“Chapes” of swords and daggers are not unfrequently mentioned in the “Household Accounts of Lord Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk,” printed for the Roxburghe Club, 4to, 1844.

P. 318.—Rich his Farewell to Military Profession.] This work was originally printed in the 1581, 4to, and the following is a copy of the title-page of the first edition, which seems to have been unknown to bibliographers:—

“Riche his Farewell to Militarie profession: conteinyng verie pleasaunt discourses fit for a peaceable tyme: Gathered together for the onely delight of the courteous Gentlewomen, bothe of Englande and Irelande, for whose onely pleasure thei were collected together, And unto whom thei are directed and dedicated by Barnabe Riche, Gentleman. Malui me dicitem esse qu&abar; tocari. Imprinted at London, by Robert Walley. 1581.” 4to. B. L.

P. 355.—Add to note 8: A catch of the same kind, where the singers call each other “fool,” (the music by John Bennett) is contained in Ravenscroft's “Briefe Discourse,” &c. London, 1614. 4to.

P. 404.—I am shent, &c.] Dele the last part of the note referring to “Troilus and Cressida.” “Shent,” as already remarked, (p. cclxxxiv.) in its most ancient, as well as correct signification, is destroyed or ruined.

P. 418.—then camst in smiling.] Possibly “then” in this place is a places is a misprint for thou, but it seemed inexpedient to alter the old text.

P. 441.—whispering, rounding.] The Rev. A. Dyce, in his edition of Skelton's Works, vol. ii. p. 120, makes a distinction, and perhaps a just one, between “whispering” and “rounding,” and adduces various passages from our elder writers to establish it, besides this line in “The Winter's Tale,” where the words occur: to “round” rather means, as he observes, to mutter.

P. 519.—or touze from thee thy business.] To toaze and to toze seem both proper modes of spelling the word, as well as “touze.” In Northbrooke's “Treatise against Playes,” &c. p. 81, (Shakespeare Society's reprint) we meet with it:—“Many of them which lacke the use of their feete, with their hands may pick wool, and sow garments, or toze okum.”

VOL. IV.

P. 24.—to cry aim] To this note ought to have been added, that the phrase “to cry aim,” was used in the text metaphorically for to encourage. See Vol. vi. p. 361, note 1.

P. 203.—In note 3, for “p. 115” read p. 215.

P. 251.—Add to note 8: The word “purchase” was in use, to signify booty made by plunder, in the time of Defoe, if not later: he employs it in the commencement of his “Life of Colonel Jack.”

P. 255.—Hang ye, gorbellied knaves] Nash in his “Pierce Penniless,” 1592, sign. F 3. b. (Shakesp. Society's repr. p. 45,) seems to use “dorbellied” in the same sense. The word occurs in Skelton; but the Rev. A. Dyce, vol. ii. p. 180 and 183, merely states its meaning of big-bellied, which of course is not to be disputed. E. Guilpin, in his “Skialetheia,” 1598, Sat. iii. employs the word “gorbelly,” to signify a part of dress, doubtless giving the wearer an appearance of corpulency:

P. 332.—Thy ignomy] Words of this kind were not necessarily abbreviated for the sake of the verse: Sir George Buc, in his History of the reign of

Richard III., uses “testimy” for testimony:—“But this testimy being avouched by one who loved not the Protector,” &c.

P. 368.—In note 7, for “Vol. iii.,” read Vol. ii., and for “p. 331,” read p. 431.

P. 479.—With chases] Douce in his “Illustrations,” from not understanding the game of tennis, is mistaken in his definition of a “chase:” a “chase” is not “the spot where a ball falls,” but the duration of a contest in which the players hunt or “chase” the ball, bandying it from one to the other. For the same reason, probably, the Rev. A. Dyce in his Skelton's Works, vol. ii. p. 206, commits a similar error, and we think misunderstands the passage he quotes from the “Merry Jests of the Widow Edith.” To “mark a chase,” the expression there employed, is to have a chase scored or marked in favour of the successful player; and such is the metaphorical meaning, as applied to the widow, who scored her own chases as she walked along.

VOL. V.

P. 4.—The date of the earliest edition of “The first part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster” should have been stated to be 1594, and not 1600. Both that and the second part of the same play, with the title of “The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke,” 1595, have been reprinted by the Shakespeare Society, under the editorial care of Mr. Halliwell.

P. 110.—With you mine alderliefest sovereign.] In the curious tract, “The Cobbler of Canterbury,” 1590, we have the same word in the comparative degree:—

Skelton uses “alderbest” in sens sense of best of all.

