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P. 156, 1. 2. Whoop, do me no harm, good man; This was the name of an old song. In the famous history of Fryar Bacon we have a ballad to the tune of, Oh! do me no harme, good man. FARMER.

This tune is preserved in a collection intitled ..Ayres, to sing and play to the Lvte and Basse Violl. with Pauins, Galliards, Almaines, and Corantos, for the Lyra Violl. By William Corbine:" 1610. fol. RITSON.

P. 156, 1. 7. Has he any unbraided wares ?] Surely we must read braided, for such are all the wares mentioned in the answer. JOHNSON.

I believe by unbraided wares, the Clown means, has he any thing besides laces which are braided, and are the principal commodity sold by ballad-singing pedlers. Yes, replies the servant, he has ribands, etc. which are things not braided, but woven. The drift of the Clown's question, is either to know whether Autolycus has any thing better than is commonly sold by such vagrants; any thing worthy to be presented to his mistress: or, as probably, by enquiring for something which pedlars usually have not, to escape laying out his money at all. STEEVENS.

Unbraided wares may be wares of the best ma nufacture. Braid in Shakspeare's All's Well, etc. Act IV. sc. ii. signifies deceitful. Braided in Bailey's Dict. means faded, or having lost its colour; and why then may not unbraided import whatever is undamaged, or what is of the better sort? Several old statutes forbid the importation of ribands, laces, etc. as falsely and deceitfully wrought." TOLLET. Probably unbraided wares means, wares not ornamented with braid." M. MASON.

The clown is perhaps inquiring not for some thing better than common, but for smooth and plain

goods. Has he any plain wares, not twisted into braids? Ribands, cambricks, and lawns, all answer to this description. MALONE.

P. 156, 1. 9. The points that afford Autolycus a subject for this quibble, were laces with metal tags to them. Aiguilettes, Fr. MALONE.

P. 156, 1. 11. Caddis is, I believe, a narrow worsted galloon. I remember when very young to have heard it enumerated by a pedler among the articles of his pack. There is a very narrow slight serge of this name now made in France. Inkle is a kind of tape" also. MALONE.

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P. 156, 1. 14. 15. he so chants to the sleeve-hand, and the work about the square on't.] Sir Thomas Haumer reads sleeve-band. JOHNSON.

The old reading is right, or we must alter some. passages in other authors. The word sleeve-hands occurs in Leland's Collectanea, 1770, Vol. IV. p. 323: A surcoat [of crimson velvet] furred with mynever pure, the coller, skirts, and sleeve-hands garnished with ribbons of gold." So, in Cotgrave's Dict. Poignet de la chemise." is Englished the wristband or gathering at the sleeve-hand of a shirt."

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TOLLET.

P. 156, 1. 28. 29. Bugle bracelet, neclace-amber, Perfume for a lady's chamber:] Place only comma after amber. ..Autolycus is puffing his female wares, and says that he has got among his other rare articles for ladies, some necklace-amber, an amber of which neclaces are made, commonly called head-amber, fit to perfume a lady's chamber. So, in The Taming of the Shrew, Act IV. sc. iii. Petruchio mentions amber-bracelets, beads," etc. T. WARTON.

P. 156, 1. 32. and poking-sticks of steel,] These poking-sticks were heated in the fire, and made

use of to adjust the plaits of ruffs. They are several times mentioned in Heywood's If you know not me you know Nobody, 1633, second part; and in the Yorkshire Tragedy, 1619, which has been attributed to Shakspeare. In the books of the Stationers' Company, July 1590, was entered A ballat entitled Blewe Starche and Poking-sticks. Allowed under the hand of the Bishop of London."

Stowe informs us, that about the sixteenth yeare of the queene [Elizabeth] began the making of steele poking-sticks, and untill that time all lawndresses used setting stickes made of wood or bone." Vol. IV. p. 436. STEEVENS.

