whether they should succeed with their mistresses, by carrying the batchelor's buttons (a plant of the Lychnis kind, whose flowers resemble a coat button in form) in their pockets. And they judged of their good or bad success by their growing, or their not growing SMITH. there. Green mentions these batchelor's buttons in his Quip for an upstart Courtier :- "I saw the batchelor's buttons, whose virtue is to make wanton maidens weep, when they have worne them forty weeks under their aprons," &c. The same expression occurs in Heywood's Fair Maid of the West, 1631: "He wears batchelor's buttons, does he not?" Again, in The Constant Maid, by Shirley, 1640: "I am a batchelor. "I pray, let me be one of your buttons still then.” Again, in A Fair Quarrel, by Middleton and Rowley, 1617: "I'll wear my batchelor's buttons still." Again, in A Woman never Vex'd, comedy by Rowley, 1632: Go, go and rest on Venus' violets; shew her "A dozen of batchelor's buttons, boy." Again, in Westward Hoe, 1606: "Here's my husband, and no batchelor's buttons are at his doublet." STEEVENS. What can Mr. Smith mean by the flowers growing in the pockets of those who carry them? 189. of no having:] Having is the same as estate or fortune. So, in Macbeth, JOHNSON. "Of noble having, and of royal hope." Again, Twelft Night, "My having is not much, "I'll make division of my present store, 204. STEEVENS. Host. Farewel, my hearts: I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink away canary with him. Ford. [Aside.] I think, I shall drink IN PIPE-wine first with him: I'll make him dance.- -] To drink in pipe-wine is a phrase which I cannot understand. May' we not suppose that Shakspere rather wrote, I think I shall drink HORN-PIPE wine first with him: I'll make him dance? Canary is the name of a dance, as well as of a wine. Ford lays hold of both senses; but, for an obvious reason, makes the dance a horn-pipe. It has been already remarked, that Shakspere has frequent allusions to a cuckold's horns. TYRWHITT. Pipe is known to be a vessel of wine, now containing two hogsheads.. Pipe-wine is therefore wine, not from the bottle, but the pipe; and the jest consists in the ambiguity of the word, which signifies both a cask` of wine, and a musical instrument. JOHNSON. The phrase," to drink in pipe-wine"-always appeared to me a very strange one, till I met with the following passage in King James's first speech to his parliament, in 1604; by which it appears that "to drink in" was the phraseology of the time: "who either being old have retained their first drunken-in liquor upon a certain shame-facedness," &c. MALONE. 230. How now, my eyas-musket ?- -] Eyas is a young unfledg'd hawk; I suppose from the Italian Niaso, which originally signified any young bird taken from the nest unfledg'd, afterwards a young hawk. The French, from hence, took their niais, and used it in both those significations; to which they added a third, metaphorically a silly fellow; un garçon fort niais, un niais. Musket signifies a sparrow hawk, or the smallest species of hawks. This too is from the Italian Muschetto, a small hawk, as appears from the original signification of the word, namely, a troublesome stinging fly. So that the humour of calling the little page an eyas-musket is very intelligible. WARBURTON. So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608: "no hawk so haggard but will stoop to the lure: no niesse so ramage but will be reclaimed to the lunes." Eyas-musket is the same as infant Lilliputian. Again, in Spenser's Faery Queen, b. i. c. "Like eyas-hauke, up mounts into the skies, In the Booke of Haukyng, &c. commonly called the under a bussarde or puttock, as many ben, have watry eyen," &c. STEEVENS. 234 Jack-a-lent,- -] A Jack o' lent was a puppet thrown at in Lent, like shrove-cocks. So, in The Weakest goes to the Wall, 1618: "A mere anatomy, a Jack of Lent." Again, in the Four Prentices of London, 1632: "Now you old Jack of Lent, six weeks and up wards." Again, in Greene's Tu Quoque, 1599: -for if a boy, that is throwing at his Jack o' Lent, chance to hit me on the shins, &c." See a note on the last scene of this comedy. 249. -from jays.] So, in Cymbeline, 66- -some jay of Italy, STEEVENS. "Whose mother was her painting," &c. STEEVENS. 250. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel?] This is the first line of the second song in Sidney's Astrophel and Stella. 251. TOLLET. -Why, now let me die; for I have lived long enough; -] This sentiment, which is of sacred origin, is here indecently introduced. It appears again, with somewhat less of profaneness, in the Winter's Tale, act iv. and in Othello, act ii. STEEVENS. 262. arched bent- -] Thus the quartos 1602, and 1619. The folio reads-arched beauty. STEEVENS. 263. -that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-VALIANT, or any Venetian attire.] The old quarto reads,` tire-vellet, and the old folio reads, or any tire of Venetian admittance. So that the true reading of the whole is this, that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-VALIANT, or any tire of Venetian admittance. The speaker tells his mistress, she had a face that would become all the headdresses in fashion. The ship-tire was an open headdress, with a kind of scarf depending from behind. Its name of ship-tire was, I presume, from its giving the wearer some resemblance of a ship (as Shakspere says) in all her trim: with all her pennants out, and flags and streamers flying. Thus Milton, in Samson Agonistes, paints Dalila: "But who is this, that thing of sea or land ? "That so bedeck'd, ornate and gay, "Comes this way sailing "Like a stately ship "Of Tarsus, bound for the isles "Of Javan or Gadier, "With all her bravery on, and tackle trim, "Sails fill'd, and streamers waving, "Courted by all the winds that hold them play." This was an image familiar with the poets of that time. Thus Beaumont and Fletcher, in their play of Wit without Money" She spreads sattens as the king's ships do canvas every where, she may space her misen," &c. This will direct us to reform the following word of tire-valiant, which I suspect to be corrupt, valiant being a very incongruous epithet for a woman's head-dress: I suppose Shakspere wrote tire vailant. |