Shotten-herring, a herring that Soused gurnet, a gudgeon. has spawned. Shoulder-clapper, a bailiff. the game of shovel-board. Shrewd, shrewish. Shrift, auricular confession. Side-sleeves, long sleeves. Sieve, a common voider. Sightless, unsightly. Sights, the perforated parts of a Sprights, spirits. helmet. Silly, simple truth. Sink-a-pace, cinque pace, a dance. Sithence, thence. Sizes, allowances of victuals. Skills not, is of no importance. Skirr, to scour. Slave, to treat with indignity. to Sleided, untwisted. Slip, counterfeit coin. Slips, a contrivance in leather, to Sliver, to slice. Slops, loose breeches. Slough, the skin which the serpent annually throws off, Slower, more serious. Springhalt, a disease of horses. Spurs, the greater roots of trees Squash, an immature peascod. Starred, destined. Statists, statesmen. Statua, statue. Stay, a hinderer, a supporter. Sticklers, arbitrators, judges, partisans, umpires. Stigmatic, marked with deformity branded. Stigmatical, stigmatised. Stilly, gladly, lowly. Stinted, stopped. Stint, to stop. Slubber, to do carelessly, to ob- Stith, an anvil. scure. Stithied, forged at the furnace. Tawney Coat, the dress of an p-Trenched, carved. paritor. Taxation, censure, satire. Tear a cat, to bluster. Teen, grief, trouble. Tender, to regard with affection. Tercel, the male hawk. test. Testerned, gratified with a tester, Trick, peculiarity of feature. Tricking, dress. Tricksy, adroit. Trigon, Aries, Leo, and Sagit tarius, in the Zodiac. Trip, to defeat. Trojan, cant term for thief. Troll, to sing trippingly. Tether, a string by which any ani- Trundle-tail, a dog. mal is fastened. Tharborough, a constable. Theorick, theory. Thewes, muscular strength. Thick, pleached, thickly inter WOVED. Thin Helm, thin covering of hair. Tup, to cover an ewe. Thought, melancholy. Thrasonical, boasting. Three-man-beetle, an implement warp. Thrummed, made of coarse wool- Tib, a strumpet. Tickle-brain, a strong drink. Tire, head dress. Tire, to be idly employed on. memorandum Tire-valiant, a head-dress. Tables, tablets, Tabourine, a small drum. Tag, the rabble. Tirra-lirra, the song of the lark. Toged, habited. Tokened, spotted. Turre, to whisper. Turlygood, or Turlupin, a gipsy. Uncharged, unattacked. Unclew, to unwind. Uncoined, unrefined, unadorned. Unconfirmed, unpractised in world ly craft. Uncurrent, irregular. Undercraft, to wear beneath the crest. Under-skinker, a tapster. Underwrite, to subscribe, to obey. Unexpressive, inexpressible. Waxen, soft, yielding. Vail, to bow, to sink, to conde- Wanton, a feeble or effeminate scend to look. Vailing, lowering. Vain, vanity. Vain, lying. Valance, fringed with a beard. Vantage, opportunity, advantage. Vast, waste, dreary. Vaunt, the avant, the fore-part. Venetian, admittance. Ventiges, holes of a flute. Verify, to bear witness. Veronese, a ship from Verona. Via, a cant phrase of exultation. Vice, grasp. Vie, to brag. Viewless, invisible. man. Wappened, decayed, diseased. Warp, to change from the natural state. Wee, very little. Weigh, to value or esteem. Westward hoe, the name of a play acted in Shakspeare's time. Wether, used for a ram. Woman, to affect deeply. Wondered, able to perform won ders. Wood, crazy, frantic. Wooden thing, awkward business. Woolward, wearing wool. Worm, a serpent. Worth, wealth. Whelked, varied with protuberan- Wrung, pressed, strained. Whip, the crack, the best. Whipstock, the carter's whip. Villain, a worthless fellow, a ser- Whist, being silent. Violenteth, rageth. vant. Vild, vile. Virginal, a kind of spinnet. Virtue, valour. Virtuous, healthy. Yearn, to grieve or vex. Yeoman, a bailiff's follower. Yesty, foaming, frothy. White, the white mark in the tar-Young, early. EXPLANATORY NOTES. TEMPEST. "A rotten carcass of a boat."-Act I. Sc. 2. Shakspeare might have read the following in Holinshed::-"After this, was Edwin, the king's brother, accused of some conspiracie by him begun against the king: whereupon he was banished the land; and sent out in an old rotten vessel, without rowers or mariner, onlie accompanied with one esquier so that being launched forth from the shore, through despaire, Edwin leaped into the sea, and drowned himself." "Setebos."