Caius. By gar, me_vill kill de priest; for he speak for a jack-an-ape to Anne Page. Hoft. Let him die: but, firft, fheath thy impatience; throw cold water on thy choler: go about the fields with me through Frogmore; I will bring thee where mistress Anne Page is, at a farm-house a feafting; and thou shall woo her: Cry'd game, faid I well? 7 Caius. By gar, me tank you for dat: by gar, I love you; and I fhall procure-a you de good gueft, de earl, de knight, de lords, de gentlemen, my patients. Hoft. For the which, I will be thine adverfary toward Anne Page; faid I well? Caius. By gar, 'tis good; vell faid. Hoft. Let us wag then. Caius. Come at my heels, Jack Rugby. [Exeunt. A Field near Frogmore. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE. Eva. I pray you now, good mafter Slender's ferving-man, and friend Simple by your name, which way have you looked for mafter Caius, that calls himfelf Doctor of Phyfick? L5 Sim 7 Mr. Theobald alters this nonfenfe to try'd game; that is, to nonfenfe of a worse complexion. Shakspeare wrote and pointed thus, CRY AIM, faid I well? i. e. confent to it, approve of it. Have not I made a good propofal? for to cry aim fgnifies to confent to, or approve of any thing. So, again in this play: And to theje violent proceedings all my neighbours fhall CRY AIM, i. e. approve them. The phrafe was taken, originally, from archery. When any one had challenged another to fhoot at the butts (the perpetual diverfion, as well as exercife, of that time,) the ftanders-by ufed to fay one to the other, Cry aim, i. e. accept the challenge. But the Oxford editor transforms it to Cock o' the Game; and his improvements of Shakspeare's language abound with these modern elegances of speech, fuch as mynbeers, bull-baitings, &c. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton is right in his explanation of cry aim, and in fuppofir g that the phrafe was taken from archery; but is certainly wrong in the particular practice which he affigns for the original of it. It feems to have 8 Sim. Marry, fir, the city-ward, the park-ward, every way; old Windfor way, and every way but the town way. Eva. I moft fehemently defire you, you will also look that way. Sim. I will, fir. Eva. 'Plefs my foul! how full of cholers I am, and trempling of mind !-I fhall be glad, if he have deceived me: how melancholies I am!-I will knog his urinals about his knave's coftard, when I have good opportunities for the 'ork:-'plefs my foul! [Sings. To allow rivers,9 to whofe falls There have been the office of the aim-crier, to give notice to the archer when he was within a proper distance of his mark, or in a direct line with it, and to point out why he failed to ftrike it. STEEVENS. The old editions read- the Pittie-ward, the modern editors the Pitty-wary. There is now no place that anfwers to either name at Windfor. The author might poffibly have written (as I have printed) the Cy-ward, i. e. towards London. In the Itinerarium, however, of William de Worcefire, p. 251. the fol lowing account of diftances in the City of Bristol occurs. Via de Pyttey a Pytley yate, porta vocata Nether Pyttey, ufque antiquam portam Pyttey ufque viam ducentem ad Wynch-ftrete continet 140 greffus," &c. &c. The word-Pittey, therefore, which feems unintelligible to us, might anciently have had an obvious meaning. STEEVENS. This is part of a beautiful little poem of the author's; which poem, and the aufwer to it, the reader will not be difplcafed to find here. The Paffionate Shepherd to his Love. "Come live with me, and be my love, Imbroider'd all with leaves of myrtle; 4 Which from our pretty lambs we pull; 2 * Fair Thy filver dishes for thy meat, "As precious as the gods do eat,. ." Shall on an ivory table be "Prepar'd each day for thee and me. "The shepherd fwains fhall dance and fing,, The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd.. "If that the world and love were young, "And all complain of cares to come : Thy gowns, thy fhoes, thy beds of rafes, All these in me no means can move To come to thee, and be thy love. "What fhould we talk of dainties then, "Of better meat than's fit for men? 4. These are but vain: that's only good "Which God hath blefs'd, and fent for food... But could youth laft, and love still breed, "Had joys no date, and age no need; "Then these delights my mind might move: To live with thee, and be thy love," L.6 Mercy on me! I have a great difpofitions to cry. Simp. Yonder he is coming, this way, fir Hugh. To fhallow rivers, to whofe falls Heaven profper the right!-What weapons is he? Sim. No weapons, fir: There comes my mafter, master Shallow, and another gentleman from Frogmore, over the ftile, this way. Eva. Pray you, give me my gown; or else keep it in your arms. Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. Shal. How now, mafter parfon? Good-morrow, good fir Hugh. Keep a gamefter from the dice, and a good student from his book, and it is wonderful. Slen. Thefe two poems, which Dr. Warburton gives to Shakspeare, are, by writers nearer that time, difpofed of, one to Marlow, the other to Raleigh. They are read in different copies with great variations. JOHNSON. In England's Helicon, a collection of love-verfes printed in Shakspeare's life-time, viz. in quarto, 1600, the first of them is given to Marlowe, the fecond to Ignoto; and Dr. Percy, in the first volume of his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, obferves, that there is good reason to believe that (not Shakspeare, but) Chriftopher Marlowe wrote the fong, and Sir Walter Raleigh the Nymph's Reply. In Shakspeare's fonnets, printed by Jaggard, 1599, this poem was im perfectly published, and attributed to Shakspeare. STEEVENS. Evans in his panick mif-recites the lines, which in the original run thus: "There will we fit upon the rocks, "And fee the fhepherds feed their flocks, "There will I make thee beds of rofes "With a thoufand fragrant pofies," &c. In the modern editions the verfes fung by Sir Hugh have been corrected, I think, improperly. His mit-recitals were certainly intended.He fings on the prefent occafion, to fhew that he is not afraid, MALONE. A late Slen. Ah, fweet Anne Page! Page. Save you, good fir Hugh! Eva. 'Plefs you from his mercy fake, all of you! Shal. What! the fword and the word! do you ftudy them both, mafter parfon ? Page. A late editor has obferved that Evans in his panick fings, like Bottom, to fhew he is not afraid. It is rather to keep up his fpirits: as he fings in Simple's abfence, when he has a great difpofitions to cry." RITSON. The tune to which the former was fung, I have lately difcovered in a MS. as old as Shakspeare's time, and it is as follows: SIR J. HAWKINS, This line is from the old verfion of the 137th Pfalm: "When we did fit in Babylon, "The rivers round about, "Then, in remembrance of Sion, "The tears for grief burst out." The word rivers, in the fecond line, may be fuppofed to have been brought to Sir Hugh's thoughts by the line of Marlowe's madrigal that he has just repeated; and in his fright he blends the facred and prophane fong together. The old quarto has "There lived a man in Babylon ;”. which was the first line of an old fong, mentioned in Twelfth Night :But the other line is more in character. MALONE. |