very rare and elaborate clocks to be seen in their town halls, wherein a man may read astronomy, and never look up to the skies. In the towILhall of Prague there is a clock that shows the annual motions of the sun and moon, the names and numbers of the months, days, and festivals of the whole year, the time of the sun rising and setting throughout the year, the equinoxes, the length of the days and nights, the rising and setting of the twelve signs of the Zodiack, etc. — But the town of Strasburgh carries the bell of all other steeples of Germany in this point." These elaborate clocks were probably often out of frame." MALONE.

to

I have heard a French proverb that compares any thing that is intricate and out of order, the coq de Strasburg that belongs to the machi nery of the town clock

S.. W.

P. 35, 1. 4. To this line Mr. Theobald extends his second act, not injudiciously, but without sufficient authority. JOHNSON.

P. 35, 1. 19. 20. Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush,

That we must stand and play the

murderer in?] How

familiar this amusement once was to ladies of quality, may be known from a letter addressed by Lord Wharton to the Earl of Shrewsbury, dated from Alnewik, Aug. 14, 1555:,, besiche yo.r Lordeshipp to tay ke some sporte of my litell grounde there, and to comaund the same even as yo.r I ordeshippes owne. My ladye may shote w.th her crosbowe." etc. Lodge's Illustrations of British History, etc. Vol. I. p. 203.

Again, in a letter from Sir Francis Leake to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Vol. II. p. 295.

,,Yo.r Lordeshype hath sente me a verie greate and fatte stagge, the wellconier beynge stryken by your right honorable Ladie's hande, etc. My baide bucke lyves styll to wayte upon.yo.r L. and my Ladies comyng hyther, w.ch I expect whensoever shall pleas yow to apointe; onelé thys, thatt my Ladie doe nott hyt hym throgh the nose, for marryng hys whyte face; howbeitt I knoe her Ladi-hipp takes pitie of my buckes, sence the last tyme yt pleased her to take the travell to shott att them,“ etc. Dated July, 1605. STEEVENS.

1

P. 36, 1. 4. Here, good my glass, take this for telling true;-] To understand how the Princess has her glass so ready at hand in a casual conversation, it must be remembered that in those days it was the fashion among the French ladies to wear a looking glass, as Mr. Bayle coarsely represents it, on their bellies; that is, to have a small mirrour set in gold hanging at their girdle, by which they occasionally viewed their faces or adjusted their hair. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson, perhaps, is mistaken, She had no occasion to have recourse to any other lookingglass than the Forester, whom she rewards for having shown her to herself as in a mirror.

STEEVENS.

Whatever be the interpretation of this passage, Dr. Johnson is right in the historical fact. Stubbs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, is very indignant at the ladies for it:,,They must have their lookingglasses carried with them, wheresoever they go: and good reason, for how else could they see the devil in them?,,And in Massinger's City Madam,

several women are introduced with looking-glasses at their girdles. FARMER.

P. 36, I. 20 — 22. The harmony of the measure, the easiness of the expression, and the good sense in the thought, all concur to recommend these two lines to the reader's notice. WARBURTON.

P. 36, l. 24. That my heart means no ill, is the same with to whom my heart means no ill, The common phrase suppresses the particle, as I mean him [not to him] no harm. JOHNSON.

P. 36, 1. 30. Here comes a member of the com monwealth.] Here, I believe, is a kind of jest intended: a member of the commonwealth is put for one of the common people, one of the meanest. JOHNSON.

The Princess calls Costard, a member of the commonwealth, because she considers him as one of the attendants on the King and his associates in their new modelled society; and it was part of their original plan that Costard and Armado should be members of it. M. MASON.

P. 36, last 1. but one. God dig-you-den all!] A corruption of God give you good even.

MALONE.

P. 37, 1. 19. Break up this capon.] i. e. open this letter. Our poet uses this metaphor, as the French do their poulet; which signifies both a young fowl and a love letter. Poulet, amatoriae literae, says Richelet; and quotes from Voiture, Repondre au plus obligeant poulet du monde; to reply to the most obliging letter in the world. The Italians use the same manner of expression, when they call a love- epistle, une pollicetta amorosa. I owed the hint of this equivocal use of the word, to my ingenious friend Mr. Bishop.

THEOBALD.

Henry IV. consulting with Sully about his mar riage, says,,,my niece of Guise would please me best, notwithstanding the malicious reports, that she loves poulets in paper, better than in a fri. casee." - A message is called a cold pigeon, in the letter concerning the entertainments at Killing. worth Castle. FARMER.

To break up was a peculiar phrase in carving,

PERCY.

P. 37, 1. 24. Break the neck of the wax,] Still alluding to the capon. JOHNSON.

P. 37, 1. 28. 29. More fairer than fair, beau tiful than beauteous, etc.] I would read, fairer that fair, more beautiful, etc. TYRWHITT.

P. 37, 1. 31 illustrate ] for illustrious. It is often used by Chapman in his translation of Homer. STEEVENS.

P. 37, 1. 32. The ballad of King Cophetua and the Beggar - Maid, may be seen in The Reliques of Ancient Poetry, Vol. I. The beggar's name was Penelophon, here corrupted. PERCY.

The poet alludes to this song in Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV. P. II. and Richard II.

STEEVENS. P. 38, 1. 21-28. These six lines appear to be a quotation from some ridiculous poem of that tine. WARBURTON.

P. 38, last 1. Boyet. I am much deceived, but I remember the style. Prin. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it -] A pun upon the

word stile. MUSGRAVE.

P. 38, last 1.

erewhile.] Just now; a little while ago. So Raleigh:

,,Here lies Hobbinol, our shepherd while e'er."

JOHNSON.

P. 39, 1. 3. A phantasm, a Monarcho;] On the books of the Stationers' Company, Feb. 6, 1608, is entered, „a book called Phantasm, the Italian Taylor and his Boy; made by Mr. Armin, servant to his majesty." It probably contains the history of Monarcho, of whom Dr. Farmer speaks in the following note. STEEVENS.

The allusion is to a fantastical character of the time.,,Popular applause (says Meres) doth nou rish some, neither do they gape after any other thing, but vaine praise and glorie, age Peter Shakerlye of Paules, and Monarcho that lived about the court." p. 178. FARMER.

as in our

P. 39, 1. 16. Come, Lords, away.] Perhaps the Princess said rather;

,, Come, Ladies, away."

The rest of the scene deserves no care.

JOHNSON.

P. 59, 1. 20. Who is the suitor?] The old copies read ,, Who is the shooter?" but it should be who is the suitor? and this occasions the quibble.,,Finely put on,“ etc. seem only margi nal observations. FARMER.

It appears that suitor was anciently pronounced shooter. So, in The Puritan, 1605: the maid informs her mistress that some archers are come to wait on her. She supposes them to be fletchers, or arrow-smiths:

Enter the suters, etc.

are

,,Why do you not see them before you? not these archers, what do you call them, shooters? Shooters and archers are all one, I hope."

STEEVENS.

Wherever Shakspeare uses words equivocally, as in the present instance, he lays his editor un der some cmbarrassment, When he told Ben Jonson

he,