KING. Why take we hands then? Ros. 3 Only to part friends :Court'fy, fweet hearts; and fo the measure ends. KING. More measure of this meafure; be not nice. Ros. We can afford no more at fuch a price. KING. Prize you yourselves; What buys your company? Ros. Your absence only. KING. That can never be. Ros Then cannot we be bought: and fo adieu; KING. If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat. KING. I am beft pleas'd with that. [They converfe apart. BIRON. White-handed miftrefs, one sweet word with thee. PRIN. Honey, and milk, and fugar; there is three. BIRON. Nay then, two treys, (an if you grow Metheglin, wort, and malmfey;-Well run, dice! PRIN. Seventh fweet, adieu! Since you can cog,3 I'll play no more with you. BIRON. One word in fecret. PRIN. BIRON. Thou griev'ft my gall. Let it not be sweet. 2 Court'fy, fweet hearts;] See Tempeft: Vol. IV. P. 40. Court'fied when you have and kiss`d—. MALONE. 66 3 Since you can cog,] To cog, fignifies to falfify the dice, and to falfify a narrative, or to lye. JOHNSON, 1 PRIN. BIRON. Gall? bitter. Therefore meet. [They converfe apart. DUM. Will you vouchsafe with me to change a Please it you, Take that for your fair lady. As much in private, and I'll bid adieu, [They converfe apart. KATH. What, was your vifor made without a tongue? LONG. I know the reafon, lady, why you ask. KATH. O, for your reafon! quickly, fir; I long. LONG. You have a double tongue within your mask, And would afford my speechlefs vifor half. KATH. Veal, quoth the Dutchman ;*-Is not veal a calf? LONG. A calf, fair lady? KATH. LONG. Let's part the word. No, a fair lord calf. No, I'll not be your half: Take all, and wean it; it may prove an ox. LONG. Look, how you butt yourself in these fharp mocks! Will you give horns, chafte lady? do not fo. KATH. Then die a calf, before your horns do grow. 4 Veal, quoth the Dutchman;] I fuppofe by veal, the means well, founded as foreigners ufually pronounce that word; and introduced merely for the fake of the fubfequent queftion. MALONE. LONG. One word in private with you, ere I die. KATH. Bleat foftly then, the butcher hears you cry. [They converfe apart. BOYET. The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen As is the razor's edge invifible, Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen; Above the sense of sense: so sensible Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings, Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, fwifter things. ' Ros. Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off. BIRON. By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure fcoff! KING. Farewel, mad wenches; you have fimple wits. [Exeunt King, Lords, Moтн. Mufick, and attendants. PRIN. Twenty adieus, my frozen Mufcovites.Are these the breed of wits fo wonder'd at? BOYET. Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out. Ros. Well-liking wits they have; grofs, grofs; fat, fat. PRIN. O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout! 5 Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, fwifter things. ] Mr. Ritfon obferves, that, for the fake of meafure, the word bullets fhould be omitted. STEEVENS. 6 Well-liking wits] Well-liking is the fame as embonpoint. So, in Job, xxxix. 4. - Their young ones are in good liking. STEEVENS Will they not, think you, hang themselves to night? Ros. O they were all in lamentable cafes! heart; And trow you, what he call'd me? PRIN. Qualm, perhaps. Go, fickness as thou art! KATH. Yes, in good faith. Ros. Well, better wits have worn plain ftatute caps. 60! they were all, &c.] 0, which is not found in the firft quarto or folio, was added by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. 7 No point, quoth 1;] Point in French is an adverb of negation; but, if properly spoken, is not founded like the point of a sword. A quibble, however, is intended. From this and the other paffages it appears, that either our author was not well acquainted with the pronunciation of the French language, or it was different formerly from what it is at prefent. The former fuppofition appears to me much the more probable of the two. In The Return from Parnaffus, 1606, Philomufus fays ... Tit, tit, tit, non poynte; non debet fieri, &c. See alfo Florio's Italian Dia. 1598, in v. "Punto. never a whit; -no point, as the Frenchmen fay." MALONE. 8 better wits have worn plain ftatute-caps. ] This line is not univerfally understood, becaufe every reader does not know that a ftatute cap is part of the academical habit. Lady Rofaline declares that her expectation was difappointed by these courtly ftudents, and that better wits might be found in the common places of education. JOHNSON, you But will Woollen caps were enjoined by act of parliament, in the year 1571, the 13th of queen Elizabeth. "Befides the bills paffed into acts this parliament, there was one which I judge not amifs to be taken notice of it concerned the queen's care for employment for her poor fort of fubje&s. It was for continuance of making and wearing woollen caps, in behalf of the trade of cappers: providing, that all above the age of fix years, (except the nobility and fome others) fhould on Sabbath days and holy days, wear caps of wool, knit, thicked, and dreft in England, upon penalty of ten groats. Strype's Annals of Queen Elizabeth, Vol. II. p. 74. GREY. This act may account for the diftinguishing mark of Mother Red-cap. I have observed that mention is made of this fign by fome of our ancient pamphleteers and playwriters, as far back as the date of the act referred to by Dr. Grey. If that your cap be wool-became a proverbial saying. So, in Hans Beerpot, a comedy, 1618: 66 66 "You shall not flinch; if that your cap be wool, "You shall along." STEEVens. 'Tis a I think my own interpretation of this paffage is right. JOHNSON. Probably the meaning is. - better wits may be found among the citizens, who are not in general remarkable for fallies of imagination. In Marton's Dutch Couriezan, 1605, Mrs. Mulligrub fays, though my husband be a citizen, and his cap's made of wool, yet I have wit." Again, in the Family of Love, 1608: law enacted by the common-council of Statute-caps." Again, in Newes from Hell, brought by the Devil's' Carrier, 1606 : in a bowling alley in a flat cap like a shop-keeper.' That these fumptuary laws, which dictated the form and materials of caps, the dimenfions of ruffs, and the length of fwords, were executed with great exactness but little difcretion, by a fet of people placed at the principal avenues of the city, may be known from the following curious paffage in a letter from Lord Talbot to the Earl of Shrewsbury, June 1580. "The French Imbafidore, Mounfwer Mouifer, ridinge to take the ayer, in his returne cam thowrowe Smithfield; and ther, at the bars, was fteayed by thos officers that fitteth to cut fourds, by reason his raper was longer than the ftatute: He was in a great feaurie, and dreawe his raper. In the meane feafon my Lord Henry Seamore cam, and fo fteayed the matt. Hir |