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This furnished Shakspere with the hint for the fol lowing line:

"I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek." STEEVENS.

579. I'll frush it, -] The word frush I never found elsewhere, nor understand it. Hanmer explains it, to break or bruise. JOHNSON.

To frush a chicken, is a term in carving which I cannot explain. I am indebted for this little knowledge of it to E. Smith's Complete Huswife, published in 1741. The term is as ancient as Wynkyn de Worde's Book of Kervinge, 1508. Holinshed, describing the soldiers of Richmond making themselves ready, says, "" they bent their bows, and frushed their feathers ;" and (as Mr. Tollet has observed) employs it again in his Description of Ireland, p. 29: "When they are sore frusht with sickness, or to farre withered with age.' To frush, in this first instance, says he, signifies to change the feathers from their natural smooth and sloping position, to a rough perpendicular one, whereby the arrow flies the steadier to its mark,

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and whistles in the air. In the second instance it means to disorder. The word seems to be sometimes used for any action of violence by which things are separated, disordered, or destroyed.

So, in Hinde's Eliosto Libidinoso, 1606:

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"High cedars are frushed with tempests, when lower shrubs are not touched with the wind." Again, in Hans Beer-pot's Invisible Comedy, &c. 1618:

"And with mine arm to frush a sturdy lance." Again, in The History of Helyas, Knight of the Swan, bl. let. no date:

"-smote him so courageously with his sworde, that he frushed all his helm, wherewith the erle fell backward," &c.

Again, in Stanyhurst's translation of the first book of Virgil's Æneid, 1582;

"All the frushe and leavings of Greeks, of wrathful Achilles."

Again :

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-yf that knight Æntheous haplye

"Were frusht, or remanent," &c.

Again, in Sir John Mandevile's account of the magical entertainments exhibited before the Grete Chan, p. 285:

"And then they make knyghtes to jousten in armes fulle lustyly, &c.-and they fruschen togidere fulle fiercely." STEEVENS.

587. -execute your arms.] Thus all the copies; but surely we should read-aims. STEEVENS.

611. Even with the vail--] The vail is, I think, the sinking of the sun; not veil, or cover. JOHNSON.

613. I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek.] Hector, in Lydgate's poem, falls by the hand of Achilles; but it is Troilus who, having been en

closed

closed round by the Myrmidons, is killed after his armour had been hewn from his body, which was afterwards drawn through the field at the horse's tail. The Oxford Editor, I believe, was misinformed; for in the old story-book of The Three Destructions of Troy, I find likewise the same account given of the death of Troilus. Heywood, in his Rape of Lucrece, 1638, seems to have been indebted to some such work as Hanmer mentions :

"Had puissant Hector by Achilles hand

"Dy'd in a single monomachie, Achilles "Had been the worthy; but being slain by odds, "The poorest Myrmidon had as much honour "As faint Achilles, in the Trojan's death.” It is not unpleasant to observe with what vehemence Lydgate, who in the grossest manner has violated all the characters drawn by Homer, takes upon him to reprehend the Grecian poet as the original offender. Thus, in his fourth book:

"O thou, Homer, for shame be now red,

"And thee amase that holdest thy selfe so wyse, "On Achylles to set suche great a pryse

"In thy bokes for his chyvalrye,

"Above ech one that dost hym magnyfye,

laude?"

"That was so sleyghty and so full of fraude, "Why gevest thou hym so hye a praise and STEEVENS. 614. Strike, fellows, strike;-] This particular of Achilles overpowering Hector by numbers, and without

without armour, is taken from the old story-book.

HANMER.

-] A stickler was one

622. And, stickler-like,who stood by to part the combatants when victory could be determined without bloodshed. They are often mentioned by Sidney. "Anthony (says Sir Tho. North, in his translation of Plutarch) was him-` self in person a stickler, to part the young men when they had fought enough." They were called sticklers, from carrying sticks or staves in their hands, with which they interposed between the duellists. We now call these sticklers-sidesmen. So again, in a comedy called Fortune by Land and Sea, by Heywood and Rowley: "'tis not fit that every apprentice should with his shop-club play between us the stickler."

Again, in the tragedy of Faire Mariam, 1613:

"And was the stickler 'twixt my heart and him."

Again, in Fuimus Troes, 1633:

"As sticklers in their nation's enmity."

STEEVENS.

The word stickler is simply from the verb stickle, to take part with, to busy one's self on either side. REMARKS. 638. Never go home, &c.] This line is in the quarto given to Troilus.

JOHNSON.

644. -smile at Troy!] Thus the ancient copies ; but it would better agree with the rest of Troilus's

wish, were we to read,

I say, at once!

-smite at Troy,

STEEVENS.

656. Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,] I adopt the conjecture of a deceased friend, who would read welland, i. e. weeping Niobes. The Saxon termination of the participle in and, for ing, is common in our old poets, and often corrupted at the press. So, in Spenser :

"His glitter and armour shined far away." Where the common editions have glitterand.

670. Hence, broker lacquey!The folio has brother.

675.

WHALLEY.

-] So the quarto. JOHNSON.

-lov'd,] Quarto; desir'd, folio. JOHNSON.

691. Some galled goose of Winchester] The publick stews were anciently under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Winchester.

POPE.

Mr. Pope's explanation may be supported by the following passage in one of the old plays, of which my negligence has lost the title :

"Collier! how came the goose to be put upon you?

"I'll tell thee: The term lying at Winchester in Henry the Third's days, and many French women coming out of the Isle of Wight thither, &c. there were many punks in the town," &c.

A particular symptom in the lues venerea was called a Winchester goose. So, in Chapman's comedy of Monsieur D'Olive, 1606;

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