[Tra. Grey-beard! thy love doth freeze.
Ore. But thine doth fry]
Old Gremio's notions are confirmed by Shadwell:
The fire of love in youthful blood.
Like what is kindled in brush-wood.
But for a moment burns--
But when crept into aged reins,
It slowly burns, and long remains,
It glows, and with a sullen heat.
Like fire in logs, it burns, and warms us long;
And though the flame be not so great,
Yet is the heat as strong.
II.1.407 (397,4) [Yet have I fac'd it with a card of ten] [W. quoted
Jonson for "a hart of ten"] If the word hart be right, I do not
see any use of the latter quotation.
II.1.413 (398,5)[Here the former editors add, Sly. Sim, when will
the fool come again? Steevens.] The character of the fool has not
been introduced in this drama, therefore I believe that the word
again should be omitted, and that Sly asks, When will the fool
come? the fool being the favourite of the vulgar, or, as we now
phrase it, of the upper gallery, was naturally expected in every
interlude.
III.1.37 (400,6) [pantaloon] the old cully in Italian farces.
III.ii.10 (403,1) [full of spleen] That is, full of humour, caprice;
and inconstancy.
III.ii.45 (404,3) [a pair of boots that have been candle--eases; one
buckled, another lac'd; an old rusty sword ta'en out of the
town armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless, with two broken points]
Bow a sword should have two broken points, I cannot tell. There
is, I think, a transposition caused by the seeming relation of
point to sword. I read, a pair of boots, one buckled, another
_laced_ with two broken points; _an old rusty sword_--_with a broken
hilt, and chapeless_.
III.ii.109 (406,7) [to digress] to deviate from any promise.
IV.i.3 (412,9) [was ever man so ray'd?] That is, was ever man so
mark'd with lashes.
IV.i.93 (416,7) [garters of an indifferent knit] What is the sense
of this I know not, unless it means, that their _garters_ should
be _fellows_; _indifferent_, or _not different_, one from the other.
IV.i.139 (417,8) [no link, to colour Peter's hat] _Link_, I believe,
is the name with what we now call _lamp-black_.
IV.i.145 (418,9) [Soud, soud] That is, _sweet, sweet_. _Soot_, and
sometimes _sooth_, is _sweet_. So in Milton, _to sing soothly_, is,
to sing sweetly.
IV.i.196 (420,3) [to man my haggard] A _haggard_ is a _wild hawk_;
to _man_ a hawk is to _tame_ her.
IV.iii.43 (428,8) [And all my pains is sorted to no proof] And all _my_
labour has ended in nothing, or _proved_ nothing. _We tried an experiment,
but it_ sorted _not. Bacon_.
IV.iii.56 (428,9) [With silken coats, and caps, and golden rings,
With ruffs, and cuffs, and fardingals, and things]
Though _things_ is a poor word, yet I have no better, and perhaps
the authour had not another that would rhyme. I once thought to
transpose the words _rings_ and _things_, but it would make little
improvement.
IV.iii.91 (430,2) [censer] in barber's shops, are now disused, but
they may easily be imagined to have been vessels which, for the
emission of the smoke, were cut with great number and varieties
of interstices.
IV.iii.107 (430,3) [thou thimble] The taylor's trade having an appearance
of effeminacy, has always been, among the rugged English,
liable to sarcasms and contempt.
IV.iii.140 (431,3) [a small compass'd cape] A _compass'd cape_ is a
round cape. To _compass_ is _to come round_. (1773)
IV.iv (434,5) I cannot but think that the direction about the Tinker,
who is always introduced at the end of the acts, together with the
change of the scone, and the proportion of each act to the rest,
make it probable that the fifth act begins here.
IV.iv.48 (436,7) [Where then do you know best, Be we affied] This
seems to be wrong. We may read more commodiously,
----_Where then_ you do _know best_
_Be we affied_;-----
Or thus, which I think is right,
_Where then do you_ trow _best_,
_We be affied_;------
V.i.70 (443,2) [a copatain hat!] is, I believe, a hat with a conical
crown, such as was anciently worn by well-dressed men.
V.ii.54 (448,5) [A good swift simile] besides the original sense of
_speedy in motion_, signified _witty, quick-witted_. So in As You
Like It, the Duke says of the Clown, _He is very_ swift _and sententious.
Quick_ is now used in almost the same sense as _nimble_ was
in the age after that of our author. Heylin says of Hales, that
_he had known Laud for a_ nimble, _disputant_.
V.ii.186 (453,7) [tho' you hit the white] To hit the _white_ is a
phrase borrowed from archery: the mark was commonly white. Here
it alludes to the name _Bianca_, or _white_.
(454) General Observation. From this play the Tatler formed a story,
[Johnson here copies out the _Tatler_ story.] It cannot but seen
strange that Shakespeare should be so little known to the author of
the Tatler, that he should suffer this story to be obtruded upon him;
or so little known to the publick, that he could hope to make it pass
upon his readers as a real narrative of a transaction in Lincolnshire;
yet it is apparent, that he was deceived, or intended to deceive, that
he knew not himself whence the story was taken, or hoped that he might
rob so obscure a writer without detection.
Of this play the two plots are so well united, that they can hardly be
called two without injury to the art with which they are interwoven.
The attention is entertained with all the variety of a double plot,
yet is not distracted by unconnected incidents.
The part between Catharine and Petruchio is eminently spritely and
diverting. At the marriage of Bianca the arrival of the real father,
perhaps, produces more perplexity than pleasure. The whole play is
very popular and diverting, (see 1765, III,97,5)