SLEN. I had a father, mistress Anne ;-my uncle can tell you good jests of him :-Pray you, uncle, tell mistress Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle.

SHAL. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.

SLEN. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Glocestershire.

SHAL. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman. SLEN. Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail 9, under the degree of a 'squire.

9 - come CUT and LONG TAIL,] i. e. come poor, or rich, to offer himself as my rival. The following is said to be the origin of the phrase:-According to the forest laws, the dog of a man, who had no right to the privilege of chace, was obliged to cut, or law his dog among other modes of disabling him, by depriving him of his tail. A dog so cut was called a cut, or curt-tail, and by contraction cur. Cut and long-tail therefore signified the dog of a clown, and the dog of a gentleman.

Again, in The First Part of the Eighth Liberal Science, entitled Ars Adulandi, &c. devised and compiled by Ulpian Fulwell, 1576: - yea, even their very dogs, Rug, Rig, and Risbie, yea, cut and long-taile, they shall be welcome.' STEEVENS.

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come cut and long-tail." I can see no meaning in this phrase. Slender promises to make his mistress a gentlewoman, and probably means to say, he will deck her in a gown of the court-cut, and with a long train or tail. In the comedy of Eastward Hoe, is this passage: "The one must be ladyfied forsooth, and be attired just to the court-cut and long tayle;" which seems to justify our reading-Court cut and long tail.

SIR J. HAWKINS.

- come cut and long tail." This phrase is often found in old plays, and seldom, if ever, with any variation. The change therefore proposed by Sir John Hawkins cannot be received, without great violence to the text. Whenever the words occur, they always bear the same meaning, and that meaning is obvious enough without any explanation. The origin of the phrase may however admit of some dispute, and it is by no means certain that the account of it, here adopted by Mr. Steevens from Dr. Johnson, is well-founded. That there ever existed such a mode of disqualifying dogs by the laws of the forest, as is here asserted, cannot be acknowledged without evidence, and no authority is quoted to prove that such a custom at any time prevailed. The writers on this subject are totally silent, as far as they have come

SHAL. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.

ANNE. Good master Shallow, let him woo for himself.

SHAL. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz: I'll leave

you.

ANNE. Now, master Slender.

SLEN. Now, good mistress Anne.

ANNE. What is your will?

SLEN. My will? od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest, indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.

to my knowledge, Manwood, who wrote on the Forest Laws before they were entirely disused, mentions expeditation or cutting off three claws of the fore-foot, as the only manner of lawing dogs; and with his account, the Charter of the Forest seems to agree. Were I to offer a conjecture, I should suppose that the phrase originally referred to horses, which might be denominated. cut and long tail, as they were curtailed of this part of their bodies, or allowed to enjoy its full growth; and this might be practised according to the difference of their value, or the uses to which they were put. In this view, cut and long tail would include the whole species of horses good and bad. In support of this opinion it may be added, that formerly a cut was a word of reproach in vulgar colloquial abuse, and I believe is never to be found applied to horses, except to those of the worst kind. After all, if any authority can be produced to countenance Dr. Johnson's explanation, I shall be ready to retract every thing that is here said. See also a note on The Match at Midnight, Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, vol. vii. p. 424, edit. 1780. REED.

The last conversation I had the honour to enjoy with Sir William Blackstone, was on this subject; and by a series of accurate references to the whole collection of ancient Forest Laws, he convinced me of our repeated error, expeditation and genuscission, being the only established and technical modes ever used for disabling the canine species. Part of the tails of spaniels, indeed, are generally cut off (ornamenti gratia) while they are puppies, so that (admitting a loose description) every kind of dog is comprehended in the phrase of cut and long tail, and every rank of people in the same expression, if metaphorically used. STEEVENS.

ANNE. I mean, master Slender, what would you with me?

SLEN. Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you: Your father, and my uncle, have made motions: if it be my luck, so: if not, happy man be his dole1! They can tell you how things go, better than I can: You may ask your father; here he comes.

Enter PAGE and Mistress PAGE.

PAGE. Now, master Slender :-Love him, daughter Anne.

Why, how now! what does master Fenton here? You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house : I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of.

