SIR AND. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.

SIR TO. A contagious breath.

SIR AND. Very sweet and contagious, i' faith.

SIR TO. To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall we make the welkin dance' indeed? Shall we rouse the night-owl in a catch, that will draw three souls out of one weaver2? shall we do that?

Yet I know not whether the present reading be not right, for in some 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 sweet and twenties, his pretty pinckineyd pigsnies, &c. as he himself used commonly to call them." STEEVENS.

Again, in The Merry Wives of Windsor :

"Good even, and twenty." MALONE.

I make the welkin DANCE] That is, drink till the sky seems to turn round. JOHNSON.

So, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. Sc. VII. :

Cup us till the world go round.” Again, Mr. Pope :

21

"Ridotta sips and dances, till she see

"The doubling lustres dance as fast as she." STEEVens. -draw three souls out of one WEAVER?] Our author represents weavers as much given to harmony in his time. I have shewn the cause of it elsewhere. The expression of the power of musick is familiar with our author. Much Ado About Nothing: "Now is his soul ravished. Is it not strange that sheep's-guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?"-Why he says, three souls, is because he is speaking of a catch of three parts; and the peripatetic philosophy, then in vogue, very liberally gave every man three souls. The vegetative or plastic, the animal, and the rational. To this, too, Jonson alludes, in his Poetaster: "What, will I turn shark upon my friends? or my friends' friends? I scorn it with my three souls." By the mention of these three, therefore, we may suppose it was Shakspeare's purpose, to hint to us those surprizing effects of musick, which the ancients speak of, when they tell us of Amphion, who moved stones and trees; Orpheus and Arion, who tamed savage beasts; and Timotheus, who governed, as he pleased, the passions of his human auditors. So

SIR AND. An you love me, let's do't: I am dog at a catch.

CLO. By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.

SIR AND. Most certain: let our catch be, Thou knave.

CLO. Hold thy peace, thou knave, knight? I shall be constrain'd in't to call thee knave, knight.

SIR AND. "Tis not the first time I have constrain'd one to call me knave. Begin, fool; it begins, Hold thy peace.

CLO. I shall never begin, if I hold my peace.
SIR AND. Good, i' faith! Come, begin.

[They sing a catch 3.

noble an observation has our author conveyed in the ribaldry of this buffoon character. WARBURTON.

In a popular book of the time, Carew's translation of Huarte's Trial of Wits, 1594, there is a curious chapter concerning the three souls, "vegetative, sensitive, and reasonable." FARMER.

I doubt whether our author intended any allusion to this division of souls. In The Tempest, we have-" trebles thee o'er;" i. e. makes thee thrice as great as thou wert before. In the same manner, I believe, he here only means to describe Sir Toby's catch as so harmonious, that it would hale the soul out of a weaver (the warmest lover of a song) thrice over or in other words, give him thrice more delight than it would give another man. Dr. Warburton's supposition that there is an allusion to the catch being in three parts, appears to me one of his unfounded refinements. MALONE.

3 [They sing a catch.] This catch is lost. JOHNSON.

A catch is a species of vocal harmony to be sung by three or more persons; and is so contrived, that though each sings precisely the same notes as his fellows, yet by beginning at stated periods of time from each other, there results from the performance á harmony of as many parts as there are singers. Compositions of this kind are, in strictness, called Canons in the unison; and as properly, Catches, when the words in the different parts are made to catch or answer each other. One of the most remarkable examples of a true catch is that of Purcel, Let's live good honest lives, in which, immediately after one person has uttered these words, "What need we fear the Pope ?" another in the course

Enter MARIA.

MAR. What a catterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not called up her steward, Malvolio, and bid him turn you out of doors, never trust me.

SIR TO. My lady's a Cataian, we are politicians;

of his singing fills up a rest which the first makes, with the words "The devil."

The catch above-mentioned to be sung by Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and the Clown, from the hints given of it, appears to be so contrived as that each of the singers calls the other knave in turn; and for this the Clown means to apologize to the knight, when he says, that he shall be constrained to call him knave. I have here subjoined the very catch, with the musical notes to which it was sung in the time of Shakspeare, and at the original performance of this comedy:

Hold thy peace and I pree thee hold thy peace

ខ

Thou knave, thou knave! hold thy peace thou knave.

