together, and whichever rider could get the lead, the other was obliged to follow him over whatever ground he chose to take.

II. iv. p. 75. A wit of cheveril.-An allusion to the pliable quality of kid-skin. Cf. Twelfth Night, III. i. p. 77: A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit."

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II. iv. p. 77. Skains-mates." The word skain," says Mr. Staunton, "I am told by a Kentish man, was formerly a familiar term in parts of Kent to express what we now call a scapegrace or 'ne'er-do-well." " Probably, as Steevens and Chambers suggest, skein or skain signifies a short knife or dagger. The Nurse meant Mercutio's fencing-school companions.

II. iv. p. 79. Like a tackled stair.—Like a rope-ladder in the tackle of a ship.

III. i. p. 90. Pilcher.-A facetious term for a sheath or scabbard. Nash, in his "Pierce Pennyless" (1592), speaks of "a carreman in a lether pilche," and Shakspere here used "pilcher to express a leather case or cover.

III. ii. p. 96. Phaethon.-The son of Helios the Sungod, whose chariot he attempted to drive.

III. ii. p. 96. Hood my unmanned blood bating in my cheeks. These are expressions borrowed from falconry.

A hawk had its head covered with a hood until the moment when it was sent forth to fly at its quarry; an unmanned hawk is one that is untamed, one unfamiliar with its trainer; and bating is beating with the wings, fluttering violently in attempts to escape.

III. iii. p. 109. Like powder in a skilless soldier's flask. The ancient English soldiers, using match-locks, instead of locks as at present constructed, were obliged to carry a lighted match hanging at their belts, very near to the wooden flask in which they kept their powder.

III. iii. p. 110. Here stands all your state. — Upon this depends all your welfare.

III. iv. p. 111. She is mewed up to her heaviness.-She is keeping herself confined to her room, brooding over her grief.

III. v. p. 113. The lark and loathed toad change eyes. -It was an old belief-arising from the toad having beautiful eyes with an ugly body, and the lark being said to have ugly eyes with a beautiful song-that the toad and the lark had exchanged eyes.

III. v. p. 115. Dry sorrow drinks our blood.-The belief that grieving exhausts the blood, takes colour from the cheek, and impairs the health is more than once alluded to by Shakspere.

III. v. p. 119. Take me with you.—An idiomatic phrase meaning "Let me understand you."

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III. v. p. 119. Chop-logic. That this was used as a nick-name is shown by a passage from The XXIIII Orders of Knaves". Choplogyk is he that whan his mayster rebuketh his servaunt for his defawtes he will gyve hym xx wordes for one.'

IV. i. p. 126. The label to another deed.-Instead of being placed on the deeds themselves, seals of attestation were placed upon labels or slips of parchment, which were appended to the deeds.

IV. i. p. 129. In thy best robes, uncovered on the bier. The ancient custom here recorded, of bearing a dead body to the grave richly attired, and with the face uncovered, still prevails in parts of Italy.

IV. ii. p. 130. Cannot lick his own fingers.-Puttenham, in his "Arte of English Poesie" (1589), gives the proverbial saying here alluded to:

"As the olde cocke crowes, so doeth the chicke:
A bad cooke that cannot his owne fingers licke."

IV. iii. p. 134. Shrieks like mandrakes'.-There was a superstitious belief attached to the root called the mandrake. In Bulleine's "Bulwarke of Defence against Sickness" (1575), there is an account of this fabulously endowed plant:-"Without the death of some lyvinge

thinge it cannot be drawen out of the earth to man's use; therefore they did tye some dogge or other lyving beast unto the roote thereof with a corde, and digged the earth in compasse round about, and in the meanetyme stopped their own eares for feare of the terreble shriek and cry of this Mandrack. In whych cry it doth not only dye itselfe but the feare thereof kylleth the dogge or beast which pulleth it out of the earth.”

IV. iv. p. 135. Cot-quean.—An old name for a man who meddled and pottered in domestic affairs.

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IV. iv. p. 136. Mouse-hunt.-Woman-hunter. An old name for a stoat, marten, or weasel, accustomed to hunt for its prey in the night-time. Mouse was formerly a term of familiar endearment for a woman, hence Lady Capulet's sportive reference to the days when her husband had been a young gallant.

IV. v. p. 142. "Heart's ease," "My heart is full of woe."-The names of two popular ballads of Shakspere's time.

IV. v. p. 143. “When griping grief," &c.—This is the commencement of a song "In Commendation of Musick," by Richard Edwards, printed in “The Paradise of Dayntie Devises" (1576).

V. i. p. 146. An alligator stuffed.-This formed a customary part of the appointments of an apothecary's shop in Shakspere's time.

V. iii. p. 151. In dear employment.-Gems were supposed to possess valuable properties and peculiar virtues.

V. iii. p. 153. A lantern.-One of those spacious round or octagonal turrets full of windows, by means of which cathedrals and sometimes halls are illuminated, and styled in ancient records a "lanternium." There is a beautiful specimen at Ely Minster.

V. iii. p. 154. A lightning before death.-It was an old belief that previously to coming misfortune or death men are in unusually high spirits.

V. iii. p. 164. And some punished. This line has reference to the distribution of pardon and punishment as detailed in the poem whence Shakspere took the groundwork of his Play: for there the Nurse is banished for having concealed the marriage; Romeo's servant is acquitted, because he acted in obedience to his master's orders; the apothecary is hanged; and the friar dismissed to end his days in a hermitage.

GLOSSARY