Again, in New Shreds of the Old Snare, by John Gee, quarto, p. 23. -Methinks I behold the cunning fowler, such as I have knowne in the fenne countries and elswhere, that doe shoot at woodcockes, snipes, and wilde fowle by sneaking behind a painted cloth which they carrey before them, having pictured in it the shape of a horse; which, while the silly fowle gazeth on, is knockt downe with hale shot, and so put in the fowler's budget." Mr. Reed, in addition to this quotation, might have referred to the Aviceptologie Françoise; where the author, after giving directions for a similar contrivance, observes:-c'est dans ce moment, où la vache artificielle devient aux animaux ce que, d'après Virgile, fut aux TROYENS le fameux cheval de bois. HENLEY. 548. -but that she loves him with an enraged affection-it is past the infinite of thought.] The sense is, I know not what to think otherwise, but that she loves him with an enraged affection: It (this affection) is past the infinite of thought. Infinite is used by most careful writers for indefinite: the speaker means, that thought, though in itself unbounded, cannot reach or estimate the degree of her passion. JOHNSON. -but with what an en The meaning I think israged affection she loves him, it is beyond the power of thought to conceive. MALONE. 576. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him: for she'll be up twenty times a night; and there she'll sit in her smock, 'till she have writ a sheet of paper:] paper:] Shakspere has more than once availed himself of such incidents as occurred to him from history, &c. to compliment the princes before whom his pieces were performed. A striking instance of flattery to James occurs in Macbeth; perhaps the passage here quoted was not less grateful to Elizabeth, as it apparently alludes to an extraordinary trait in one of the letters pretended to have been written by the hated Mary to Bothwell : "I am nakit, and ganging to sleep, and zit I cease not to scribble all this paper, in so meikle as rest is thairof." That is, I am naked, and going to sleepe, and yet I cease not to scribble to the end of my paper, much of it as remains unwritten. HENLEY. 587. 0, she tore the letter into a thousand half-pence ;] A farthing and perhaps a halfpenny, was used to signify any small particle or division. So, in the character of the Prioress in Chaucer: "That in hire cuppe was no ferthing sene "Of grese, whan she dronken haddle hire draught." 615. Prol. to the Cant. Tales, late edit. v. 135. -have daff'd—] To daff is the same as to doff, to do off, to put aside. So in Macbeth: 66 626. -to doff their dire distresses." STEEVENS. —contemptible spirit.] That is, a temper inclined to scorn and contempt. It has been before remarked, that our author uses his verbal adjective with great licence. There is, therefore, no need of changing the word with sir T. Hanmer to contemptuous. JOHNSON. In the argument to Darius, a tragedy, by lord Sterline, 1603, it is said, that Darius wrote to Alexander "in a proud and contemptible manner." In this place, contemptible certainly means contemptuous. Again, Drayton, in the 24th Song of his Polyolbion, speaking in praise of a hermit, says, that he, "The mad tumultuous world contemptibly forsook, "And to his quiet cell by Crowland him betook.” 666. ried on. STEEVENS. -was sadly borne.] i: e. was seriously car STEEVENS. Line 3. ACT III. PROPOSING with the prince and Claudio:] Proposing is conversing, from the French word-propos, discourse, talk. STEEVENS. 37. As haggards of the rock.] Turbervile, in his book of Falconry, 1575, tells us, that the haggard doth come from foreign parts a stranger and a passenger;" and Latham, who wrote after him, says, that "she keeps in subjection the most part of all the fowl that fly, insomuch, that the tassel gentle, her natural and chiefest companion, dares not come near that coast where she useth, nor sit by the place where she stand eth. eth. Such is the greatness of her spirit, she will not admit of any society, until such a time as nature worketh," &c. So, in The tragical history of Didaco and Violenta, 1576: 44. "Perchaunce she's not of haggard's kind, STEEVENS. To wish him- -] i. e. recommend or desire. So in The Honest Whore, 1604: 47. "Go wish the surgeon to have great respect." REED -as full, &c.] A full bed means a rich wife. So in Othello: "What a full fortune doth the thick-lips owe?" &c. STEEVENS. 54. Misprising] Despising, contemning. JOHNSON. To misprise is to undervalue, or take in a wrong light. 64. STEEVENS. -spell him backward: -] Alluding to the practice of witches in uttering prayers. The following passages containing a similar train of thought, are from Lilly's Anatomy of Wit, 1581. "If one be hard in conceiving, they pronounce him a dowlte: if given to studie, they proclaim him a dunce if merry, a jester: if sad, a saint: if full of words, a sot: if without speech, a cypher: if one argue with him boldly, then is he impudent: if coldly, an innocent: if there be reasoning of divinitie, they cry, Quae supra nos, nihil ad nos: if of humanitie, sententias loquitur carnifex." Again, p. 44. b. "—if he be cleanly, they [women] term him proude; if meene in apparel, a sloven if tall, a lungis: if short, a dwarfe: if bold, blunt: if shame-fac'd, a cowarde, &c. P. 55. If she be well set, then call her a bosse: if slender, a hasill twig: if nut brown, black as a coal: if well colour'd, a painted wall: if she be pleasant, then is she wanton: if sullen, a clowne: if honest, then is she coye." STEEVENS. Made a foul blot : 66. If black, why, nature, drawing of an antick, -] The antick was a buffoon character in the old English farces, with a blacked face, and a patch-work habit. What I would observe from hence is, that the name of antick or antique, given to this character, shews that the people had some traditional ideas of its being borrowed from the ancient mimes, who are thus described by Apuleius," Mimi centunculo, fuligine faciem obduɛli.” WARBURTON. 69. This comparison might have been borrowed from an ancient bl. let. ballad, entitled, A Comparison of the Life of Man. ܐ، 1 may compare a man againe "Even like unto a twining vane, "That changeth even as doth the wind; "Indeed so is man's fickle mind." STEEVENS. 79. press me to death-] The allusion is to an ancient punishment of our law, called peine fort et dure, |