Here a dance of Shepherds and Shepherdeffes.

POL. Pray, good fhepherd, what

Fair fwain is this, which dances with your daughter? SHEP. They call him Doricles; and he boafts himself"

To have a worthy feeding: but I have it
Upon his own report, and I believe it;

He looks like footh: He fays, he loves my daugh

ter;

I think fo too; for never gaz'd the moon
Upon the water, as he'll ftand, and read,
As 'twere, my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain,
I think, there is not half a kiss to choose,
Who loves another beft.+

9 and he boafts himfelf-] The old copy reads and boasts himself; which cannot, I think, be right. The emendation was made by Mr. Rowe. Perhaps Shakspeare wrote-a boasts himself. MALONE.

a worthy feeding:] I conceive feeding to be a pafture, and a worthy feeding to be a tract of pafturage not inconfiderable, not unworthy of my daughter's fortune. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnfon's explanation is juft. So, in Drayton's Moon-calf: "Finding the feeding for which he had toil'd

"To have kept fafe, by these vile cattle fpoil'd."

Again, in the fixth song of the Polyolbion :

fo much that do rely

Upon their feedings, flocks, and their fertility.”

"A worthy feeding (fays Mr. M. Mafon) is a valuable, a fub. ftantial one. Thus Antonio, in Twelfth Night:

"But were my worth, as is my confcience, firm,
"You fhould find better dealing."

Worth here means fortune or fubftance. STEEVENS.

3 He looks like footh:] Sonth is truth. Obfolete. So, in Lyly's Woman in the Moon, 1597:

"Thou doft diffemble, but I mean good footh."

STEEVENS.

4 Who loves another beft.] Surely we should read-Who loves the other best. M. MASON.

POL.

She dances featly.

SHEP. So fhe does any thing; though I report it, That should be filent: if young Doricles Do light upon her, fhe fhall bring him that Which he not dreams of.

Enter a Servant.

SER. O mafter, if you did but hear the pedler at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he fings feveral tunes, fafter than you'll tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men's ears grew to his tunes.

CLOWN. He could never come better: he shall come in: I love a ballad but even too well; if it be doleful matter, merrily fet down,' or a very pleasant thing indeed, and fung lamentably.

SER. He hath fongs, for man, or woman, of all fizes; no milliner can fo fit his cuftomers with gloves he has the prettieft love-fongs for maids; fo without bawdry, which is ftrange; with fuch delicate burdens of dildo's and fadings: jump her

8

3 doleful matter, merrily fet down,] This feems to be another ftroke aimed at the title-page of Prefton's Cambifes," A lamentable Tragedy, mixed full of pleasant Mirth," &c. STEEVENS.

6—no milliner can fo fit his customers with gloves:] In the time of our author, and long afterwards, the trade of a milliner was carried on by men. MALONE.

of dildo's -] "With a hie dildo dill” is the burthen of the Batchelors Feaft, an ancient ballad, and is likewife called the Tune of it. STEEVENS.

See alfo Choice Drollery, 1656, p. 31:

"A ftory ftrange I will you tell,

"But not fo ftrange as true,

"Of a woman that danc'd upon the rope,

-And fo did her husband too;

and thump her; and where fome ftretch-mouth'd rafcal would, as it were, mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to anfwer, Whoop, do me no harm, good man; puts him off, flights him, with Whoop, do me no harm, good

man.9

POL. This is a brave fellow.

CLOWN. Believe me, thou talkeft of an admirableconceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares?

"With a dildo, dildo, dildo,

" With a dildo, dildo, dee." MALONE.

fadings:] An Irish dance of this name is mentioned by

Ben Jonfon, in The Irish Mafque at Court.

"and daunfh a fading at te wedding."

Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Peftle: "I will have him dance fading; fading is a fine jigg."

So, in The Bird in a Cage, by Shirley, 1633:

"But under her coats the ball be found.
"With a fading,"

Again, in Ben Jonfon's 97th epigram:

9

TYRWHITT.

"See you yond motion? not the old fading." STEEVENS. Whoop, do me no harm, good man.] This was the name of an old fong. In the famous hiftory of Fryar Bacon we have a ballad to the tune of, “ Oh! do me no harme, good man." FARMER..

This tune is preferved in a collection intitled " Ayres, to fing and play to the Lvte and Baffe Violl. with Pauins, Galliards, Almaines, and Corantos, for the Lyra Violl. By William Corbine :" 1610. fol. RITSON.

2

unbraided wares?] Surely we must read braided, for fuch are all the wares mentioned in the anfwer. JOHNSON.

