bear, to carry, to gain, to win: It must not bear my daughter, vi. 511; with more facile question bear it, vii. 384.

bear a brain," have a perfect remembrance or recollection" (REED), vi. 398.

bear hard, "to have an unfavourable opinion of" (STEEVENS), "to bear a grudge" (CRAIK): Cæsar doth bear me hard, vi. 625; Caius Ligarius doth bear Cæsar hard, vi. 636; if you bear me hard, vi. 651. bear-herd, the keeper of a bear, iii. 110; iv. 324. bear in hand, to keep in expectation, to flatter one's hopes, to amuse with false pretences: bear her in hand, ii. 126; she bears me fair in hand, iii. 155; bear a gentleman in hand, iv. 321; Bore many gentlein hand, i. 455; Your daughter, whom she bore in hand to love (whom she insidiously led to believe that she loved), vii. 722; How you were borne in hand, vii. 33; Was falsely borne in hand, vii. 133.

men

bearing-cloth, the cloth or mantle which usually covered the child when it was carried to the font, iii. 460; v. 15.

bears-Call hither to the stake my two brave, v. 191: "The Nevils, Earls of Warwick, had a bear and ragged staff for their cognizance" (SIR J. HAWKINS): see, a little farther on, the speech of Warwick, "Now, by my father's badge," &c.

bears [betray'd] with glasses, vi. 636: "Bears are reported to have been surprised by means of a mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their pursuers an opportunity of taking the surer aim" (STEEVENS).

bear-ward, the keeper of a bear, i. 86; v. 191, 193.

bear-whelp-Unlick'd: see unlick'd, &c.

beat on, to be busy on, to hammer on: Do not infest your mind with beating on The strangeness, &c. i. 233; thine eyes and thoughts Beat on a crown, v. 128; Whereon his brains still beating, vii. 152; this her mind beats upon, viii. 191.

:

beautified Ophelia-The most, vii. 134; "beautified" is a vile phrase, ibid. By beautified (which, however "vile a phrase," is common enough in our early writers) I believe that Hamlet means "beautiful," and not " accomplished," as it is explained by Caldecott. beauty-Be called thieves of the day's, iv. 210: "There is, I have no doubt, a pun on the word beauty, which in the western counties is pronounced nearly in the same manner as booty. See King Henry VI. Part iii. [act i. sc. 4]; 'So triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty'" (MALONE).

beaver on-With his, iv. 266; through a rusty beaver peeps, iv. 478; I cleft his beaver, v. 235; is my beaver easier, v. 443; in a gold beaver, vi. 24; his beaver up, vii. 114; their beavers down, iv. 366:

VOL. IX.

D

"The beaver of a helmet is frequently used by writers, improperly enough, to express the helmet itself. It is in reality the lower part of it, adapted to the purpose of giving the wearer [by raising it up] an opportunity of taking breath when oppressed with heat, or, without putting off the helmet, of taking his repast" (DOUCE). becks, bows, vi. 522.

become, to adorn, to set-off, to grace: become disloyalty, ii. 25; become the field, iv. 63; become hard-favour'd death, v. 64; vilest things become themselves in her, vii. 522; becomes the ground, iii. 42; Whether the horse by him became his deed, viii. 442.

become you well to worship shadows-Since your falsehood shall, i. 309: "It is simply 'since your falsehood shall adapt or render you fit to worship shadows.' Become here answers to the Latin convenire, and is used according to its genuine Saxon meaning" (DOUCE).

becomed, for becoming: what becomèd love I might, vi. 453. becoming, an adorning, the power of setting-off: Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, viii. 424.

becoming-So fill'd and so, iii. 457: see note 75, iii. 517. becomings-My, What becomes me, vii. 507.

bedfellow-The man that was his, iv. 438: "This unseemly custom [of men sleeping together] continued common till the middle of the last century, if not later" (MALONE).

