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cullor into his cheekes, and is ready to give the trumpets their cue that hees upon point to enter."

STEEVENS.

-] Lord Bacon in his

127. -on a recorder ;natural history, cent. iii. sect. 221, speaks of recorders and flutes at the same instant, and says, that the recorder hath a less bore, and a greater, above and below; and elsewhere, cent. ii. sect. 187, he speaks of it as having six holes, in which respect it answers to the Tibia minor or Flajolet of Mersennus. From all which particulars, it should seem that the flute and the recorder were different instruments, and that the latter, in propriety of speech, was no other than the flagolet. Hawkins's History of Musick, Vol. IV. p. 479. REED.

Shakspere introduces it in Hamlet; and Milton says:
"To the sound of soft recorders."

This intrument is mentioned in many of the old plays.
STEEVENS.

-but not in government.] That is, not regularly, according to the tune. STEEVENS. 131. In this place the folio, 1623, exhibits the following prompter's direction. Tawyer with a trumpet before them. STEEVENS,

142. To meet at Ninus' tomb, &c.] So, in Chaucer's Legend of Thisbe of Babylon:

"Thei settin markes their metingis should be,
"There king Ninus was graven undir a tre.”

Again:

“And as she ran her wimple she let fall," &c.

STEEVENS.

4

1

146. -her mantle she did fall;] Thus all the old copies. The modern editions read :-" she let fall," unnecessarily. To fall in this instance is a verb active, and occurs in The Tempest, &c.

STEEVENS.

150. Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,] Mr. Upton rightly observes, that Shakspere in this line ridicules the affectation of beginning many words with the same letter. He might have remarked the same of

The raging rocks

And shivering shocks.

Gascoigne, contemporary with our poet, remarks and blames the same affectation.

JOHNSON.

This alliteration seems to have reached the height of its fashion in the reign of king Henry VIII. The following stanza is quoted from a poem On the Fall and evil Success of Rebellion, written in 1537, by Wilfride Holme.

او

"Loe, leprous lurdeins, lubricke in loquacitie, "Vah, vaporous villeins, with venim vulnerate, "Proh, prating parenticides, plexious to pinnositie,

"Fie, frantike, fabulators, furibund, and fatuate, "Out, oblatrant, oblict, obstacle, and obsecate. "Ah addict algoes, in acerbitie acclamant, “Magnall, in mischief, malicious to mugilate, "Repriving your Roy so renowned and radiant." In Tusser's Husbandry, p. 104, there is a poem of which every word begins with a T; and the old play entitled,

The

The Historie of the Two valiant Knights, Syr Clyomon Knight of the Golden Sheeld, Sonne to the King of Denmark; and Clamydes the White Knight, Son to the King of Suavia, 1599, is another remarkable instance of alliteration:

"Bringing my barke to Denmarke here, to bide the bitter broyle

"And beating blowes of billows high," &c.

STEEVENS.

170. It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse, my lord.] Demetrius is represented as a punster : I believe the passage should be read: This is the witiest partition, that ever I heard IN discourse. Alluding to the many stupid partitions in the argumentative writtings of the time. Shakspere himself, as well as his contemporaries, uses discourse for reasoning: and he here avails himself of the double sense; as he had done before in the word, partition. FARMER.

177. And thou, O wall, O sweet,folio reads:

-] The first

MALONE.

And thou, O wall, thou sweet. 183. Owicked wall, &c.] So, in Chaucer's Legend of Thisbe:

"Thus would thei saine, alas ! thou wicked wal,"

&c.

STEEVENS.

194. knit up in thee.] Thus the folio. The quarto reads: knit now again.

STEEVENS.

200. And like Limander, &c.] Limander and Helen, are spoken by the blundering player, for Leander and Hero. Shafalus and Procrus, for Cephalus and Procris.

JOHNSON.

On

On the books of the Stationers-Company, October 22, 1593, is enter'd, “ A booke entitled, Procris & Cephalus, divided into four parts." It has been already observed, that book was once the technical term for play. Shakspere therefore might design to ridicule Chute's play on this subject. This poor author was the butt of Nash and other literary buffoons of his age. STEEVENS.

-210. Thes. Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.

Dem. No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear without warning.] This alludes to the proverb, "Walls have ears." A wall between almost any two neighbours would soon be down, were it to exercise this faculty without previous warning.

FARMER.

The old copies read moral, instead of mural. Mr. MALONE.

Pope made the change.

220.

Here come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.] I don't think the jest here is either complete, or right. It is differently pointed in several of the old copies, which, I suspect, may lead us to the true reading, viz.

Here come two noble beasts-in a man end a lion. Immediately upon Theseus saying this, Enter Lion and Moonshine. It seems very probable therefore, that our author wrote,

-in a moon and a lion.

the one having a crescent and a lanthorn before him, and representing the man in the moon; the other in a lion's hide.

THEOBALD.

Here come two noble beasts in, a moon and a lion. I cannot help supposing that we should have it, a mooncalf. The old copies read a man: possibly man was the marginal interpretation of moon-calf; and being more intelligible, got into the text.

"I

The man in the moon was no new character on the stage, and is here introduced in ridicule of such exhibitions. Ben Jonson, in one of his masques, called News from the New World in the Moon, makes his Factor doubt of the person who brings the intelligence. must see his dog at his girdle, and the bush of thorns at his back, ere I believe it."—"Those," replies one of the heralds, "are stale ensigns o' the stage.' FARMER.

I believe our author wrote

Here come two noble beasts; e'en, &c.

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So, in As You Like It: "Here comes a pair of very strange beasts," &c. not—“ here comes in.” See my note on All's Well that Ends Well, act i. "You are shallow, Madam, in great friends." MALONE.

226. Then know, that I, one Snug the joiner, am] Thus the folio, 1623, which likewise reads a lion fell. This not agreeing with the remainder of the speech, the modern editors have altered it into no lion fell. Had they consulted the quarto, 1600, it would have set them right:

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"Then know that I, as Snug the joyner, am "A lion fell, nor else no lyons dam."STE EVENS, 252.-in snuff.] An equivocation. Snuff signifies both the cinder of a candle, and hasty anger.

JOHNSON.

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