Line 3. made dirty.

So Spenser, b. iii. cant. 8. st. 32.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

-was ever man so ray'd?] It means bewray'd, i. e.

The whiles the piteous lady up did rise,

Ruffled and foully ray'd with filthy soil.

TOLLET.

Line 26. Away, you three-inch fool!] i. e. with a skull three inches thick, a phrase taken from the thicker sort of planks.

WARBURTON.

Line 27. why, thy horn is a foot; and so long am I, at the least.] The meaning is that he had made Curtis a cuckold.

Line 74. .80.

WARBURTON.

Line 41. Jack-boy! ho boy!] Fragment of an old ballad. WARBURTON.

Line 49. Be the jacks fair within, the jills fair without,] i.e. Are the drinking vessels clean, and the maid servants dress'd? WARBURTON.

Line 50. the carpets laid,] In Shakspeare's time, instead of table-cloths, carpets were used-and the floors were covered with rushes.

-bemoiled ;] i. e. bemired.

was burst ;] Burst means broken.

90. -garters of an indifferent knit:] What is the sense of this I know not, unless it means, that their garters should be fellows; indifferent, or not different, one from the other.

JOHNSON.

Line 134. -no link to colour Peter's hat,] A link is a torch of pitch. Greene, in his Mihil Mumchance, says--"This cozenage is used likewise in selling olde hats found upon dunghills instead of newe, blackt over with the smoake of an olde linke.”

STEEVENS.

Line 145. -Soud, soud, &c.] That is, sweet, sweet. Soot, and sometimes sooth, is sweet. So in Milton, to sing soothly, is, to sing sweetly. JOHNSON.

Line 149. It was the friar of orders grey.] Dispersed through Shakspeare's plays are many little fragments of ancient ballads, the entire copies of which cannot now be recovered. Many of these

being of the most beautiful and pathetic simplicity, Dr. Percy has selected some of them, and connected them together with a few supplemental stanzas. STEEVENS.

Line 156. And bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither.] This cousin Ferdinand, who does not make his personal appearance on the scene, is mentioned, I suppose, for no other reason than to give Catharine a hint, that he could keep even his own relations in order, and make them obedient as his spaniel to his commands. STEEVENS.

Line 161. Come, Kate, and wash,] It was the custom in Shakspeare's time, and a long time before, to wash the hands at dinner and supper, before and after. If they ate with their fingers, as Mr. Steevens observes, it certainly was highly necessary.

Line 206. - -to man my haggard,] A haggard is a wild hawk; to man a hawk is to tame her.

JOHNSON.

ACT IV. SCENE II.

Line 249.

-cullion :] A term of contempt.

299. Master, a mercatantè, or a pedant.] The old editions read marcantant. The Italian word mercatante is frequently used in the old plays for a merchant, and therefore I have made no scruple of placing it here. STEEVENS.

A pedant was a name synonimous to schoolmaster, or teacher of languages.

Line 301. —surely like a father.] I know not what he is, says the speaker, however this is certain, he has the gait and countenance of a fatherly man. WARBURTON.

Line 356. To pass assurance-] To pass assurance has the same meaning as the assignment of a conveyance, or of a deed.

Line 359. Go with me, &c.] There is an old comedy called Supposes, translated from Ariosto, by George Gascoigne. Thence Shakspeare borrowed this part of the plot, (as well as some of the phraseology) though Theobald pronounces it his own invention. There likewise he found the quaint name of Petruchio. My young master and his man exchange habits, and persuade a Scenæse, as he is called, to personate the father, exactly as in this play, by the pretended danger of his coming from Sienna to Ferrara, contrary to the order of the government. FARMER.

VOL. X.

S

ACT IV. SCENE III.

Line 398.what, sweeting, all amort?] Amort from the French; dull, melancholy, despairing.

Line 408. And all my pains is sorted to no proof.] And all my labour has ended in nothing, or proved nothing. We tried an experiment, but it sorted not. Bacon. JOHNSON. Line 422. farthingales, and things;] Though things is a poor word, yet I have no better, and perhaps the author had not another that would rhyme. I once thought to transpose the words rings and things, but it would make little improvement. JOHNS.

Line 428. Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments;] In Shakspeare's time, mantua-making was more the occupation of men than

women.

Line 441. Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak, &c.] Shakspeare 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.

Line 460.

a round

-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. JOHNSON.

Line 481. Thou thimble,] The taylor's trade having an appearance of effeminacy, has always been, among the rugged English, liable to sarcasms and contempt. JOHNSON. -bemete thee] Means be-measure thee. 498. -braved many men ;] To brave was to dress with some degree of elegance.

Line 486.

Line 512.

cape.

Line 525.

-a small compassed cape;] A compassed cape is To compass is to come round.

JOHNSON.

thy mete-yard,] i. e. thy measuring-yard.

STEEVENS.

ACT IV. SCENE IV.

Line 575. -but I be deceived,] But here signifies (as in a late instance) unless.

Line 620. And pass my daughter, &c.] To pass has the same meaning as the note in Act iv. Sc. ii. of this play.

Line 625. We be affied ;] i. e. affianced, betrothed. -630. And, happily, we might be interrupted.] Happily for haply (as is now used) or accidentally.

ACT V. SCENE I.

Line 5. and then come back to my master as soon as I can.] The editions all agree in the reading mistress: but what mistress was Biondello to come back to? he must certainly mean; "Nay, faith, "sir, I must see you in the church; and then for fear I should be "wanted, I'll run back to wait on Tranio, who at present per"sonates you, and whom therefore I at present acknowledge for my master."

THEOBALD.

Line 63. -a copatain hat,] Is, I believe, a hat with a conical crown, such as was anciently worn by well dressed men. JOHNSON.

Line 74. -a sail-maker in Bergamo.] Chapman has a parallel passage in his Widow's Tears, a comedy, 1612.

66 -he draws the thread of his descent from Leda's distaff, "when 'tis well known his grandsire cried concy-skins in Sparta." STEEVENS.

Line 95. -coney-catched-] i. e. defrauded.

118.

Here's packing,] i. e. confederacy.

142. My cake is dough.] This is a proverbial expression which I meet with in the old interlude of Tom Tyler and his Wife, 1598.

"Alas poor Tom, his cake is dough.”

STEEVENS.

ACT V. SCENE II.

Line 165. My banquet-] A banquet was the same as our dessert, and not a feast.

Line 221. swift,] besides the original sense of speedy in motion, signified witty, quick-witted. So in As You Like It, the

Duke says of the Clown, He is very swift and sententious. Quick is now used in almost the same sense as nimble was in the age after that of our author. Heylin says of Hales, that he had known Laud for a nimble disputant. JOHNSON.

Line 361. Then vail your stomachs,] i. e. lower your resentSTEEVENS.

ments.

Line 374. though you hit the white;] To hit the white is a phrase borrowed from archery: the mark was commonly white. Here it alludes to the name Bianca, or white. JOHNSON.

END OF THE ANNOTATIONS ON THE TAMING OF THE

SHREW.