stocata, Italian, from which language the technical term that follow are likewise adopted. STEEVENS. 570. — my heart of elder ?—] It should be remember'd, to make this joke relish, that the elder tree has no heart. I suppose this expression was made use of in opposition to the common one, heart of oak. STEEVENS. 571. bully Stale? -] The reason why Caius is called bully Stale, and afterwards Urinal, must be sufficiently obvious to every reader, and especially to those whose credulity and weakness have enrolled them among the patients of the present German empiric, who calls himself Doctor Alexander Mayersbach. STEEVENS. 574. Castilian- -] Castilian and Ethiopian, like Cataian, appear in our author's time to have been cant terms. I have met with them in more than one of the old comedies. So, in a description of the Armada introduced in the Stately Moral of the Three Lords of London, 1590: "To carry as it were a careless regard "Of these Castilians, and their accustomed bravado." Again" To parly with the proud Castilians." I suppose Castilian was the cant term for Spaniard in general. STEEVENS. "Thou art a Castilian king, Urinal!" quoth mine host to Dr. Caius. I believe this was a popular slur upon the Spaniards, who were held in great contempt after the business of the Armada. Thus we have a Treatise Parænetical, wherein is shewed the right way to resist the Castilian king: and a sonnet, prefixed to Lea's Answer to the Untruths published in Spain, in glorie of their supposed Victory atchieved against our English Navie, begins, "Thou fond Castilian king!" and so in other places. FARMER. Don Philip the Dr. Farmer's observation is just. Second affected the title of King of Spain; but the realms of Spain would not agree to it, and only styled him king of Castile and Leon, and so he wrote himself. His cruelty and ambitious views upon other states rendered him universally detested. The Castilians being descended chiefly from Jews and Moors, were deemed to be of a malign and perverse disposition; and hence, perhaps, the term Castilian became opprobrious. I have extracted this note from an old pamphlet, called The Spanish Pilgrime, which I have reason to suppose is the same discourse with the Treatise Parænetical, mentioned by Dr. Farmer. TOLLET. 581. against the hair, &c.] This phrase is proverbial, and taken from stroking the hair of animals a contrary way to that in which it grows-We now say, against the grain. STEEVENS. 599. -mock-water.] The host means, I believe, to reflect on the inspection of urine, which made a considerable part of practical physick in that time; yet I do not well see the meaning of mock-wa ter. JOHNSON, Perhaps by mock-water is meant-counterfeit. The water of a gem is a technical term. So in Timon, act i. sc. i. -here is a water, look you." Mock-water may therefore signify a thing of a counterfeit lustre. To mock, however, in Antony and Cleopatra, undoubtedly signifies to play with. Shakspere may therefore chuse to represent Caius as one to whom a urinal was a play-thing. Dr. Farmer proposes to read muck-water, i. e. the drain of a dunghill. STEEVENS. 626. In old editions, I will bring thee where Anne Page is, at a farmhouse a feasting; and thou shalt woo her: CRY'D GAME, said I well?] We yet say, in colloquial language, that such a one is- -game- —or game to the back. Cry'd game might mean—a profess'd buck, one who as was well known by the report of his gallantry, as he could have been by proclamation. Thus, in Troilus and Cressida: "On whose bright crest, fame, with her loud'st "O yes, "Cries, this is he." Again, in All's well that ends well, act ii. -find what you seek, "That fame may cry you loud." Again, in Ford's Lover's Melancholy, 1629: Again, in King Lear: -A proclaim'd prize." Again, in Troilus and Cressida : "Thou art proclaim'd a fool, I think." Cock of the game is found in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, b. xii. c. 74. "This cocke of game, and (as might seem) this hen of the same fether." Again, in the Martial Maid, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "On craven chicken of a cock o' th' game." And in many other places. STEEVENS. ACT III. Line 5. THE Pitty-wary,] The old editions read, the Pittie-ward, the modern editors the Pittywary. There is now no place that answers to either name at Windsor. The author might possibly have written the City-ward, i. e. towards London. Pettyward might, however, signify some small district in the town which is now forgotten. STEEVENS. 16. By shallow rivers, &c.] This is part of a beautiful little poem of the author's; which poem, and the answer to it, the reader will not be displeased to find here. The Passionate Shepherd to his Love. There There will we sit upon the rocks, And see the Shepherds feed their flocks, *The conclusion of this and the following poem, seems to have furnished Milton with the hint for the last lines both of his Allegro and Penscroso. STEEVENS Th |