And lady marquifs Dorfet; Will these please you? Once more, my lord of Winchester, I charge you, Embrace, and love this man.

GAR.

And brother-love, I do it.

CRAN.

With a true heart,

And let heaven

Witness, how dear I hold this confirmation.

K. HEN. Good man, those joyful tears show thy true heart."

The common voice, I fee, is verify'd

Of thee, which fays thus, Do my lord of Canterbury A fhrewd turn, and he is your friend for ever.— Come lords, we trifle time away; I long

To have this young one made a christian.

The practice of fponfors giving spoons at christenings continued to the latter end of the laft century, as appears from a pamphlet written against Dryden, entitled The Reasons of Mr. Bayes's Converfion, &c. p. 14.

At one period it was the mode to prefent gifts of a different kind. "At this time," [the first year of Queen Elizabeth,] fays the continuator of Stowe's Chronicle, " and for many yeeres before. it was not the use and custome, as now it is, [1631,] for godfathers and godmothers generally to give plate at the baptifm of children, (as Spoones, cups, and fuch like,) but only to give chriftening fhirts, with little hands and cuffs wrought either with filk or blue thread; the best of them for chief perfons weare edged with a fmall lace of blacke filke and golde; the highest price of which for great men's children were seldom above a noble, and the common fort, two, three, or four and five fhillings a piece."

Whether our author, when he fpeaks of apostle-fpoons, has, as ufual, attributed the practice of his own time to the reign of Henry VIII. I have not been able to ascertain. Probably however he is here accurate; for we know that certain pieces of plate were on fome occafions then bestowed; Hall, who has written a minute account of the chriftening of Elizabeth, informing us, that the gifts prefented by her fponfors were a ftanding cup of gold, and fix gilt bowls, with covers. Chron. Henry VIII. fol. 218.

thy true heart.] editor of the fecond folio.

Old copy-hearts.
MALONE.

MALONE. Corrected by the

As I have made ye one, lords, one remain;
So I grow ftronger, you more honour gain.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

The Palace Yard.

Noife and tumult within: Enter Porter, and his Man.

PORT. You'll leave your noife anon, ye rafcals: Do you take the court for Paris-garden?" ye rude flaves, leave your gaping.'

6-Paris-garden?] The bear-garden of that time.

JOHNSON.

This celebrated bear-garden on the Bankfide was fo called from Robert de Paris, who had a house and garden there in the time of King Richard II. Rot. claus. 16 R. II. dorf. ii. Blount's GLosSOGRAPH. MALONE.

So, in fir W. D'Avenant's News from Plimouth:

66

do you take this manfion for Pict-hatch? "You would be fuitors: yes, to a fhe-deer, "And keep your marriages in Paris-garden?" Again, in Ben Jonfon's Execration on Vulcan:

"And cried, it was a threatning to the bears,

"And that accurfed ground the Paris-garden."

The Globe theatre, in which Shakspeare was a performer, flood on the fouthern fide of the river Thames, and was contiguous to this noted place of tumult and diforder. St. Mary Overy's church is not far from London Bridge, and almoft oppofite to Fishmongers' Hall. Winchefter Houfe was over against Cole Harbour. Parisgarden was in a line with Bridewell, and the Globe playhouse faced Blackfriars, Fleetditch, or St. Paul's. It was an hexagonal building of stone or brick. Its roof was of rufhes, with a flag on the top. See a fouth view of London, (as it appeared in 1599,) published by T. Wood, in Bishop's Court, in Chancery Lane, in 1771. STEEVENS.

7

-gaping.] i. e. fhouting or roaring; a fenfe which this word has now almoft loft. Littleton in his Dictionary has however given it in its prefent fignification as follows: "To gape or bawl,

[Within.] Good master porter, I belong to the larder..

PORT. Belong to the gallows, and be hang'd, you rogue: Is this a place to roar in?-Fetch me a dozen crab-tree ftaves, and ftrong ones; these are but switches to them.-I'll fcratch your heads: You must be seeing chriftenings? Do you look for ale and cakes here, you rude rafcals?

8

MAN. Pray, fir, be patient; 'tis as much im

poffible

(Unless we fweep them from the door with cannons,)
To fcatter them, as 'tis to make them sleep
On May-day morning;' which will never be:
We may as well pufh against Paul's, as ftir them.
PORT. How got they in, and be hang'd?

MAN. Alas, I know not; How gets the tide in? As much as one found cudgel of four foot

vociferor." So, in Rofcommon's Effay on Tranflated Verfe, as quoted in Dr. Johnfon's Dictionary:

"That noify, naufeous, gaping fool was he." REED. Such being one of the ancient fenfes of the verb-to gape, perhaps the "gaping pig" mentioned by Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, has hitherto been misinterpreted. STEEVENS.