-Act I. Sc. 2. We learn from Magellan's Voyages, that Setebos was the supreme god of the Patagons. This fabulous deity is also mentioned in Hackluyt's Voyages, 1598. Barbot says, "The Patagons are reported to dread a great horned devil, called Setebos." And, in Eden's Historye of Travayle, 1577, we are told, that "the giantes, when they found themselves fettered, roared like bulls, and cried upon Setebos to help them." For no kind of traffic Would I admit, no name of magistrate."-Act II.Sc.1. Shakspeare has here followed a passage in Montaigne, as translated by John Florio, 1603:-" It is a nation that hath no kind of trafficke, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politic superioritie; no use of ser vice, of riches, or of povertie; no contracts, no successions, no partitions, no occupation, but idle; no respect of kindred but common; no apparel but natural; no use of wine, corn, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulations, covetousness, envie, detraction, and pardon, were never heard amongst them." "Sometime like apes, that mow and chatter at me, And after bate me; then like hedge-hogs, which Lie tumbling in my bare-foot way."-Act II. Sc. 2. Perhaps taken from a passage in Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures. "They make antike faces, grin, mow and mop, like an ape; tumble like an hedge-hog."-DOUCE. 66 "A dead Indian."-Act II. Sc. 2. Sir Martin Frobisher, when he returned from his voyage of discovery, brought with him some native Indians. In his History of the First Voyage for the Discoverie of Cataya, we have the following account of a savage taken by him :-" Whereupon, when he founde himself in captivitie, for very choler and disdain, he bit his tong in twaine, within bis mouth: notwithstanding, he died not thereof, but lived untill he came in Englande, and then he died of colde, which he had taken at sea."-STEEVENS. "Nor scrape trenchering."—Act III. Sc. 1. In our author's time, trenchers were in general use, and male domestics were employed in cleansing them. "I have helped (says Lyly, in his History of his Life and Times, 1620,) to carry eighteen tubs of water in one morning; all manner of arudgery I willingly performed; scrape-trenchers," &c. MALONE. "He were a brave monster indeed, if they were set in his tail."-Act III. Sc. 2. Probably in allusion to Stowe. It seems in the year 1574 a whale was thrown ashore near Ramsgate, "a monstrous fish, but not so monstrous as some reported, for his eyes were in his head, and not in his backe." "This is the tune of our catch, played by the picture of Nobody."-Act III. Sc. 2. A ridiculous figure, sometimes painted on signs. Westward for Smelts, a book which our poet seems to have read, was printed for John Trundle, in Barbican, at the sign of the No-body; or the allusion may be to the print of No-body, as prefixed to the anonymous comedy of No-body and Some-boly, without date, but orinted before the year 1600.-MALONE. "One tree, the phanir' throne."-Act III. Sc. 3. In Holland's Pliny, the following passage occurs: "I myselfe verily have heard straunge things of this kind of tree; and, namely, in regard of the bird Phoenix, which is supposed to have taken that name of this Date Tree; for it was assured unto me, that the said bird died with that tree, and revived of itselfe as the tree sprung again." Mountaineers, Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at them Wallets of flesh ?"—Act III. Sc. 3. Whoever is curious to know the particulars relative to these mountaineers, may consult Maundeville's Travels, printed in 1503: but it is yet a known truth, that the inhabitants of the Alps have been long accustomed to such excrescences or tuInours. STEEVENS. "Each putter-out of one for five."