P. 345.—where Richard strangely takes a page into his confidence, &c.] It ought, perhaps, to have been added, that this portion of both plays is founded upon the history as written by Sir Thomas More.

P. 472.—Christopher Urswick was buried at Hackney in 1521, and monument was erected to him in the old church, which some years ago was carefully removed to the new one. The Rev. Mr. Goodchild, the rector, has favoured us with the following inscription to his memory, copied from his tomb:—

“Christopherus Urswieus, Regis Henrici septimi Elcemosinarius, vir, suâ ætate, summatibus atque infimatibus juxta clarus: ad exteros reges undecies pro Patria Legatus, Deconatum Eboracensem, Archidiaconatum Richmundie, Deconatum Windesorie habitos vivens reliquit: Episcopatum Norwicensem oblatum recusavit: Magnos honores tuta vita sprevit: frugali vita contentus hie vivere, hic mori maluit: plenis annis obiit ab omnibus desideratus; funeris pompam etiam Testamento vetuit: hic sepultus carnis resurrectionem in adventum Xti expectat: Obiit anno Domini 1521, 24 Octob^r.”

P. 507.—Did break in the rinsing.] It is rather singular that the old printer should have mistaken rence, or rince, for wrench. Nash, in his “Pierce Penniless,” sign. E 2, (Shakespeare Society's reprint, p. 33) uses the word “rence,” and it is by no means of uncommon occurrence:—“and rence out galley-foysts with salt water, that stanke like fustie barrells,” &c.

P. 526.—Add to note 8: Huntsmen and their songs often mention “the music of the hounds,” and “knock it” seems from this cause to have been applied to their cry. Thus, in T. Ravenscroft's “Briefe Discourse,” &c. 1614, we are told, in a song called “The Hunting of the Hare,” that

VOL. VI.

P. 246.—that have wreck'd for Rome.] In “King Lear,” the last scene, we find a passage in opposition to the statement that rack of old was not usually spelt wrack: it stands thus in the folio, 1623:—

It is wracke also in the three quarto impressions of the same tragedy. This, however, is an exception, and there may of course be others, to the general practice.

P. 361.—Give me aim awhile.] So in “Tarlton's Jests,” 1611, Bankes's horse, Maroccus, was supposed to direct his master in the following passage:— “The people had much ado to keep peace, but Bankes and Tarlton had like to have squared, and the horse by to give aim.”

P. 412.—To lure this tercel-gentle back again.] Steevens probably assigns a wrong reason for calling the male of the goss-hawk “a tercel,” when he tells us, that it is because it is a tierce, or third, less than the female. Turberville, in his Book of Falconry, 1611, explains the true cause in these words:—“He is termed a tyercelet, for that there are most commonly disclosed three birds in one self eyry, two hawks and one tiercel,” p. 60.

P. 478.—In note 5, for “Enter Scoringman,” read “Enter Servingman.”

P. 453.—Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day.] A song of “The hunt is up” was known as early as 28 Henry VIII., when information was sent to the council against one John Hogon, who, “with a crowd or a fyddyll,” sung a song to the tune, which certainly had a political allusion. Some of the words are given in the information:—

Neither much meaning nor much measure is to be made out of the song: the words were taken down from recitation, and are not given as verse. The original document, under the hands and seals of four witnesses, is preserved in the Rolls-chapel, where Mr. W. H. Black was kind enough to show it to us.

P. 559.—the rother's sides.] In one of the original records of the borough of Stratford-upon-Avon, in the hands of the Shakespeare Society, we read as follows:—

“Item, that the beast market, at every feyr hearafter, be holden in the Roder stret, and in no other place.”

VOL. VII.

P. 5.—Robert Greene, a graduate of both Universities, makes the same statement.] He has the following passage in his “Orlando Furioso;” not according to the play as printed by the Rev. A. Dyce, from the editions of 1594 and 1599, but according to the fragment of the part of the hero, preserved at Dulwich College, which was not discovered when Mr. Dyce published the collection of Greene's Works in 1831.

See the “Memoirs of Edward Alleyn,” published by the Shakespeare Society,

p. 206. There was a play upon the historical subject of the fall of Cæsar, anterior to the time when Greene wrote his “Orlando Furioso,” and to that representation he probably refers.

P. 99.—hurly hurly's done.] The word also occurs in the unique poem, recently discovered, called “The pityfull Historie of ij loving Italians,” by John Drout, printed in 1570, 8vo.

