been a puritanical meeting-house. The limbs of Limehouse, I do not understand. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson's conjecture may be countenanced by the following passage in, Magnificence, a goodly interlude and a méry, devised and made by mayster Skelton, poete laureate, lately dẹceasyd. Printed by John Rastell, fol. no date : "Some fall to foly them selfe for to spyll, "And some fall prechynge on toure hyll, "d STEEVENS.

Alliteration has given rise to many cant expres sions, consisting of words paired together. Here we have cant names for the inhabitants of those places who were notorious puritans, coined for the humour of the alliteration. In the meantime sit must not be forgotten, that "precious limbs" was a common phrase of contempt for the Puritans. T. WARTON. Limehouse was before the time of Shakspeare, and has continued to be ever since, the residence of those who furnish stores, sails, &c. for ship4 ping. A great number of foreigners having been constantly employed in these manufactures (many of which were introduced from other countries) they assembled themselves under their several pastors, and a number of places of different wore ship were built in consequence of their respective associations. As they clashed in principles, they had frequent quarrels, and the place has ever since been famous for the variety of its sects and the turbulence of its inhabitants. It is not improb able that Shakspeare wrote the lambs of Lime house. A limb of the devil, is, however, a common vulgarism. STEEVENS.

1

*The word limb, in the sense of an impudently vicious person, is not uncommon in London at

this day. In the north it is pronounced limp, and means a mischievous boy. The alteration suggested by Mr. Steevens is, however, sufficiently countenanced by the word tribulation, if in fact the allusion be to the puritans. RITSON.

It appears from Stowe's Survey that the inhabitants of Tower-hill were remarkably turbulent,

It may however be doubted, whether this passage was levelled at the spectators assembled in any of the theatres in our author's time. It may have been pointed at some apprentices and inferior citizens, who used occasionally to appear on the stage, in his time, for their amusement.

The limbs of Limehouse, their dear brothers, were, perhaps, young citizens, who went to see their friends. School-boys, apprentices," the students in the inns of court, and the members of the universities, all, at this time, wore occasionally the sock or the buskin. However, I am by no means confident that this is the true interpretation of the passage before us. MALONE.

It is evident that The Tribulation, from its situation, must have been a place of entertainment for the rabble of its precincts, and the limbs of Limehouse such performers as furnished out the show. HENLEY.

The Tribulation does not sound in my ears, like the name of any place of entertainment, unless it were particularly designed for the use of Religion's prudes, the Puritaus. Mercutio or Truewit would not have been attracted by such an appellation, though it might operate forcibly on the saint-like organs of Ebenezer or Ananias.

Shakspeare, I believe, meant to describe an audience familiarized to excess of noise; and why should we suppose the Tribulation was not a

puritanical meeting-house because it was noisy ? I can easily conceive that the turbulence of the most clamorous theatre, has been exceeded by the bellowings of puritanism against surplices and farthingales; and that our upper-gallery, during Christmas week, is a sober consistory compared with the vehemence of fanatick harangues against Bel and the Dragon, that idol Starch, the antichristian Hierarchy, and the Whore of Babylon,

Neither do I see with what propriety the limbs of Limehouse could be called " young citizens," according to Mr. Malone's supposition. Were the inhabitants of this place (almost two miles distant from the capital) ever collectively entitled citizens? The phrase, dear brothers, is very plainly used to point out some fraternity of can ters allied to the Tribulation both in pursuits and manners, by tempestuous zeal and consuminate ignorance. STEEVENS.

P. 117, l. 11. 12. in Limbo Patrum,] He means, in confinement. In limbo continues to be a cant phrase in the same sense, at this day.

MALONE.S The Limbus Patrum is properly the place where the old Fathers and Patriarchs are supposed to be waiting for the resurrection. REED. {

P. 117, 1. 13. the running banquet of two beadles, A publick whipping. JOHNSON.

A banquet in ancient language did not signify either dinner or supper, but the desert after each of them. To the confinement therefore of these rioters, a whipping was to be the desert.p

117

STEEVENS.

P. 118, 1.5. A bumbard is an ale-barrel, to bait bumbards is to tipple, to lie at the spigot.

JOHNSON.

P. 118, 1. 13. must rather read

get off the rail.

P. 118, l. 14.

To pick is to pitch. "To pick a dart," Cole renders, jaculor. DICT, 1679.

MALONE. To pick and to pitch were anciently synonym→ ons. STEEVENS.

P. 118, l. 16. The Palace.] At Greenwich, where, as we learn from Hall, fo. 217, this procession was made from the church of the Friars.

REED.

P. 118, 1. 21. standing-bowls] i. e. bowls elevated on feet or pedestals. STEEVENS.

P. 118, I. 29. 31. Heaven, from thy endless goodness, &c.] These words are not the invention of the poet, having been pronounced at the christening of Elizabeth. MALONE.

¡P. 119, 1. 8. good Lord Archbishop:] I suppose the word Archbishop should be omitted, as it only serves to spoil the measure. Be it remembered also that Archbishop, throughout this play, is accented on the first syllable. STEEVENS. P. 120, L 7. 8. every man shall eat in safety Under his own vine, what he plants;] The original thought, is borrowed from the 4th chapter of the first book of Kings: "Every man dwelt safely under his vine," STEEVENS.

"But

A similar expression is in Micah, iv. 4: they shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid.”

REED.

P. 120, 1. 13-34. [Nor shall this peace sleep with her: &c.] These lines, to the interruption by the King, seem to have been inserted at some revisal of the play,

after

after the accession of King James. If the passage, included in crotchets, be left out, the speech of Craumer proceeds in a regular tenour of prediction, and continuity of sentiments; but, by the interposition of the new lines, he first celebrates Elizabeth's successor, and then wishes he did not know that she was to die; first rejoices at the consequence, and then laments the cause. Our author was at once politick and idle; he resolved to flatter James, but neglected to reduce the whole speech to propriety; or perhaps intended that the lines inserted should be spoken in the action, and omitted in the publication, if any publication was ever in his thoughts. Mr. Theobald has made the same ob

servation. JOHNSON.

}

I agree entirely with Dr. Johnson with respect to the time when these additional lines were in-. serted, and suspect they were added in 1613, after Shakspeare had quitted the stage, by that hand which tampered with the other parts of the play so much, as to have rendered the versification of it of a different colour from all the other plays of Shakspeare. MALONE...

Such indeed were the sentiments of Mr. Roderick, though the examples adduced by him in support of them are, in my judgement, undeci sive. See Canons of Criticism, edit. 1763, p. 263. But, were the fact as he has stated it, wer know not how far our poet might have intentionally deviated from his usual practice of versi fication.

If the reviver of this play (or tamperer with it, as he is styled by Mr. Malone,) had so much influence over its numbers as to have entirely changed their texture, he must be supposed to have VOL. XIII.

22