-Act III. Sc. 3. The custom here alluded to was as follows:-It was a practice of those who engaged in long and hazardous expeditions, to place out a sum of money, on condition of receiving great interest for it at their return home. So in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour:-"I do intend this year of jubilee coming on, to travel; and (because I will not altogether go upon expence) I am determined to put some five thousand pound, to be paid me five for one, upon the return of my wife, myself, and my dog, from the Turk's court, in Constantinople." "Like poison, given to work a great time after." Act III. Sc. 3. The natives of Africa were supposed to be possessed of the secret how to temper poisons with such art, as not to operate till several years after they were administered. Italian travellers relate similar effects of the aqua tofana, a subtle, colourless and tasteless poison, which ladies carry about them, and have at their toilets, among their perfumed waters, for the purpose of administering in Caliban's barnacle is the clakis or tree-goose. Collins very simply tells us, that the barnacle which grows on ships was meant; and quotes the following passage to support his opinion:-"There are, in the north parts of Scotland, certaine trees, whereon do grow shell-fishes, which, falling in the water, do become fowls, whom we call barnakles; in the north of England, brant-geese; and in Lancashire tree-geese."-Douce. "Some subtilties o' the isle."—Act V. Sc. I. This is a phrase adopted from ancient cookery and confectionary. When a dish was so contrived as to appear unlike what it really was, they called it a subtilty. Dragons, castles, trees, &c. made out of sugar, had the like denomination.-STEEVENS, TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. "He was "Nay, give me not the boots."-Act I. Sc. 1. The boot was an instrument of torture used only in Scotland. Bishop Burnet mentions one Maccael, a preacher, who being suspected of treason, under went the punishment so late as 1666. put to the torture, which, in Scotland, they call the boots; for they put a pair of iron boots close on the leg, and drive wedges between these and the leg. The common torture was only to drive these on the calf of the leg, but I have been told they were sometimes driven upon the shin bone."-REED. A laced mutton."-Act I. Sc. 1. A laced mutton was, in our author's time, so usual a term for a courtezan, that a street in Clerkenwell much frequented by prostitutes, was called Mutton Lane.-MALONE. "I see you have a month's mind to them."-Act I.Sc.2. A month's mind was an anniversary in times of popery; or a less solemnity directed by will. There was also a year's mind, and a week's mind. So in Strype's Memorials, "July 1556, was the month's mind of Sir William Saxton, who died the last month, his hearse burning with wax, and the morrow mass celebrated, and a sermon preached." GREY. "Sir Valentine and servant."-Act II. Sc. 1. Here Silvia calls her lover, servant, and again below, her gentle servant. This was the language of ladies to their lovers when Shakspeare wrote.HAWKINS. “ A waxen image ’gainst a fire.”—Act II. Sc. 4. Alluding to the figures made by witches, as representatives of those whom they designed to torment "With a cod-piece."-Act II. Sc. 7. Whoever wishes to be informed respecting this "Tyro's round breeches have a cliffe behind, Which, for a pin-case, antique plowmen wore.' Ocular instruction may be had from the armour shewn as John of Gaunt's, in the Tower of London. The custom of sticking pins in this ostentatious piece of indecency was continued by the Towerwardens, till forbidden by authority.-STEEVens. "Saint Nicholas be thy speed!"-Act III. Sc. 1. That this saint presided over young scholars, may be gathered from Knight's Life of Dean Collett; for, by the statutes of Paul's School there inserted, the children are required to attend divine service at the cathedral on his anniversary. The reason, probably, was, that the legend of this saint makes him to have been a bishop, while he was a boy.HAWKINS. "The cover of the salt hides the salt."-Act III. Sc. 1. The ancient English salt-cellar was very different from the modern, being a large piece of plate, generally much ornamented, with a cover to keep the salt clean |