will, not appearing what we are, have fome queftion with the shepherd; from whofe fimplicity, I think it not uneafy to get the cause of my fon's refort thither. Pr'ythee, be my prefent partner in this business, and lay afide the thoughts of Sicilia. CAM. I willingly obey your command. POL. My best Camillo !-We must disguise our[Exeunt. felves. SCENE II. The fame. A Road near the Shepherd's Cottage. Enter AUTOLYCUS,' finging. When daffodils begin to peer With, heigh! the doxy over the dale,- Some queftion] i. e. fome talk. See Vol. IV. p. 263, n. 8. MALONE. 5- Autolycus,] Autolycus was the fon of Mercury, and as famous for all the arts of fraud and thievery as his father: Non fuit Autolyci tam piceata manus." Martial. STEEVENS, Fog on, jog on, the foot-path way,]" Two nonfenfical fongs, by the rogue Autolycus," fays Dr. Burney.-But could not the many compliments paid by Shakspeare to musical science, intercede for a better epithet than nonfenfical? The Dr. fubfequently obferves, that "This Autolycus is the true ancient Minstrel, as described in the old Fabliaux." The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,- For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. I believe that many of our readers will pufh the comparison a little further, and concur with me in thinking that our modern minftrels of the opera, like their predeceffor Autolycus, are pickpockets as well as fingers of nonfenfical ballads. STEEVENS. For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.] This line has fuffered a great variety of alterations, but I am perfuaded the old reading is the true one, The firft folio has " the winter's pale ;" and the meaning is, the red, the Spring blood now reigns o'er the parts lately under the dominion of winter. The English pale, the Irish pale, were frequent expreffions in Shakspeare's time; and the words red and pale were chofen for the fake of the antithefts. FARMER, Dr. Farmer is certainly right. I had offered this explanation to Dr. Johnfon, who rejected it. In K, Henry V. our author fays: the English beach "Pales in the flood," &c. Again, in Antony and Cleopatra: "Whate'er the ocean pales, or sky inclips." Holinfhed, p. 528, calls Sir Richard Afton, "Lieutenant of the English pale, for the earle of Summerfet." Again, in King Henry VI. P. I: "How are we park'd, and bounded in a pale.” STEEVENS. "The white sheet bleaching, &c.] So, in the fong at the end of Love's Labour's Loft, SPRING mentions as defcriptive of that feafon, that then " maidens bleach their fummer Smocks." MALONE. -pugging tooth. -] Sir T. Hanmer, and after him Dr. Warburton, read-progging tooth. It is certain that pugging is not now understood. But Dr. Thirlby obferves, that it is the cant of gypfies. JOHNSON, The word pugging is ufed by Greene in one of his pieces; and a puggard was a cant name for fome particular kind of thief. So, in The Roaring Girl, 1611: "Of cheaters, lifters, nips, foifts, puggards, curbers." See to prigge in Mine. STEEVENS. The lark, that tirra-lirra chants.9 With, bey! with, hey! the thrush and the jay:- I have ferv'd prince Florizel, and, in my time, wore three-pile;' but now I am out of service: La gentille allouette avec fon tire-lire Vers la voute du Ciel, puis fon vol vers ce lieu Du Bartas. Liv. 5. de fa premiere femaine. Linni Fauna Suecica. So, in an ancient poem entitled, The Silke Worms and their Flies, 1599: "Let Philomela fing, let Progne chide, In the margin the author explains Tyryleerers by its fynonyme, larks. MALONE. my aunts,] Aunt appears to have been at this time a cant word for a bawd. In Middleton's comedy, called, A Trick to catch the Old one, 1616, is the following confirmation of its being ufed in that fenfe :-" It was better beftow'd upon his uncle than one of his aunts, I need not fay bawd, for every one knows what aunt ftands for in the laft tranflation." Again, in Ram-alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: "I never knew "What fleeking, glazing, or what preffing meant, Again, in Decker's Honeft Whore, 1635: "I'll call you one of my aunts, fister, that were as good as to call you arrant whore." STEEVENS. wore three-pile;] i. e. rich velvet. So, in Ram-alley or Merry Tricks, 1611: But fhall I go mourn for that, my dear? If tinkers may have leave to live, My traffick is fheets; when the kite builds, look and line them "With black, crimfon, and tawny three-pil'd velvet." Again, in Meafure for Meafure: "Mafter Three-pile, the mercer. "" STEEVENS. 