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"Kernes and Gallowglasses.”—Act I. Sc. 2. We have the following account of Kernes and Gallowglasses, in Barnaby Riche's new Irish Prognostication: "The Galloglas succeedeth the horseman, and he is commonly armed with a scull; a shirte of maile, and a Galloglas axe. His service in the field is neither good against horsemen, nor able to endure an encounter of pikes: yet the Irish do make great account of them. The Kerne of Ireland are next in request, the very dross and scum of the country, a generation of villaines not fit to live these be they that live by robbing and spoyling the poor countreyman, that maketh him many times to buye bread to give unto them, thouge he want for himselfe and his poore children. These are they that are ready to run out with everie rebell, and these are the verie hags of hell, fit for nothing but for the gallows."

BOSWELL.

"Saint Colmes' Inch."-Act I. Sc. 2. Colmes' Inch, now called Inchcomb, is a small

island in the Firth of Edinburgh, with an abbey upon it, dedicated to Saint Colomb, called by Camden Inch Colm, or the Isle of St. Columba. Holinshed thus relates the circumstance alluded to in the play: "The Danes that escaped, and got once to their ships, obtained of Makbeth for a great summe of gold, that such of their friends as were slaine, might be buried in Saint Colmes' inch. In memorie whereof many old sepultures are yet in the said inch, there to be seene, graven with the armes of the Danes.

"The rump fed ronyon."—Act I. Sc. 3. The chief cooks, in noblemen's families, colleges, and hospitals, anciently claimed the emoluments or kitchen fees of kidneys, fat trotters, rumps, &c. which they sold to the poor. The weird sister, in this scene, as an insult on the poverty of the woman who had called her witch, reproaches her poor abject state, as not being able to procure better provision than offals.-COLEPEper.

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"In a sieve I'll thither sail."-Act I. Sc. 3. Reginald Scott says, it was believed that witches "could sail in an egg-shell, a cockle or muscle shell, through and under the tempestuous seas." And in a book, "declaring the damnable life of Doctor Fian," is the following passage: "All they (the witches) together went to sea, each one in a riddle or cive, and went in the same very substantially with flaggons of wine, making merrie and drinking by the way, in the same riddles or cives.'

"And like arat without a tail."-Act I. Sc. 3. It was imagined, that though a witch could assume the form of any animal she pleased, the tail would still be wanting. This deficiency has been thus accounted for; though the hands and feet, by an easy change, might be converted into the four paws of a beast, still there was no part about a woman which corresponded to the length of tail common to almost all our four-footed animals. STEEVENS.

"I'll give thee a wind."—Act I. Sc. 3. This gift of a wind must be looked upon as an act of sisterly friendship, for witches were supposed to sell them. So in Summer's Last Will and

Testament, 1600.

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"The insane root."-Act I. Sc. 3. "You gaz'd against the sun, and so blemished your sight; or else you have eaten of the rout g hemlock, that makes men's eyes conceit unseen e jects.”—GREENE's Never Too Late, 1616.

"The prince of Cumberland.”—Act I. Sc. 4. "Duncan having two sonnes, be made the elder of them, called Malcolm, prince of Cumberin it was thereby to appoint him successor in his kingdome immediatelie after his decease. Madibeth, sorely troubled herewith, for that he saw by old laws of the realme the ordinance was, that it be this means his hope sore hindered (where by the that should succeed was not able of age to ta the charge upon himselfe, he that was next blood unto him should be admitted) he bega to take counsel how he might usurp the kingdom by force, having a just quarrel so to doe (as be tooke the matter,) for that Duncane did what in him lay to defraude him of all manner of title and claime, which he might, in tyme to come, pretend to the crowne."-HOLINSHED.

“I have drugg'd their possets.”—Act II. Sc. 2 It was a general custom to eat possets just be fore bed time. Randle Holmes in his Academy of Armory, says: "Posset is hot milk poured en als or sack, having sugar, grated bisket, and eggs, with other ingredients boiled in it, which goes all to a curd."-MALONE.

