65

TAMING OF THE SHREW.

Induction, 2,—“ Alce madam, or Joan madam?" So Alice is pronounced in many places of Beaumont and Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas, as is evident from the metre.

i. 1,-I suspect that Capell's [Hanmer's] reading is the right one,—

Ib.,

"Lucentio his son, brought up in Florence."

"That mortal ears might hardly endure the din."

Qu., metri gratia (Shakespeariani saltem), dure. Chaucer, Clerkes Tale,

"I never held me ladie ne mistresse,

But humble servaunt to your worthinesse,

And ever shal, while that my life may dure."

I owe the following passage to Weber's Index to Beaumont and Fletcher; Two Noble Kinsmen, i. 3, 1.3,

yet I owe him

Excess and overflow of power, an 't might be,

To dure' ill-dealing Fortune."

And the three following to Nares's Glossary. Robert Earl of Huntingdon, B. 3,—

"Whilst the sunshine of my greatness dur'd."

(Read "Whilst that the " &c.) Marston, Sat. i.,-"He that can trot a courser, break a rush,

And, arm'd in proof, dare dure a straw's strong push."

1 Mr. Dyce reads dare. Heath has urged strong reasons for the change.-Ed.

VOL. III.

5

Hughes's Arthur, 1587, Sign. D.,—

"Whoso hath felt the force of greedy fates,
And dur'd the last decree of griesly death,

Shall never yield his captive arms to chains," &c. Tancred and Gismunda, iii. 3, Dodsley, vol. ii. p. 196,"What grievous pain they dure, which neither may Forget their loves, ne yet enjoy their love,

I know by proof."

Jonson, Underwoods, "The Mind of the Frontispiece to a Book," Gifford, vol. viii. p. 384,

"When vice alike in time with virtue dured."

Harrington, Ariosto, B. xxxi. St. lxx.,"Able to dure assault no little space."

2,- "Knock, sir? whom should I knock? Is there any man has rebus'd your worship?" Quasi abus'd.

Ib.,

"Hark you, sir, I'll have them very fairly bound." Hark; as, e.g., below,—

This gentleman is happily arriv'd," &c.

The confusion arose, perhaps, in the same way as that between pray you and pray, &c. Titus Andronicus, iv. 2, near the end, if all besides be correct, read,—

"Hark, lords; ye see that I have given her physic." Note Hark ye. Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 2,"Hark ye, Ventidius."

The folio has "Hearke, Ventidius."

Please ye, we may contrive this afternoon,
And quaff carouses to our mistress' health;" &c.

(Mistress' for mistresses'; see S. V., Art. li.) So Var., Knight, Collier, and, I imagine, the editions in general. Read convive.2 I know not whether this is my own correction, or whether I borrowed it unconsciously from Theobald; who, however, is wrong in his reasons for it. I have noticed this passage above, Art. xxvii.,

ii. 1,—

"Believe me, sister, of all the men alive &c.

And this small packet of Greek and Latin books."

Dele the, and read, perhaps, pack for packet.

1b., fol.,

"No such jade as you, if me you mean." Vulg.,-"No such jade, sir, as you," &c., dμérpws. Qu., "No such a jade" &c.

Ib., I would read with the moderns,3—

"And bring you from a wild cat to a Kate
Conformable" &c.

2 If Shakespeare had written "contrive, i.e., spend this afternoon," would he not necessarily have written

Quaffing carouses

" &c.?

Ed.

3 The more modern moderns have restored Kate, and have thus concealed the play upon the words; yet they have shut their ears to Catharine herself, who says in the first folio,

They call me Katerine that do talke of me."

No doubt our ancestors pronounced Catharine and Kate, Katterine and Kat, and made but a slight difference between cat and cate.-Ed.

Ib.,

"O, you are novices! 'tis a world to see,

How tame, when men and women are alone,

A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew."

To the instances of meacock quoted Var. in loc., add from the Play of Lust's Dominion, iv. 5, Old English Plays, vol.i. p.164, Hang him, meacock!"-i.e., coward. Beaumont and Fletcher, Wit Without Money, ii. 2, Moxon, vol.i. p. 188, col. 2,

“For then y' are meacocks, fools, and miserable.”

This word still exists-as is the case with some others, else obsolete in the shape of a proper name; we ourselves saw it inscribed on a waggon near Bayswater, as the name of the proprietor.

iii. 2,

Were it (Wer't) better I should rush in thus." Add an interrogation.*

Ib.,

"And seal the title with a lovely kiss."

Loving, I think. Yet note Peele, Arraignment of Paris, ii. 2, Dyce, vol. i. p. 29, second ed.,

"And I will give thee many a lovely kiss,

And come and play with thee on Ida here."

Certainly. But should not we read, arrange, and dispose the speeches thus,

"P. Come, come, where be these gallants? who's at home? B. You're welcome, sir.

P.

T. And yet you halt not.

And yet I come not well.

B. Nor so apparell'd as I wish you were.

P. Were it not better I should rush in thus ? "

Ed.

(Any special reference to love in this latter passage? Spenser, Hymn of Love, St. xxiii.,

"How falles it then that with thy furious fervour
Thou doest as well afflict the not-deserver,
As him that doeth thy lovely heasts despise,
And on thy subjects most doth tyrannize?"
I doubt.)

iv. 1,-"—is supper ready, &c.—the serving-men in their new fustian, their white stockings, and every officer &c. Knight, after fol. (p. 221, col. 1), "the white stockings, &c. I suspect," the serving-men in their new fustian, the [in their] white stockings," &c.

Ib.,-"Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and the rest." Qu., Walter Sugarsop. I suspect, however, that Sugarsop is corrupt.

2,

"Is 't possible, friend Licio, that mistress Bianca
Doth fancy" &c.

Dele that?

Ib.,- ?

"And here I take the like unfeigned oath,—

Never to marry with her, though she would entreat."

Male Var. Ne'er &c. Pronounce wi' her and she 'ld.
You Like It, iii. 5, ad fin.,-

"I will be better with him, and passing short." wi' him. (Compare whether, whe'r; hither, here; &c.)

Ib., just below,

"Would all the world but he had quite forsworn!"

As