some others that have weighed an ounce." Folke's Table of English silver coins, p. 32. The former of these were probably what cost Master Slender two shillings and two-pence a piece. REED.

158. -latten bilboe:] Pistol, seeing Slender such a slim, puny wight, would intimate, that he is as thin as a plate of that compound metal, which is called latten: and which was, as we are told, the old orichale. Monsieur Dacier, upon this verse in Horace's epistle de Arte Poëtica,

"Tibia non ut nunc orichalco." &c.

says, C'est une espece de cuivre de montagne, comme somme son mesme le temoigne ; c'est ce que nous appellons aujourd hay du leton. "It is a sort of mountain-copper, as its very name imports, and which we at this time of day call latten." THEOBALD.

After all this display of learning in Mr. Theobald's note, I believe our poet had a much more obvious meaning. Latten may signify no more than as thin as a lath. The words in some counties is still pronounced as if there was h in it: and Ray in his Dictionary of North Country Words, affirms it to be spelt lat in the north of England.

Falstaff threatens, in another play, to drive prince Henry out of his kingdom with a daggar of lath. A latten bilboe means therefore, I believe, no more than a blade as thin as a lath—a vice's dagger.

Theobald, however, is right in his assertion that latten was a metal. So Turbervile, in his Book of Falconry, 1575: "you must set her latten bason, or

a vessel

a vessel of stone or earth." Again, in Old Fortunatus, 1600: “Whether it were lead or lattin that hasp'd down those winking casements, I know not." Again, in the old metrical Romance of Syr Bevis of Hampton, b. 1. no date :

"Windowes of latin were set with glasse." Latten is still a common word for tin in the North. STEEVENS.

I believe Theobald has given the true sense of latten, though he is wrong in supposing, that the allusion is to Slender's thinness. It is rather to his softness or weakness. TYRWHITT.

Lattin properly so called, is tinned iron, which not only serves for the ordinary utensils of a kitchen, but is also used for play-house daggers, &c. HENLEY.

159.

Word of denial in thy labra's here;] I suppose

it should rather be read:

Word of denial in my labra's hear;

that is, hear the word of denial in my lips. Thou ly'st. JOHNSON.

We often talk of giving the lie in a man's teeth, or in his throat. Pistol chooses to throw the world of denial in the lips of his adversary, and is supposed to point to them as he speaks. STEEVENS.

I incline strongly to Dr. Johnson's emendation. 'There are few words in the old copies more frequently misrepresented than the word hear. MALONE.

Labra's ought to be printed labras.

163.

* * *

marry trap,- -] When a man was

caught

caught in his own stratagem, I suppose the exclamation of insult was marry, trap!

JOHNSON.

-] Read, pass the

nuthook's humour. Nuthook was a term of reproach in the vulgar way, and in cant strain. In The Second Part of Henry IV. Dol Tearsheet says to the beadle, Nuthook, Nuthook, you lie. Probably it was a name given to a baliff or catchpole, very odious to the common people. HANMER.

Nuthook is the reading of the folio, and the third quarto. The second quarto reads, base humour.

If you run the Nuthook's humour on me, is in plain English, if you say I am a Thief. Enough is said on the subject of hooking moveables out at windows, in a note on K. Henry IV. STEEVENS. 168.

-Scarlet and John ?] The names of two of Robin Hood's companions; but the humour consists in the allusion to Bardolph's red face; concerning which, see The Second Part of Henry IV.

WARBURTON. 173. And being fap,- -] I know not the exact meaning of this cant word, neither have I met with it in any of our old dramatick pieces, which have often proved the best comments on Shakspere's vulgarisms. Dr. Farmer, indeed observes that to fib is to beat; so that fap may mean being beaten, and cashired, turned out of company. STEEVENS.

The word fap, is probably made from vappa, a drunken fellow, or a good for nothing fellow, whose virtues all are exhaled. Slender in his answer seems to

under

understand that Bardolph had made use of a Latin word.

Slen. Ay, you spake in Latin then too;" as Pistol had just before.

S. W.

194. my book of songs and sonnets here:] Slender very probably means the poems of Lord Surrey and others, which were extremely popular in the age of Queen Elizabeth. They were printed in 1567, with this title: Songs and Sonnets, written by the right honourable Lord Henry Howard, late Earl of Surrey, and others.

Slender laments that he has not this fashionable book about him, supposing that it would have assisted him in his address to Anne Page. MALONE.

196.. -the book of riddles !] This appears to have been a popular book, and is enumerated with others in The English Courtier, and Country Gentleman. bl. let 4to. 1586, Sign. H 4. See quotation in note to Much REED.

ado about Nothing.

224.

the lips is a parcel of the mouth;the old copies. The modern editors read:

-parcel of the mind.”

-] Thus

To be a parcel of any thing is an expresson that often occurs in the old plays. So in Decker's Satiromastix:

"And make damnation parcel of your oath." Again, in Tamburlaine, 1590:

"To make it parcel of my empery."

This passage, however, might have been designed as a ridicule on another, in John Lylly's Midas, 1592:

"Pet.

"Pet. What lips hath she?

"Li. Tush! Lips are no part of the head, only made for a double leaf door for the mouth. STEEVENS.

277. —a master of fence,] Master of defence, on this occasion, does not simply mean a professor of the art of fencing, but a person who had taken his master's degree in it, I learn from one of the Sloanian MSS (now in the British Museum, No. 2530, xxvi. D.) which seems to be the fragment of a rigister formerly belonging to some of our schools where the "Noble Science of Defence" was taught, from the year 1568 to 1583, that in this art there are three degrees, viz. a master's, a provest's, and a scholar's. For each of these a prize is played, as exercises are kept in universities for similar purposes. The weapons they used were the axe, the pike, rapier, and target, rapier and cloke, two swords, the two-hand sword, the bastard sword, the dagger and staff, the sword and buckler, the rapier and dagger, &c. The places where they exercised were commonly theatres, halls, or other enclosures sufficient to contain a number of spectators, as Ealy-Place, in Holborn; the Bell Savage, Ludgate-Hill; the Curtain in Hollywell; the Gray Friars, within Newgate; Hampton Court; the Bull in Bishopsgate-Street; the Clink, Duke's-Place, Salisbury-Court; Bridewell; the Artillery-Garden, &c. &c. &c. Among those who distinguished themselves in this science, I find Tarlton the Comedian, who was allowed a master," the 23d of October, 1587 [I suppose, either as grand compounder, or mandamus],

he