"Colme-kill."—-Act II. Sc. 3. of the ancient Scottish kings, one of the Wester Colme-kill is the famous Iona, the burying place Isles, described by Johnson in his Tour.

STEEVENS

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"Enter the Three Witches."—Act IV. Sc. I. infernal ceremonies with great judgment. A cat was Shakspeare has chosen every circumstance of his the usual interlocutor between witches and familiar spirits. A witch, who was tried about fifty years be fore the bard's time, was said to have had a cata med Rutterkin, and when any mischief was to be afflictions attributed to the malice of witches, were done she would bid Rutterkin go and fly. The commen melancholy, fits, and loss of flesh. They like destroyed the cattle of their neighbours, and the farmers have, to this day, many ceremonies to se cure their herds from witchcraft. They were very malicious to swine; one of Shakspeare's bag's, s she has been killing swine; and Dr. Harsnet ob serves, that in his time" a sow could not be ill ef the measles, nor a girl of the sullens, but some ell woman was charged with witchcraft. Toads have long been reproached as the abettors of witcherat When Vaninus was seized at Tholouse, there wa found in his lodgings, a great toad shut in a phis upon which, those that prosecuted him, denounced him as a wizard. The ingredients of Shakspeare's cauldron are selected according to the formularies prescribed in books of magick. Witches were supposed to take up bodies to use in enchantments,

which was confessed by the woman whom king James examined, and who had of a dead body that I was divided in one of their assemblies, two fingers or her share. A passage from Camden explains and justifies our author in some other particulars: When any one gets a fall, he stands up, and turnng three times to the right, digs a hole in the earth; or they imagine that there is a spirit in the ground, and if he falls sick in two or three days, they send one of their women that is skilled in that way, to he place, where she says, I call thee from the east, west, north, and south, from the groves, the woods, the rivers, and the fens, from the fairies, red, black, and white.'-JOHNSON, &c.

ror.

“And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass.” Act IV. Sc. 1. Magicians, in the superstitious age of our author, professed to have the power of shewing fatare events by means of a charmed glass or mirSo, in an extract from the Penal Laws against Witches, it is said, “ They do answer either by voice, or else do set before their eyes in glasses, crystal stones, &c. the pictures or images of persons or things sought for." Spenser has given a very circumstantial account of the glass which Merlin made for king Ryence. A mirror of the same kind was presented to Cambuscan in The Squire's Tale of Chaucer; and in John Alaay's translation of Pierre Boisteau's Theatrum Mundi. "A certain philosopher did the like to Pompey, the which shewed him in a glass the order of his

enemies' march."-STEEVENS.

"The mere despair of surgery he cures." Act IV. Sc. 3. The power of curing the king's evil was claimed by many of the Plantagenets. Dr. Borde, who

KING

"With that half-face."-Act I. Sc. 1. The poet sneers at the meagre sharp visage of the elder brother, by comparing him to a silver groat that bore the king's face in profile, so shewed but half the face; the groats of all our English kings, and indeed all their other silver coins, with one or two exceptions, had a full face crowned; till Henry VII. coined groats and half groats, as also some shillings with half faces, as all our coin has now. The first groats of Henry VIII. were like his father's, though he afterwards returned to the broad faces again. These groats, with the impression in profile, are here alluded to; though the author is guilty of an anachronism; for in John's time there were no groats at all, they being first coined in the reign of Edward III.—THEOBALD. -My face so thin,

That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose, Lest men should say, look where three farthings goes." Act I. Sc. 1. In Elizabeth's time there were three farthing silper pieces; they were impressed with her head, with a full blown rose behind it; these pieces were of course extremely thin. In this age, fashionables of Both sexes wore flowers, especially roses, behind heir ears. Combine these circumstances, and the Ilusion is obvious.-THEOBALD.

"Plantagenet."-Act I. Sc. 1. Plantagenet was not a family name, but a nickame, by which a grandson of Geffrey, the first earl f Anjou, was distinguished, from his wearing a oom-stalk in his bonnet.