3 My traffick is fheets; &c.] So, in The Three Ladies of London, 1584: "Our fingers are lime twigs, and barbers we be, "To catch beets from hedges most pleasant to fee." Again, in Queen Elizabeth's Entertainment in Suffolke and Nor folke, &c. by Thomas Churchyard, 4to. no date, Riette fays "If any heere three ydle people needes, "Call us in time, for we are fine for heetes: "Yea, for a fhift, to fteale them from the hedge, "And lay both beetes and linnen all to gage. "We are beft be gone, leaft fome do heare alledge "We are but roages, and clappe us in the cage.' Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Beggars Bufb: "To steal from the hedge both the fhirt and the beet." STEEVENS. Autolycus means, that his practice was to fteal fheets and large pieces of linen, leaving the fmaller pieces for the kites to build with. M. MASON. When the kite builds, look to leffer linen.] Leffer linen is an anci ent term, for which our modern laundreffes have fubftituted-Small clothes. STEEVENS. This paffage, I find, is not generally understood. When the good women, in folitary cottages near the woods where kites build, mifs any of their leffer linen, as it hangs to dry on the hedge in fpring, they conclude that the kite has been marauding for a lining to her neft; and there adventurous boys often find it employed for that purpofe. HOLT WHITE. to leffer linen. My father named me, Autolycus ; * who, being, as I am, litter'd under Mercury, was likewife a fnapper-up of unconfidered trifles: With die, and drab, I purchased this caparifon; and my revenue is the filly cheat: Gallows, and knock, are too powerful on the highway: beating, and hanging, are terrors to me; for the life to come, I fleep out the thought of it.—A prize! a prize! My father nam'd me, Autolycus ; &c.] Mr. Theobald fays, the allufion is unquestionably to Ovid. He is mistaken. Not only the allufion, but the whole fpeech is taken from Lucian; who appears to have been one of our poet's favourite authors, as may be collected from several places of his works. It is from his discourse on judicial aftrology, where Autolycus talks much in the fame manner; and 'tis on this account that he is called the fon of Mercury by the ancients, namely because he was born under that planet. And as the infant was fuppofed by the aftrologers to communicate of the nature of the ftar which predominated, fo Autolycus was a thief. WARBURTON. This piece of Lucian, to which Dr. Warburton refers, was tranflated long before the time of Shakspeare, I have seen it, but it had no date. STEEVENS. With die, and drab, I purchased this caparifon;] i. e. with gaming and whoring, I brought my felf to this fhabby drefs. 6 PERCY. my revenue is the filly cheat:] Silly is ufed by the writers of our author's time, for fimple, low, mean; and in this the humour of the fpeech confifts. I don't afpire to arduous and high things, as Bridewell or the gallows: I am contented with this humble and low way of life, as a Snapper-up of unconfidered trifles. But the Oxford editor, who, by his emendations, feems to have declared war against all Shakspeare's humour, alters it to,-the fly cheat. WARBURTON. The filly cheat is one of the technical terms belonging to the art of coneycatching or thievery, which Greene has mentioned among the reft, in his treatife on that ancient and honourable science. I think it means picking pockets. STEEVENS. 1 Gallows, and knock, &c.] The refiftance which a highwayman encounters in the fact, and the punishment which he fuffers on detection, withhold me from daring robbery, and determine me to the filly cheat and petty theft. JOHNSON. |