PAR. Poor rogues, I pray you, say. I SOLD. Well, that's fet down. PAR. I humbly thank you, fir: a truth's a truth, the rogues are marvellous poor. I SOLD. Demand of him, of what ftrength they are a-foot. What fay you to that? PAR. By my troth, fir, if I were to live this prefent hour,' I will tell true. Let me fee: Spurio a hundred and fifty, Sebaftian fo many, Corambus fo many, Jaques fo many; Guiltian, Cofmo, Lodowick, and Gratii, two hundred fifty each: mine own company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred and fifty each: fo that the mufter-file, rotten and found, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll; half of the which dare not fhake the fnow from off their caffocks, left they shake themselves to pieces, Rather, perhaps, because his narrative, however near the truth, was uttered for a treacherous purpose. STEEVENS. 3 if I were to live this prefent hour, &c.] I do not underftand this paffage. Perhaps (as an anonymous correfpondent obferves) we fhould read:-if I were to live but this present hour. STEEVENS. Perhaps he meant to fay-if I were to die this prefent hour. But fear may be fuppofed to occafion the miftake, as poor frighted Scrub cries Spare all I have, and take my life."TOLLET. " 4-off their caffocks,] Caffuck fignifies a horfeman's loofe coat, and is used in that fenfe by the writers of the age of Shakfpeare. So, in Every Man in his Humour, Brainworm fays:"He will never come within the fight of a caflock or a mufquet, reft again." Something of the fame kind likewife appears to have been part of the drefs of rufticks, in Mucedorus, an anonymous comedy, 1598, erroneoufly attributed to Shakspeare: Within my clofet there does hang a caflock, 66 "A blue caflock." On this occafion a woman is the fpeaker, BER. What fhall be done to him? I LORD. Nothing, but let him have thanks. Demand of him my conditions, and what credit I have with the duke. I SOLD. Well, that's fet down. You shall demand of him, whether one Captain Dumain be i'the camp, a Frenchman; what his reputation is with the duke, what his valour, honefly, and expertnefs in wars; or whether he thinks, it were not poffible, with wellweighing fums of gold, to corrupt him to a revolt. What say you to this? what do you know of it? PAR. I beseech you, let me answer to the particular of the intergatories: Demand them fingly. I SOLD. Do you know this captain Dumain? PAR. I know him: he was a botcher's 'prentice in Paris, from whence he was whipp'd for getting the fheriff's fool with child; a dumb innocent, that could not say him, nay.8 [DUMAIN lifts up his hand in anger. So again, Puttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589:-" Who would not think it a ridiculous thing to fee a lady in her milk-house with a velvet gown, and at a bridal in her caflock of moccado?" In The Hollander, a comedy by Glapthorne, 1640, it is again fpoken of as part of a foldier's drefs: 3 "Here, fir, receive this military caflock, it has seen service." This military caflock has, I fear, fome military hangbys." STEEVENS. my conditions,] i. e. my difpofition and character. See Vol. VI. p. 29, n. 8. MALONE. 6 7 intergatories:] i. e. interrogatories. REED. -the fheriff's fool. -] We are not to fuppofe that this was a fool kept by the Sheriff for his diverfion. The cuftody of all ideats, &c. poffeffed of landed property, belonged to the King, who was intitled to the income of their lands, but obliged to find them with neceffaries. This prerogative, when there was a large estate in the cafe, was generally granted to fome court-favourite, or other Ferfon who made fuit for and had intereft enough to obtain it, BER. Nay, by your leave, hold your hands; though I know, his brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls." I SOLD. Well, is this captain in the duke of Florence's camp? PAR. Upon my knowledge, he is, and lousy. which was called begging a fool. But where the land was of inconfiderable value, the natural was maintained out of the profits, by the Sheriff, who accounted for them to the crown. As for those unhappy creatures who had neither poffeffions nor relations, they feem to have been confidered as a fpecies of property, being fold or given with as little ceremony, treated as capriciously, and very often, it is to be feared, left to perifh as miferably, as dogs or cats. RITSON. 