SIR TO. Thou art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.-Marian, I fay!—a ftoop of wine! Enter Clown. 2 SIR AND. Here comes the fool, i'faith. CLO. How now, my hearts? Did you never see the picture of we three ? 3 SIR TO. Welcome, afs. Now let's have a catch. SIR AND. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breaft.3 I had rather than forty fhillings I had 2-a ftoop-] A Stoop, cadus, à rtoppa, Belgis, Stoop. Ray's Proverbs, p. 111. In Hexham's Low Dutch Dictionary, 1660, a gallon is explained by een kanne van twee stoopen. A Stoop, however, feems to have been fomething more than half a gallon. In A Catalogue of the Rarities in the Anatomy Hall at Leyden, printed there, 4to. 1701, is "The bladder of a man containing four floop (which is fomething above Two English gallons) of water." REED. 3 Did you never see the picture of we three?] An allufion to an old print, fometimes pafted on the wall of a country ale-house, reprefenting Two, but under which the fpectator reads "We three are affes." HENLEY. I believe Shakspeare had in his thoughts a common fign, in which two wooden heads are exhibited, with this infcription under it; "We three loggerheads be." The spectator or reader is fuppofed to make the third. The Clown means to infinuate, that Sir Toby and Sir Andrew had as good a title to the name of fool as himself. MALONE. 4 By my troth, the fool has an excellent breaft.] Breaft, voice. Breath has been here propofed but many instances may be brought to juftify the old reading beyond a doubt. In the ftatutes of Stoke-College, founded by Archbishop Parker, 1535, Strype's Parker, p. 9: "Which faid querifters, after their breasts are changed," &c. that is, after their voices are broken. In Fiddes's Life of Wolfey, Append. p. 128: "Singing-men well-breafted." In Tuffer's Husbandrie, p. 155, edit. P. Short: "The better breft, the leffer rest, "To ferve the queer now there now heere." fuch a leg; and fo fweet a breath to fing, as the fool has. In footh, thou waft in very gracious fooling last night, when thou 'spokest of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians paffing the equinoctial of Queubus; 'twas very good, i'faith. I fent thee fixpence for thy leman; Hadft it? 5 Tuffer, in this piece, called The Author's Life, tells us, that he was a choir-boy in the collegiate chapel of Wallingford Castle; and that, on account of the excellence of his voice, he was fucceffively removed to various choirs. T. WARTON. B. Jonfon uses the word breast in the fame manner, in his Mafque of Gypfies, p. 623, edit. 1692. In an old play called The Four P's, written by J. Heywood, 1569, is this paffage : Poticary. I pray you, tell me, can you fing? "Pedler. Sir, I have some fight in finging. Poticary. But is your breast any thing sweet? "Pedler. Whatever my breast be, my voice is meet.” 1 fuppofe this cant term to have been current among the musicians of the age. All profeffions have in fome degree their jargon; and the remoter they are from liberal science, and the lefs confequential to the general interefts of life, the more they ftrive to hide themselves behind affected terms and barbarous phrafeology. Steevens. 5 I fent thee fixpence for thy leman; hadft it ?] The old copy reads-lemon. But the Clown was neither pantler, nor butler. The poet's word was certainly mistaken by the ignorance of the printer. I have restored leman, i. e. I fent thee fixpence to spend on thy miftrefs. THEOBALD. I receive Theobald's emendation, because it throws a light on the obfcurity of the following speech. Leman is frequently used by the ancient writers, and Spenser in particular. So again, in The Noble Soldier, 1634: 66 Fright him as he's embracing his new leman." The money was given him for his leman, i. e. his mistress. We have ftill" Leman-ftreet," in Goodman's-fields. He fays he did impeticoat the gratuity, i. e. he gave it to his petticoat companion; for (fays he) Malvolio's nofe is no whipstock, i. e. Malvolio may smell out our connection, but his fufpicion will not prove the inftrument of our punishment. My mistress has a white hand, and the myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses, i. e. my mistress is handsome, but the houses kept by officers of juf CLO. I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nofe is no whipftock: My lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses. tice are no places to make merry and entertain her at. Such may