anciently signified to grow. It is yet said of the moon, that she waxes and wanes.

So, in Drayton's Polyolbion, song 1.

"I view those wanton brooks that waxing still do wane."

Again, in Lilly's Love's Metamorphosis, 1601: "Men's follies will ever wax, and then what reason can make them wise ?"

Again, in the Polyolbion, song 5.

"The stem shall strongly wax, as still the trunk doth wither."

STEEVENS. 175. taking it in snuff;] Snuff is here used equivocally for anger, and the snuff of a candle. See more instances of this conceit in K. Henry IV. Part I. act i. scene 3. STEEVENS.

181.

-for past cure is still past care.] So, in our author's 147th sonnet:

"Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
"And frantick mad with evermore unrest."
MALONE.

188. Nay, I have verses too, I thank Biron :] Here, and indeed throughout this play, the name of Biron is accented on the second syllable. In the first quarto, 1598, he is always called Berowne, as probably the name was then pronounced. MALONE.

197. 'Ware pencils !– -] The former editions read:

Were pencils

Sir T. Hanmer here rightly restored,

'Ware pencils

Rosaline,

Rosaline, a black beauty, reproaches the fair Katha

rine for painting.

The folio reads:

Ware pensals

199.

Shakspere talks of “

JOHNSON.

STEEVENS.

in another play.

so full of O's—~] i. e. pimples. -fiery O's and eyes of light,”

STEEVENS.

200. Pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows.] "Pox of that jest!" Mr. Theobald is scandalized at this language from a princess. But there needs no alarm the small-pox only is alluded to; with which, it seems, Katharine was pitted; or, as it is quaintly expressed," her face was full of O's." Davison has a canzonet on his lady's sicknesse of the poxe: and Dr. Donne writes to his sister, "at my return from Kent, I found Pegge had the poxe-I humbly thank God, it hath not much disfigured her."

FARMER.

216. -in by the week!] This I suppose to be an expression taken from hiring servants or artificers; meaning, I wish I was as sure of his service for any time limited, as if I had hired him.

The expression was a common one. So, in Vittoria Corombona, 1612:

"What, are you in by the week? So; I will try now whether thy wit be close prisoner." Again, in the Wit of a Woman, 1604:

"Since I am in by the week, let me look to the

year."

STEEVENS.

So

222. So portent-like, &c.] In former copies:

G

So pertaunt-like, would I o'er-sway his state,
That he should be my fool, and I his fate.

In old farces, to shew the inevitable approaches of death and destiny, the Fool of the farce is made to employ all his stratagems to avoid Death or Fate; which very stratagems, as they are ordered, bring the Fool, at every turn, into the very jaws of Fate. To this Shakspere alludes again in Measure for Mea

sure:

merely thou art Death's Fool;

"For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,

"And yet run'st towards him still.”.

It is plain from all this, that the nonsense of pertauntlike, should be read, portent-like, i. e. I would be his fate or destiny, and, like a portent, hang over, and influence his fortunes. For portents were not only thought to forbode, but to influence. So the Latins called a person destined to bring mischief, fatale WARBURTON. portentum.

Mr. Theobald reads,

So pedant-like

JOHNSON.

224. None are so, &c.] These are observations worthy of a man who has surveyed human nature with the closest attention. JOHNSON.

243. Saint Dennis to saint Cupid!--] The princess of France invokes, with too much levity, the patron of her country, to oppose his power to that of

JOHNSON.

-] is a ridiculous

fit.

JOHNSON.

277. Like Muscovites, or Russians: as I guess,] A. mask of Muscovites was no uncommon recreation at court long before our author's time. In the first year of King Henry the Eighth, at a banquet made for the foreign ambassadors in the parliament-chamber at Westminster, "came the lorde Henry, earle of Wiltshire, and the lorde Fitzwater, in twoo long gounes of yellowe satin travarsed with white satin, and in every ben of white was a bend of crimosen satin, after the fashion of Russia or Ruslande, with furred hattes of grey on their hedes, either of them havying a hatchet in their handes, and bootes with pykes turned up." Hall, Henry VIII. p. 6. This extract may serve to convey an idea of the dress used upon the present occasion by the king and his lords at the performance of the play. REMARKS.

315. Beauties no richer than rich taffata.] i. e. the taffata masks they wore to conceal themselves. All the editors concur to give this line to Biron; but, surely, very absurdly; for he's one of the zealous admirers, and hardly would make such an inference. Boyet is sneering at the parade of their address, is in the secret of the ladies' stratagem, and makes himself sport at the absurdity of their proem, in complimenting their beauty, when they were masked. It therefore comes from him with the utmost propriety. THEOBALD.

342. To tread a measure- -] The measures were dances solemn and slow. They were performed at court, and at publick entertainments of the societies

Gij

of.

of law and equity, at their halls, on particular occasions. It was formerly not deemed inconsistent with propriety even for the gravest persons to join in them; and accordingly at the revels which were celebrated at the inns of court, it has not been unusual for the first characters in the law to become performers în treading the measures. To confirm this account, Mr. Reed refers to Dugdale's Origines Juridicales, and cites the following passage from Sir John Davies's poem called Orchestra, 1622:

"But after these as men more civil grew,

"He did more grave and solemn measures frame : "With such fair order and proportion true, "And correspondence ev'ry way the same, "That no fault-finding eye did ever blame,

"For ev'ry eye was moved at the sight,

." With sober wond'ring and with sweet delight. "Not those young students of the heav'nly book,

"Atlas the great, Prometheus the wise,

"Which on the stars did all their lifetime look, "Could ever find such measure in the skies, "So full of change, and rare varieties; "Yet all the feet whereon these measures go, "Are only spondees, solemn, grave, and slow.” EDITOR.

363. Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars,—] When queen Elizabeth asked an ambassador how he liked her ladies, It is hard, said he, to judge of stars in the presence of the sun.

JOHNSON.