About Shakspeare's time halberds were the weapons borne by the watchmen, as appears from Blount's Voyage to the Levant: - certaine Janizaries, who with great staves guard each street, os our night watchmen with holberds in London." REED.

The following representation of a watchman, with his bill on his shoulder, is copied from the title-page to Decker's O per se O, etc. qto. 1612:

P. 48, 1. ig. and fol. It is not impossible but that part of this scene was intended as a burlesque on The Statutes of the Streets, imprinted by Wolfe, in 1595.

Ben Jonson, however, appears to have ridiculed this scene in the Induction to his BartholomewFair:

,,And then a substantial watch to have stole in upon 'em, and taken them away with mistak ing words, as the fashion is in the stage practice."

STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens observes, and I believe justly, that Ben Jonson intended to ridicule this scene in his induction to Bartholomew - Fair; yet in his Tale of a Tub, he makes his wise men of Finsbury speak just in the same style, and blunder in the same manner, without any such intention. M. MASON.

P. 49 1. 4. keep your fellow's counsels and your own,] This is part of the oath of a grand juryman; and is one of many proofs of Shakspeare's having been very conversant, at some period of his life, with legal proceedings and courts of justice. MALONE.

P. 49, I. 25. like a true drunkard,] I sup pose, it was on this account that Shakspeare called him Borachio, from Boraccho, Spanish, a drunkard; or Borracha, a leathern receptacle for wine.

STEEVENS.

P. 50, 1. 2.- unconfirm'd:] i. e. unpractised in the ways of the world.

WARBURTON.

R. 50, 1. 20. - reechy painting;] Is painting discoloured by smoke. STEEVENS.

P. 50, 1. 21. like god Bel's priests in the old church window.] Alluding to some aukward

representation of the story of Bel and the Dragon, as related in the Apocrypha. STEEVENS.+

In

P. 50, 1. 22. By the shaven Hercules is meant Sampson, the usual subject of old tapestry. this ridicule on the fashion, the poet has not unartfully given a stroke at the barbarous workmanship of the common tapestry hangings, then

so much in use. The same kind of raillery Cer vantes has employed on the like occasion, when he brings his knight and 'squire to an inn, where they found the story of Dido and AEneas represented in bad tapestry. On Sancho's seeing the tears fall from the eyes of the forsaken Queen as big as walnuts, he hopes that when their atchieve. ments became the general subject for these sorts of works, that fortune would send them a better artist. What authorised the poet to give this name to Sampson was the folly of certain Christian mythologists, who pretend that the Grecian Hercules was the Jewish Sampson. The retenue of our author is to be commended: The sober audience of that time would have been offended with the mention of a venerable name on so light an occasion. Shakspeare is indeed sometimes licen tious in these matters: But to do him justice, he generally seems to have a sense of religion, and to be under its influence. What Pedro says of Benedick, in this comedy, may be well enough applied to him: The man doth fear God, however it seems not to be in him by some large jests he will make. WARBURTON.

I believe that Shakspeare knew nothing of these Christian mythologists, and by the shaven Hercules meant only Hercules when shaved to make him look like a woman, while he remained in the service of Omphale, his Lydian mistress. Had

the shaven Hercules been meant to represent Sampson, he would probably have been equipped with a jaw bone instead of a club. STEEVENS. P. 50, 1. 22. Smirch'd is soiled, obscured.

STEEVENS.

P. 51, 1. 29. 30. We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken up of these men's bills. Here is a cluster of conceits, Commodity was formerly as now, the usual term for an article of merchandise. To take up, besides its common meaning, (to apprehend,) was the phrase for obtaining goods on credit.,,,If a mau is thorough with them in honest taking up, (says Falstaff,) then they must stand, upon security." Bill was the term both for a single bond, and a halberd. We have the same conceit in King Henry VI. P. 11:,,My Lord, when shall we go to Cheapside, and take up commodities upon our bills ?«

MALONE.

P. 51, 1. 31. A commodity in question,] i. e, a commodity subject to judicial trial or examination. Thus Hooker: Whosoever be found guilty the communion book hath deserved least to be called in question for this fault." STEEVENS.

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P. 52, 1. 9. rabato - An ornament for the neck, a collarband' or kind of ruff. Fr. Rabat. Menage saith it comes from rabattre, to put back, because it was at first nothing but the collar of the shirt or shift turn'd back towards the shoulders. T. HAWKINS.

P. 52, 1. 17. if the hair were a thought browner:] i, e. the false hair attached to the cap; for we learn from stubbes's Anatomie of Abuses, 1595, p. 40, that ladies were ,,not simplie content with their own haire, but did buy up other haire either of horses, mares, or any other

strange beasts, dying it of what collour they list themselves." STEEVENS.

P. 52, 1. 24. side-sleeves,] Side-sleeves, 1 believe, mean long ones. So, in Greene's Farewell to Follie, 1617:,,As great selfe love lurketh in a side- gowne, as in a short armour."

Such long sleeves, within my memory, were worn by children, and were called hanging-slee ves; a term which is preserved in a line, I think, of Dryden:

,,And miss in hanging-sleeves now shakes the dice."

Side or syde in the North of England, and in Scotland, is used for long when applied to a garment, and the word has the same signification in the Anglo-Saxon and Danish. STEEVENS.

Side sleeves were certainly long sleeves, as will appear from the following instance, in Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry :`,,Theyr cotes be so syde that they be fayne to tucke them up whan they ride, as women do theyr kyrtels whan they go to the market," etc. REED.

P. 53, 1. 15. Light o' love] This is the name of an old dance tune which has occurred already in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 1 have lately recovered it from an ancient MS. and it is as follows: