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BOYET. Madam, and pretty miftreffes, give ear: Immediately they will again be here

In their own fhapes; for it can never be,
They will digeft this harsh indignity.

PRIN. Will they return?

BOYET. They will, they will, God knows; And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows: Therefore, change favours; and, when they repair, Blow like fweet rofes in this fummer air.

PRIN. How blow? how blow? speak to be understood.

BOYET. Fair ladies, mask'd, are roses in their

bud:

Difmafk'd, their damask fweet commixture fhown, Are angels vailing clouds, or rofes blown."

Majeftie is greatlie ofended with the offers, in that they wanted jugeSee Lodge's Illuftrations of British Hiftory, Vol. II. p. 228. STEEVENS..

ment.

The ftatute mentioned by Dr. Grey was repealed in the year 1597. The epithet by which thefe ftatute caps are described, "plain ftatute caps, induces me to believe the interpretation given

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in the preceding note by Mr. Steevens, the true one. The king and his lords probably wore hats adorned with feathers. So they are reprefented in the print prefixed to this play in Mr. Rowe's edition, probably from fome ftage tradition. MALONE.

Fair ladies, mafk'd, are rofes in their bud:

Difmafk'd, their damafk fweet commixture shown,

Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.] This frange nonfenfe, made worfe by the jumbling together and tranfpofing the lines, I dire&ed Mr. Theobald to read thus:

Fair ladies mafk'd are rofes in their bud:

Or angels veil'd in clouds: are roses blown,
Difmafk'd, their damafk fweet commixture Jhown,

But he, willing to show how well he could improve a thought, would print it:

Or angel-veiling clouds

i. e. clouds which veil angels: and by this means gave us, as the old proverb fays, a cloud for a Juno. It was Shakspeare's purpose to compare a fine lady to an angel; it was Mr. Theobald's chance

PRIN. Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do, If they return in their own fhapes to woo?

Ros. Good madam, if by me you'll be advis'd, Let's mock them ftill, as well known, as difguis'd: Let us complain to them what fools were here, Difguis'd like Mufcovites, in fhapeless gear;'

to compare her to a cloud: and perhaps the ill-bred reader will fay a lucky one. However, I fuppofed the poet could never be so nonfenfical as to compare a majked lady to a cloud, though he might compare her mask to one. The Oxford editor, who had the advantage both of this emendation and criticism, is a great deal more fubtile and refined, and fays it fhould not be

but

angels veil'd in clouds,

angels vailing clouds,

i. e. capping the fun as they go by him, just as a bonnet. WARBURTON.

man vails his

I know not why Sir T. Hanmer's explanation fhould be treated with fo much contempt, or why vailing clouds fhould be capping the fun. Ladies unmafk'd, fays Boyet, are like angels vailing clouds, or letting thofe clouds which obfcured their brightnefs, fink from before them. What is there in this abfurd or contemptible?

JOHNSON.

Holinfhed's Hiftory of Scotland, p. 91. fays: "The Britains began to avale the hills where they had lodged." i. e. they began to defcend the hills, or come down from them to meet their enemies. If Shakspeare ufes the word vailing in this fenfe, the meaning is Angels defcending from clouds which concealed their beauties; but Dr. Johnfon's expofition may be better. TOLLET.

To avale comes from the Fr. aval [Terme de batelier] Down, downward, down the ftream. So, in the French Romant de la Rofe, v. 1415:

"L'eaue aloit aval, faisant

"Son mélodieux & plaifant."

Again, in Laneham's Narrative of Queen Elizabeth's Entertainment at Kenelworth-Castle, 1575: “

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as on a fea-fhore when

-fhapeless gear; ] Shapeless, for uncouth, or what Shakspeare elfewhere calls diffufed. WARBURTON.

And wonder, what they were; and to what end
Their fhallow fhows, and prologue vilely penn'd,
And their rough carriage fo ridiculous,
Should be prefented at our tent to us.

BOYET. Ladies, withdraw; the gallants are at hand.

PRIN. Whip to our tents, as roes run over land. [Exeunt PRINCESS,' ROS. KATH. and MARIA.

Enter the King, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN, in their proper habits.

KING. Fair fir, God fave you! Where is the prin cefs?

BOYET. Gone to her tent: Please it your majefly, Command me any fervice to her thither?

KING. That fhe vouchfafe me audience for one

word.

BOYET. I will; and fo will fhe, I know, my

lord.

[Exit.

BIRON. This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons

peas:

And utters it again when God doth please:

3 Exeunt Princess, &c.] Mr. Theobald ends the fourth a& here. JOHNSON.

verbial:

·pecks up wit, as pigeons peas; ] This expreffion is pro

"Children pick up words as pigeons peas,
"And utter them again as God fhall pleafe."

