cian in his description of a house. In neither of these is there any mention of a horse.

THER.

ACT II.

Scene 1. Page 276.

an assinego may tutor thee.

Some doubt having arisen whether an assinego is an ass or an ass-driver, the following passages from Ligon's History of Barbadoes, 1673, will serve to decide the question in favour of the fourlegged animal; and demonstrate at the same time that the above term is not exclusively applied to a male ass, as Mr. Ritson had supposed. "We found it was far better for a man that had money, goods, or credit, to purchase a plantation there ready furnish'd, and stockt with servants, slaves, horses, cattle, assinigoes, camels, &c." And again, And though I found at Barbadoes some who had musical minds; yet I found others, whose souls were so fixt upon, and so riveted to the earth, and the profits that arise out of it, as their souls were lifted no higher; and those men think, and have been heard to say, that three whip-sawes going all at once in a frame or pit, is

the best and sweetest musick that can enter their ears; and to hear a cow of their own low, or please them

an assinigo bray, no sound can

better," pp. 22, 107.

Sc, 3. p. 309.

ULYSS. Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck, This ungrammatical line, though perhaps the property of Shakspeare, might as well be cor

rected.

Sc. 3. p. 309.

ULYSS. Let Mars divide eternity in twain
And give him half.

How Mars was to accomplish this, the metaphysicians must decide. The idea is an odd compound of grandeur and absurdity. It might have turned to some account in the hands of the ingenious Edgworths.

CRES.

ACT III.

Scene 2. Page 329.

For to be wise, and love,

Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above, If this be Shakspeare's, he got it from Taver

ner's translation of Publius Syrus, at the end of Catonis disticha, 1553,12mo, where it stands thus, "To be in love and to be wyse is scarce graunted to God. It is not one man's propertie both to love and also to be of a sounde mynde."

PAN.

Sc. 2. p. 333.

let all pitiful goers-between be call'd to the world's end after my name, call them all Pandars.

Although the above is, no doubt, the real etymology of the word pandar, the original use of it does not rest with Shakspeare. An earlier instance occurs in Gabriel Harvey's Pierce's supererogation, 1593, 4to, in which "the pandars stew" is mentioned. All other derivations must be rejected, because the term occurs in no language but our own. Nashe, in his Have with you to Saffron Walden, has most extravagantly deduced it from Pandora; and he adds that Sir Philip Sidney fetches it from Plautus. In Sir Philip's Defence of poesie, the author, speaking of Terence's Gnatho and Chaucer's Pandar, says, "we now use their names to signifie their trades."

I know is such a wrest in their affairs.

If a former explanation should be thought to stand in need of further authority, the following may suffice.

In A treatise between trouth and information, by W. Cornishe, printed among the works of Skelton, are these lines:

"A harpe geveth sounde as it is sette,

The harper may wrest it untunablye;

A harper with his wrest may tune the harpe wrong,
Mystunyng of an instrument shal hurt a true songe."

The same instrument was used for tuning other stringed instruments, as appears from the same poem:

"The claricord hath a tunely kynde,

As the wyre is wrested hye and lowe;
So it turnyth to the players mynde,

For as it is wrested so must it nedes showe,

Any instrument mystunyd shall hurt a trew song,

Yet blame not the claricord the wrester doth wrong."

Again,

"With golden strings such harmonie

His harpe so sweet did wrest;

That he reliev'd his phrenesie

Whom wicked sprites possest."

Archb. Parker's Psalter, sign, B. 1. b.

In King James's edict against combats &c., p. 45, is this passage, "this small instrument the tongue being kept in tune by the wrest of awe," &c.

And in Swetnam's Arraignment of women, 1615, 4to, "They are always tempering their wits, as fidlers do their strings, who wrest them so high, that many times they stretch them be yond time, tune, and reason."

ULYSS.

ACT IV.

Scene 5. Page 383.

set them down

For sluttish spoils of opportunity,
And daughters of the game.

This expression seems borrowed from the maister of the game, the ancient title of the king's game-keeper. There was also a treatise on hunting, so called, which Shakspeare had often read of, or might perhaps have seen.