Bedlam-Tom o'; the Bedlam; Bedlam beggars: see Tom o' Bedlam, &c.

beg us-You cannot, ii. 225: Costard means, "We are not fools:" “To beg a person for a fool; to apply to be his guardian. In the old common law was a writ de idiota inquirendo, under which, if a man was legally proved an idiot, the profits of his lands and the custody of his person might be granted by the king to any subject. See Blackstone, B. i. ch. 8, § 18. Such a person, when this grant was asked, was said to be begged for a fool; which that learned judge regarded as being still a common expression. See his note, loc. cit." Nares's Gloss.: "Frequent allusions to this practice occur in the old comedies. In illustration of it Mr. Ritson has given a curious story, which, as it is mutilated in the authority which he has used [Cabinet of Mirth, 1674], is here subjoined from a more original source, a collection of tales, &c., compiled about the time of Charles the First, preserved among the Harleian Mss. in the British Museum, No. 6395. 'The Lord North begg'd old Bladwell for a foole (though he could never prove him so), and having him in his custodie as a lunaticke, he carried him to a gentleman's house, one day, that was his neighbour. The L. North and the gentleman retir'd awhile to private discourse, and left Bladwell in the dining roome, which was hung with a faire hanging. Bladwell walking

up and downe, and viewing the imagerie, spyed a foole at last in the hanging, and without delay drawes his knife, flyes at the foole, cutts him cleane out, and layes him on the floore. My L. and the gentl. coming in againe, and finding the tapestrie thus defac'd, he ask'd Bladwell what he meant by such a rude uncivill act he answered, Sr., be content, I have rather done you a courtesie than a wrong, for if ever my L. N. had seene the foole there, he would have begg'd him, and so you might have lost your whole suite.' The same story, but without the parties' names, is related in Fuller's Holy State, p. 182" (DouUCE).

"Beggar and the King-The," iv. 174: see Cophetua-King. beguil'd with outward honesty, covered with the mask of honesty,

viii. 331.

behave, to govern, to manage: He did behave his anger, vi. 541. behest, a command, vii. 718.

beholding, beholden, i. 315, 351, 503; ii. 356; iii. 56, 128, 130; iv. 11, 161; v. 384, 395, 501, 545, 567, 572; vi. 294, 349, 657 (twice); viii. 32.

beldam, a grandmother: the old beldam earth, iv. 247 (where, in the next line but one, is Our grandam earth, as synonymous); To show the beldam daughters of her daughter, viii. 314; Old men and beldams (old women), iv. 55.

beldam, used as a term of contempt,-a hag: Beldam, I think we watch'd you, v. 126; beldams as you are, vii. 43.

be-lee'd and calm'd, vii. 376: "I have been informed that one vessel is said to be in the lee of another when it is so placed that the wind is intercepted from it. Iago's meaning therefore is, that Cassio had got the wind of him, and be-calm'd him from going on. To be-calm (as I learn from Falconer's Marine Dictionary) is likewise to obstruct the current of the wind in its passage to a ship, by any contiguous object" (STEEVENS).

Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back, iv. 39: "In the solemn form of excommunication used in the Romish Church, the bell was tolled, the book of offices for the purpose used, and three candles extinguished with certain ceremonies." Nares's Gloss. (So Dekker; "Bell, booke, or candle cannot curse me out."

If it be not good, the Deuil is in it, 1612, sig. B 3.)

Bellona's bridegroom, vii. 7: Means Macbeth.

bells-If Warwick shake his, v. 236: An allusion to the bells with which falcons were furnished.

be-mete, to be-measure, iii. 162.

bemoiled, bemired, iii. 151.

benches - Sleeping upon, iv. 210: i. e. sleeping upon ale-house

36

BENCH-HOLES-BESONIAN.

benches, a habit of idle sots: see Gifford's note on Jonson's Works, vol. i. p. 103.

bench-holes, holes of privies, vii. 570.

bending author. Our, iv. 508: "By bending our author meant unequal to the weight of his subject, and bending beneath it; or he may mean, as in Hamlet, Here stooping to your clemency' " (STEEVENS).

beneath-world-This, vi. 508: compare th' under generation; see note 141, i. 541.

benefit proceeding from our king-Of, v. 78: "Benefit is here a term of law. Be content to live as the beneficiary of our king" (JOHNSON).

benison, blessing, vii. 31, 256, 328; viii. 19.

bent-Her affections have their full, ii. 101; the very bent of honour,

ii. 123; thy affection cannot hold the bent, iii. 352; in the full bent, vii. 132; fool me to the top of my bent, vii. 163: "Bent is used by our author for the utmost degree of any passion or mental quality. The expression is derived from archery; the bow has its bent when it is drawn as far as it can be" (JOHNSON).

