[How easy is it, for the proper false
In women's waxen hearts to set their forms]
This is obscure. The meaning is, _how easy is disguise to women_;
how easily does _their own falsehood_, contained in their _waxen
changeable _hearts_, enable them to assume deceitful appearances.
The two next lines are perhaps transposed, and should be read
thus,
_For such as we are made, if such we be,
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we_.
II.iii.27 (175,9) [I did impeticoat thy gratility] This, Sir T. Hammer
tells us, is the same with _impocket thy gratuity_. He is undoubtedly
right; but we must read, _I did_ impeticoat _thy_ gratuity.
The fools were kept in long coats, to which the allusion is made.
There is yet much in this dialogue which I do not understand.
II.iii.51 (176,1) [In delay there lies no plenty] [W: decay] I believe
_delay_ is right.
II.iii.52 (176,2) [Then come kiss me, sweet, and twenty] This line is
obscure; we might read,
_Come, a kiss then, sweet, and twenty._
Yet I know not whether the present reading be not right, for in
some counties _sweet and twenty_, whatever be the meaning, is a
phrase of endearment.
II.iii.59 (176,3) [make the welkin dance] That is, drink till the
sky seems to turn round.
II.iii.75 (177,5) [They sing a catch] This catch is lost.
II.iii.81 (177,6) [Peg-a-Ramsey] _Peg-a-Ramsey_ I do not understand.
_Tilly vally_ was an interjection of contempt, which Sir Thomas
More a lady is recorded to have had very often in her mouth.
II.iii.97 (178,7) [ye squeak out your coziers catches] A _Cozier_ is a
taylor, from _coudre_ to sew, part, _consu_, French, (see 1765, 11,383,2)
II.iii.128 (180,l) [rub your chain with crums] I suppose it should be
read, _rub your_ chin _with crums_, alluding to what had been said before
that. Malvolio was only a steward, and consequently dined
after his lady.
II.iii.131 (180,2) [you would not give means for this uncivil rule]
_Rule_ is, method of life, so _misrule_ is tumult and riot.
II.iii.149 (181,3) [Possess us] That is, _inform us_, _tell us_, make us
masters of the matter.
II.iv.5 (183,5) [light airs, and recollected terms] I rather think
that _recollected_ signifies, more nearly to its primitive sense,
_recalled_, _repeated_, and alludes to the practice of composers, who
often prolong the song by repetitions.
II.iv.26 (184,6) [favour] The word _favour_ ambiguously used.
II.iv.35 (184,7) [lost and worn] Though _lost and worn_ may means _lost
and worn out_, yet _lost and won_ being, I think, better, these two
words coming usually and naturally together, and the alteration
being very slight, I would so read in this place with Sir Tho.
Hammer.
II.iv.46 (185,8) [free] is, perhaps, _vacant_, _unengaged_, _easy in mind_.
II.iv.47 (185,9) [silly sooth] It is plain, simple truth.
II.iv.49 (185,2) [old age] The _old age_ is the _ages past_, the times of
simplicity.
II.iv.58 (185,3) [My part of death no one so true Did share it]
Though _death_ is a _part_ in which every one acts his _share_, yet of
all these actors no one is _so true_ as I.