“Then hurly burly did begin,
great rumours straight were raysde.”

This is the poem which was entered on the Stationers' registers in 1570, but of which nothing more was known. Malone, from the title, conjectured erroneously, that the story related to “Romeo and Juliet.”

P. 104.—The weird sisters hand in hand.] Shakespeare as usual obtained his information from Holinshed:—“But afterwards the common opinion was that these women were either the weird sisters, that is (as ye wold say) the goddesses of destinie, or else some nymphes or feiries.”

P. 193.—and we heard him broach them some years before the Lectures Ueber Dramatische Kunst und Litteratur were published] It is fit to add, that Goethe, in his “Wilhelm Meister,” had promulgated the leading notions of Schlegel, on the character of Hamlet, many years earlier.

P. 211.—he wore his beaver up.] The Rev. Mr. Goodchild refers us to a passage in the Diary of Archbishop Laud, (quoted in Wood's Athenæ by Bliss, vol. ii. p. 433) by which it seems that he meant by “wearing the beaver up,” that the face was covered by it. This is not quite clear, but the fact may be, that the beaver was sometimes made to rise from below, and sometimes to fall from above, for the protection of the face; and hence “he wore his beaver up” might mean that his countenance was not exposed. Such, however, is clearly not the meaning of Shakespeare here.

P. 457.—Diminish'd to her cock.] As is stated in the note, “cock” was often used in old writers for cock-boat: one of the earliest of these is John Drout, in his “Pityfull Historie of ij loving Italians,” 1570, 8vo,

“Bicause that surging seas did rise,
and tooke them to their cock.”

P. 460.—To say “ay” and “no” to everything I said! “Ay” and “no” too was no good divinity.] Mr. F. A. Twiss has favoured us with a MS. note by his father upon this passage, which did not reach us in time to be noticed in the proper place, but which we insert here, principally on account of the close parallel it supplies.

“Both the syntax and the sense are here vicious. A slight change in the punctuation, by joining the two sentences, will restore both. I read thus: To say ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to everything I said ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to was no good divinity.” So Terence, Eun. Act ii. sc. 2. l. 20, Quidquid dicunt laudo; id rursum si negant, laudo id quoque: negat quis, nego; ait, aio.”

We do not adopt this ingenious reading, merely because it seems to us that the mark of admiration cures the defect, and still keeps the sentences divided, as in the old copies: the word “too” is also there spelt as we spell it.

P. 518.—Correct note 3 by omitting the marks of quotation between which the word “we” is erroneously included.

VOL. VIII.

P. 127.—Sirrah, Iras, go] It is not to be supposed that this practice of applying “sirrah” and “sir” to women, was at all peculiar to Shakespeare as a dramatist. Beaumont and Fletcher not unfrequently do the same. See Dyce's Edit. vol. iii. p. 183, &c.

P. 242.—Note 6 requires qualification, for in “Skialetheia,” 1598, (and perhaps elsewhere) we meet with “fangled” without new before it:

P. 253.—yea, and she herself] The full-point has accidentally dropped out at the end of this line.

P. 266.—the original title-page, stating it to have been “written by William Shakespeare,” was cancelled, no doubt, at the instance of the author to whom it was falsely imputed.] See additional note note to Vol. i. p. clxxxix., where the editor has seen reason to correct this opinion.

P. 322.—Even on my yearning time] The reading of the folio, “eaning time,” seems right, from the Angl. Sax. eanian, parturire. See Way's Promptorium, printed for the Camden Society, p. 140.

P. 344.—Come now, your one thing?] The mark of interrogation has accidentally dropped out at the end of this question.

P. 370.—The date of 1604 is erroneously given to “Salmasis and Hermaphroditus,” imputed, probably falsely, to Beaumont: it was first printed in 1602. The error is also corrected in Vol. i. p. cxvi.

P. 462.—And when the judge is rob'd the prisoner dies] In this line for “rob'd” read robb'd.

P. 473.—Still at the early age of eighteen or nineteen, which the earl reached in 1609] There is an evident error here, inasmuch as the Earl of Southampton was thirty-six in 1609: having been born in 1573, he was twenty-five when Meres published his Palladis Tamia in 1598.

P. 487.—in table of my heart] So in “Skialetheia,” by Edward Guilpin, 1598.

P. 514.—Or me, to whom gav'st it, else mistaking] The pronoun thou has accidentally dropped out after “whom” in this line.

P. 553.—All vows and consecrations giving place] The conjunction and has by an error been repeated in this line.

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