should read:

if I were to live but this pre

sent hour. STEEVENS

Perhaps he meant to say if I were to die this present hour. But fear may be supposed to occasion the mistake, as poor frighted Scrub cries,,,Spare all 1 have, and take my life.“

TOLLET.

P. 180, 1. 19. Cassock signifies a horseman's loose coat, and is used in that sense by the writers of the age of Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

P. 180, 1. 32. Demand of him my conditions,] i, e. my dispositions and character. MALONE.

intergatories: —] i, e. inter

P. 180, 1. 33 rogatories. REED. P. 181, first 1. for getting the sheriff's fool with child;] We are not to suppose that this was a fool kept by the sheriff for his diversion. The custody of all ideots, etc. possessed of landed property, belonged to the King, who was intitled to the income of their lands, but obliged to find them with necessaries. This prerogative, when there was a large estate in the case, was generally granted to some court-favourite, or other person who made suit for and had interest enough to obtain it, which was called begging a fool. But where the land was of inconsiderable value, the natural was maintained out of the profits, by the sheriff, who accounted for them to the crown. As for those unhappy creatures who had neither possessions nor relations, they seem to have been considered as a species of property, being sold or given with as little ceremony, treated as capriciously, and very often, it is to be feared, left to perish as miserably, as dogs or cats. RITSON.

P. 181,

g1; first ku Innocent does not here signify a person without guilt or blame; but means, in the good natured language of our ancestors, an ideot or natural fool. Agreeably to this sense of the word is the following entry of a burial in the parish register of Charlewood in Surrey : ,,Thomas Sole, an innocent about the age of fifty years and upwards, buried 19th September, 1605." WHALLEY.

Mr. Douce observes, to me, that the term innocent, was originally French. STEEVENS... P. 181, 1. 5. his brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls.] In Lucian's Contemplantes, Mercury makes Charon rémark a man that was killed by the falling of a tile upon his head, whilst he was in the act of putting off anengagement to the next day: καὶ μεταξύ λέγοντος, ἀπὸ το τέγες κεραμὶς ἐπιπέσασα, ἐκ διδ ̓ ὅτε κινήσαντος, Àætureivev âutby. See the life of Pyrrhús in Plutarch, Pyrrhus was killed by a tile. S. W.

P. 181, 1. 11. - we shall hear of your Lordship] The old copy has Lord. In the Mss. of our author's age they scarcely ever wrote Lord ship at full length. MALONE.")

P. rg1; 1. 26. Dian. The Count's a fool, and full of gold.] After this line there is apparently a line lost, there being no rhyme that corresponds to gold. JoHNSON.

I believe this line is incomplete. might have written: Dian.* C. R

and

The poet

this addition rhymes with the following alternate verses. STEEVENS.

VOL. V.

84

May we not suppose the former part of the letter to have been prose, as the concluding words The feigned letter are? The, sonnet intervenes. from Olivia to Malvolio, is partly prose, partly verse. MALONE.

A

P. 182, 1. 8. Half won, is match well made; match, sand well make it;] This find. I ready line has no meaning that I can with a very slight alteration: Half won is match well made; watch, and well make it. That is, a match well made is half won; watch, and make it well.

་ །

The

This is, in my opinion, not all the error, lines are misplaced, and should be read thus: Half won is match well made; watch, and well make it;:

When he swears oaths, bid him drop gold, and take it.

After he scorês, he never pays the score: › He ne'er pays after-debts, take it before,

And say

That is, take his money, and leave him to himself. When the players had lost the second line, they tried to make a connection out of the rest, Part is apparently in couplets, and the whole was probably uniform. JOHNSON.

Perhaps we should read:

Half won is match well made, match an' we'll make it.

i. e. if we mean to make any match of it at all.

9EEVENS.

There is no need of change. The meaning is, make you

,,A match well made, is half won; match therefore, but make iter

とす

well."

M. MASON.

1

The verses having been designed by Parolles as a caution to Diana, after informing her that Ber tram is both rich and faithless, he admonishes her not to yield up her virtue to his oaths, but his gold and having enforced this advice by an adage, recommends her to comply with his importunity, provided half the sum for/which she shall stipulate be previously paid her: - Half won is match well made; match, and well make it. HENLEY.

Gain half of what he offers, and you are well off; if you yield to kim, make your bargain secure. MALONE.

P. 132, l. 12. Men are to mell with, boys are not to kiss:] The meaning of the worp mell, from meler, French, is obvious. STEEVENS.

Mr. Theobald and the subsequent editors read boys are but to kiss. I do not see any need of change, nor do I believe that any opposition was intended between the words mell and kiss. Parolles wishes to recommend himself to Diana, and for that purpose advises her to grant her favours to men, and not to boys.

To mell is used by our author's contemporaries in the sense of meddling, without the indecent. idea which Mr. Theobald supposed to be couched under the word in this place. MALONE.

P. 182, last 1. but one. He will steal an egg out of a cloister; ] I know not that cloister, though it may etymologically signify any thing. shut, is used by our author otherwise than for a monastery, and therefore I cannot guess whence this hyperbole could take its original: perhaps it means only this: He will steal any thing,

however trifling, from any place, however holy. JOHNSON.

Robbing the spital, is a common phrase, of the like import. M. MASON.

P. 183, 1. 22. → Mile-end,] See King Henry IV. P. II. Act III. sc. ii.

MALONE.

P. 183, 1. 28. Ber. A pox on him! he's a cat still.] That is, throw him how you will, he lights upon his legs. JOHNSON.

Bertram has no such meaning. In a speech or two before, he declares his aversion to a cat, and now only continues in the same opinion, - and says he hates Parolles as much as he hates a cat. The other explanation will not do, as Parolles could not be meant by the cat, which always lights on its legs, for Parolles is now in a fair way to be totally disconcerted. STEEVENS

I am still of my former opinion. The speech was applied by King James to Coke, with respect to his subtilties of law, that throw him which way we would, he could still, like a cat, light upon his legs. JOHNSON.

The Count had said, that formerly a cat was the only thing in the world which he could not as much the endure; but that now Parolles was object of his aversion as that animal. After Pa rolles has gone through his next list of falsehoods, the Couut adds,,, he's more and more a cat," still more and more the object of my aversion than he was. As Parolles proceeds still further, one of the Frenchmen observes, that the singularity of his impudence and villainy redeems his character. -Not at all, replies the Count;,,he's me he is as hateful to as ever. a cat still;" There cannot therefore, I think, be any doubt that Dr. Johnson's interpretation, throw him