"Now your traveller."-Act I. Sc. 1. Travelling, in Elizabeth's time, was the fashionble resource of those who had no fixed occupaon; as to have seen foreign countries enabled a

wrote in the time of Henry VIII, says: "The kynges of England, by the power that God hath given unto them, doyth make sych men whole of a syckness called the kyng's evyll." In Laneham's account of the Entertainments of Kenelworth, it is said: "And also by her highnesse (queen Elizabeth) accustemed mercy and charitee, nyne cured of the paynful and dangerous deseaz called the king's evil, for that kings and queens of this realme without oother medsin (save only by handling and prayer) only doo it." This practice was continued so late as queen Anne's time: Dr. Johnson, when a child, was touched for the evil by that princess. English epicures."-Act V. Sc. 3.

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Of the ancient poverty of Scotland, the following mention is made by Froissart:-"They be like wylde and savage people-they dought ever to lese that they have, for it is a poore countrey. And when the Englishmen maketh any rood or voyage into the countrey, if they thynke to lyve, they must cause their provysion and vitayle to follow them at their backe, for they shall find nothing in that countrey." Such a people, who made but one meal a day, envying the " English likerous delicats," would be ready enough to brand their ancient enemies with the name of epicures.-STEEVENS.

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man to assume airs of superiority over his untravelled companions. "A traveller was a good thing after dinner;" a constant occasion of wonder and amusement. Yet travellers fell into strange impertinences. Sir Thomas Overbury, speaking of one, says :-" He censures all things by countenances and shrugs, and speaks his own language with shame and lisping: he will choke rather than confess beere good drinke, and his tooth-pick is a main part of his behaviour." Travellers brought home many ridiculous fashions. Gascoigne in his Poems, 1572, describes some of these:

"Now, sir, if I shall see your mastership
Come home disguis'd, and clad in quaint array:
As with a pike-tooth byting on your lippe;
Your brave mustachios turn'd the Turkie way;
A coptankt hat made on a Flemish blocke;

A night-gowne cloake down trayling to your toes;
A slender slop close couched to your dock,
A curtolde slipper, and a short silk hose.""

"Colbrand."-Act I. Sc. 1.

Colbrand was a Danish giant, whom Guy of Warwick discomfited in the presence of king Athelstan. The combat is very pompously described by Drayton in his Polyolbion.-JOHNSON.

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Richard, that robb'd the lion of his heart." Act II. Sc. 1. So Rastal in his Chronicle: " It is sayd that a lyon was put to kynge Richard, beynge in prison, to have devoured him, and when the lyon was gapynge he put his arme into his mouth, and pulled the lyon by the harte so hard that he slew the lyon, and therefore some say he is called Richard Cure de Lyon; but some say he is called Cure de Lyon, because of his boldness and hardy stomake."-GREY.

"By this brave duke came early to his grave." Act II. Sc. 1. Richard was not killed by the duke of Austria; he lost his life at the siege of Chaluz, long after he

had been ransomed out of the hands of this petty potentate. The producing Austria on the scene is also contrary to the truth of history. Leopold, duke of Austria, by whom Richard I. had been thrown into prison in 1193, died in consequence of a fall from his horse, in 1195, some years before the commencement of the present play. The original cause of quarrel between Austria and Richard is variously related. Harding in his Chronicle says, that the source of enmity was Richard's taking down the duke of Austria's arms and banner, which he had set up above those of the king of France and the king of Jerusalem. The affront was given when they lay before Acre in Palestine.-MALONE. "That thou may'st be a queen, and check the world." Act II. Sc. 1. "Surely queen Eleanor, the kyng's mother, was sore against her nephew Arthur, rather moved thereto by envye conceyved against his mother, than upon any just occasion, given in the behalfe of the childe; for that she saw, if he were kynge, how his mother Constance would looke to beare the most rule within the realme of Englande, till her sonne should come to a lawful age to governe himselfe. So hard a thing it is to bringe women to agree in one minde, their natures commonly being so contrary." HOLINSHED.