8 —a dumb innocent, that could not fay him, nay.] Innocent does not here fignify a perfon without guilt or blame; but means, in the good-natured language of our ancestors, an ideot or natural fool. Agreeably to this fenfe of the word is the following entry of a burial in the parish register of Charlewood in Surrey :"Thomas Sole, an innocent about the age of fifty years and upwards, buried 19th September, 1605." WHALLEY. Doll Common, in The Alchemift, being afked for her opinion of the Widow Pliant, obferves that the is" a good dull innocent." Again, in I Would and I Would Not, a poem, by B. N. 1614: "I would I were an innocent, a foole, "That can do nothing else but laugh or crie, Mr. Douce obferves to me, that the term-innocent, was originally See alfo note on Ford's 'Tis Pity fhe's a Whore, new edition of Dodfley's Collection of Old Plays, Vol. VIII. p. 24. STEEVENS. 9-though I know, his brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls.] In Lucian's Contemplantes, Mercury makes Charon remark a man that was killed by the falling of a tile upon his head, whilft he was in the act of putting off an engagement to the next day :— τα μεταξὺ λέγοντος, ἀπὸ τὸ τέγες κεραμὶς ἐπιτέσᾶσα, εκ διδ ̓ ὅτε κινήσαντος, ἀπέκτεινεν αυτόν. See the life of Pyrrhus in Plutarch. Pyrrhus was killed by a tile. S. W. 3 I LORD. Nay, look not fo upon me; we fhall hear of your lordship' anon. I SOLD. What is his reputation with the duke? PAR. The duke knows him for no other but a poor officer of mine; and writ to me this other day, to turn him out o'the band: I think, I have his letter in my pocket. I SOLD. Marry, we'll search. PAR. In good fadness, I do not know; either it is there, or it is upon a file, with the duke's other letters, in my tent. I SOLD. Here 'tis; here's a paper; Shall I read it to you? PAR. I do not know, if it be it, or no. BER. Our interpreter does it well. I LORD. Excellently. I SOLD. Dian. The count's a fool, and full of gold,PAR. That is not the duke's letter, fir; that is an advertisement to a proper maid in Florence, one Diana, to take heed of the allurement of one your lordship-] The old copy has Lord. In the Mfs. of our author's age they scarcely ever wrote Lordship at full length. MALONE. 2 Dian. The count's a fool, and full of gold.] After this line there is apparently a line loft, there being no rhyme that correfponds to gold. JOHNSON. I believe this line is incomplete. The poet might have written: Dian. The count's a fool, and full of golden ftore—or ore; and this addition rhymes with the following alternate verses. STEEVENS. May we not fuppofe the former part of the letter to have been profe, as the concluding words are? The fonnet intervenes. The feigned letter from Olivia to Malvolio, is partly profe, partly verfe. MALONE. count Roufillon, a foolish idle boy, but, for all that, very ruttish: I pray you, fir, put it up again. I SOLD. Nay, I'll read it first, by your favour. PAR. My meaning in't, I proteft, was very honeft in the behalf of the maid: for I knew the young count to be a dangerous and lafcivious boy; who is a whale to virginity, and devours up all the fry it finds. BER. Damnable, both fides rogue! I SOLD. When he fwears oaths, bid him drop gold, and take it; After he fcores, he never pays the score: Half won, is match well made; match, and well make it; 3 He ne'er pays after debts, take it before; 3 Half won, is match well made; match, and well make it ;] This line has no meaning that I can find. I read, with a very flight alteration: Half won is match well made; watch, and well make it. That is, a match well made is half won; watch, and make it well. This is, in my opinion, not all the error. placed, and fhould be read thus: The lines are mis Half won is match well made; watch, and well make it; After he feares, he never pays the Score: He ne'er pays after-debts, take it before, And fay That is, take his money, and leave him to himself. When the players had loft the fecond line, they tried to make a connection out of the reft. Part is apparently in couplets, and the whole was probably uniform. JOHNSON. Perhaps we should read: Half won is match well made, match an' we'll make it. i. e. if we mean to make any match of it at all. STEEVENS. There is no need of change. The meaning is, "A match well made, is half won; make your match therefore, but make it well.” M. MASON. The verfes having been defigned by Parolles as a caution to Diana, after informing her that Bertram is both rich and faithlefs, |