See Ray's Collection. STEEVENS.

Pecks is the reading of the first quarto. The folio has-picks. That pecks is the true reading, is afcertained by one of Nashe's trads; Chrift's Tears over Jerufalem, 1594: "The fower fcattered fome feede by the highway fide, which the foules of the ayre peck'd up.' MALONE.

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He is wit's pedler; and retails his wares

At wakes, and waffels, ' meetings, markets, fairs;
And we that feil by grofs, the Lord doth know,
Have not the grace to grace it with fuch fhow.
This gallant pins the wenches on his fleeve;
Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve:
He can carve too, and lisp: Why, this is he,
That kifs'd away his hand in courtesy;
This is the ape of form, monfieur the nice,
That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice
In honourable terms; nay, he can fing

A mean moft meanly; and, in ufhering,

S waffels, Waffels were meetings of ruftic mirth and intemperance. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

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Antony

"Leave thy lascivious waffels”. See note on Macbeth, A& 1. fc. vii.

STEEVENS.

Waes heal, that is, be of health, was a falutation firft ufed by the lady Rowena to King Vortiger. Afterwards it became a cuftom in villages, on new year's eve and twelfth-night, to carry a Waffel or Waiffail bowl from houfe to houfe, which was prefented with the Saxon words above mentioned. Hence in procefs of time waffel fignified intemperance in drinking, and also a meeting for the purpofe of feftivity. MALONE.

6 He can carve too, and lifp:] The charader of Boyet, as drawn by Biron, represents an accomplished squire of the days of Chivalry, particulary in the inftances here noted."Le jeune Ecuyer apprenoit long-temps dans le filence cet art de bien parler, lorfqu'en qualité d'Ecuyer TRANCHANT, il étoit debout dans les repas & dans les feftins, occupé à couper les viandes avec la propreté, l'addreffe l'élégance convenables, & à les faire diftribuer aux nobles convives dont il étoit environné. Joinville, dans fa jeunesse, avoit rempli à la cour de Saint Louis cet office, qui, dans les maisons des Souverains, étoit quelquefois exercé par leurs propres enfans. Mémoires fur l'ancienne Chevalerie, Tom. I. p. 16. HENLEY.

I cannot cog, fays Falftaff in The Merry Wives of Windfør,) and fay, thou art this and that, like a many of these lifping hawthorn buds, that come like women in men's apparel—. On the fubje& of carving fee Vol. V. p. 39, n. 5. MALONE.

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7 A mean most meanly; &c.] The mean, in mufic, is the tenor. So, Bacon: "The treble cutteth the air so sharp, as it returneth

Mend him who can: the ladies call him, fweet;
The ftairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet:
This is the flower that fmiles on every one,
To fhow his teeth as white as whales bone:

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too swift to make the found equal; and therefore a mean or tenor is the sweeteft.

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Again, in Herod and Antipater, 1622:

Thus fing we defcant on one plain-fong, kill; "Four parts in one; the mean excluded quite.

Again, in Drayton's Baron's Wars. Cant. iii.

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"The bafe and treble married to the mean. STEEVENS.

as white as whales bone:]

As white as whale's bone is a

proverbial comparison in the old pocts. In The Faery Queen, B. III.

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Whofe face did feem as clear as cryftal ftone,

"And eke, through feare, as white as whales bone."

And in L. Surrey, fol. 14, edit. 1567:

"I might perceive a wolf, as white as whales bone,

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A fairer beaft of frefher hue, beheld I never none. Skelton joins the whales bone with the brighteft precious ftones, in defcribing the polition of Palias:

"A hundred fleppes mounting to the halle,
"One of jafper, another of whales bone;

"Of diamanies, pointed by the rokky walle,"
Crowne of Laurell, p. 24. edit. 1736. T.

WARTON,

as whales bone: The Saxon genitive cafe. So, in A MidJummer-Night's Dream:

Swifter than the moones fphere.

It should be remember'd that fome of our ancient writers fuppofed ivory to be part of the bones of a whale. The fame fimile occurs in the old black letter romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys, no date:

The erle had no chylde but one,

"A mayden as white as whales bone."

Again, in the ancient metrical romance of Syr Ifembras, bl. I. no date:

"His wyfe as white as whales bone."

Again, in The Squhr of Low Degree, bl. I. no date:

"Lady as white as whales bone."

Again, in Nash's Lenten Stuff, &c. 1599:

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his herrings which were as white as whales bone," &c.

STEEVENS.

This white whale his bone, now fuperfeded by ivory, was the

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