"The lady Blanch.”—Act II. Sc. 2. The lady Blanch was daughter to Alphonso IX. king of Castile, and was niece to king John, by his sister Eleanor.-STEEVENS.

"A widow."-Act III. Sc. 1. This was not the fact. Constance was, at this time, married to a third husband, Guido, brother to the viscount of Touars. She had been divorced from her second husband, Ranulph, earl of Chester. MALONE.

"Some airy devil hovers in the sky.”—Act III. Sc.2. "The spirits of the aire will mixe themselves with thunder and lightning, and so infect the clyme where they raise any tempest, that sodainely great mortalitie shall ensue to the inhabitants. The spirits of fire have their mansions under the regions of the moone."-PIERCE PENNILESSE, HIS SUPPLICA TION, 1592.

"Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back."

Act III. Sc. 3. In Archbishop Winchelsea's Sentences of Excommunication, anno 1298, it is directed, that the sentence against the infringers of certain articles should be throughout explained in order in English, with bells tolling and candles lighted, that it may cause the greater dread; for laymen have❘

greater regard to this solemnity, than to the eft of such sentences."-REED.

"Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, Only for wantonness.” Act IV. Sc. 1.

It was once fashionable to affect melancholy ir company. Ben Johnson ridicules this fall a Every Man in his Humoar; again, in Questions concernyng Conie-hood, and the Nature of the Conie :-"That conie-hood which proceeds of melancholy, is, when in feastings appointed for men ment, this kind of conie-man sits like Mopsas er Corydon, blockish, never laughing, never speaking but so bearishlie as if he would devour all the companie, which he doth to this end, that the guest might mutter how this his deep melancholy arguth great learning in him, and an intendment to not weighty affaires and heavenly speculations." Agus in Lyly's Midas, 1592: “Melancholy? is melancholy a word for a barber's mouth? Thou should'st s heavy, dull, and doltish: melancholy is the crest of courtiers, and now every base companion says, le is melancholy." And in the Life and Death of the Lord Cromwell, 1613 :

"My nobility is wonderful melancholy.

Is it not most gentleman-like to be melancholyTM
STEEVESS

"And here's a prophet."-Act IV. Se.2. This man was a hermit in great repute with tr common people. Notwithstanding the event is sur to have fallen out as he prophecied, the poor feles was inhumanly dragged at horses' tails through the streets of Warham, and together with his son, who appears to have been even more innocent than his father, hanged afterwards upon a gibbet.—Docci “The wall is high, and yet I will leap down.”

Äet IV. Sc. 3.

In what manner Arthur was deprived of life is uncertain; it seems that John conducted the assas sination with impenetrable secrecy. The Fread writers, however, say, that John coming in a bout, during the night time, to the castle of Rouen, where the young prince was confined, ordered him to be brought forth, and having stabbed him, while sup plicating for mercy, the king fastened a stone to the dead body, and threw it into the Seine, in order to give some colour, which he afterwards caused to be spread, that the prince, attempting to escape out of a window of the tower of the castle, fell into the river and was drowned.-MALONE.

"At Worcester must his body be interr`d.” Act V. Sc. 7. A stone coffin, containing the body of king John, was discovered in the cathedral church of Worces ter, July 17, 1797.—Steevens.

KING RICHARD II.

"Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster." Act F. Sc. 1.

John of Gaunt, who is here supposed to be extremely old, was at this time only fifty-eight years of age. But it was usual with our old authors to attribute senility to persons whom we should only think in their middle age. King Henry is represented by Daniel as extremely old, when he had a child by the lady Rosamond. This monarch, at his death, was only fifty-six. The earl of Leicester is called an old man, by Spenser, when he was not fifty; and the French admiral Coligny, is represented by his biographer as a very old man, though at the time of his death he was but fifty-three. This might arise, in some measure, from its being usual to enter life much earlier than we do at present; those who were married at fifteen, had been, at fifty, masters of a house and family for thirty-five years.

MALONE.

"The duke of Gloster's death.”—Act I. Sc. l. Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward III. who was murdered at Calais, in 139. MALONE.

"Since last I went to France to fetch his queen.” Act I. Sc.1.

