Shakspere has, more than once, taken his imagery from the prints with which the books of his time were ornamented. If my memory do not deceive me, he had his eye on a wood-cut in Holinshed, while writing the incantation of the weird sisters in Macbeth. There is also an allusion to a print of one of the Henrys holding a sword adorned with erowns. Ia this passage he refers to a device common in the titlepage of old books, of two hands extended from opposite clouds, and joined as in token of friendship over a wide waste of country. HENLEY

39.

physicks the subject,--] Affords a cordial to the state; has the power of assuaging the sense of misery.

JOHNSON. So, in Macbeth: "The labour we delight in, phy sicks pain."

61.

that may blow

STEEVENS

No sneaping winds--] Dr. Warburton calls this nonsense and Dr. Johnson tells us it is a Gallicism. It happens, however, to be both sense and English. That, for Oh! That, is not uncommon. In an old translation of the famous Alcoran of the Franciscans; "St. Francis observing the holiness of Friar Juniper, said to the priors, That I had a wood of such Junipers!" And, in The Two Noble Kinsmen :

"That I, poor man, might eftsoones come be

tween !"

And so in other places. This is the construction of the passage in Romeo and Juliet:

That

"That runaway's eyes may wink!" Which, in other respects, Mr. Steevens has rightly interpreted.

FARMER. 85. this satisfaction] We had satisfactory accounts yesterday of the state of Bohemia.

JOHNSON.

96. behind the gest] Mr. Theobald says, he can neither trace, nor understand the phrase, and therefore thinks it should be just: But the word gest is right, and signifies a stage or journey. In the time of royal progresses the king's stages, as we may see by the journals of them in the herald's office, were called his gests, from the old French word giste, diversorium. WARBURTON.

In Strype's Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, p. 283. The archbishop entreats Cecil, "to let him have the new resolved-upon gests, from that time to the end, that he might from time to time know where the king was."

Again, in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1599: "Castile, and lovely Elinor with him,

"Have in their gests resolved for Oxford town.' Again, in Vittoria Corombona, 1612:

-Do like the gests in the progress, "You know where you shall find me."

STEEVENS.

98. -a jar o' the clock--] A jar is, I believe, a single repetition of the noise made by the pendulum of a clock; what children call the ticking of it. So, in King Richard III.

"My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they STEEVENS.

jar."

A jar, perhaps, means a minute; for I do not suppose that the ancient clocks ticked or noticed the seconds. See Holinshed's Description of England, TOLLET.

p. 241.

121.

-lordings

-] This diminutive of lord

is often used by Chaucer. So, in the prologue to his Canterbury Tales, the host says to the company, v. 790, late edit.

"Lordinges (quod he) now herkeneth for the beste."

134.

STEEVENS.

-the imposition clear'd, Hereditary ours.] i. e. setting aside original

sin; bating the imposition from the offence of our first parents, we might have boldly protested our innocence to heaven. WARBURTON.

143. Grace to boot!

Of this make no conclusion; lest you say, &c.] Polixenes had said, that since the time of childhood and innocence, temptations had grown to them; for that, in that interval, the two queens were become women. To each part of this observation the queen answers in order. To that of temptations she replies, Grace to boot! i. e. though temptations have grown up, yet I hope grace too has kept pace with them. Grace to boot, was a proverbial expression on these occasions. To the other part she replies, as for our tempting you, pray take heed you draw no conclusion from thence,

for

for that would be making your queen and me devils, WARBURTON.

&c.

The explanation is good; but I have no great faith in the existence of such a proverbial expression.

STEEVENS.

172. And clepe thyself my love ;- -] The old edition reads-clap thyself. This reading may be explained: She opened her hand, to clap the palm of it into his, as people do when they confirm a bargain. Hence the phrase-to clap up a bargain, i. e. make one with no other ceremony than the junction of hands. So, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: "Speak, widow, is't a match? "Shall we clap it up?”

Again, in a Trick to catch the old One, 1616: "Come, clap hands, a match."

Again, in King Henry V.

"--and so clap hands, and a bargain."

STEEVENS.

188. The mort o' the deer ;- -] A lesson upon the horn at the death of the deer.

THEOBALD.

So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608: "He that bloweth the mort before the death of the buck, may very well miss of his tees." Again, in the oldest copy of Chevy Chase:

"The blewe a mort uppone the bent."

193. Why, that's my bawcock..

STEEVENS.

-] Perhaps

from beau and coq. It is still said in vulgar language, that such a one is a jolly cock, a cock of the game.

Bij

The

word

word has already occurred in Twelfth Night, and is one of the titles by which Pistol speaks of King Henry the Fifth. STEEVENS.

195. We must be neat ;- -] Leontes, seeing his son's nose smutch'd, cries, we must be neat; then recollecting that neat is the ancient term for horned cattle, he says, not neat, but cleanly. JOHNSON.

So, in Drayton's Polyolbion, song 3.

"His large provision there of flesh, of fowl, of STEEVENS.

197.

neat."

-Still virginalling] Still playing with

her fingers, as a girl playing on the virginals.

JOHNSON.

A virginal, as I am informed, is a very small kind of spinet. Queen Elizabeth's virginal book is yet in being, and many of the lessons in it have proved so difficult, as to baffle our most expert players on the harpsichord.

"When we have husbands, we play upon them like virginal jacks, they must rise and fall to our humours, or else they'll never get any good strains of musick out of one of us."

Decker's Untrussing the Humorous Poet.

Again, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611:

"Where be these rascals that skip up and down "Like virginal jacks ?” STEEVENS.

201.

Thou want'st a rough pash, and the shoots that I have,] Pash is kiss. Paz, Spanish, i.e. thou want`st a mouth made rough by a beard, to kiss with. Shoots are branches, i. e. horns. Leontes is alluding to the en