POINT-DEVICE. Act III., Sc. 2.

"Point-device in your accoutrements."

Point, in French, has the meaning of a stitch, as in point d'Angleterre, point lace; and also of summit, climax. Au dernier point, to the highest degree: la viande est cuite à point, the meat is cooked to a nicety. Device is anything invented, disposed. Point-device is therefore the dress arranged with the most minute attention and exactitude.

QUAIL Act II., Sc. 2.

"And let not search and inquisition quail."

Quail is here used in the sense of slacken.

QUESTION. Act III., Sc. 4.

"And had much question with him."

Question is discourse. It was frequently so used by our early writers.

QUESTIONING. Act V., Sc. 4.

"Feed yourselves with questioning."

Questioning is discoursing, investigating.

QUINTAIN. Act I., Sc. 2.

"Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block."

The quintain was a figure elevated on a pole or shaft, and moving freely upon a pivot, with a wooden sword or a sandbag for a counterpoise. The quintain was employed for a lance exercise, and was tilted against at full speed, when, if not struck immediately in front, the sword or sand-bag was revolved, and struck the tilter on his back as he proceeded in his course.

Ragged is broken, discordant; the word is frequently used for something wanting in propriety. Shakspere in his Lurece,' has

Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name."
Ragged verses were inharmonious verses.

RANK. Act III., Sc. 2.

"The right butter-woman's rank to market."

According to Whiter the rank means the jog-trot rate at which butter-women travel to market in rank, one after another, as also did the pack-horses, used in Shakspere's time. It is here intended to express a string of rhymes in the same course, cadence, and uniformity of rhythm.

RASCAL. Act III., Sc. 3.

"The noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal."

Rascal is a hunter's term given to young deer, when lean and out of season.

REMORSE. Act I., Sc. 3.

"It was your pleasure, and your own remorse." Remorse is pity, compassion.

REMOVED. Act III., Sc. 2.

"In so removed a dwelling."

So remote, so far removed from society

RENDER. Act IV., Sc. 3.

"And he did render him the most unnatural." Rendered an account, represented him as most unnatural.

ROYNISH. Act II., Sc. 2.

'My lord, the roynish clown."

Roynish is from the French rogneux, literally meaning, as we now say, a scurvy fellow.

SAD. Act III., Sc. 2.

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'Speak sad brow, and true maid."

Sad was constantly used for serious. The sentence means,—
Speak with a serious countenance, and as a true maid.
Henry V. says, "I speak to thee plain soldier," when wooing
Katherine.

SEEMING. Act V., Sc. 4.

"Bear your body more seeming, Audrey.”

More becomingly, more seemly.

SOUND. Act V., Sc. 2.

Jaques plays upon the double meaning of the word suit. The Duke has promised him a coat, he uses it in the sense of request. Rosalind afterwards plays in the same way on it: "Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit." (Act. IV., Sc. 1.)

"We'll have a swashing and a martial outside."

To swash is to make a noise of swords against targets. A swash-buckler was a swaggering braggadocio.

TA'EN UP. Act V., Sc. 4.

"And how was that ta'en up."

Mended, made up.

TAXATION. Act I., Sc. 2.

"You'll be whipp'd for taxation."

Taxation is here satire, for taxing people with their follies. TAXING. Act II., Sc. 7.

"Why then, my taxing like a wild goose flies."

To tax, is to censure, to reproach. In 'All's Well that Ends
Well' (Act I., Sc. 1), we have

"Be check'd for silence,

But never tax'd for speech."

THRICE-CROWNED QUEEN OF NIGHT. Act III., Sc. 2.

Dr. Johnson says this is an allusion "to the triple character of Proserpine, Cynthia, and Diana, given by some mythologists to the same goddess."

TOO LATE A WEEK. Act II., Sc. 3.

A phrase for a short but an indefinite period; somewhat too late.

TOUCHES. Act III., Sc. 2.

"To have the touches dearest priz'd."

The touches are the traits.

TROWEL. Act I., Sc. 2.

"That was laid on with a trowel."

Laid on roughly, coarsely. A gross flatterer is still said to lay it on with a trowel.

TURN. Act II., Sc. 5.

"And turn his merry note."

To turn is to modulate. The modern reading is tune.

UNEXPRESSIVE. Act III., Sc. 2.

"The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she."

Inexpressible. Warton supposes that Shakspere coined the word; Milton afterwards adopted it in his 'Hymn on the Nativity,'

"With unexpressive notes to Heaven's new-born heir." UNQUESTIONABLE. Act III., Sc. 2.

"An unquestionable spirit."

A spirit that does not admit of being questioned.

UNKIND. Act II., Sc. 7.

"Thou art not so unkind."

Unkind in the sense of unnatural.

VENGEANCE. Act IV., Sc. 3.

"That could do no vengeance to me." Vengeance is used in the sense of mischief.

VILLAIN. Act I., Sc. 1.

"I am no villain."

In this and the preceding sentence we have the two meanings of the word. Oliver uses it in the sense of worthless fellow; Orlando in that of one of mean birth, of servile condition -the original sense.

WARP. Act II., Sc. 7.

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Though thou the waters warp."

An allusion to an old Saxon proverb,-" Winter shall warp water."

WEAK EVILS. Act II., Sc. 7.

"Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger."

Age and hunger, evils that are the causes of weakness.

WHEREIN. Act III., Sc. 2.

"How look'd he? wherein went he?

That is, in what dress did he go?

WHOOPING. Act III., Sc. 2.

"Out of all whooping."

An adaptation of the old proverbial phrase, out of cry, meaning beyond all measure.

WORLD. Act V., Sc. 3.

"Desire to be a woman of the world.”

To be married. See 'Much Ado about Nothing,' Act II., Sc. 1.

PLOT AND CHARACTERS.

THERE were two little novels, written by dramatists of Shakspere's early time, upon which the greatest of dramatic poets has founded two of his most beautiful comedies. 'A Winter's Tale,' owes many of its incidents to Green's 'Pandosto.' 'As You Like It,' has Lodge's 'Rosalynd' for its principal source.

The 'Rosalynd' of Lodge, derived its main story of the rivalry of an elder and younger brother, from 'The Coke's Tale of Gamelyn,' an old poem erroneously attributed to Chaucer. But Shakspere has deviated from both narratives in the outset of his story. There, the younger son, called Rosader, is endowed by his father's will, more largely than the elder, but is kept out of possession by the cunning of that elder. The younger brother of 'As You Like It,' Orlando, has "but poor a thousand crowns," and his brother does not breed him well, as he was charged to do. In Lodge's novel we have also the story of an usurping duke and his banished brother; and Rosalynd, the banished duke's daughter, and her cousin Alinda, the daughter of the usurper. Lodge, too, has the banishment of his Rosalynd, for her beauty which won all hearts, and Alinda, also banished by the same tyranny. Shakspere makes his Celia self-banished through her friendship for her cousin, but he leads them forth in the same fashion of disguising Rosalind as a page. But the deviations which Shakspere made in the conduct of his story, from the original presented to him in Lodge's 'Rosalynd,' furnish a most remarkable example of the wonderful superiority of his art as compared with the art of other men. The additions which he has made to the story of 'Rosalynd' evince even a higher power: they grow out of his surpassing philosophy. To this quality Lodge sets up no pretensions. When the younger brother of the novelist has fled from his home with his faithful servant-when his Rosalynd and Alinda have