Bergomask dance—A, ii. 321; your Bergomask, ibid.: “A dance after the manner of the peasants of Bergomasco, a county in Italy belonging to the Venetians. All the buffoons in Italy affect to imitate the ridiculous jargon of that people, and from thence it became a custom to mimic also their manner of dancing" (HANMER).

Bermoothes-The, The Bermudas, i. 184.

beshrew, to curse, but a mild form of imprecation,

=

"a mis

chief on," i. 266; ii. 369, 380; vi. 464; vii. 131; and in many other passages.

besmirch, to be-smut, vii. 116; besmirch'd, iv. 482: see smirch. besonian, iv. 396; besonians, v. 168: The Italian origin of the word besonian (see post) shows that it properly means a needy fellow, a beggar :" but it was also used in the sense of

..

a raw or

needy soldier;" and eventually it became a term of reproach,— a knave, a scoundrel" ("Bisogno, need, want. Also a fresh needy soldier.. Bisognoso, needy, necessitous." Florio's Ital. and Engl. Dict.: "Bisongne. a filthie knaue, or clowne; a raskall, bisonian, base humored scoundrell." Cotgrave's Fr. and Engl. Dict.: For the following illustrations of the word I am indebted to Mr. Bolton Corney; "Their order is [in Spain], where the warres are present, to supplie their regiments, being in action, with the garrisons out of all his dominions and prouinces before they dislodge, besonios supply [ing] their places, raw men, as wee tearme them. By these meanes hee traines his besonios, and furnisheth his armie

with trained souldiers." A brief discourse of Warre, by Sir Roger Williams, 1590, 4to, p. 11: "Bisognio or Bisonnio, a Spanish or Italian word, and is, as we terme it, a raw souldier, unexpert in his weapon, and other military points." The theorike and practike of moderne warres, by Robert Barret, 1598, folio, sig. y 4: Bisoños,

....

Voyez Visoños Visoño, nouueau soldat, apprenty." Tesoro de las dos lengvas Francesa y Española, por Cesar Ovdin, 1607, 4to: Bisoño, el soldado nueuo en la milicia, es nobre casual y moderno," &c. Tesoro de la lengva Castellana, o Española, por D. Sebastian de Cobarruuias, 1611, sig. s 2 verso: Cobarruuis or Covarruvias gives us twenty-five lines on this word: he states that some Spanish soldiers in Italy learned the word Visoño, and were accustomed to ask alms, saying Visoño pan, Visoño carne, &c., and were thence called Visoños; which circumstance is alluded to by one of their dramatists, Torres Naharro).

besort, attendance, train: With such accommodation and besort, vii. 390.

besort, to suit, to befit, to become: such men as may besort your age, vii. 270.

best-Send us to Rome The, vi. 157: Here the best means "the chief persons of Corioli."

best men

Men of few words are the, iv. 452: "best men, that is bravest; so, in the next lines, good deeds are brave actions" (JOHNSON).

Best-That did betray the, iii. 432: An allusion to Judas Iscariot. best-condition'd, endowed with the best disposition, ii. 388: see condition.

best-indu'd, "gifted or endowed in the most extraordinary manner" (STEEVENS), iv. 441.

bested-Worse, "In a worse plight" (JOHNSON), v. 137.

bestow, to stow, to lodge, to place: bestow your luggage, i. 235; bestow these papers, vi. 630; bestow yourselves, vii. 148, 149; I will bestow him, vii. 172; you have bestow'd my money, ii. 11; our bloody cousins are bestow'd In England, vii. 32; will you see the players well bestowed? vii. 145; Where the dead body is bestow'd, vii. 176; the old man and his people Cannot be well bestow'd, vii. 292; Where he bestows himself, vii. 44.

bestow, to carry, to show: see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his true colours, iv. 338; bestows himself Like a ripe sister, iii. 63. bestowed her on her own lamentation, "gave her up to her sorrows" (STEEVENS), i. 483.

bestraught, distraught, mad, iii. 110.

beteem, to give in streaming abundance: which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes, ii. 268.