The evidence of its authenticity is as follows: There is extant a book entitled, "Pammelia, Musickes Miscellanie, or mixed Varietie of pleasant Roundelays and delightful Catches of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Parts in one." Of this book there are at least two editions, the second printed in 1618. In 1609, a second part of this work was published with the title of Deuteromelia, and in this book is contained the catch above given. SIR J. HAWKINS.

4-a CATAIAN,] It is in vain to seek the precise meaning of this term of reproach. I have already attempted to explain it in a note on The Merry Wives of Windsor. I find it used again in Love and Honour, by Sir W. D'Avenant, 1649:

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Hang him, bold Cataian." STEEvens.

Malvolio's a Peg-a-Ramsey, and Three merry men be we°. Am not I consanguineous? am I not of

5 Peg-a-Ramsey,] In Durfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, is a very obscene old song, entitled "Peg-a-Ramsey." See also Ward's Lives of the Professors of Gresham College, p. 207.

PERCY.

Nash mentions "Peg of Ramsey" among several other ballads, viz. Rogero, Basilino, Turkelony, All the Flowers of the Broom, Pepper is Black, Green Sleeves, Peggie Ramsie. It appears from the same author, that it was likewise a dance performed to the music of a song of that name. STEEVENS.

Peggy Ramsey is the name of some old song; the following is the tune to it:

Peggy Ramsey.

19911

SIR J. HAWKINS.

6 Three merry men, &c.] Three merry men be we, is likewise a fragment of some old song, which I find repeated in Westward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607, and by Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Knight of the Burning Pestle :

"Three merry men

"And three merry men

"And three merry men be we."

Again, in The Bloody Brother, of the same authors: "Three merry boys, and three merry boys, "And three merry boys are we,

"As ever did sing, three parts in a string,

"All under the triple tree."

Again, in Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611:

"And three merry men, and three merry men, "And three merry men be we a." STEEVENS. This is a conclusion common to many old songs. One of the most humorous that I can recollect, is the following:

"The wise men were but seaven, nor more shall be for me; "The muses were but nine, the worthies three times three; “And three merry boyes, and three merry boyes, and three merry boyes are wee.

her blood? Tilly-valley, lady'! There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady!

[Singing.

"The vertues they were seven, and three the greater bee;
"The Cæsars they were twelve, and the fatal sisters three.
"And three merry girles, and three merry girles, and three
merry girles are wee."

There are ale-houses in some of the villages in this kingdom, that have the sign of The Three Merry Boys; there was one at Highgate in my memory. SIR J. HAWKINS.

Three merry men be we, may, perhaps, have been taken originally from the song of Robin Hood and The Tanner. Old Ballads, vol. i. p. 89:

"Then Robin Hood took them by the hands,
"With a hey," &c.

"And danced about the oak-tree;

"For three merry men, and three merry men,

"And three merry men be we." TYRWHITT.

But perhaps the following, in The Old Wiues Tale, by George Peele, 1595, may be the original. Anticke, one of the characters, says: -let us rehearse the old proverb,

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"Three merrie men, and three merrie men,

"And three merrie men be wee;

"I in the wood, and thou on the ground,

"And Jacke sleepes in the tree." STEEVENS

See An Antidote Against Melancholy, Made Up in Pills, Compounded of Witty Ballads, Jovial Songs, and Merry Catches, 4to. 1661, p. 69. REED.

7 TILLEY-VALLEY, lady!] Tilley-valley was an interjection of contempt, which Sir Thomas More's lady is recorded to have had very often in her mouth. JOHNSON.

Tilly-valley is used as an interjection of contempt in the old play of Sir John Oldcastle; and is likewise a character in a comedy intituled Lady Alimony. Tillie-vallie may be a corruption of the Roman word (without a precise meaning, but indicative of contempt) Titivilitium. See the Casina of Plautus, 2. 5. 39.

STEEVENS. Tilly-valley is a hunting phrase borrowed from the French. In the Venerie de Jacques Fouilloux, 1585, 4to. fo. 12, the following cry is mentioned: Ty a hillaut et vallecy ;" and is set to music

in pp. 49 and 50. DOUCE.

There dwelt a man in Babylon, LADY, LADY!] The ballad of Susanna, from whence this line [" There dwelt," &c.] is taken, was licensed by T. Colwell, in 1562, under the title of The goodly and constant Wyfe Susanna. There is likewise a play on this subject. T. WARTON.

"There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady." Maria's use of the