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lent to "I shall drink." Canary was also the name of a dance, and hence the double quibble. (Halliwell.)

In Act V. Scene 5, when Falstaff's downfall is complete, and "one and all" have a stab at his character, Evans sums it up thus :-"Given to taverns and sack, and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles."

CHAPTER VIII.

COMEDY OF ERRORS.-TAMING OF THE SHREW.-THE BRIDE-CUP.-MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.-MERCHANT OF VENICE.-THE POWER OF TEMPTATION.

I

N the "Comedy of Errors," drunkenness is more than once used as a term of reproach and contempt. For example, in Act III. Scene 1, Antipholus of Ephesus addresses Dromio of Ephesus as :—

"Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this ?"

The "Phoenix," the "Tiger," the "Porpentine," are named as places of refreshment. Punch once said, "Romeo would never have asked 'What's in a name?' if he had but lived to take a tour in England, and become acquainted with the nomenclature of our inns. To us there is hardly a sign in the kingdom which is not thoroughly significant, and any traveller, we should think, who has his mental eyes about him, may see at a glance outside the way in which he will be taken in. Who, for instance, would expect to enter the jaws or doors of a Tiger without being bitten?"

In Act V., in which the intricacies of the plot reach their culmination, we find one character protesting that he is free from the exciting influence of wine, while another urges that drink is the only explanation of the perplexities.

Ant. E.

"My liege, I am advisèd what I say,
Neither disturbed with the effect of wine,
Nor heady-rash, provoked with raging ire,
Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad."

*

Duke.

"Why, what an intricate impeach is this!
I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup."

When Ulysses landed in the island of Ææa, Circe turned his companions into swine, but Ulysses resisted this metamorphose by virtue of a herb called moly, given him by Mercury.

"Who knows not Circe,

The daughter of the Sun, whose charmèd cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine ?"
Milton-" Comus."

In the "Taming of the Shrew," we are naturally prepared to find some references to tippling, since a prominent character in the Induction is one Christopher Sly, who is described as "a drunken tinker."

Scene I opens "Before an alehouse on a heath." A company of huntsmen discover Sly :

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Lord.

"What's here? one dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe ? "

2 Hunt.

"He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm'd with

ale,

This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly."

Lord.

"O monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies!

Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!

Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.

What think you, if he were convey'd to bed,

Wrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,

A most delicious banquet by his bed,

And brave attendants near him when he wakes, Would not the beggar then forget himself?"

The proposal is agreed to; the drunken tinker is put to bed; by-and-by he wakes up, and his first request is for "a pot of small ale." Then the banter begins :

I Serv.

"Will't please your lordship drink a cup of sack?

2 Serv.

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"Will't please your honour taste of these con

serves ?"

3 Serv.

"What raiment will your honour wear to-day?"

Sly.

"I am Christophero Sly; call not me 'honour,' nor 'lordship' I ne'er drank sack in my life; and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves of beef: ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear; for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet; nay, sometime, more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the over-leather.”

Lord.

"Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!
O, that a mighty man of such descent,
Of such possessions, and so high esteem,
Should be infused with so foul a spirit!'

Sly.

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"What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly's son of Burton-heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a card-maker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker! Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not; if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom."

Wincot is the name of a hamlet farm situated about four miles from Stratford, on the road to Cheltenham. Wincot is a substantial stone building of the Elizabethan period, and was probably at its first erection a manorial residence; but at no

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