Sim. I do, my lord.

Sly. Here, Sim, I drink to thee.

These speeches of the presenters (as they are called), are neither to be found in the folio or quarto. Mr. Pope, as in some former instances, introduced them from the old spurious play of the same

name;

and therefore we may easily account for their want of connection with the present comedy. I have degraded them as usual into the note. By the fool in the original piece, is either meant Sander the servant to Ferando (who is the Petruchio of Shakspere), or Ferando himself. STEEVENS.

ACT III.

Line 18. -No breeching scholar] i. e. no schop!boy liable to corporal correction. So, in K. Edward the Second, by Marlow, 1622:

"Whose looks were as a breeching to a boy.”

Again, in The hog has lost his Pearl, 1614:

"-he went to fetch whips I think, and, not respecting my honour, he would have breech'd me." Again, in Amends for Ladies, 1639:

"If I had had a son of fourteen that had served me so, I would have breech'd him."

STEEVENS.

36. Pantaloon,] The old cully in Italian farces.

JOHNSON.

50. Pedascule-] He would have said Didascale; but thinking this too honourable, he coins the word Pedascule, in imitation of it, from pedant.

WARBURTON.

I believe it is no coinage of Shakspere's. It is more probable that it lay in his way, and he found it.

STEEVENS.

51. In time, I may believe, yet I mistrust.] This, and the seven verses that follow, have in all the editions been stupidly shuffled and misplaced to wrong speakers; so that every word said was glaringly out THEOBALD.

of character.

52.

-for, sure, acides, &c.] This is only said to deceive Hortensio, who is supposed to listen. STEEVENS.

80. Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice

To change true rules for new inventions.] This is sense and the meaning of the passage; but the reading of the second verse, for all that, is sophisticated. The genuine copies all concur in reading : To change true rules for old inventions.

THEOBALD.

I suppose we may safely read odd inventions. know not who first proposed it.

I

STEEVENS.

Mr. Theobald is unfaithful in his account of the old copies. The quarto and folio read:

To charge true rules for old inventions.

I believe that an opposition was intended, and that old is right. As change was corrupted into charge, why

might not true have been put instead of new, I think the author wrote:

To change new rules for old inventions;

MALONE.

i. e. to accept of new rules in exchange for old inventions. 102. full of spleen ;] That is, full of humour, caprice, and inconstancy.

122.

JOHNSON.

-old news,] These words have been added by some of the editors, and necessarily, for the reply of Baptista supposes them to have been already spoken-old laughing,-old utis, &c. are expressions of that time merely hyperbolical, and have been more than once used by Shakspere. See Note on Henry IV. act ii. scene 4.

Old was inserted by Mr. Rowe.

STEEVENS
MALONE.

136. -a pair of boots-one buckled, another laced; an old rusty sword ta'en out of the town-armoury, with @ broken hilt, and chapeless, with two broken points :] How a sword should have two broken points, I cannot tell. There is, I think, a transposition caused by the seeming relation of point to sword. I read, a pair of boots, one buckled, another laced with two broken points; an old rusty sword—with a broken hilt, and chapeless.

JOHNSON.

I suspect that several words giving an account of Petruchio's belt are wanting. The belt was then broad and rich, and worn on the outside of the clothes. Two broken points might therefore have concluded the description of its ostentatious meanness. STEEVENS.

The

The broken points might be the two broken tags to the laces.

TOLLET.

136. that have been candle-cases,] That is, I suppose, boots long left off, and after having been converted into cases to hold the ends of candles, returning to their first office. I do not know that I have ever met with the word candle-case in any other place, except the following preface to a drama ick dialogue, 1604, entitled, The Case is Alter'd, How?

"I write upon cases, neither knife-cases, pincases, nor candle-cases."

And again, in How to choose a Good Wife from a Bad, 1602:

"A bow-case, a cap-case, a comb-case, a lutecase, a fiddle-case, and a candle-case." STEEVENS. 142. infected with the fashions,- -past cure of the fives,] Fashions. So called in the West of England; but by the best writers on farriery, farcens or farcy.

Fives. So called in the West: vives elsewhere, and avives by the French; a distemper in horses, little differing from the strangles. GREY.

Shakspere is not the only writer who uses fashions for farcy. So, in Decker's comedy of Old Fortunatus, 1600:

"Shad. What shall we learn by travel? "Andel. Fashions.

"Shad. That's a beastly disease."

Again, in the New Ordinary, by Brome:

E

"My

"My old beast is infected with the fashions,

fashion-sick."

Again, in Decker's Guls Hornbook, 1609 :—“ Fashions was then counted a disease, and horses died of it." STEEVENS.

146. near-legg'd before.] Perhaps we should read-" ne'er-legg'd before,"-i. e. founder'd in his fore feet; having, as the jockies term it, never a fore leg to stand on. The subsequent words-" which being restrain'd, to keep him from stumbling"-seem to countenance this interpretation.

To go near before, is not reckoned a defect, but a perfection in a horse.

Since I wrote the above, I have found my conjecture confirmed; for so reads the first folio. MALONE.

151. -a crupper of velure,] Velure is velvet. Velours, Fr. So in The World tossed at Tennis, 1620, by Middleton and Rowley:

"Come, my well-lin'd soldier (with valour

"Not velure) keep me warm."

Again, in the Noble Gentleman, by Beaumont and

158. an old hat and the humour of forty fancies prick'd in't for a feather:] This was some ballad of drollery of that time, which the poet here ridicules, by making Petruchio prick it up in his foot-boy's old hat for a feather. His speakers are perpetually quoting

scraps