conceal it; and therein am I conftant to my profeffion. Enter Clown and Shepherd. Afide, afide;-here is more matter for a hot brain: Every lane's end, every fhop, church, feffion, hanging, yields a careful man work. CLOWN. See, fee; what a man you are now! there is no other way, but to tell the king fhe's a changeling, and none of your flesh and blood. SHEP. Nay, but hear me. CLOWN. Nay, but hear me. CLOWN. She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the king; and, fo, your flesh and blood is not to be punish'd by him. Show those things you found about her; thofe fecret things, all but what she has with her: This being done, let the law go whistle; I warrant you. SHEP. I will tell the king all, every word, yea, and his fon's pranks too; who, I may fay, is no honeft man neither to his father, nor to me, to go about to make me the king's brother-in-law. CLOWN. Indeed, brother-in-law was the furtheft off you could have been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer, by I know how much an ounce." defigned to render himself intelligible without the aid of fo long an explanatory claufe as Mr. Malone's interpretation demands. STEEVENS. 6 and then your blood had been the dearer, by I know how much an ounce.] I fufpect that a word was omitted at the prefs. We might, I think, fafely read-by I know not how much an ounce. Sir T. Hanmer, I find, had made the fame emendation. MALONE. Aur. Very wifely; puppies! [Afide. SHEP. Well; let us to the king; there is that in this fardel, will make him fcratch his beard. Aur. I know not, what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my mafter. CLOWN. 'Pray heartily he be at palace. Aur. Though I am not naturally honeft, I am fo fometimes by chance:-Let me pocket up my pedler's excrement. [Takes off his falfe beard.] How now, rufticks? whither are you bound? SHEP. To the palace, an it like your worship. Aur. Your affairs there? what? with whom? the condition of that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages, of what having, breeding, and any thing that is fitting to be known, discover. CLOWN. We are but plain fellows, fir. Aur. A lie; you are rough and hairy: Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradefmen, and they often give us foldiers the lie: but we pay them for it with ftamped coin, not stabbing steel; therefore they do not give us the lie." 7 - pedler's excrement.] Is pedler's beard. JOHNSON. Again, in Love's Labour's Left: 66 dally with my excrement, with my mustachio.” Again, in The Comedy of Errors: "Why is Time fuch a niggard of his hair, being, as it is, fo plentiful an excrement ?" STEEVENS. 8of what having,] i. e. eftate, property. So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "The gentleman is of no having." STEEVENS. 9 therefore they do not give us the lie.] The meaning is, they are paid for lying, therefore they do not give us the lie, they Jell it us. JOHNSON. CLOWN. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the manner." SHEP. Are you a courtier, an't like you, fir? AUT. Whether it like me, or no, I am a courtier. See'ft thou not the air of the court, in these enfoldings? hath not my gait in it, the measure of the court? receives not thy nofe court-odour from me? reflect I not on thy baseness, court-contempt? Think'ft thou, for that I infinuate, or toze3 from 2 - with the manner.] In the fact. See Vol. V. p. 193, n. 7. STEEVENS. hath not my gait in it, the measure of the court?] i. e. the ftately tread of courtiers. See Much ado about nothing, Vol. IV. P. 425: "the wedding mannerly modeft, as a measure, full of fate and ancientry." MALONE. 3 infinuate, or toze -] The first folio reads- -at toaze; the second-or toaze; Mr. Malone—and toze. To teaze, or toze, is to disentangle wool or flax. Autolycus adopts a phrafeology which he fuppofes to be intelligible to the Clown, who would not have understood the word infinuate, without fuch a comment on it. STEEVENS. To infinuate, I believe, means here, to cajole, to talk with condefcenfion and humility. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis : "With death the humbly doth infinuate, "Tells him of trophies, ftatues, tombs, and stories, The word toaze is ufed in Measure for Meafure, in the fame fenfe as here: We'll toaze you joint by joint, "But we will know this purpofe." To toufe, fays Minfhieu, is, to pull, to tug. MALONE. To infinuate, and to teafe, or toaze, are oppofites. The former fignifies to introduce itfelf obliquely into a thing, and the latter to get fomething out that was knotted up in it. Milton has used each word in its proper fense: 66 close the ferpent fly "His braided train, and of his fatal guile Par. Loft, B. IV. 1. 347. thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier, cap-a-pè; and one that will either push on, or pluck back thy business there: whereupon I command thee to open thy affair. SHEP. My business, fir, is to the king. CLOWN. Advocate's the court-word for a pheafant; fay, you have none. SHEP. None, fir; I have no pheasant, cock, nor hen. Aur.How blefs'd are we, that are not fimple men! Yet nature might have made me as these are, Therefore I'll not difdain. CLOWN. This cannot be but a great courtier. SHEP. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely. CLOWN. He feems to be the more noble in being fantastical: a great man, I'll warrant; I know, by the picking on's teeth.' Aur. The fardel there? what's i'the fardel? Wherefore that box? "coarfe complexions, "And cheeks of forry grain, will ferve to ply Comus, 1.749. HENLEY. 4 Advocate's the court-word for a pheafant;] As he was a fuitor from the country, the Clown fuppofes his father should have brought a prefent of game, and therefore imagines, when Autolycus alks him what advocate he has, that by the word advocate he means a pheasant. STEEVENS. 5 a great man,—by the picking on's teeth.] It seems, that to pick the teeth was, at this time, a mark of fome pretenfion to greatnefs or elegance. So, the Bastard, in King John, speaking of the traveller, fays: "He and his pick-tooth at my worship's mefs." JOHNSON. SHEP. Sir, there lies fuch fecrets in this fardel, and box, which none must know but the king; and which he fhall know within this hour, if I may come to the fpeech of him. Aur. Age, thou hast lost thy labour. SHEP. Why, fir? Aur. The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new fhip to purge melancholy, and air himself: For, if thou be'ft capable of things ferious, thou must know, the king is full of grief. SHEP. So 'tis faid, fir; about his fon, that fhould have married a fhepherd's daughter. Aur. If that fhepherd be not in hand-faft, let him fly; the curfes he fhall have, the tortures he fhall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster. CLOWN. Think you fo, fir? AUT. Not he alone fhall fuffer what wit can make heavy, and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though removed fifty times, fhall all come under the hangman: which though it be great pity, yet it is neceffary. An old fheep-whiftling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace! Some fay, he fhall be stoned; but that death is too foft for him, fay I: Draw our throne into a fheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy. CLOWN. Has the old man e'er a fon, fir, do you hear, an't like you, fir? Aur. He has a fon, who fhall be flay'd alive; then, 'nointed over with honey,' fet on the head 3 then, 'nointed over with honey, &c.] A punishment of this fort is recorded in a book which Shakspeare might have feen :"he caufed a cage of yron to be made, and fet it in the funne; and, after annointing the pore Prince over with hony, forced him |