8 Pray, fir, be patient;] Part of this fcene in the old copy is printed as verfe, and part as profe. Perhaps the whole, with the occafional addition and omiffion of a few harmlefs fyllables, might be reduced into a loose kind of metre; but as I know not what advantage would be gained by making the experiment, I have left the whole as I found it. STEEVENS.

9 On May-day morning;] It was anciently the custom for all ranks of people to go out a maying on the first of May. It is on record that King Henry VIII. and Queen Katharine partook of this diverfion. See Vol. V. p. 130, n. 5. STEEVENS.

Stowe fays, that, "in the month of May, namely, on Mayday in the morning, every man, except impediment, would walk into the fweet meadows and green woods; there to rejoice their fpirits with the beauty and favour of fweet flowers, and with the noife [i. e. concert] of birds, praifing God in their kind." See also Brand's Obfervations on popular Antiquities, 8vo. 1777. P. 255. REED.

(You fee the poor remainder) could distribute, I made no fpare, fir.

PORT.

You did nothing, fir.

MAN. I am not Sampfon, nor fir Guy, nor Colbrand, to mow them down before me: but, if I fpar'd any, that had a head to hit, either young or old, he or fhe, cuckold or cuckold-maker, let me never hope to fee a chine again; and that I would not for a cow, God fave her.

[Within.] Do you hear, mafter Porter?

PORT. I fhall be with you prefently, good master puppy. Keep the door close, firrah.

MAN. What would you have me do?

PORT. What fhould you do, but knock them down by the dozens? Is this Moorfields to muster in? or have we fome ftrange Indian with the great tool come to court, the women fo befiege us? Bless me, what a fry of fornication is at door! On

fir Guy, nor Colbrand,] Of Guy of Warwick every one has heard. Colbrand was the Danish giant, whom Guy fubdued at Winchefter. Their combat is very elaborately defcribed by Drayton in his Polyolbion. JOHNSON.

3 Moorfields to mufter in?] The train-bands of the city were exercifed in Moorfields. JOHNSON.

4 fome firange Indian-] To what circumftance this refers, perhaps, cannot now be exactly known. A fimilar one occurs in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611:

"You fhall fee the ftrange nature of an outlandish beast lately brought from the land of Cataia."

Again, in The Two Noble Kinfmen, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "The Bavian with long tail and eke long TOOL.'

COLLINS.

Fig. I. in the print of Morris-dancers, at the end of King Henry IV. P. I. has a bib which extends below the doublet; and its length might be calculated for the concealment of the phallic obfcenity mentioned by Beaumont and Fletcher, of which perhaps the Bavian fool exhibited an occafional view for the diverfion of our indelicate ancestors. TOLLET.

my chriftian confcience, this one chriftening will beget a thousand; here will be father, godfather, and all together.

MAN. The spoons will be the bigger, fir. There is a fellow fomewhat near the door, he fhould be a brazier by his face, for, o'my confcience, twenty of the dog-days now reign in's nofe; all that stand about him are under the line, they need no other penance: That fire-drake' did I hit three times on the head, and three times was his nose discharg'd against me; he ftands there, like a mortar-piece,

he fhould be a brafier by his face,] A brafier fignifies a man that manufactures brafs, and a refervoir for charcoal occafionally heated to convey warmth. Both these fenfes are underftood. JOHNSON.

That fire-drake-] A fire-drake is both a ferpent, anciently called a brenning-drake, or dipfas, and a name formerly given to a Will o'the Wifp, or ignis fatuus. So, in Drayton's Nymphidia:

By the hiffling of the fnake,

"The ruftling of the fire-drake."

Again, in Cæfar and Pompey, a tragedy, by Chapman, 1607: "So have I feene a fire-drake glide along

"Before a dying man,

to point his grave,

"And in it ftick and hide."

Again, in Albertus Wallenftein, 1640:

"Your wild irregular luft, which like thofe fire-drakes
Mifguiding nighted travellers, will lead you

"Forth from the fair path," &c.

A fire-drake was likewife an artificial firework. So, in Your Five Gallants, by Middleton, 1608:

but like fire-drakes,

"Mounted a little, gave a crack, and fell." STEEVENS. A fire-drake is thus defcribed by Bullokar in his Expofitor, 8vo. 1616: "Firedrake. A fire fometimes feen flying in the night, like a dragon. Common people think it a fpirit that keepeth fome treafure hid; but philofophers affirme it to be a great unequal exhalation, inflamed betweene two clouds, the one hot, the other cold, which is the reason that it also smoketh; the middle part whereof, according to the proportion of the hot cloud, being greater than the reft, maketh it feeme like a bellie, and both ends like unto a head and taile." MALONE.