Isabel, the daughter of Charles VI. was, at the time of her marriage with Richard II. not more than eight years old. Consequently, the part she is made to take in this play, is a palpable deviation from historical truth, as she was still a mere child at her husband's death.-MALONE.

The Norfolk crest was a golden leopard.-MALONE. "Lions make leopards tame.”—Act I. Sc. 1.

"Duchess of Gloster.”—Act I. Sc. 2. The duchess of Gloster, was Eleanor Bobur, widow of duke Thomas, son of Edward III. WALPOLE.

"Aumerle."-Act I. Sc. 3.

Edward, duke of Aumerle, so created by his sin-german, Richard II. in 1397. He was the est son of Edward of Langley, duke of York, b son of king Edward III.; and was killed in 15, at the battle of Agincourt. He officiated at lists of Coventry, as high constable of England. MALONE.

<< Mowbray's waxen coat."—Act I. Sc.3. The brigandines, or coats of mail, then in use, :re composed of small pieces of steel quilted over e another, and yet so flexible as to accommodate e dress they form to every motion of the body; these many are still to be seen in the Tower of ndon.-STEEVENS.

"Warder."-Act I. Sc. 3.

A warder appears to have been a kind of trunLeon, carried by the person who presided at these ngle combats.-STEEVENS.

"The duke of York."-Act II. Sc. 1. Edmond, duke of York, was the fifth son of dward III. and was born in 1441, at Langley, ear St. Albans, in Hertford, from whence he had is surname. This prince, as bishop Lowth has bserved, "was of an indolent disposition, a lover f pleasure, and averse to business; easily prevailed pon to lie still, and consult his own quiet; and never acting with spirit upon any occasion." This land

Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it,)
Like to a tenement, or pelting farm."

Act II. Sc. 1. "In this twenty-second year of King Richard, the common fame raane that the king had letten to farme the realme unto Sir William Scroope, earle of Wiltshire, and then treasurer of England, to Sir John Bushey, Sir John Bagot, and Sir Henry Grene, knightes."-FABIAN.

"Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke, About his marriage." Act II. Sc. 1. When the duke of Hereford, after his banish=ment, went into France, he was honourably entertained at that court, and would have obtained in marriage the only child of the duke of Berry, uncle to the French king, had not Richard prevented the match.-STEEVENS.

His livery."

to sue

Act II. Sc. 1. On the death of every person who held by knights' service, the escheator of the court in which he died, summoned a jury, who enquired what estate he died seized of, and of what age his next heir was. If he was under age, he became a ward of the king's; but if he was found to be of full age, he then had a right to sue out a writ of ouster-le-main, that is, his livery, that the king's hand might be taken off, and the land delivered to him.-MALONE.

"As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what." Act II. Sc. 1. Stowe records, that Richard II. "compelled all the religious, gentlemen, and commons, to set their seales to blankes, to the end he might, if it pleased him, oppress them severally, or all at once: some of the commons paid a thousand marks, some a thousand pounds," &c.-HOLT and WHITE.

"Archbishop late of Canterbury.”—Act II. Sc. 1. Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, brother to the earl of Arundel, who was beheaded during this reign, had been banished by the parliament, and was afterwards deprived by the pope of

his see, at the request of the king; whence he is here called “late of Canterbury." STEEVENS. "Like perspectives, which, rightly gaz'd upon, Shew nothing but confusion; ey'd awry, Distinguish form." Act II. Sc. 2.

Amongst mathematical recreations, there is one in optics, in which a figure is drawn, wherein all the rules of perspective are inverted, so that if held in the same position with those pictures which are drawn according to the rules of perspective, it can present nothing but confusion: and to be seen in form and under a regular appearance, it must be looked upon from a contrary station; or, as Shak"WARBURTON. speare says, "eyed awry."_

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The bay trees in our country all are wither'd." Act II. Sc. 4. "In this yeare, in a manner throughout all the realme of England, old baie-trees withered." HOLINSHED.

"From my own windows torn my household coat.' Act III. Sc. 1.

