Take an ounce of the purest garden mould, cleans'd and steep'd seven days in change of motherless rosewater. Then take the best labdanum, benjoin, both storaxes, amber-gris and civit and musk. Incorporate them together and work them into what form you please. This, if your breath be not too valiant, will make you smell as sweet as my lady's dog." The speaker represents ODOR. STEEVENS. 909. as if my trinkets had been hallowed,This alludes to beads often sold by the Romanists, as made particularly efficacious by the touch of some relick. JOHNSON. 982.boot.] That is, something over and above, or, as we now say, something to boot. JOHNSON. 987. -If I thought it were not a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal, I would do't:-] This is the reading of Sir T. Hanmer, instead of, if I thought it were a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal, I'd not do it. JOHNSON. pedlar's excrement. -] Is pedlar's JOHNSON. So, in the old tragedy of Soliman and Perseda, 1599: "Whose chin bears no impression of manhood, "Not a hair, not an excrement.” 1020. beard. Again, in Love's Labour's Lost : "dally with my excrement, with my mus tachio." Again, in the Comedy of Errors: "Why is Time such a niggard of his hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excremcnt? Gij STEEVENS. 1034. 1034. therefore they do not give us the lie.] The meaning is, they are paid for lying, therefore they do not give us the lye, they sell it us. JOHNSON. -] The first folio reads, To teaze, or toze, is Autolycus adopts a 1043. insinuate, or toze at toaze; the second-or toaze. to disentangle wool or flax. phraseology which he supposes to be intelligible to the Clown, who would not have understood the word insinuate, without such a comment on it. STEEVENS. -Think'st thou, for that I insinuate, or toze from thee, &c.] To insinuate, I believe, means here, to cajole, to talk with condescension and humility. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis : "With death she humbly doth insinuate, "Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs, and stories, "His victories, his triumphs, and his glories." The word toaze is used in Measure for Measure, in the same sense as here: -We'll toaze you joint by joint, "But we will know this purpose." MALONE. To insinuate, and to teaze, or toaze, are opposites. The former signifies to introduce itself obliquely into a thing, and the latter to get something out that was knotted up in it. Milton has used each word in its proper sense : "Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine Gave proof unheeded. Par, Lost, B. IV. 1. 347. -coarse complexions, "And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply "The sampler, and to teaze the housewife's wool." Comus, 1. 749. HENLEY. 1051. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant ;As he was a suitor from the country, the Clown supposes his father should have brought a present of game, and therefore imagines, when Autolycus asks him what advocate he has, that by the word advocate he means a pheasant. STEEVENS. 1061. ――a great man,-by the picking on's teeth.] It seems, that to pick the teeth was, at this time, a mark of some pretension to greatness or elegance. So, the Bastard, in King John, speaking of the traveller, says, "He and his pick-tooth at my worship's mess." JOHNSON. 1097. the hottest day, &c.] That is, the hottest day foretold in the almanack. 1104. JOHNSON. being something gently considered,-] Means, l'having a gentleman-like consideration given me, i. e. a bribe, will bring you, &c. So, in the Three Ladies of London, 1584: ་་ -sure, sir, I'll consider it hereafter if I can. "What, consider me? dost thou think that I am a bribe-taker?” Again, in the Isle of Gulls, 1633: well considered, there's twenty crowns Giij "Thou shalt be in earnest. STEEVENS. ACT Destroy'd the sweet'st companion, that e'er man Paul. Too true, my lord:] A very slight examipation will convince every intelligent reader, that true, here, has jumped out of its place in all the editions. THEOBALD. 16. Or, from the All that are, took something good,] This is a favourite thought; it was bestowed on Miranda and Rosalind before. JOHNSON. 36. Than to rejoice, the former queen is well ?] i. e. at rest; dead. In Antony and Cleopatra, this phrase is said to be peculiarly applicable to the dead: "Mess, First, madam, he is well. "Cleop. Why there's more gold; but sirrah, mark; "We use to say, the dead are well; bring it to that, "The gold I give thee will I melt, and pour "Down thy ill-uttering throat." In King Henry IV. Part II. "Ch. Just. How does the king? "War. Exceeding well. His cares are now all ended. "Ch. Just. I hope not dead. War. He's walk'd the way of nature." MALONE. This This phrase seems to have been adopted from scripture. See 2 Kings iv. 26. 67. the old copies, HENLEY, -would make her sainted spirit, &c.] In -would make her sainted spirit Again possess her corps; and, on this stage, (Where we offenders now appear) soul-vext, 'Tis obvious, that the grammar is defective; and the sense consequently wants supporting. The slight change I have made cures both: and, surely, 'tis an improvement to the sentiment for the king to say, that Paulina and he offended his dead wife's ghost with the subject of a second match; rather than in general terms to call themselves offenders, sinners. The revisal reads: THEOBALD. Were we offenders now very reasonably. JOHNSONA We might read, changing the place of one word only: would make her sainted spirit Again possess her corps; and on this stage Begin-And why to me ? The blunders of the folio are so numerous, that it should seem, when a word dropt out of the press, they were careless into which line they inserted it. STEEVENS |