peare's Home and Rural Life," with illustrations of Localities and Scenes around Stratford-onAvon by the Heliotype process,* I have taken the following excerpts because they are so apt and conclusive for my argument, and better express what I know and feel on the subject than any words of mine could:

John R. Wise, who has discoursed sweetly, and with profound knowledge and appreciation of the great poet, has carefully noted his use of Warwickshire provincialisms and allusions to his native county; as also the more striking phrases found in his plays, and which are still to be heard in the mouths of the Warwickshire peasantry, who, now, more than anybody else

Speak the tongue

That Shakspere spake.

"If Shakspere's own style and manner, which is undoubtedly the case, has had`a marked influence on subsequent writers, and

* Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London : 1874.

even on the English language itself, still his native county left some traces of its dialect even upon him."

"Johnson, himself born in a neighbouring county, first pointed out that the expression "a mankind witch," in the "Winter's Tale " (Act II. scene 3), was a phrase in the Midland Counties for a violent woman. And Malone, too, showed that the singular expression in the "Tempest" (Act I. scene 2), "we cannot miss him," was a provincialism of the same district. It is not asserted that certain phrases and expressions are to be found nowhere else but in Shakspere and Warwickshire. But it is interesting to know that the Warwickshire girls still speak of their "long purples" and "love in idleness;" and that the Warwickshire boys have not forgotten their "deadmen's fingers;" and that the "nine mens morris" is still played on the corn-bins of the Warwickshire farm stables, and still scored upon the greensward; and that Queen Titania would not have now to complain, as she did in the

Midsummer Night's Dream, that it was choked up with mud; and that "Master Slender would find his shovel-board still marked on many a public house table and window sill; and that he and "Master Fenton," and "good Master Brook," would, if now alive, hear themselves still so called."

"Take now, for instance, the word "deck," which is so common throughout the Midland Counties, but in Warwickshire is so often restricted to the sense of a hand of cards, and which gives a far better interpretation to Gloster's speech in the Third Part of “King Henry VI." (Act V. Scene 1):

Alas, that Warwick had no more forecast,

But whiles he thought to steal the single ten,
The King was slyly finger'd from the deck:

as, of course there might be more Kings than one in the pack, but not necessarily so in the hand. The word "forecast," too, both as verb and noun, is very common throughout both Warwickshire and the neighbouring Counties. This word "forecast" is also used by Spenser,

and others of Shakspere's contemporaries; and, though obsolete, except among the peasantry of the Midland districts, is still employed by the best American Authors.” *

Again in Autolycus's song, in the "Winter's Tale" (Act IV. Scene 2):

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge-
With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
Doth set my pugging-tooth on edge,

For a quart of ale is a dish for a King.

All the commentators here explain puggingtooth,† as a thievish tooth, an explanation which certainly itself requires to be explained; but most Warwickshire country people could tell them that pugging-tooth was the same as pegging or peg-tooth, that is the canine or dog

* "Forecasts" used in the daily Weather bulletins, issued from Washington. See Charles W. Stearns's "Shakspere Treasury," for Americanisms in Shakspere.

† See Nares, his Glossary, Words, &c., illustrative of the works of English Authors, particularly Shakspere and his Contemporaries. London: 1822.

tooth. "The child has not its pegging-teeth yet," old women still say. And thus all the difficulty as to the meaning is at once cleared.

But there is an expression used both by Shakspere and his contemporaries, which must not be so quickly passed over. Wherever there has been an unusual disturbance or ado, the lower orders round Stratford-on-Avon invariably characterize it by the phrase "there has been old work* to-day," which well interprets the Porter's allusion in "Macbeth" (Act III. Scene 3), "If a man were porter of hellgate, he should have old turning the key," which is simply explained in the notes as "frequent," but which means far more. So, in the Merchant of Venice (Act IV. Scene 2,) Portia says,

We shall have old† swearing;" that is,

* Similar to the provincial phrase "great to do." † Old is used occasionally in the sense of customary, or familiar, or usual. Your husband is in his old lunes again, i. e., customary fit of lunacy. M. W. of W. Act IV. 2. "Thou knowest my old ward," says Falstaff. I. Henry IV. Act II. 4. Old acquaintances Othello, Act II. 1.

of this isle.