DOL. Nut-hook, nut-hook,' you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what, thou damn'd tripe-visaged rafcal; an the child I now go with, do miscarry, thou hadft better thou hadft ftruck thy mother, thou paper-faced villain. Hos. O the Lord, that fir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to fomebody. But I pray God, the fruit of her womb miscarry! 1. BEAD. If it do, you fhall have a dozen of cushions again; you have but eleven now. Come, 4 3 Nut-book, &c.] It has been already obferved in The Merry Wives of Windfor, that nut-hook feems to have been in those times a name of reproach for a catchpoll. JOHNSON. A nut-book was, I believe, a person who ftole linen, &c. out at windows, by means of a pole with a hook at the end of it. Greene, in his Arte of Coney-catching, has given a very particular account of this kind of fraud; fo that nut-book was probably as common a term of reproach as rogue is at prefent. In an old comedy intitled Match me in London, 1631, I find the following paffage: "She's the king's nut-hook, that when any filbert is ripe, pulls down the braveft boughs to his hand." Again, in The Three Ladies of London, 1584: "To go a fishing with a cranke through a window, or to fet lime-twigs to catch a pan, pot, or dish.' Again, in Albumazar, 1615: 66 picking of locks and hooking cloaths out of window." Again, in The Jew of Malta, by Marlowe, 1633: 66 I faw fome bags of money, and in the night "I clamber'd up with my books.' Hence perhaps the phrafe By hook or by crook, which is as old as the time of Tuffer and Spenfer. The firft ufes it in his Husbandry for the month of March, the fecond in the third book of his Faery Queene. In the first volume of Holinfhed's Chronicle, p. 183, the reader may find the cant titles bestowed by the vagabonds of that age on one another, among which are bookers, or anglers: and Decker, in The Bell-man of London, 5th edit. 1640, describes this fpecies of robbery in particular. STEEVENS. See a former scene of this play, p. 87, n. 7. MALONE. 4 a dozen of cushions-] That is, to ftuff her out that the might counterfeit pregnancy. So, in Maflinger's Old Law: I faid I was with child, &c. Thou faid'st it was a cushion," &c. I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead, that you and Pistol beat among you. DOL. I'll tell thee what, thou thin man in a cenfer! I will have you as foundly fwinged for this, you blue-bottle-rogue!" you filthy famish'd Again, in Greene's Difputation between a He Coneycatcher &c. 1592: to wear a cufbion under her own kirtle, and to faine herfelf with child." STEEVENS. 5 thou thin man in a cenfer!] Thefe old cenfers of thin metal had generally at the bottom the figure of fome faint raifed up with a hammer, in a barbarous kind of imboffed or chafed work. The hunger-ftarved beadle is compared, in fubftance, to one of these thin raifed figures, by the fame kind of humour that Pistol, in The Merry Wives of Windfor, calls Slender a latten bilboe. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton's explanation is erroneous. The embossed figure to which Doll refers, was in the middle of the pierced convex lid of the cenfer; and not at the bottom, where it must have been out of fight. See Vol. VI. p. 519, n. 7. That Doll Tear-fheet, however, may not be fufpected of acquaintance with the cenfers mentioned in Scripture and confined to facred ufe, it fhould be remarked, that the confummate fluttery of ancient houses rendered cenfers or fire-pans, in which coarfe perfumes were burnt, moft neceffary utenfils. In Much Ado about Nothing, A&t I. fc. iii. Borachio fays he had been" entertained for a perfumer to fmoke a mufty room at Leonato's:" and in a letter from the Lords of the Council, in the reign of K. Edward VI. (See Lodge's Illuftrations of British History, &c. Vol. I. p. 141.) we are told that Lord Paget's houfe was fo fmall, that after one month it would wax unfavery for hym to contynue in," &c. Again, from the correfpondence of the Earl of Shrewsbury with Lord Burleigh, during the confinement of Mary Queen of Scots at Sheffield-castle, in 1572. (See Vol. II. p. 68.) we learn that her Majefty was to be removed for five or fix days to klenfe her chambar, being kept very unklenly." STEEVENS. 6-blue-bottle-rogue!] A name, I fuppofe, given to the beadle from the colour of his livery. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnfon is right with refpect to the livery, but the allufion feems to be to the great flesh fly, commonly called a blue-bottle. FARMER. The fame allufion is in Northward Hoe, 1607: correctioner! if you be not fwinged, I'll forfwear half-kirtles." I. BEAD. Come, come, you fhe knight-errant; come. HOST. O, that right fhould thus overcome might! Well; of fufferance comes ease. DOL. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice. 66 HOST. Ay; come, you ftarved blood-hound. The ferving men were anciently habited in blue, and this is fpoken on the entry of one of them. It was natural for Doll to have an averfion to the colour, as a blue gown was the drefs in which a ftrumpet did penance. So, in The Northern Lass, 1633: let all the good you intended me be a lockram coif, a blew gown, a wheel, and a clean whip." Mr. Malone confirms Dr. Johnfon's remark on the drefs of the beadle, by the following quotation from Michaelmas Term, by Middleton, 1607: "And to be free from the interruption of blue beadles and other bawdy officers, he moft politickly lodges her in a conftable's houfe." STEEVENS. 7-half-kirtles.] Probably the drefs of the proftitutes of that time. JOHNSON. A half kirtle was perhaps the fame kind of thing as we call at prefent a fhort-gown, or a bed-gown. There is a proverbial expreffion now in ufe which may ferve to confirm it. When a perfon is loosely dreffed the vulgar fay-Such a one looks like a w a bed-gown. See Weftward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: forty fhillings I lent her to redeem two half-filk kirtles."" STEEVENS. 66 in The dress of the courtezans of the time confirms Mr. Steevens's obfervation. So, in Michaelmas Term, by Middleton, 1607: "Doft dream of virginity now? remember a loofe-bodied gown, wench, and let it go." Again, in Skialetheia, or a Shadow of Truth in certain Epigrammes and Satires, 1598: "To women's loofe gowns fuiting her loofe rhimes." Yet from the defcription of a kirtle already given (fee p. 102, n. 6.) a half-kirtle fhould feem to be a short cloak, rather than a fhort gown. Perhaps fuch a cloak, without fleeves, was here meant. MALONE. 8 DOL. Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal!" 1. BEAD. Very well. [Exeunt. -thou atomy, thou!] Atomy for anatomy. Atomy or otamy is fometimes ufed by the ancient writers where no blunder or depravation is defigned. So, in Look about you, 1600: "For thee, for thee, thou art otamie of honour, STEEVENS. The preceding expreffion feems to confirm Mr. Steevens's explanation. But whether the Otamies of Surgeons' Hall were known at this time, may perhaps be queftioned. Atomy is perhaps here the motes or atoms in the fun beams, as the poet himself calls them, fpeaking of queen Mab's chariot : Drawn with a team of little Atomies." Romeo and Juliet. And Otamie of honour, may very easily be so understood. WHALLEY. Shakspeare himself furnishes us with a proof that the word in his time bore the sense which we now frequently affix to it, having employed it in The Comedy of Errors precifely with the fignification in which the hoftefs here ufes atomy: "They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain, "A mere anatomy, a mountebank, "A needy, hollow-ey'd, fharp-looking wretch, "A living dead man.' Again, in King John: "And roufe from fleep that fell anatomy." MALONE. -you rafcal!] In the language of the foreft, lean deer were called rafcal deer. See p. 78, n. 3. STEEVENS. 9 On this note the following obfervation has been made: "Doll could not speak but in the language of the forest. Rafcal, does not fignify rascal, but lean deer. See what it is to be on the watch to fhow a little mufty reading and unknown knowledge." Who, except this fuperficial writer, is fo little acquainted with our author's manner, as not to know that he often introduces allufions to customs and practifes with which he was himself converfant, without being folicitous whether it was probable that the fpeaker fhould have known any thing of the matter. Thus, to give one inftance out of a thoufand, he puts into the mouth of kings the language of his own ftage, and makes them talk of cues and properties, who never had been in a tiring-room, and probably had never heard of either the one or the other. Of the language of the forest he was extremely fond; and the particular term rascal he has introduced in at least a dozen places. MALONE, SCENE V. A publick place near Westminster Abbey. Enter two Grooms, firewing rushes. I. GROOM. More rushes, more rushes." 2. GROOM. The trumpets have founded twice. I. GROOM. It will be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation: Despatch, despatch. [Exeunt Grooms. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and the Page. FAL. Stand here by me, master Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me. PIST. God bless thy lungs, good knight! FAL. Come here, Pistol; ftand behind me.-0, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestow'd the thousand pound I borrow'd of you. [To SHALLOW.] But 'tis no matter; this 2 More rushes, &c.] It has been already obferved, that, at ceremonial entertainments, it was the custom to ftrew the floor with rushes. Caius de Ephemera. JOHNSON. Chambers, and indeed all apartments ufually inhabited, were formerly ftrewed in this manner. As our ancestors rarely washed their floors, difguifes of uncleanlinefs became neceffary things. See note on Cymbeline, A&t II. fc. ii. In the present inftance, however, the rushes are fuppofed to be scattered on the pavement of a street, or on a platform. STEEVENS, |