It was the practice, when coloured glass was in use, of which there are still some remains in old seats and churches, to anneal the arms of the family in the windows of the house.-JOHNSON.

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My gay apparel."—Act III. Sc. 3.

King Richard's expense in dress was very extraordinary: Holinshed says, "he had one cote, which he caused to be made for him of gold and stone, valued at 30,000 marks."-STEEVENS.

"Westminster-hall."-Act IV. Sc. 1.

The rebuilding of Westminster-hall, which Richard had begun in 1397, being finished in 1399, the first meeting of parliament in the new editice was for the purpose of deposing him."-MALOne. "In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne."

Act IV. Sc. 1.

The words actually spoken by Henry, on this occasion, were as follows, standing upright, that every one might see him, after he had crossed him self on the forehead and breast, and called on the name of Christ, he said: "In the name of Fadher, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, Henry of Lancaster, challenge the rewme of Ynglande, and the croun, with all the membres and the appurtenances, and als I, that am descendit by right line of the blode, coming from the goode king Henry Therde, and throge that right that God of his grace hath sent me, with help of kyn, and of my frendes to recover it, the which rewme was in poynt to be undone, by defaut of governaunce, and ondoyng of the gude lawes."-MALONE.

"Did keep ten thousand men."-Act IV. Sc. 1. Richard II. was very magnificent in his household. The old chronicles say, "that to his household came every day to meate ten thousand men."

"To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower."
Act V. Sc. 1.

The Tower of London is traditionally said to have been the work of Julius Cæsar. Steevens says, ill-erected means erected for bad purposes. JOHNSON. "Thus play I, in one person, many people." Act V. Sc. 5.

This alludes to the necessities of our early theatres. The title-pages of some of our Moralities shew, that three or four characters were frequently represented by one person.-STEEVENS.

"Here to die."-Act V. Sc. 5.

King Richard's body was publicly exposed in St. Paul's, and as no marks of violence appeared, he could not have been assassinated, as represented in

the drama; though a similar account is given in Hall's Chronicle, and Sir Pierce Exton's Narrative was to the same effect. Stow's account seems the most probable, and is confirmed by many other authors. He says, "he was emprisoned in Pomfract

castle, where fifteen days and nightes they ve him with continual hunger, thirst, and cold, s finally bereft him of his life with such a kind a death as never before that time was known a England."

KING HENRY IV. (PART I)

-The gallant Hotspur there, Young Harry Percy.” Act I. Sc. 1. "This Harry Percy was surnamed, for his often pricking, Henry Hotspur; as one that seldom times rested, if there were anie service to be done abroad." HOLINSHED.

"The prisoners."-Act I. Sc. 1.

By the law of arms, every man who had taken any captive, whose ransom did not exceed ten thousand crowns, had him clearly for himself, either to redeem or retain at his pleasure.

"A hare."—Act I. Sc. 2.

TOLLET.

A hare may be considered as melancholy, because she is upon her form, always solitary; and according to the physic of the times, the flesh of the hare was supposed to generate melancholy. The Egyptians, in their hieroglyphics, expressed a melancholy man by a hare sitting in her form.

JOHNSON, and STEEVENS.

"The melancholy of Moor-ditch."-Act I. Sc. 2. It appears from Stow's Survey, that a broad from Moorfields; and what has a more melancholy ditch called Deep-ditch, once parted the hospital aspect than stagnant water? It is mentioned in Taylor's Pennylesse Pilgrim, 1618. "My body being tired with travel, and my mind altered with moody, muddy, Mooreditch melancholy.”

STEEVENS.

“Lincolnshire bagpipe.”—Act I. Sc. 2. "At a Christmas time, when great logs furnish the ball fire; when brawne is in season, and indeed all revelling is regarded, this gallant knight kept open house for all commers, where beefe, beere, and bread was no niggard. Amongst all the pleasures provided, a noyse of minstrells and a Lincolnshire bagpipe was prepared: the minstrells for the great chamber, the bagpipe for the hall; the minstrells to serve up the knightes meate, and the bagpipe for the common dancing."

