Enter a Servant.

SERV. Mistress, your father prays you leave

books,

And help to drefs your fifter's chamber up;
You know, to-morrow is the wedding-day.

your

BIAN. Farewell, fweet masters, both; I must be gone. [Exeunt BIANCA and Servant.

Luc. 'Faith, mistress, then I have no caufe to

stay.

[Exit. HOR. But I have cause to pry into this pedant; Methinks, he looks as though he were in love :Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be fo humble, To caft thy wand'ring eyes on every stale, Seize thee, that lift: If once I find thee ranging, Hortenfio will be quit with thee by changing.

[Exit.

made by the editor of the fecond folio; the latter by Mr. Theobald. Old, however may be right. I believe, an oppofition was intended. As change was corrupted into charge, why might not true have been put inftead of new? Perhaps the author wrote To change new rules for old inventions.

i. e. to accept of new rules in exchange for old inventions.

MALONE.

Enter a Servant.] The old copy reads-Enter a Meffenger— who, at the beginning of his fpeech is called-Nicke. RITSON. Meaning, I fuppofe, Nicholas Tooley. See Mr. Malone's Hiftorical Account of the English Stage. STEEVENS.

SCENE II.

The fame. Before Baptifta's Houfe.

Enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, TRANIO, KATHARINA, BIANCA, LUCENTIO, and Attendants.

BAP. Signior Lucentio, [To TRANIO.] this is the 'pointed day

That Katharine and Petruchio should be married,
And yet we hear not of our fon-in-law:

What will be faid? what mockery will it be,
To want the bridegroom, when the priest attends
To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage?
What fays Lucentio to this fhame of ours?

KATH. No fhame but mine; I muft, forfooth, be forc'd

8

To give my hand, oppos'd against my heart,
Unto a mad-brain rudefby, full of fpleen;"
Who woo'd in hafte, and means to wed at leisure.
I told you, I, he was a frantick fool,
Hiding his bitter jefts in blunt behaviour:
And, to be noted for a merry man,

He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,
Make friends, invite, yes, and proclaim the banns;

8 full of fpleen;] That is, full of humour, caprice, and inconftancy. JOHNSON.

So, in the First Part of Henry IV:

"A hare-brain'd Hotfpur, govern'd by a spleen."

M. MASON.

9 Make friends, invite, yes, and proclaim the banns ;] Mr. Malone reads:

Make friends, invite them, &c. STEEVENS.

Them is not in the old copy. For this emendation I am answerable. The editor of the fecond folio, to fupply the defect in the metre, reads, with lefs probability in my opinion

Make friends, invite, yes, and proclaim, &c. MALONE.

Yet never means to wed where he hath woo'd.
Now must the world point at poor Katharine,
And fay,-Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife,
If it would pleafe him come and marry her.

TRA. Patience, good Katharine, and Baptista

too;

Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,
Whatever fortune stays him from his word:
Though he be blunt, I know him paffing wife;
Though he be merry, yet withal he's honeft.

KATH. 'Would, Katharine had never feen him though!

[Exit, weeping, followed by BIANCA, and Others. BAP. Go, girl; I cannot blame thee now to weep; For fuch an injury would vex a faint,

Much more a threw of thy impatient humour.❜

Enter BIONDELLO.

BION. Master, master! news, old news, and such news as you never heard of!

BAP. Is it new and old too? how may that be? BION. Why, is it not news, to hear of Petruchio's coming?

2

BAP. Is he come?

BION. Why, no, fir.

vex a faint,] The old copy redundantly reads-vex a very faint. STEEVENS.

3

of thy impatient humour.] Thy, which is not in the old copy, was inferted by the editor of the second folio. MALONE. 4 old news,] Thefe words were added by Mr. Rowe, and neceffarily, for the reply of Baptifta fuppofes them to have been already fpoken, old laughing-old utis, &c. are expreffions of that time merely hyperbolical, and have been more than once used by Shakspeare. See note on Henry IV. Part II. Act II. sc. iv.