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P. 157, 1. 15. Kiln-hole is the mouth of the oven. The word is spelt in the old copy kill-hole, and I should have supposed it an intentional blunder, but that Mrs. Ford in The merry Wives of Windsor desires Falstaff to creep into the kiln-hole;" and there the same false spelling is found. Mrs. Ford was certainly not intended for a blunderer.

MALONE.

Kiln-hole is the place into which coals are put under a stove, a copper, or a kiln in which lime, etc. are to be dried or burned. To watch the kilnhole, or stoking-hole, is part of the office of female servants in farm-houses. Kiln, at least in England, is not a synonyme to oven. STEEVENS.

P. 157, l. 18. Clamour your tongues,] The phrase is taken from ringing. When bells are at the height, in order to cease them, the repetition of the strokes becomes much quicker than before; this is called clamouring them. The allusion is humourous. WARBURTON.

The word clamour, when applied to bells, does not signify in Shakspeare a ceasing, but a conti nued ringing. Perhaps the meaning is, Give one

grand peal, and then have done. A good Clam," (as I learn from Mr. Nichols) in some villages is used in this sense, signifying a grand peal of all the beils at once. I suspect that Dr. Warbuton's is a nere gratis dictum.

In a note on Othello, Dr. Johnson says, that to clam a bell is to cover the clapper with felt, which drowns the blow, and hinders the sound." If this be so, it affords an easy interpretation of the passage before us. MALONE.

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Admitting this to be the sense, the disputed phrase may answer to the modern one of ringing a dumb peal, i. e. with muffled bells. STEEVENS, P. 157, 1. 20. Tawdry lace is thus described in Skinner, by his friend Dr. Henshawe: Tawdrie lace, astrigmenta, timbriae, seu fasciolae, emiae Nundinis Sae. Etheldredae celebratis: Ut rectè monet Doc. Thomas Henshawe." Etymol. in voce.

T. WARTON.

So, in The Life and death of Jack Straw, a comedy, 1593:

..Will you in faith, and I'll give you a tawdrie lace."

Tom, the miller, offers this present to the Queen, if she will procure his pardon.

It may be worth while to observe, that these tawdry laces were not the strings with which the ladies fasten their stays, but were worn about their heads, and their waists. STEEVENS.

P. 157, I. 20. Sweet, or perfumed gloves, are fre quently mentioned by Shakspeare, and were very fashionable in the age of Elizabeth, and long afterwards. Thus Autolycus, in the song just preceding this passage, offers to sale:

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Cloves as sweet as damask roses."

Slowe's Continuator, Edmund Howes, informs

us, that the English could not make any costly wash or perfume, until about the fourteenth or fifteenth of the queene [Elizabeth,] the right honourable Edward Vere earle of Oxford came from Italy, and brought with him gloves, sweet bagges a perfumed leather jerkin, and other pleasant thinges: and that yeare the queene had a payre of perfumed gloves trimmed onlie with fourc tuftes, or roses, of cullered silke. The queene took such pleasure in those gloves that shee was pictured with those gloves upon her hands: and for many yeers after it was called the erle of Oxfordes perfume. Stowe's Annals by Howes, edit. 1614, p. 868. col. 2.

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In the computus of the bursars of Trinity college, Oxford, for the year 1631, the following article occurs: Solut. pro fumigandis chirothecis." Gloves makes a constant and considerable article of expence in the earlier accompt-books of the college here mentioned; and without doubt in those of many other societies. They were annually given (a custom still subsisting) to the college tenants, and often presented to guests of distinction. But it appears (at

least, from accompts of the said college in preceding years) that the practice of perfuming gloves for this purpose was fallen into disuse soon after the reigu

of Charles the First. T. WARTON.

P. 157, 1. 31. I love a ballad in print, a' life;] Theobald reads, as it has been hitherto printed, or a life. The text, however, is right; only it should be printed thus: a-life. It is the abbreviation, I suppose, of at life; as a work is, of at work. TYRWHITT.

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This restoration is certainly proper. So, in The Isle of Gulls, 1606: Now in good deed I love them a life too." STEEVENS.

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