P. 58, 1. 26. Go, fool, and whom thou keep'st command.] This is exactly the Πασσάμενος επίτασσε of Theocritus, Eid. xv. v. 90. and yet I would not be positive that Shakspeare had ever read even a translation of Theoeritus. TYRWHITT.

P. 39, 1. 52. For patience she will prove a second Grissel;] There is a play at Stationers' Hall, May 28, 1599, called The plaie of Patient Grissel." Bocaccio was the first known writer of the story, and Chaucer copied it in his Clerke of Oxenforde's Tale. STEEVENS.

The story of Grisel is older than Bocaccio, and is to be found among the compositions of the French Fabliers. DOUCE.

P. 40, 1. 13. Vye and revye were terms at cards, now superseded by the more modern word, brag. Our author has in another place, time revys us,' which has been more unnecessarily altered. The words were frequently used in a sense somewhat remote from their original one. In the famous trial of the seven bishops, the chief justice says, ..We must not permit vying and revying upon one another." FARMER.

It appears from a passage in Green's Tu Quoque, that to vie was one of the terms used at the game of Gleek I'll none of it;"-nor I." STEEVENS.

I vie it."

Vie and Revie were terms at Primero, the fashionable game in our author's time. MALONE. P. 40, 1. 15. 'tis a world to see,] i. e. it is won derful to see. This expression is often met with in old historians as well as dramatic writers.

STEEVENS.

P. 40, 1. 17. A meacock wretch - i. e. a timorous dastardly creature. STEEVENS.

P. 41, 1. 24.

counterpoints,] These coverings for beds are at present called counterpanes; but either mode of spelling is proper.

Counterpoint is the monkish term for a particu lar species of musick, in which notes of equal duration, but of different harmony, are set in opposition to each other.

In like manner counterpanes were anciently composed of patch work, and so contrived that every pane or partition in them, was contrasted with one of a different colour, though of the same dimensions. STEEVENS.

Counterpoints were in ancient times extremely costly. In Wat Tyler's rebellion, Stowe informs us, when the insurgents broke into the wardrobe in the Savoy, they destroyed a coverlet, worth a thousand marks. MALONE.

P. 41, 1. 25. I suppose by tents old Gremio means work of that kind which the ladies call tent-stitch. He would hardly enumerate tents (in their common acceptation) among his domestick riches.

STEEVENS.

I suspect, the furniture of some kind of bed, in the form of a pavillion, was known by this name in our author's time. MALONE.

I conceive, the pavillion, or tent-bed, to have been an article of furniture unknown in the age of Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

P. 41, 1. 28. We may suppose that pewter was, even in the time of Queen Elizabeth, too costly to be used in common. It appears from The regulations and establishment of the household of Henry, Algeron Percy, the fifth Earl of Northumberland," etc. that vessels of pewter were hired by the year. This household-book was begun in the year 1512.

STEEVENS.

My land amounts not to so much in all:

That she shall have: besides an argosy,] Though all copies concur in this reading, surely, if we examine the reasoning something will be found wrong. Gremio is startled at the high settlement Tranio proposes: says, his whole estate in land can't match it, yet he'll settle so much a year upon her, etc. This is playing at cross purposes. The change of the negative in the second line salves the absurdity, and sets the passage right. Gremio and Tranio vying in their offers to carry Bianca, the latter boldly proposes to settle land to the amount of two thousand ducats per annum. My whole estate, says the other, in land, amounts but to that value; yet she shall have that: I'll endow her with the whole and consign a rich vessel to her use over and above. Thus all is intelligible, and he goes on to out-bid his rival. WARBURTON.

Gremio only says, his whole estate in land doth not indeed amount to two thousand ducats a year, but she shall have that, whatever be its value, and an argosy over and above; which argosy must be understood to be of very great value from his subjoining:

What, have I chok'd you with an argosy?
HEATH.

P. 42, 1. 15. A galeas or galliass, is a heavy low-built vessel of burthen, with both sails and oars, partaking at once of the nature of a ship and a galley. STEEVENS.

P. 42, 1. 22. Gremio is out-vied.] This is a term at the old game of gleek. When one man was vied

upon another, he was said to be out-vied.

STEEVENS.

P. 43, 1. 3. young gamester,] Perhaps alluding to the pretended Lucentio's having before talk'd of out-vying him. MALONK.

Gamester, in the present instance, has no reference to gaming, and only signifies

frolicksome character. STEEVENS.

a wag, a

P. 45, 1. 8. I have faced it with a card of ten.] That is, with the highest card, in the old simple games of our ancestors. So that this became a pro

verbial expression.

So Ben Jonson, in his Sad Shepherd:

a Hart of ten

..I trow he be."

i. e. an extraordinary good one.

WARBURTON.

A hart of ten has no reference to cards, but is an expression taken from The Laws of the Forest, and relates to the age of the deer. When a hart is past six years old, he is generally called a hart of ten. See Forest Laws, 4to. 1598. As we are on the subject of cards, it may not be amiss to take notice of a common blunder relative to their names. We call the king, queen, and knave, court-cards, whereas they were anciently denominated coats, or coat-cards, from their coats or dresses.

STEEVENS. P. 43, 1. 23. 24. But, wrangling pedant, this is The patroness etc.] We should read,

with Sir T. Hanmer:

But, wrangling pedant, know this lady is.

RITSON.

P. 44, 1. 4. I am no breeching scholar -] i. e. no school-boy liable to corporal correction.

STEEVENS.

P. 44, 1. 24. that we might beguile the old pan. taloon.] The old cully in Italian farces. JOHNSON. P. 45, 1. 3. Pedascule,] He should have said, Didascale, but thinking this too honourable, he coins the word Pedascule, in imitation of it, from pedant. WARBURTON.

1

I believe it is no coinage of Shakspeare's, it is more probable that it lay in his way; and he found it.

P. 45, 1. 4. In time I may believe, yet I mistrust.] This and the seven verses that follow, have in all the editions been stupidly shuffled and misplaced to wrong speakers; so that every word said was glaringly out of character. THEOBALD.

P. 45, 1. 5. 6. Mistrust it not; for, sure, Aeaci

des

Was Ajax, -] This is only said to deceive Hortensio who is supposed to listen. The pedigree of Ajax, however, is properly made out, and might have been taken from Golding's Version of Ovid's Metamorphosis, Book XIII. STEEVENS. P. 45, 1. 16. for, but I be deceiv'd.] But has here the signification of unless. MALONE.

P. 46, last 1. but one. - full of spleen;] That is, full of humour, caprice, and inconstancy. JOHNSON. P. 48, 1. 5. How a sword should have two broken points, I cannot tell. There is, I think, a transpo sition caused by the seeming relation of point to sword. I read, a pair of boots, one buckled, an other laced with two broken points; an old rusty sword with a broken hilt, and chapeless.

JOHNSON.

I suspect that several words giving an account of Petruchio's belt are wanting. The belt was then broad and rich, and worn on the outside of the doublet. Two broken points might therefore have