hunt's-up was "a morning song to a new married woman, &c.;" and it was, no doubt, an imitation of the tune to wake the hunters, noticed by Mr. Steevens, as was that in the celebrated Scotish booke of godly and spirituall songs, beginning,

It is not improbable that the following was the identical song composed by the person of the name of Gray mentioned in Mr. Ritson's note. It occurs in a collection entitled Hunting, hawking, &c., already cited in the course of the remarks on The merry wives of Windsor. There was likewise a country dance with a similar title.

Scene 5. Page 496.

Besides the authorities already produced in favour of green eyes, and which show the impropriety of Hanmer's alteration to keen, a hundred others might, if necessary, be given. The early French poets are extremely fond of alluding to them under the title of yeux vers, which Mons. Le Grand has in vain attempted to convert into yeux vairs, or grey eyes.[22] It must be confessed that the scarcity, if not total absence of such eyes in modern times, might well have excited the doubts of the above intelligent and agreeable writer. For this let naturalists, if they can, account. It is certain that green eyes were found among the ancients. Plautus thus alludes to them in his Curculio:

Lord Verulam says, "Great eyes with a green circle between the white and the white of the eye, signify long life."—Hist. of life and death, p. 124. Villa Real, a Portuguese, has written a treatise in praise of them, and they are even said to exist now among his countrymen. See Pinkerton's Geography, vol. i. p. 556, and Steevens's Shakspeare, vol. v. 164, 203.

ACT IV.

Scene 2. Page 508.

Mr. Steevens remarks that "the primitive sense of this word was to straggle from house to house and collect money under pretence of singing carols to the blessed Virgin;" and he quotes a note on Milton's Lycidas by Mr. Warton: but this derivation seems too refined. Mr. Warton's authority is an old register at Gadderston, in these words: "Receyvid at the gadyng with Saynte Mary songe at Crismas." If the original were attentively examined, it would perhaps turn out that the word in question has some mark of contraction over it, which would convert it into gaderyng, i. e. gathering or collecting money, and not simply going about from house to house according to Mr. Warton's explanation.

Scene 5. Page 525.

This plant was used in various ways at funerals. Being an evergreen, it was regarded as an emblem of the soul's immortality. Thus in Cartwright's Ordinary, Act V. Scene 1:

In an obituary kept by Mr. Smith, secondary of one of the Compters, and preserved among the Sloanian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 886, is the following entry: "Jan^y. 2. 1671. Mr. Cornelius Bee bookseller in Little Britain died; buried Jan. 4. at Great St. Bartholomew's without a sermon, without wine or wafers, only gloves and rosmary."

And Mr. Gay, when describing Blouzelinda's funeral, records that

Scene 5. Page 528.

From what has been said in page 118, it becomes necessary to withdraw so much of a former note as relates to the game of gleek. To give the minstrel, is no more than a punning phrase for giving the gleek. Minstrels and jesters were anciently called gleekmen or gligmen.

Scene 5. Page 529.

The following stanza from one of Whitney's Emblems, 1586, 4to, is not very dissimilar from that of Richard Edwards, communicated in the note by Sir John Hawkins, and may serve to confirm the propriety of Mr. Steevens's observation, that the epithet griping was not calculated to excite laughter in the time of Shakspeare.

Griping griefs and doleful dumps are very thickly interspersed in Grange's Golden Aphroditis, 1577, 4to, and in many other places. They were great favourites; but griefs were not always griping. Thus in Turbervile's translation of Ovid's epistle from Hero to Leander;

ACT V.

Scene 1. Page 536.

Our dictionaries supply no materials towards the etymology of this word, which was probably introduced into the language by some of our early voyagers to the Spanish or Portuguese settlements in the newly discovered world. They would hear the Spaniards discoursing of the animal by the name of el lagarto, or the lizard; Lat. lacerta; and on their return home, they would inform their countrymen that this sort of crocodile was called an alligator. It would not be difficult to trace other corrupted words in a similar manner.

STORY OF THE PLAY.

It has hitherto remained unnoticed, that one of the material incidents in this drama is to be found in The love adventures of Abrocomas and Anthia, usually called the Ephesiacs of Xenophon of Ephesus. The heroine of this romance, separated, by a series of misfortunes, from her husband, falls into the hands of robbers, from whom she is rescued by a young nobleman called Perilaus. He becomes enamoured of her; and she, fearing violence, affects to consent to marry him; but on the arrival of the appointed time, swallows a poisonous draught which she had procured from Eudoxus, an old physician and the friend of Perilaus, to whom she had communicated the secret of her history. Much lamentation is made for her death, and she is conveyed with great pomp to a sepulchre. As she had only taken a sleeping potion, she soon awakes in the tomb, which, on account of the riches it contained, is plundered by some thieves, who also carry her off. This work was certainly not published nor translated in the time of Luigi da Porto, the original narrator of the story of Romeo and Juliet; but there is no reason why he might not have seen a copy of the original in manuscript.

Two incidents in this Greek romance are likewise to be found in Cymbeline; one of which is the following: Anthia having become the slave of Manto and her husband, he is captivated with her beauty; and this coming to the knowledge of the jealous Manto, she orders a trusty servant to carry Anthia into a wood and put her to death. This man, like the servant in Boccaccio, and Pisanio in Shakspeare, commiserates the situation of Anthia, spares her life, and provides the means for her future safety. A similar occurrence is introduced into some of the tales of the middle ages. The other is the above-mentioned draught of poison swallowed by Imogen, as by Anthia, though not with precisely the same effect. As it is not to be found either in Boccaccio or in the old story-book of Westward for smelts, one might suspect that some novel, imitated from the Ephesiacs, was existing in the time of Shakspeare, though now unknown.