STEEVENS.

BAR. What then?

BION. He is coming.

BAP. When will he be here?

BION. When he stands where I am, and fees you there.

TRA. But, fay, what :-To thine old news.

BION. Why, Petruchio is coming, in a new hat, and an old jerkin; a pair of old breeches, thrice turn'd; a pair of boots that have been candlecafes, one buckled, another laced; an old rusty fword ta'en out of the town armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless; with two broken points: His horfe hip'd with an old mothy faddle, the stirrups of no kindred: befides, poffefs'd with the glanders, and like to mofe in the chine; troubled with the

·a pair of boots-one buckled, another laced; an old rusty fword ta'en out of the town-armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless; with two broken points:] How a fword should have two broken points, I cannot tell. There is, I think, a tranfpofition caused by the feeming relation of point to fword. I read, a pair of boots, one buckled, another laced with two broken points; an old rufty fwordwith a broken hilt, and chapeless. JOHNSON.

I fufpect that feveral words giving an account of Petruchio's belt are wanting. The belt was then broad and rich, and worn on the outfide of the doublet.-Two broken points might therefore have concluded the description of its oftentatious meannefs.

STEEVENS.

The broken points might be the two broken tags to the laces.

TOLLET.

that have been candle-cafes,] That is, I fuppofe, boots long left off, and after having been converted into cafes to hold the ends of candles, returning to their firft office. I do not know that I have ever met with the word candle-cafe in any other places, except the following preface to a dramatic dialogue, 1604, entitled, The Cafe is Alter'd, How?" I write upon cafes, neither knifecafes, pin-cafes, nor candle-cafes."

And again, in How to choose a Good Wife from a Bad, 1602: "A bow-cafe, a cap-cafe, a comb-case, a lute-cafe, a fiddlecafe, and a candle-cafe." STEEVENS.

8

7

lampafs, infected with the fashions, full of windgalls, fped with spavins, raied with the yellows, past cure of the fives," ftark spoiled with the ftaggers, begnawn with the bots; fway'd in the back, and shoulder-fhotten; ne'er-legg'd before, and with a half-check'd bit, and a head-ftall of fheep's leather; which, being reftrain'd to keep him from ftumbling, hath been often burft, and now repair'd with knots: one girt fix times pieced, and a woman's crupper of velure, which hath two letters for her name, fairly fet down in ftuds, and here and there pieced with packthread.

6 -infected with the fashions,paft cure of the fives,] Faftions. So called in the Weft of England, but by the best writers on farriery, farcens, or farcy.

Fives. So called in the Weft: vives elsewhere, and avives by the French; a diftemper in horses, little differing from the ftrangles. GREY. Shakspeare is not the only writer who ufes fashions for farcy. So, in Decker's comedy of Old Fortunatus, 1600:

"Shad. What fhall we learn by travel?

"Andel. Fafhions.

"Shad. That's a beastly difeafe."

Again, in The New Ordinary, by Brome:

66

My old beast is infected with the fabions, fashion-fick." Again, in Decker's Guls Hornbook, 1609: "Fabions was then counted a disease, and horses died of it." STEEVENS.

7

fway'd in the back,] The old copy has-waid. Corrected by Sir T. Hanmer. MALONE.

8 -ne'er legg'd before,] i. e. founder'd in his fore-feet; having, as the jockies term it, never a fore leg to stand on. The fubfequent words-" which, being reftrain'd, to keep him from Stumbling,"-feem to countenance this interpretation. The modern editors read-near-legg'd before; but to go near before is not reckoned a defect, but a perfection, in a horse. MALONE.

.9

crupper of velure,] Velure is velvet. Velours, Fr. So, in The World toffed at Tennis, by Middleton and Rowley: "Come, my well-lined foldier (with valour,

"Not velure) keep me warm."

Again, in The Noble Gentleman, by Beaumont and Fletcher:

an old hat,

"Lin'd with velure." STEEVENS.