be the meaning of this whimsical speech. A whipstock is, I believe, the handle of a whip, round which a strap of leather is ufually twifted, and is sometimes put for the whip itself. So, in Albumazar, 1615: "Hence dirty whipfiock" Again, in The Two angry Women of Abingdon, 1599: the coach-man fit! "His duty is before you to stand, "Having a lufty whipstock in his hand." This word occurs again in Jeronymo, 1605: Bought you a whistle and a whipftock too." STEEVENS. I did impeticos thy gratillity;] This, Sir T. Hanmer tells us, is the fame with impocket thy gratuity. He is undoubtedly right; but we must read-I did impetticoat thy gratuity. The fools were kept in long coats, to which the allufion is made. There is yet much in this dialogue which I do not understand. JOHNSON. Figure 12, in the plate of the Morris-dancers, at the end of K. Henry IV. P. I. fufficiently proves that petticoats were not always a part of the drefs of fools or jefters, though they were of ideots, for a reason which I avoid to offer. STEEVENS. It is a very grofs mistake to imagine that this character was habited like an ideot. Neither he nor Touchstone, though they wear a particoloured dress, has either coxcomb or bauble, nor is by any means to be confounded with the Fool in King Lear, nor even, I think, with the one in All's well that ends well.A Differtation on the Fools of Shakspeare, a character he has moft judiciously varied and discriminated, would be a valuable addition to the notes on his plays. RITSON. The old copy reads " I did impeticos thy gratillity." The meaning, I think, is, I did impetticoat or impocket thy gratuity; but the reading of the old copy fhould not, in my opinion, be here difturbed. The Clown ufes the fame kind of fantastick language elsewhere in this fcene. Neither Pigrogromitus, nor the Vapians would object to it. MALONE. VOL. V. U SIR AND. Excellent! ing, when all is done. SIR TO. Come on; let's have a fong. Why, this is the best fool- there is fix-pence for you! SIR AND. There's a teftril of me too: if one knight give a CLO. Would good life? 7 you have a love-fong, or a fong of SIR TO, A love-fong, a love-fong. SIR AND. Ay, ay; I care not for good life, SONG. CLO, O mistress mine, where are you roaming? SIR AND. Excellent good, i'faith! CLO. What is love? 'tis not hereafter; 7 of good life?] I do not fuppofe that by a fong of good life, the Clown means a fong of a moral turn; though Sir Andrew anfwers to it in that fignification. Good life, I beHieve, is harmless mirth and jollity. It may be a Gallicism: we call a jolly fellow a bon vivant. STEEVENS. From the oppofition of the words in the Clown's question, Į incline to think that good life is here used in its usual acceptation. In The Merry Wives of Windfor, these words are used for a virtuous character: "Defend your reputation, or farewell to your good life for ever." MALONE. What's to come, is ftill unfure: SIR AND. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight. SIR TO. A contagious breath. SIR AND. Very fweet and contagious, i'faith. SIR TO. To hear by the nofe, it is dulcet in contagion. But fhall we make the welkin dance' 8 In delay there lies no plenty ;] No man will ever be worth much, who delays the advantages offered by the present hour, in hopes that the future will offer more. So, in K. Richard III. A&t IV. fc. iii: "Delay leads impotent and fnail-pac'd beggary." Again, in K. Henry VI. P. I: "Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends." Again, in a Scots proverb: "After a delay comes a let." See Kelly's Collection, p. 52. STEEVENS. 9 Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,] This line is obfcure; we might read: Come, a kifs then, Sweet and twenty. Yet I know not whether the prefent reading be not right, for in fome counties Sweet and twenty, whatever be the meaning, is a phrase of endearment. JOHNSON, So, in Wit of a Woman, 1604; "Sweet and twenty: all sweet and sweet." Again, in The Life and Death of the Merry Devil of Edmonton, &c. by T. B. 1631: "his little wanton wagtailes, his fweet and twenties, his pretty pinckineyd pigfnies, &c. as he himself used commonly to call them." STEEVENS. Again, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: I "Good even, and twenty." MALONE. make the welkin dance-] That is, drink till the sky feems to turn round. JOHNSON. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, A&t II. fc. vii: "Cup us till the world go round.” |