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vailant. As the ship-tire was an open head-dress, so the tire vailant was a close one; in which the head and breast were covered as with a veil. And these were, in fact, the two different head-dresses then in fashion, as we may see by the pictures of that time: One of which was so open, that the whole neck, breasts, and shoulders, were opened to view: the other, so securely inclosed in kerchiefs, &c. that nothing could be seen above the eyes, or below the chin. WARBURTON.

or any Venetian attire.] This is a wrong reading, as appears from the impropriety of the word attire here used for a woman's head-dress: whereas it signifies the dress of any part. We should read, therefore, or any tire of Venetian admittance. For the word attire, reduced by the apheresis, to 'tire, takes a new signification, and means only the head-dress. Hence tire-woman, for a dresser of the head. As to the meaning of the latter part of the sentence this may be seen by a paraphrase of the whole speech.— Your face is so good, says the speaker, that it would become any head-dress worn at court, either the open or the close, or indeed any rich and fashionable one worth adorning with Venetian point, or which will admit to be adorned. [Of Venetian admittance.] The fashionable lace, at that time was Venetian point.

WARBURTON.

This note is plausible, except in the explanation of Venetian admittance: but I am afraid this whole system of dress is unsupported by evidence. JOHNSON.

of

of Venetian admittance.] i. e. of a fashion received from Venice. So, in Westward Hoe, 1606, by Decker and Webster "-now she's in that Italian head-tire you sent her." Dr. Farmer proposes to read-" of Venetian remittance." Dr. Warbur ton might have found the same reading in the quarto, 1630. Instead of tire-valiant, I would read ' tirevolant. Stubbs, who describes most minutely every article of female-dress, has mentioned none of these terms, but speaks of vails depending from the top of the head, and flying behind in loose folds. The word volant was in use before the age of Shakspere. I find it in Wilfride Holmes's Fall and evil Successe of Rebellion, 1537:

(6 high volant in any thing divine."

We

Tire vellet, in the old 4to, may be printed, as Mr. Tollet observes, by mistakę, for tire-velvet. know that velvet-hoods were worn in the age of Shakspere. STEEVENS. Among the presents sent by the Queen of Spain to the Queen of England, in April 1606, was a velvet cap with gold buttons. MALONE.

267.

a traitor- -] i. e. to thy own merit.

STEEVENS.

The folio reads thou art a tyrant to say so.

MALONE.

271. fortune thy foe.] "Was the beginning of an old ballad, in which were enumerated all the misfortunes that fall upon mankind, through the caprice of fortune." See note on The Custom of the

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Country, A 1. S 1. by Mr. Theobald, who observes, that this ballad is mentioned again in a comedy by John Tatham, printed 1660, called The Rump, or Mirror of the Times, wherein a Frenchman is introduced at the bonfire made for the burning of the rumps, and catching hold of Priscilla, will oblige her to dance, and orders the music to play Fortune my Foe. See also Lingua, Vol. V. Dodsley's collection of Old Plays, p. 188; and Tom Essence, 1667, p. 37.

REED.

This tune is the identical air now known by the song of Death and the Lady, to which the metrical lamentations of extraordinary criminals have been usually chanted for upwards of these two hundred years. REMARKS.

The first and second folio read :-I see what thou wert if Fortune thy foe were not Nature thy friend. The passage is not in the early quarto.

-like Bucklers-bury, &c.] Bucklers-bury, in the time of Shakspere, was chiefly inhabited by druggists, who sold all kind of herbs, green as well as dry. STEEVENS.

So, in Decker's Westward Hoe, a comedy, 1607: "Go into Bucklers-bury, and fetch me two ounces of preserved melounes, look there be no tobacco taken in the shop when he weighs it." Again, in the same play: "Run into Bucklers-bury, and fetch me two ounces of dragon-water, some spermaceti, and treacle." MALONE.

317. speak louder] i. e. that Falstaff who

is retired may hear. This passage is only found in

the two elder quartos.

STEEVENS.

346. I love thee-and none but thee;] The words printed in italicks, which are characteristick, and spoken aside, deserve to be restored from the old quarto. He had used the same words before to Mrs. Ford. MALONE. -] The reverend

-how you drumble:

352. Mr. Lamb, the editor of the antient metrical history of the Battle of Floddon, observes that-look how you drumble, means-how confused you are; and that in the North, drumbled ale is muddy, disturbed ale. Thus, a Scottish proverb in Ray's collection :

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"It is good fishing in drumbling waters.' Again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's hunt is up, this word occurs : --gray-beard drumbling over a discourse." Again: -your fy in a box is but a drumble-bee in comparison of it." Again: "this drumbling course.” STEEVENS.

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To drumble, in Devonshire, signifies to mutter in a sullen and inarticulate voice. No other sense of the word will either explain this interrogation, or the passages adduced in Mr. Steevens's note. To drumble and drone are often used in connexion. HANLEY. A drumbie drone, signifies a drone or humble-bee.

363.

MALONE.

-and of the season too it shall appear.] I

would point differently.

And of the season too;

-it shall appear.

Ford seems to allude to the cuckold's horns. So

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afterwards: "And so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, peer out, peer out."

MALONE.

I am satisfied with the old punctuation. In the Rape of Lucrece, our poet makes his heroine 'compare herself to an "unseasonable doe;" and, in Blunt's Customs of Manors, p. 168, is the same phrase employed by Ford :—" A bukke delivered him of seyssone, by the woodmaster and keepers of Needwoode." STEEVENS.

368. -So now uncape.] So the folio of 1623 reads, and rightly. It is a term in fox-hunting, which signifies to dig out the fox when earth'd.

WARBURTON.

The allusion in the foregoing sentence is to the stopping every hole at which a fox could enter, before they uncape or turn him out of the bag in which he was brought. I suppose every one has heard of a bag-fox.

440.

-In your teeth:

STEEVENS.

-] This dirty restoration was made by Mr. Theobald. Evans's application of the doctor's words is not in the folio.

460.

STEEVENS.

father's wealth] Some light may be given to those who shall endeavour to calculate the increase of English wealth, by observing, that Latymer, in the time of Edward VI. mentions it as a proof of his father's prosperity. That though but a yeoman, he gave his daughters five pounds each for her portion. At the latter end of Elizabeth, seven hundred pounds were such a temptation to courtship, as made all

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