Who loves another best." She dances featly. Pol. Shep. So she does any thing; though I report it, That should be silent: if young Doricles Do light upon her, she shall bring him that Which he not dreams of. Enter a Servant. Serv. O master, if you did but hear the pedler at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings several tunes, faster than you'll tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men's ears grew to his tunes. Clo. He could never come better: he shall come in: I love a ballad but even too well; if it be doleful matter, merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung lamentably. 8 Serv. He hath songs, for man, or woman, of all sizes; no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves: he has the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burdens of dildos1 and fadings:2 Jump her and thump her: and where some 7 Who loves another best.] Surely we should read-Who loves the other best. M. Mason. 8 doleful matter, merrily set down,] This seems to be another stroke aimed at the title-page of Preston's Cambises; “A lamentable Tragedy, mixed full of pleasant Mirth," &c. Steevens. 9 -no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves:] In the time of our author, and long afterwards, the trade of a milliner was carried on by men. Malone. 11 of dildos-] "With a hie dildo dill," is the burthen of The Batchelors' Feast, an ancient ballad, and is likewise called the Tune of it. Steevens. See also, Choice Drollery, 1656, p. 31: 2 "A story strange I will you tell, "But not so strange as true, "Of a woman that danc'd upon the rope, "And so did her husband too; "With a dildo, dildo, dildo, Malone. -fadings:] An Irish dance of this name is mentioned by Ben Jonson, in The Irish Masque at Court: 66 and daunsh a fading at te wedding." stretch-mouth'd rascal would, as it were, mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer, Whoop, do me no harm, good man; puts him off, slights him, with Whoop, do me no harm, good man.3 Pol. This is a brave fellow. Clo. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable-conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares?^ Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle: "I will have him dance fading; fading is a fine jigg." So, in The Bird in a Cage, by Shirley, 1633: "But under her coats the ball be found.. "With a fading." Again, in Ben Jonson's 97th Epigram: Tyrwhitt. "See you yond motion? not the old fading." Steevens. 3 Whoop, do me no harm, good man.] This was the name of an old song. In the famous History of Friar Bacon we have a ballad to the tune of "Oh! do me no harme, good man." Farmer. This tune is preserved in a collection intitled "Ayres, to sing and play to the Lyte and Basse Violl, with Pauins, Galliards, Almaines, and Corantos, for the Lyra Violl. By William Corbine:" 1610, fol. Ritson. 4 unbraided wares?] Surely we must read braided, for such are all the wares mentioned in the answer. Johnson. The I believe by unbraided wares, the Clown means, has he any thing besides laces which are braided, and are the principal commodity sold by ballad-singing pedlers. Yes, replies the servant, he has ribands, &c. which are things not braided, but woven. drift of the Clown's question, is either to know whether Autolycus has any thing better than is commonly sold by such vagrants; any thing worthy to be presented to his mistress: or, as proba bly, by inquiring for something which pedlers usually have not, to escape laying out his money at all. The following passage Any Thing for a quiet Life, however, leads me to suppose that She there is here some allusion which I cannot explain: " says that you sent ware which is not warrantable, braided ware, and that you give not London measure." Steevens. in Unbraided wares may be wares of the best manufacture. Braid in Shakspeare's All's Well, &c. Act IV, sc. ii, signifies deceitful. Braided in Bailey's Dict. means faded, or having lost its colour; and why then may not unbraided import whatever is undamaged, or what is of the better sort? Several old statutes forbid the importation of ribands, laces, &c. as "falsely and deceitfully wrought." Tollet. Probably unbraided wares means "wares not ornamented with braid." M. Mason. 5 6 Serv. He hath ribands of all the colours i' the rainbow; points, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by the gross; inkles, caddisses, cambricks, lawns: why, he sings them over, 'as they were gods or goddesses; you would think, a smock were a she-angel; he so chants to the sleevehand, and the work about the square on 't.7 The Clown is perhaps inquiring not for something better than common, but for smooth and plain goods. Has he any plain wares, not twisted into braids? Ribands, cambricks, and lawns, all answer to this description. Malone. 5 points, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle,] The points that afford Autolycus a subject for this quibble, were laces with metal tags to them. Aiguilettes, Fr. Malone. caddisses,] I do not exactly know what caddisses are. In Shirley's Witty Fair One, 1633, one of the characters says:-" I will have eight velvet pages, and six footmen in caddis." In The First Part of King Henry IV, I have supposed caddis to be ferret. Perhaps by six footmen in caddis, is meant six footmen with their liveries laced with such a kind of worsted stuff. As this worsted lace was parti-coloured, it might have received its title from cadesse, the ancient name for a daw. Steevens. Caddis is, I believe, a narrow worsted galloon. I remember when very young to have heard it enumerated by a pedler among the articles of his pack. There is a very narrow slight serge of this name now made in France. Inkle is a kind of tape also. 7 Malone. the sleeve-hand, and the work about the square on 't.] