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and thump her; and where some stretch'd-mouth'd rascal would, as it were, mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer, Whoop, do me no harm, good man; puts him off, slights him, with Whoop, do me no harm, good man 2.

POL. This is a brave fellow.

CLO. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirableconceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares 3 ?

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Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle :

"I will have him dance fading; fading is a fine jigg." TYRWHITT.

So, in The Bird in a Cage, by Shirley, 1633: "But under her coats the ball be found."With a fading."

Again, in Ben Jonson's 97th Epigram :

"See you yond motion? not the old fading." STEEVENS. It is the burthen of a song in Sportive Wit, &c. 1656, p. 58, of which the following is the first stanza;

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"The courtiers scorn us country clowns,

"We country clowns do scorn the court; "We can be as merry upon the downs

"As you at mid-night with all your sport, "With a fading, with a fading." MALONE,

See note at the end of this play. BOSWELL.

Whoop, do me no harm, good man.] This was the name of an old song. In the famous History of Friar Bacon we have a ballad to the tune of "Oh! do me no harme, good man."

FARMER.

This tune is preserved in a collection intitled ". Ayres, to sing and play to the Lvte and Basse Violl, with Pauins, Galliards, Almaines, and Corantos, for the Lyra Violl. By William Corbine:" 1610, fol. RITSON.

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3 — unbraided wares?] Surely we must read braided, for such are all the wares mentioned in the answer. JOHNSON.

The

I believe by unbraided wares, the Clown means, has he any thing besides laces which are braided, and are the principal commodity sold by ballad-singing pedlers. Yes, replies the servant, he has ribands, &c. which are things not braided, but woven. drift of the Clown's question, is either to know whether Autolycus has any thing better than is commonly sold by such vagrants; any thing worthy to be presented to his mistress: or, as probably, by enquiring for something which pedlers usually have not, to

SERV. He hath ribands of all the colours i' the rainbow; points, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by the gross; inkles, caddisses, cambricks, lawns: why, he sings them over, 'as they were gods or goddesses; you would think, a smock were a sheangel; he so chants to the sleeve-hand, and the work about the square on't".

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escape laying out his money at all. The following passage in Any Thing for a quiet Life, however, leads me to suppose that there is here some allusion which I cannot explain : She says that you sent ware which is not warrantable, braided ware, and that you give not London measure.' STEEVENS.

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Unbraided wares may be wares of the best manufacture. Braid in Shakspeare's All's Well, &c. Act IV. Sc. II. signifies deceitful. Braided in Bailey's Dict. means faded, or having lost its' colour; and why then may not unbraided import whatever is undamaged, or what is of the better sort? Several old statutes forbid the importation of ribands, laces, &c. as "falsely and deceitfully wrought." TOLLET.

The Clown is perhaps inquiring not for something better than common, but for smooth and plain goods. Has he any plain wares, not twisted into braids? Ribands, cambricks, and lawns, all answer to this description. MALONE.

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Probably unbraided wares means wares not ornamented with braid." M. MASON.

What is braid? Boswell.

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POINTS, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can' learnedly handle,] The points that afford Autolycus a subject for this quibble, were laces with metal tags to them. Aiguilettes, Fr. MALONE.

5 caddisses,] I do not exactly know what caddisses are. In Shirley's Witty Fair One, 1633, one of the characters says: “I will have eight velvet pages, and six footmen in caddis." In The First Part of King Henry IV. I have supposed caddis to be ferret. Perhaps by six footmen in caddis, is meant six footmen with their liveries laced with such a kind of worsted stuff. As this worsted lace was particoloured, it might have received its title from cadesse, the ancient name for a daw. STEEVENS.

Caddis is, I believe, a narrow worsted galloon. I remember when very young to have heard it enumerated by a pedler among the articles of his pack. There is a very narrow slight serge of this name now made in France. Inkle is a kind of tape also.

MALONE.

CLO. Pr'ythee, bring him in; and let him approach singing.

PER. Forewarn him, that he use no scurrilous words in his tunes.

CLO. You have of these pedlers, that have more in 'em than you'd think, sister.

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PER. Ay, good brother, or go about to think.

Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.

Lawn, as white as driven snow;
Cyprus, black as e'er was crow;

the sleeve-HAND, and the work about the SQUARE on't.] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads-sleeve-band.

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JOHNSON.

The old reading is right, or we must alter some passages in other authors. The word sleeve-hands occurs in Leland's Collectanea, 1770, vol. iv. p. 323: A surcoat [of crimson velvet] furred with mynever pure, the coller, skirts, and sleeve-hands garnished with ribbons of gold." So, in Cotgrave's Dict. " Poignet de la chemise," is Englished "the wristband, or gathering at the sleeve-hand of a shirt." Again, in Leland's Collectanea, vol. iv. p. 293, King James's "shurt was broded with thred of gold," and in p. 341, the word sleeve-hand occurs, and seems to signify the cuffs of a surcoat, as here it may mean the cuffs of a smock. I conceive, that the "work about the square on't," signifies the work or embroidery about the bosom part of a shift, which might then have been of a square form, or might have a square tucker, as Anne Bolen and Jane Seymour have in Houbraken's engravings of the heads of illustrious persons. So, in Fairfax's translation of Tasso, b. xii. st. 64:

"Between her breasts the cruel weapon rives,

"Her curious square, emboss'd with swelling gold."