FENT. Nay, master Page, be not impatient. MRS. PAGE. Good master Fenton, come not to my child.

PAGE. She is no match for you.

FENT. Sir, will you hear me?

PAGE.

No, good master Fenton.

Come, master Shallow; come, son Slender; in:Knowing my mind, you wrong me, master Fenton. [Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and Slender.

QUICK. Speak to mistress Page.

FENT. Good mistress Page, for that I love your daughter

In such a righteous fashion as I do,

Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners, I must advance the colours of my love2,

And not retire: Let me have your good will.

I

1 - happy man be his dole !] A proverbial expression. See Ray's Collection, p. 116, edit. 1737. STEEVENS.

I must ADVANCE THE COLOURS of my love,] The same metaphor occurs in Romeo and Juliet:

"And death's pale flag is not advanced there." STEEVENS.

ANNE. Good mother, do not marry me to yond'

fool.

MRS. PAGE. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.

QUICK. That's my master, master doctor.

ANNE. Alas, I had rather be set quick i'the earth, And bowl'd to death with turnips 3.

MRS. PAGE. Come, trouble not yourself: Good master Fenton,

I will not be your friend, nor enemy:

My daughter will I question how she loves you,
And as I find her, so am I affected;

'Till then, farewell, sir :-She must needs go in ; Her father will be angry.

[Exeunt Mrs. PAGE and ANNE. FENT. Farewell, gentle mistress; farewell, Nan *. QUICK. This is my doing now;-Nay, said I, will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician 5 ? ? Look on master Fenton :-this is my doing.

be set quick i' the earth,

And bowl'd to death with turnips.] This is a common proverb in the southern counties. I find almost the same expression in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair; "Would I had been set in the ground, all but the head of me, and had my brains bowl'd at.

COLLINS.

4 Farewell, gentle MISTRESS; farewell, Nan.] Mistress is here used as a trisyllable. MALONE.

If mistress can be pronounced as a trisyllable, the line will still be uncommonly defective in harmony. Perhaps a monosyllable has been omitted, and we should read—

"Farewell, my gentle mistress; farewell, Nan." STEEVENS. 5-fool, AND a physician?] I should read-fool or a physician, meaning Slender and Caius. JOHNSON.

Sir Thomas Hanmer reads according to Dr. Johnson's conjecture. This may be right.—Or my Dame Quickly may allude to the proverb, 'a man of forty is either a fool or a physician;' but she asserts her master to be both. FARMER.

So, in Microcosmus, a masque by Nabbes, 1637:

FENT. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to

night"

pains.

Give my sweet Nan this ring: There's for thy [Exit. QUICK. NOW heaven send thee good fortune! A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet, I would my master had mistress Anne; or I would master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would master Fenton had her: I will do what I can for them all three; for so I have promised, and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses; What a beast am I to slack it 8 ?

"Choler. Phlegm's a fool.

"Melan. Or a physician."

Again, in A Maidenhead Well Lost, 1632:

"No matter whether I be a fool or a physician."

[Exit.

Mr. Dennis, of irascible memory, who altered this play, and brought it on the stage, in the year 1702, under the title of The Comical Gallant, (when, thanks to the alterer, it was fairly damned,) has introduced the proverb at which Mrs. Quickly's allusion appears to be pointed. STEEVENS.

I believe the old copy is right, and that Mrs. Quickly means to insinuate that she had addressed at the same time both Mr. and Mrs. Page on the subject of their daughter's marriage, one of whom favoured Slender, and the other Caius : on a fool or a physician," would be more accurate, but and is sufficiently suitable to Dame Quickly, referendo singula singulis.

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Thus : 66 You two are going to throw away your daughter on a fool and a physician: you, sir, on the former, and you, madam, on the latter." MALONE.

6

ONCE to-night-] i. e. some time to-night. So, in a letter from the sixth Earl of Northumberland (quoted in the notes on the household book of the fifth earl of that name): "-notwithstanding I trust to be able ons to set up a chapell off myne owne." Again, in Ben Jonson's Silent Woman: Well, I'll try if he will be appeased with a leg or an arm; if not, you must die once; at some time or other. STEEVENS. 7 - speciously-] She means to say specially. STEEvens.

i.

e.

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