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads-sleeve-band. Johnson. The old reading is right, or we must alter some passages in other authors. The word sleeve-hands occurs in Leland's Collec tanea, 1770, Vol. IV, p. 323: “A surcoat [of crimson velvet] furred with mynever pure, the coller, skirts, and sleeve-hands garnished with ribbons of gold." So, in Cotgrave's Dict. "Poignet de la chemise," is Englished "the wristband, or gathering at the sleeve-hand of a shirt." Again, in Leland's Collectanea, Vol. IV, p. 293, King James's "shurt was broded with thred of gold,' and in p. 341, the word sleeve-hand occurs, and seems to signify the cuffs of a surcoat, as here it may mean the cuffs of a smock. I conceive, that the work about the square on't, signifies the work or embroidery about the bosom part of a shift, which might then have been of a square form, or might have a square tucker, as Anne Bolen and Jane Seymour have in Houbraken's engravings of the heads of illustrious persons. So, in Fairfax's translation of Tasso, B. XII, st. 64: "Between her breasts the cruel weapon rives, Clo. Pr'ythee, bring him in; and let him approach singing. Per. Forewarn him, that he use no scurrilous words in his tunes. Clo. You have of these pedlers, that have more in 'em than you 'd think, sister. Per. Ay, good brother, or go about to think. Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing. Lawn, as white as driven snow; For 9 What maids lack from head to heel: I should have taken the square for a gorget or stomacher, but for this passage in Shakspeare. Tollet. The following passage in John Grange's Garden, 1577, may likewise tend to the support of the ancient reading-sleeve-hand. In a poem called The Paynting of a Curtizan, he says: "Their smockes are all bewrought about the necke and hande." Steevens. The word sleeve-hand is likewise used by P. Holland, in his translation of Suetonius, 1606, p. 19: “— -in his apparel he was noted for singularity, as who used to goe in his senatour's purple studded robe, trimmed with a jagge or frindge at the sleeve-hand." Malone. 8 necklace-amber,] Place only a comma after amber. "Autolycus is puffing his female wares, and says that he has got among his other rare articles for ladies, some necklace-amber, an amber of which necklaces are made, commonly called bead-amber, fit to perfume a lady's chamber. So, in The Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, sc. iii, Petruchio mentions amber-bracelets, beads," &c. Milton alludes to the fragrance of amber. See Sams. Agon. V. 720: 9 "An amber scent of odorous perfume, - poking-sticks of steel,] These poking-sticks were heated in the fire, and made use of to adjust the plaits of ruffs. In Marston's Malcontent, 1604, is the following instance :-"There is such a deale of pinning these ruffes, when the fine clean fall is worth them all;" and, again: “If you should chance to take a Come, buy of me, come; come buy, come buy; Come, buy, &c. Clo. If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou should'st take no money of me; but being enthrall'd as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribands and gloves. Mop. I was promised them against the feast; but they come not too late now. Dor. He hath promised you more than that, or there be liars. Mop. He hath paid you all he promised you: may be, he has paid you more; which will shame you to give him again. Clo. Is there no manners left among maids? will they wear their plackets, where they should bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole,1 to whistle off these secrets; but you must nap in an afternoon, your falling band requires no poking-stick to recover his form," &c. Again, in Middleton's comedy of Blurt Master Constable, 1602: "Your ruff must stand in print, and for that purpose get poking-sticks with fair long handles, lest they scorch your hands." These poking-sticks are several times mentioned in Heywood's If you know not me you know Nobody, 1633, second part; and in The Yorkshire Tragedy, 1619, which has been attributed to Shakspeare. In the books of the Stationers' Company, July, 1590, was entered "A ballat entitled Blewe Starche and Poking-sticks. Allowed under the hand of the Bishop of London." Again, in the Second Part of Stubbes's Anatomie of Abuses, 8vo. no date: "They [poking-sticks] be made of yron and steele, and some of brasse, kept as bright as silver, yea some of silver itselfe, and it is well if in processe of time they grow not to be gold. The fashion whereafter they be made, I cannot resemble to any thing so well as to a squirt or a little squibbe which little children used to squirt out water withal; and when they come to starching and setting of their ruffes, then must this instrument be heated in the fire, the better to stiffen the ruffe," &c. Stowe informs us, that "about the sixteenth yeare of the queene [Elizabeth] began the making of steele poking-sticks, and until that time all lawndresses used setting stickes made of wood or bone." See Much Ado about Nothing, Act III, sc. iv. Steevens ̧ 1 kiln-hole,] The mouth of the oven. The word is spelt in the old copy kill-hole, and I should have supposed it an intentional blunder, but that Mrs. Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor desires Falstaff to "creep into the kiln-hole," and there the |