ears, is not very obscure. To be more thankful shall be my study; and my profit therein the heaping friendships. That is, I will for the future be more liberal of recompence, from which I shall receive this advantage, that as 1 heap benefits I shall heap friendships; as I confer favours on thee, I shall increase the friendship between us. JOHNSON. 63. but I have, missingly, noted,] Missingly noted, means, I have observed him at intervals; not constantly or regularly, but occasionally. STEEVENS. 78. But, I fear, the angle-] Angle, in this place, means a fishing-rod, which he represents as drawing his son, like a fish, away. So, in King Henry IV. Part I. "The hearts of all that he did angle for." Again, in All's Well that Ends Well: 88. "She knew her distance, and did angle for me." STEEVENS. -Autolycus] Autolycus was the son of Mercury, and as famous for all the arts of fraud and thievery as his father: "Non fuit Autolyci tam piceata manus.” Martial. STEEVENS. 91. For the red blood reigns in the winter pale.] This line has suffered a great variety of alterations; but I am persuaded the old reading is the true one. The first folio has, the winter's pale," and the meaning is, the red, the spring blood now reigns o'er the the parts lately under the dominion of winter. The English pale, the Irish pale, were frequent expressions in Shakspere's time; and the words red and pale were chosen for the sake of the antithesis. FARMER. Dr. Farmer is certainly right. I had offered this explanation to Dr. Johnson, who rejected it. In King Henry V. our author says, 66 -the English breach "Pales in the flood," &c. Again, in another of his plays : "Whate'er the ocean pales, or sky inclips." Holinshed, p. 528, calls Sir Richard Aston, "Lieutenant of the English pale, for the earle of Summerset." Again, in King Henry VI. Part I. "How are we park'd, and bounded in a pale." STEEVENS. By the red blood's reigning in the winter pale, I believe no more is meant than that, in the sweet of the year, the cheek, which during winter was of a wan hue, becomes flushed with blushes. The mention of the white sheet bleaching on the hedge, with the effects which the sight of it produces, are a full confirmation of this sense. HENLEY. 94. -pugging tooth- -] Sir T. Hanmer, and after him Dr. Warburton, read—progging tooth. It is certain that pugging is not now understood. But Dr. Thirlby observes, that it is the cant of gypsies. JOHNSON. The word pugging is used by Greene in one of his pieces, and progging by Beaumont and Fletcher in Eij the the Spanish Curate. And a puggard was a cant name for some particular kind of thief. So, in the Roaring Girl, 1611: "Of cheaters, lifters, nips, foists, puggards, curbers." See Prigging in Minshew. STEEVENS. Such expressions as a colt's tooth, &c. are well understood.-A peg-top is called in the west of England a pug-top. There can scarce be a doubt that pugging is the original word. Those who wish a further explanation, may refer to Skinner, under the word Pugs. 96. The lark, that tirra-lirra chaunts,] 98. HENLEY. La gentille allouette avec son tire-lire Vers la voute du Ciel, puis son vol vers ce lieu Vire et desire dire adieu Dieu, adieu Dieu! Du Bartas. Ecce suum tirile tirile: suum tirile tractat. T. H. W. -my aunts,] Aunt appears to have been at this time a cant for a bawd. In Middleton's comedy called, A Trick to catch the Old One, 1616, is the following confirmation of its being used in that sense:" It was better bestow'd upon his uncle than one of his aunts, I need not say bawd, for every one ! one knows what aunt stands for in the last trans lation." 101. -wore three-pile; STEEVENS. -] i. e. rich velvet. So, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: "With black, crimson, and tawny three-pil'd velvet." STEEVENS. 110.. My traffick is sheets ;- -] i. e. I am a vender of sheet-ballads and other publications that are sold unbound. From the word sheets the poet takes occasion to quibble. see." "Our fingers are lime-twigs, and barbers we be, "To catch sheets from hedges most pleasant to Three Ladies of London, 1584. Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Beggar's Bush: "To steal from the hedge both the shirt and the STEEVENS. sheet." 111. My father nam'd me, Autolycus, &c.] Mr. Theobald says, the allusion is unquestionably to Ovid. He is mistaken. Not only the allusion, but the whole speech, is taken from Lucian, who appears to have been one of our poet's favourite authors, as may be collected from several places of his works. It is from his discourse on judicial astrology, where Autolycus talks much in the same manner; and 'tis on this account that he is called the son of Mercury by the ancients, namely, because he was born under that planet. And as the infant was supposed by the astrologers to communicate of the nature of the star which predominated, so Autolycus was a thief. WARBURTON. This piece of Lucian, to which Dr. Warburton refers, was translated long before the time of Shakspere. I have seen it, but it had no date. 113. rison STEEVENS. -With die and drab, I purchas'd this capa-] i. e. with gaming and whoring I brought myself to this shabby dress. PERCY. 114. --my revenue is the silly cheat.- -] The silly cheat is one of the technical terms belonging to the art of coneycatching or thievery, which Greene has mentioned among the rest, in his treatise on that ancient and honourable science. I think it means picking pockets. STEEVENS. 4 115. Gallows, and knock, &c.] The resistance which a highwayman encounters in the fact, and the punishment which he suffers on detection, with-hold me from daring robbery, and determine me to the silly cheat and petty theft. JOHNSON. 119. Every eleven weather tods; every tod yields pound and odd shilling:] This passage appears to me unintelligible from a variety of mistakes. In the first place, no reason, I believe, can be assigned for the clown's choosing so singular a number as eleven to form his calculation upon, in estimating the value of fifteen hundred fleeces. It is much more probable that, like Justice Shallow, he should have counted his wethers by the score. In the first folio, the only authentick ancient copy of this play, there is no appearance of elision, the word being printed thus, with a capital letter;-Every Leaven weather, &c. I suppose |