A NEST OF NINNIES, BY R. ARMIN, 1608. "Sir John Sack-and-Sugar.”—Act I. Sc. 2. There has been much discussion as to what wine or liquor Falstaff has immortalized by the name of sack. The commentators, as usual when they differ, have left the affair more obscure than they found it. Yet it seems probable that Sherry, Canary, and Mountain Malaga, were drank indifferently under that appellation. The fat knight mixed sugar with his sack, but this will not be thought extraordinary, since we know that in our poet's time, it was a common practice to put sugar in all wines. "Clownes and vulgar men (says Fynes Moryson) only use large drinking of beere or ale, but gentlemen garrawse only in wine, with which they mix sugar, which I never observed in any other place or kingdom to be used for that purpose." It was customary for the waiters in taverns, to have small parcels of white sugar about them, in order to supply those who took sack. So in The Guls' Horn Booke, 1609. Enquire what gallants sup in the next roome, and if they be any of your acquaintance, do not you (after the city fashion,) send them in a pottle of wine, and your name sweetened in two pitiful papers of sugar, with some filthy apology crammed into the mouth of a drawer."Falstaff complains that there was lime in his sack.

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This was a common mode of adulterating this almost national drink. Eliot, in his Ortho speaking of sack and rhenish, says: "The vinter's in London put in lime, and thence proceed infine It was usual, s malidies, specially the gouttes." a toker of kindliness, in Shakspeare's day, for tam guests in taverns, to send presents of sack, who was sometimes mulled, from one to the other. An anachronism is committed, by furnishing the basta of Henry IV's reign with this wine, as the following extract from Taylor's Life of Parr will shew "The vintners sold no other sacks, mascades. malmsies, bastards, alicants, nor any other wines but white, and claret, till the 33d year of Henry VIII. 1543, and then was old Parr 60 years of age All those sweet wines were sold till that time s

the apothecary's, for no other use but for medicines, from the annexed passage, our poet's computatio "Two gallons of sack cost Falstaff 5s. 8d.; and will be found very accurate. Claret wine, red, and white, is sold for five-pence the quart, and sack for six-pence: muscadel and malmsey for eight." Florio's First Fruites, 1578.-Twenty years afterwards, sack had probably risen to eight-pesce ar the excellent effect of sack on the intellect, was se eight-pence half-penny a quart, at which rate two gallons would cost 5s. 8d. What sir John says f riously believed. "These wines are goode fæ men of cold and flegmaticke complexion; for suche wines redresse and amende the coldnesse of conplexion." Regiment of Health, 1634.

"All-hallown summer.”—Aet I. Sc. 2. All-hallows is All-hallown-tide, or All-saints-day. which is the first of November. All-hallown sunmer is that short period of fine, bright weather. which frequently occurs about the commencement of November.

"A pouncet box.”—Act I. Sc. 3.

A small box for musk or other perfumes then in fashion; the lid of which, being cut with open work, gave it its name, from poinsoner, to prick, piros, or engrave.-WARBURTON.

"Heir to the crown."-Act I. Se. 3.

in 1371, was declared heir-apparent to the crown Roger Mortimer, earl of March, who was born killed in Ireland, 1398. The person, who was prein the ninth year of king Richard II. He we claimed by Richard heir-apparent, previous to his last voyage to Ireland, was Edmand Mortimer, (the son of Roger,) who was then but seven years old: but he was not Percy's wife's brother, but her nephew.-MALONE.

"Sword-and-buckler."-Act I. Sc. 3.

The following extract from Stowe is worth astice: "This field, commonly called West Smithfield, was for many years called Ruffian's-ball, by reason it was the usual place of frayes and common fighting, during the time that swords and bucklers were in use. When every serving-man, from the base to the best, carried a buckler at his back, which hung by the hilt or pomel of his sword."-HENLY.

"We haw the receipt of fern seed, we walk invisible.” Act II. Sc. 1.

Fern is one of those plants which have their seed on the back of the leaf, so small as to escape the sight. Those who perceived that fern was pre

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