I should have taken the square for a gorget or stomacher, but for this passage in Shakspeare. TOLLET.

The following passage in John Grange's Garden, 1577, may likewise tend to the support of the ancient reading-sleeve-hand. In a poem called The Paynting of a Curtizan, he says:

"Their smockes are all bewrought about the necke and hande." STEEVENS.

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The word sleeve-hand is likewise used by P. Holland, in his translation of Suetonius, 1606, p. 19: " -in his apparel he was noted for singularity, as who used to goe in his senatour's purple studded robe, trimmed with a jagge or frindge at the sleeve-hand." Malone.

Gloves, as sweet as damask roses;
Masks for faces, and for noses;
Bugle bracelet, necklace-amber",
Perfume for a lady's chamber :
Golden quoifs, and stomachers,
For my lads to give their dears;
Pins and poking-sticks of steel,
What maids lack from head to heel:

7 --necklace-amber,] Place only a comma after amber. "Autolycus is puffing his female wares, and says that he has got among his other rare articles for ladies, some necklace-amber, an amber of which necklaces are made, commonly called beadamber, fit to perfume a lady's chamber. So, in The Taming of the Shrew, Act IV. Sc. III. Petruchio mentions amber-bracelets, beads," Milton alludes to the fragrance of amber. See Sams, Agon. v. 720:

"An amber scent of odorous perfume,

"Her harbinger." T. WARTON.

8 -poking-sticks of steel,] These poking-sticks were heated in the fire, and made use of to adjust the plaits of ruffs. In Marston's Malcontent, 1604, is the following instance :"There is such a deale of pinning these ruffes, when the fine clean fall is worth them all;" and, again: "If you should chance to take a nap in an afternoon, your falling band requires no poking-stick to recover his form," &c. Again, in Middleton's comedy of Blurt Master Constable, 1602: "Your ruff must stand in print, and for that purpose get poking-sticks with fair long handles, lest they' scorch your hands.”

These poking-sticks are several times mentioned in Heywood's If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody, 1633, second part; and in The Yorkshire Tragedy, 1619, which has been attributed to Shakspeare. In the books of the Stationers' Company, July, 1590, was entered "A ballat entitled Blewe Starche and Pokingsticks. Allowed under the hand of the Bishop of London."

Again, in the Second Part of Stubbes's Anatomie of Abuses, 8vo. no date :

"They [poking-sticks] be made of yron and steele, and some of brasse, kept as bright as silver, yea some of silver itselfe, and it is well if in processe of time they grow not to be gold. The fashion whereafter they be made, I cannot resemble to any thing so well as to a squirt or a little squibbe which little children used to squirt out water withal; and when they come to starching and setting of their ruffes, then must this instrument be heated in the fire, the better to stiffen the ruffe," &c.

Come, buy of me, come; come buy, come buy ;
Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry:

Come, buy, &c.

CLO. If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou should'st take no money of me; but being enthrall'd as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribands and gloves.

MOP. I was promised them against the feast; but they come not too late now.

DOR. He hath promised you more than that, or there be liars.

Mor. He hath paid you all he promised you : may be, he has paid you more; which will shame you to give him again.

CLO. Is there no manners left among maids? will they wear their plackets, where they should bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off these secrets; but you must be tittle-tattling before

Stowe informs us, that "about the sixteenth yeare of the queene [Elizabeth] began the making of steele poking-sticks, and untill that time all lawndresses used setting stickes made of wood or bone." See Much Ado about Nothing, Act III. Sc. IV.

STEEVENS.

9 KILN-hole,] The mouth of the oven. The word is spelt in the old copy kill-hole, and I should have supposed it an intentional blunder, but that Mrs. Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor desires Falstaff to 66 creep into the kiln-hole; " and there the same false spelling is found. Mrs. Ford was certainly not intended for a blunderer. MALONE.

Kiln-hole is the place into which coals are put under a stove, a copper, or a kiln in which lime, &c. are to be dried or burned. To watch the kiln-hole, or stoking-hole, is part of the office of female servants in farm-houses. Kiln, at least in England, is not a synonyme to oven. STEEVENS.

Did Mr. Steevens suppose that there was a lime-kiln in Ford's house? MALONE.

Kiln-hole is pronounced kill-hole, in the midland counties, and generally means the fire-place used in making malt; and is still a noted gossipping place. HARRIS.

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