Taming of the shrew. All's well that ends well

"The morning is well up; let's haste away; "It wil be nine a clocke ere we come there.

"Kate. Nine a clocke! why 'tis already past two in the afternoon, by al the clockes in towne.

"Feran. I say 'tis but nine a clocke in the morning. "Kate. I say 'tis two a clocke in the afternoone. "Feran. It shall be nine then ere you go to your father's:

"Come backe againe; we will not goe to-day: "Nothing but crossing me still ?

"Ile have you say as I doe, ere I goe." [Exeunt omnes.

STEEVENS.

401. -on a porringer ;] The same thought occurs in K. Henry VIII. "—rail'd upon me till her pink'd porringer fell off her head." STEEVENS.

411. Why, sir, I trust, I may have leave to speak, &c.] Shakspere has here copied nature with great skill. Petruchio, by frightening, starving, and overwatching his wife, had tamed her into gentleness and submission. And the audience expects to hear no more of the shrew: when, on her being crossed in the article of fashion and finery, the most inveterate folly of the sex, she flies out again, though for the last time, into all the intemperate rage of her nature, WARBURTON.

420. A custard-coffin,

-] A coffin was the ancient culinary term for the raised crust of a pie or custard. So, in Ben Jonson's Staple of News:

"The red-deer pies in your house, or sell them

forth, sir,

"Cast

"Cast so, that I may have their coffins all
"Return'd," &c.

Again, in Ben Jonson's Masque of Gypsies Metamorphosed:

"And coffin'd in crust 'till now she was hoary."

STEEVENS.

429. Censer,] Censers in barbers shops are now disused, but they may easily be imagined to have been vessels which, for the emission of the smoke, were cut with great number and varieties of interstices.

445.

JOHNSON. -thou thimble,] The taylor's trade having an appearance of effeminacy, has always been, among the rugged English, liable to sarcasms and contempt.

451.

JOHNSON.

-be-mete] i. e. be-measure thee.

STEEVENS.

461. faced many things.] i. e. turned up many gowns, &c. with facings, &c. So, in K. Henry IV. "To face the garment of rebellion

"With some fine colour."

STEEVENS.

463. -brav'd many men ;] i. e. made many men fine. Bravery was the ancient term for elegance of dress. STEEVENS.

473. loose-body'd gown,] I think the joke is impair'd, unless we read with the original play already quoted-a loose body's gown. It appears, however, that loose-bodied gowns were the dress of harlots. Thus, in the Michaelmas Term, by Middleton, 1607: "Dost dream

Giij

dream of viginity now? remember a loose-bodied gown, wench, and let it go." STEEVENS. See Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. iii. p. 479. Reed's edit. 1780.

477. —a small compass'd cape;] Stubbs, in his Anatomy of Abuses, 1565, gives a most elaborate description of the gowns of women; and adds, "Some have capes reaching down to the midst of their backs, faced with velvet, or else with some finer wrought taffata, at the least, fringed about, very bravely."

STEEVENS.

A compass'd cape is a round cape. To compass, is to come round. JOHNSON. 489. take thou the bill.] The same quibble between the written bill, and bill the ancient weapon carried by foot-soldiers, is to be met with in Timon. STEEVENS.

490.thy mete-yard,] i. e. thy measuring-yard, So, in the Miseries of Inforc'd Marriage, 1607:

"Be not a bar between us, or my sword

"Shall mete thy grave out."

STEEVENS, 533. After this exeunt, the characters before whom the play is supposed to be exhibited, have been hitherto introduced from the original so often mentioned in the former notes.

"Lord. Who's within there?

Enter Servants.

"Asleep again! go take him easily up, and put him in his own apparel again. But see you wake him not in any

case.

"Serv.

"Serv. It shall be done, my lord; come help to bear him hence. [They bear off Sly." STEEVENS.

534. I cannot but think that the direction about the Tinker, who is always introduced at the end of the acts, together with the change of the scene, and the proportion of each act to the rest, make it probable that the fifth act begins here. JOHNSON.

538. Tra. Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus.] This line has, in all the editions hitherto, been given to Tranio. But Tranio could with no propriety speak this, either in his assumed or real character. Lucentio was too young to know any thing of lodging with his father, twenty years before at Genoa and Tranio must be as much too young, or very unfit to represent and personate Lucentio. I have ventured to place the line to the Pedant, to whom it must certainly belong, and is a sequel of what he was before saying. THEOBALD. Shakspere has taken a sign out of London, and hung it up in Padua:

"Meet me an hour hence at the sign of the Pegasus in Cheapside." Return from Parnassus, 1606: Again, in the Jealous Lovers, by Randolph, 1632 : "A pottle of elixir at the Pegasus,

"Bravely carous'd, is more restorative.”

STEEVENS.

"The em

369. For curious I cannot be with you,] Curious is scrupulous. So, in Holinshed, p. 888: peror obeying more compassion than the

reason of

things,

things, was not curious to condescend to performe so good an office," &c. Again, p. 890. "-and was not curious to call him to eat with him at his table."

581.

wrong.

-Where then do you know best,

Be we affy'd;

We may

STEEVENS.

This seems to be

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