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shew, then called motions. A term frequently occuring in our author.

WARBURTON.

55 let me be unroll'd, and my name put into the book of virtue!] Begging gypsies, in the time of our author, were in gangs and companies, that had something of the shew of an incorporated body. From this noble society he wishes he may be unrolled if he does not so and so.

56

-sworn, I think,

WARBURTON.

To shew myself a glass:] i. e. one would think that in putting on this habit of a shepherd, you had sworn to put me out of countenance; for in this, as in a glass, you shew me how much below yourself you must descend before you can get upon a level with me. The sentiment is fine, and expresses all the delicacy, as well as humble modesty of the character.

57 -to see his work, so noble,

WARBURTON.

Vilely bound up?] It is impossible for any man to rid his mind of his profession. The authorship of Shakspeare has supplied him with a metaphor, which rather than he would lose it, he has put with no great propriety into the mouth of a country maid. Thinking of his own works, his mind passed naturally to the binder. I am glad that he has no hint at an editor.

JOHNSON.

Johnson is right; it is well for all his commentators that Shakspeare could not foresee our notes.

58 Grace, and remembrance,] Rue was called herb of grace. Rosemary was the emblem of remem

brance; I know not why, unless because it was carried at funerals.

59

poking-sticks of steel,] The poking-sticks were heated in the fire, and made use of to adjust the plaits of ruffs. In Marston's Malecontent, 1604, is the following instance." There is such a deale of "pinning, these ruffes, when the fine clean fall is "worth them all:" and, again, "if you should "chance to take a nap in an afternoon, your falling "band requires no poking-stick to recover his form! " &c."

So in Middleton's comedy of Blurt Master Constable, 1602,

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"Your ruff must stand in print, and for that purpose get poking-sticks with fair long handles, lest "they scorch your hands."

Poking-sticks are mentioned likewise in the Monsieur Thomas of B. and Fletcher.

60

STEEVENS.

—a tawdry lace, and a pair of sweet gloves.] Tawdry lace is thus described in Skinner, by his friend Dr. Henshawe. "Tawdrie lace, astrigmenta, "timbriæ, seu fasciola, emtæ, Nundinis Sæ. Ethel: "dredæ celebratis: Ut recte monet Doc. Thomas "Henshawe." Etymol. in voce. We find it in Spenser's Pastorals, Aprill,

"And gird in your waste,

"For more finesse, with a tawdrie lace.” As to the other present, promised by Camillo to Mopsa, of sweet, or perfumed gloves, they are frequently 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,

Gloves as sweet as damask roses.

Stowe's Continuator, Edmond 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

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yeare the queene had a payre of perfumed gloves "trimmed onlie with foure tuftes, or roses, of cul"lered silke. The queene tooke such pleasure in "those gloves, that shee was pictured with those "gloves upon her hands: and for many years after it "was called the erle of Oxfordes perfume." Stowe's Annals by Howes, edit. 1614. p. 868. col. 2. In the annual accounts of a college in Oxford, anno 1630, is this article, solut. pro fumigandis chirotheis.

WARTON.

61 I was not much afeard:] The character is here finely sustained. To have made her quite astonished at the king's discovery of himself, had not become her birth; and to have given her presence of mind to have made this reply to the king, had not become her education.

WARBURTON.

62 I have sold all my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander,] A po

A

mander was a little ball made of perfumes, and worn in the pocket, or about the neck, to prevent infection in times of plague. In a tract, intitled, Certain necessary Directions, as well for curing the Plague, as for preventing Infection, printed 1636, there are directions for making two sorts of pomanders, one for the rich, and another for the poor. DR. GRAY.

63-my pedlar's excrement.] Excrement is beard. 64-therefore they do not give us the lie.] Dele the negative: the sense requires it. The joke is this, they have a profit in lying to us, by advancing the price of their commodities; therefore they do lie.

WARBURTON.

The meaning is, they are paid for lying, therefore they do not give us the lie, they sell it us.

JOHNSON.

65-the hottest day prognostication proclaims,] That is, the hottest day foretold in the almanack.

JOHNSON.

66-from the all that are, took something good,] This is a favourite thought; it was bestowed on Miranda and Rosalind before. JOHNSON. 66 Affront his eye.] To affront is to meet quasi, adfront, to oppose the front to.

68-not so rich in worth-] Worth signifies any kind of worthiness, and among others that of high descent. The king means that he is sorry the prince's choice is not in other respects as worthy of him as in beauty. JOHNSON.

69-franklins-] Franklin is a freeholder, or yeoman, a man above a villain, but not a gentleman.

JOHNSON.

7° You precious winners all:] You who by this discovery have gained what you desired may join in festivity, in which I, who have lost what never can be recovered, can have no part.

JOHNSON.

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