PRIN. To whom shouldst thou give it?

COST.

From my lord to my lady.

PRIN. From which lord, to which lady?

COST. From my lord Biron, a good master of mine,

To a lady of France, that he call'd Rosaline. PRIN. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away.

Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another [Exit Princess and Train. BOYET. Who is the suitor?" who is the suitor?

day.

they gave him sometimes that romthe) in respect of his supposed majestie; but I would this were the worst of their ceremonies; the same keeping some decorum concerning equalitie." A briefe Discourse of the Spanish State, with a Dialogue annexed, intituled Philobasilis, 4to. 1590, p. 39.

The reader will pardon one further notice:

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heere comes a souldier, for my life it is a captain Swag: tis even he indeede, I do knowe him by his plume and his scarffe; he looks like a Monarcho of a very cholericke complexion, and as teasty as a goose that hath young goslings," &c. B. Riche's Faults and nothing but Faults, p. 12. REED.

6

ther:

Come, lords, away.] Perhaps the princess said ra

Come, ladies, away.

The rest of the scene deserves no care. JOHNSON.

7 Who is the suitor?] The old copies read

"Who is the shooter?"

But it should be, Who is the suitor? and this occasions the quib. ble. Finely put on," &c. seem only marginal observations.

66

FARMER.

It appears that suitor was anciently pronounced shooter. So, in The Puritan, 1605; the maid informs her mistress that some archers are come to wait on her. She supposes them to be fletchers, or arrow-smiths:

"Enter the suters, &c.

"Why do you not see them before you? are not these archers, what do you call them, shooters? Shooters and archers are all one, I hope?" STEEVENS.

Ros.

Shall I teach you to know?

BOYET. Ay, my continent of beauty..

Ros.

Finely put off!

Why, she that bears the bow.

BOYET. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou

marry,

Hang me by the neck, if horns that year mis

Ros. Well then, I am the shooter.

Wherever Shakspeare uses words equivocally, as in the present instance, he lays his editor under some embarrassment. When he told Ben Jonson he would stand Godfather to his child, "and give him a dozen latten spoons," if we write the word as we have now done, the conceit, such as it is, is lost, at least does not at once appear; if we write it Latin, it becomes absurd. So, in Much Ado about Nothing, Dogberry says, "if justice cannot tame you, she shall ne'er weigh more reasons in her balance." If we write the word thus, the constable's equivoque, poor as it is, is lost, at least to the eye. If we write raisons, (between which word and reasons, there was, I believe, no difference at that time of pronunciation,) we write nonsense. In the passage before us an equivoque was certainly intended; the words shooter and suitor being (as Mr. Steevens has observed) pronounced alike in Shakspeare's time. So, in Essays and Characters of a Prison and Prisoners, by G. M. 1618: "The king's guard are counted the strongest archers, but here are better suitors." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra, edit. 1623, (owing probably to the transcriber's ear having deceived him,)— a grief that suits.

My very heart at root

instead of a grief that shoots.

In Ireland, where, I believe, much of the pronunciation of Queen Elizabeth's age is yet retained, the word suitor is at this day pronounced by the vulgar as if it were written shooter. However, I have followed the spelling of the old copy, as it is sufficiently intelligible. MALONE.

VOL. VII.

G

BOYET

And who is your deer?*

Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself: come

near.

Finely put on, indeed!—

MAR, You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow.

BOYET. But she herself is hit lower: Have I hit her now?

Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when king Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it?

BIRON. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinever9 of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. Ros. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, [Singing. Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

BOYET. An I cannot, cannot, cannot,

An I cannot, another can.

[Exeunt Ros. and KATH.

COST. By my troth, most pleasant! how both did fit it!

MAR, A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.

•And who is your deer?] Our author has the same play on this word in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V. Again, in his Venus and Adonis;

"I'll be thy park, and thou shalt be my deer."

MALONE.

9 queen Guinever] This was King Arthur's queen, not over famous for fidelity to her husband. Mordred the Pict is supposed to have been her paramour.-See the song of The Boy and the Mantle, in Dr. Percy's Collection.

In Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, the elder Love, less addresses Abigail, the old incontinent waiting-woman, by, this name. Steevens,

BOYET. A mark! O, mark but that mark; A mark, says my lady!

Let the mark have a prick in't,' to mete at, if it may be.

MAR. Wide o' the bow hand!' I'faith your hand is out.

COST. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.3

BOYET. An if my hand be out, then, belike your hand is in.

Cost. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin.*

MAR. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul.

Let the mark have a prick in't,] Thus, says the Princess Floripas in the ancient metrical romance of the Sowdon of Babyloyne, p. 56:

66

sir Gye my love so free,

"Thou kanste welle hit the pricke;

"He shall make no booste in his contre,

"God gyfe him sorowe thikke." STEEVENS.

2 Wide o' the bow hand!] i. e. a good deal to the left of the mark; a term still retained in modern archery. DOUCE.

3

the clout.] The clout was the white mark at which archers took their aim. The pin was the wooden nail that upheld it. STEEvens.

4

by cleaving the pin.] Honest Costard would have befriended Dean Milles, whose note on a song in the Pseudo-Rowley's ELLA has exposed him to so much ridicule. See his book, p. 213. The present application of the word pin, might have led the Dean to suspect the qualities of the basket. But what has mirth to do with archæology? STEEVENS.

-you talk greasily,] i. e. grossly. So, in Marston's third Satire :

when greasy Aretine,

"For his rank fico, is sirnam'd divine." STEEVENS,

COST. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl.

BOYET. I fear too much rubbing; Good night, my good owl.

Exeunt BOYET and MARIA.

COST. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, lord! how the ladies and I have put him

down!

O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar

wit!

When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.

Armatho o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man! To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan!” To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a' will swear!8_

And his page o't'other side, that handful of wit! Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!

Solá, sola!

[Shouting within. [Exit COSTARD, running.

• I fear too much rubbing;] To rub is one of the terms of the bowling green. Boyet's further meaning needs no comment. MALONE.

7

-to bear her fan!] See a note on Romeo and Juliet, Act II. sc. iv. where Nurse asks Peter for her fan. STEEVENS. · a' will swear!] A line following this seems to have been lost. MALONE.