I believe by unbraided wares, the Clown means, has he any thing befides laces which are braided, and are the principal commodity fold by ballad-finging pedlers. Yes, replies the fervant, be has ribands, &c. which are things not braided, but woven. The drift of the Clown's queftion, is either to know whether Autolycus has any thing better than is commonly fold by fuch vagrants; any thing worthy to be prefented to his miftrefs: or, as probably, by enquiring for fomething which pedlars ufually have not, to escape laying out his money at all. The following paffage in Any Thing for a quiet Life, however, leads me to fuppofe that there is here fome

2

SER. He hath ribands of all the colours i'the rainbow; points, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by the grofs; inkles, caddiffes,' cambricks, lawns: why, he fings them over, 'as they were gods or goddeffes; you would think, a fmock were a fhe-angel; he fo chants to the fleeve-hand, and the work about the fquare on't.*

allufion which I cannot explain : She fays that you fent ware which is not warrantable, braided ware, and that you give not London meafure." STEEVENS.

Unbraided wares may be wares of the best manufacture. Braid in Shakspeare's All's Well, &c. A&t IV. fc. ii. fignifies deceitful. Braided in Bailey's Dict. means faded, or having loft its colour; and why then may not unbraided import whatever is undamaged, or what is of the better fort? Several old ftatutes forbid the importation of ribands, laces, &c. as " falfely and deceitfully wrought."

Probably unbraided wares means, braid." M. MASON.

TOLLET.

66 wares not ornamented with

The clown is perhaps inquiring not for fomething better than common, but for fmooth and plain goods. Has he any plain wares, not twisted into braids? Ribands, cambricks, and lawns, all answer to this defcription. MALONE.

2

—points, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle,] The points that afford Autolycus a fubject for this quibble, were laces with metal tags to them. Aiguilettes, Fr. MALONE.

3 -caddiffes,] I do not exactly know what caddies are. In Shirley's Witty Fair One, 1633, one of the characters fays:"I will have eight velvet pages, and fix footmen in caddis."

In The First Part of K. Henry IV. I have fuppofed caddis to be ferret. Perhaps by fix footmen in caddis, is meant fix footmen with their liveries laced with fuch a kind of worsted stuff. As this worfted lace was particoloured, it might have received its title from cadeffe, the ancient name for a daw. STEEVENS.

Caddis is, I believe, a narrow worsted galloon. I remember when very young to have heard it enumerated by a pedler among the articles of his pack. There is a very narrow flight ferge of this name now made in France. Inkle is a kind of tape alfo.

MALONE.

the fleeve-hand, and the work about the fquare on't.] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads-fleeve-band, JOHNSON,

CLOWN. Pr'ythee, bring him in; and let him approach finging.

PER. Forewarn him, that he ufe no fcurrilous words in his tunes.

CLOWN. You have of thefe pedlers, that have more in 'em than you'd think, sister.

PER. Ay, good brother, or go about to think.

The old reading is right, or we must alter fome paffages in other authors. The word fleeve-hands occurs in Leland's Collectanea, 1770, Vol. IV. p. 323: "A furcoat [of crimfon velvet] furred with mynever pure, the coller, fkirts, and fleeve-hands garnished with ribbons of gold." So, in Cotgrave's Dict. " Poignet de la chemife." is Englished " the wristband, or gathering at the fleeveband of a fhirt." Again, in Leland's Collectanea, Vol. IV. p. 293, king James's" fhurt was broded with thred of gold," and in p. 341, the word fleeve-hand occurs, and feems to fignify the cuffs of a furcoat, as here it may mean the cuffs of a mock. I conceive, that the work about the fquare on't, fignifies the work or embroidery about the bofom part of a fhift, which might then have been of a square form, or might have a fquare tucker, as Anne Bolen and Jane Seymour have in Houbraken's engravings of the heads of illuftrious perfons. So, in Fairfax's tranflation of Tasso, B. XII. ft. 64:

"Between her breafts the cruel weapon rives,

"Her curious fquare, embofs'd with fwelling gold."

I fhould have taken the fquare for a gorget or ftomacher, but for this paffage in Shakfpeare. TOLLET.

The following paffage in John Grange's Garden, 1577, may likewife tend to the fupport of the ancient reading-fleeve-hand. In a poem called The Paynting of a Curtizan, he fays:

"Their fmockes are all bewrought about the necke and hande," STEEVENS.

The word fleeve-hand is likewife ufed by P. Holland, in his Tranflation of Suetonius, 1606, p. 19: in his apparel he was noted for fingularity, as who used to goe in his fenatour's purple studded robe, trimmed with a jagge or frindge at the fleeve-hand."

MALONE.