197. wear his cap with suspicion?] That is, subject his head to the disquiet of jealousy. JOHNSON. In the Palace of Pleasure, p. 233, we have the following passage: "Al they that weare hornes be par. doned to weare their capps upon their heads.” 200. HENDERSON. -sigh away Sundays.] This expression most probably alludes to the strict manner in which the Sabbath was observed by the Puritans, who usually spent that day in sighs and gruntings, and other hypocritical marks of devotion. STEEVENS. 214. Claud. If this were so, so were it uttered.] Claudio, evading at first a confession of his passion, says; if I had really confided such a secret to him, yet he would have blabbed it in this manner. In his next speech, he thinks proper to avow his love; and when Benedick says, God forbid it should be so, i. e. God forbid he should even wish to marry her; Claudio replies-God forbid I should not wish it. STEEVENS. 235. but in the force of his will.] Alluding to the definition of a heretick in the schools. 239. WARBURTON. -but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead,] That is, I will wear a horn on my forehead, which the huntsman may blow. A recheate is the sound by which dogs are called back. Shakspere had no mercy upon the poor cuckold, his horn is an inexhaustible subject of merriment. JOHNSON. So, in the Return from Parnassus: 46 -When 66 -When you blow the death of your fox in the field or covert, then you must sound three notes, with three winds; and recheat, mark you, sir, upon the same three winds." "Now, sir, when you come to your stately gate, as you sounded the recheat before, so now you must sound the relief three times." Again, in the Book of Huntynge, &c. bl. let. no date, "Blow the whole rechate with three wyndes, the first wynde one longe and six shorte. The seconde wynde two shorte and one longe. The thred wynde one longe and two shorte." Among Bagford's Collections relative to Typography, in the British Museum, 1644, c. ii. in an engraved half sheet, containing the ancient Hunting Notes of England, &c. Among these, I find, Single, Double, and Treble Recheats, Running Recheat, Warbling Recheat, another Recheat with the tongue very hard, another smoother Recheat, and another warbling Recheat. The musical notes are affixed to them all. STEEVENS. A recheate is a particular lesson upon the horn, to call dogs back from the scent: froin the old French word recet, which was used in the same sense as retraite. HANMER. 240. hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick,] Bugle, i. e. bugle-horn or hunting-horn. The meaning seems to be-or that I should be compelled to carry any horn that I must wish to remain invisible, and and that I should be ashamed to hang openly in my belt or baldrick. It is still said of the mercenary cuckold, that he carries his horns in his pockets. 255. satire. 256. STEEVENS. notable argument.] An eminent subject for -in a bottle like a cat, JOHNSON. -] As to the cat and bottle, I can procure no better information than the following, which does not exactly suit with the text: In some counties of England, a cat was formerly closed up with a quantity of soot in a wooden bottle (such as that in which shepherds carry their liquor), and was suspended on a line. He who beat out the bottom as he ran under it, and was nimble enough to escape its contents, was regarded as the hero of this inhuman diversion. STEEVENS. 257. and he that hits me, let him be clap'd on the shoulder, and call'd Adam.] But, why should he therefore be call'd Adam? Perhaps, by a quotation or two we may be able to trace the poet's allusion here. In Law- Tricks, or, Who would have thought it (a comedy written by John Day, and printed in 1608), I find this speech: Adam Bell, a substantial outlaw, and a passing good archer, yet no tobacconist. By this it appears, that Adam Bell, at that time of day, was of reputation for his skill at the bow. I find him again mentioned in a burlesque poem of Sir William Davenant's, called, The Long Vacation in London. THEOBALD. Adam Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly, were, says Dr. Percy, three noted outlaws, whose skill in Archery rendered them formerly as famous in the North of England, as Robin Hood and his fellows were in the midland Counties. Their place of residence was in the forest of Englewood, not far from Carlisle. At what time they lived does not appear. The author of the common ballads on The Pedigree, Education, and Marriage of Robin Hood, makes them contemporary with Robin Hood's father, in order to give him the honour of beating them. See Reliques of ancient Poetry, Vol. I. p. 143, where the ballad on these outlaws is preserved. STEEVENS. 260. In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.] This line is taken from the Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronymo, &c. 1605, which itself, with a slight variation, is taken from Watson's Sonnets, 4to. bl. let. printed about 1580. See Note on the last Edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, Vol. XII. p. 387. STEEVENS. 269. if Cupid hath not spent all his quiver in Venice,] All modern writers agree in representing Venice in the same light as the ancients did Cyprus. And it is this character of the people that is here alluded to. WARBURTON. 284. guarded with fragments,] Guards were ornamental lace or borders. So, in the Merchant of Venice: —give him a livery "More guarded than his fellows." Again, in Henry IV. Part I. "velvet "-velvet guards and Sunday citizens." STEEVENS. 286. -ere you flout old ends, &c.] The ridicule here is to the formal conclusions of Epistles dedicatory, and Letters. Barnaby Googe thus ends his dedication to the first edition of Palengenius, 12mo. 1560: "And thus committyng your Ladiship with all yours to the tuicion of the moste mercifull God, I ende. From Staple Inne at London, the eighte and twenty of March." REED. 317. The fairest grant is the necessity:] i. e. no one can have a better reason for granting a request than the necessity of its being granted. WARBURTON. Mr. Hayley with great acuteness proposes to read, The fairest grant is to necessity. STEEVENS. 336. a thick-pleached alley] Thick-pleached is thickly interwoven. In Antony and Cleopatra: -with pleached arms, bending down 66 "His corrigible neck." STEEVENS. 353. Cousin, you know-(and afterwards) good Surely, brother and cousin never could have cousin had the same meaning: yet, as this passage stands at present, Leonato appears to address himself to Antonio (or as he is styled in the first folio, the old man), his brother, whom he is made to call cousin. It appears that several persons, I suppose Leonato's kinsmen, are at this time crossing the stage, to whom he here addresses himself. copy reads, not cousin, but Accordingly, the old Cousins, you know what you have to do." You |