"Hiero. Justice! oh! justice to Hieronymo. "King. Who is he, that interrupts our business? by." So Sly here, not caring to be dunned by the hostess, cries to her in effect, "Don't be troublesome, don't interrupt me, go by ;" and to fix the satire in his allusion, pleasantly calls her Jeronimo. THEOBALD. The first part of this tragedy is called Jeronimo. The Tinker therefore does not say Jeronimo as a mistake for Hieronymo. STEEVENS. 10. I must go fetch the Headborough. Sly. Third, or fourth, or fifth Borough, &c.] This corrupt reading had passed down through all the copies, and none of the editors pretended to guess at the poet's conceit. What an insipid, unmeaning reply does Sly make to his hostess? How do third, or fourth, or fifth borough relate to Headborough? The author intended but a poor witticism, and even that is lost. The hostess would say, that she'll fetch a constable and this officer she calls by his other name, a Third-borough: and upon this term Sly founds the conundrum in his answer to her. Third-borough is a Saxon term sufficiently explained by the glossaries : and in our statute-books, no further back than the 28th year of Henry VIII. we find it used to signify a constable. THEOBALD, Theobald took his explanation of Third-borough from from Cowel's Law Dictionary, which at the same time might have taught him to doubt of its propriety. In the Persona Dramatis to Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub, the high-constable, the petty-constable, the head-borough, and the third-borough, are enumerated as distinct characters. It is difficult to say precisely what the office of a third-borough was. STEEVENS. A third-borough seems originally to have signified him who had the principal government within his own tything, or trithing. Norden's History of Cornwall decides for the former word tything. See p. 29, 30. "The shirife has his bayliwickes; the hundreds have constables; tythings have therd-barows, in some places hedborows, in some borrowshed, and in the weste partes, a tything-man.” TOLLET. If the authority of Lambard and Cowel are not sufficient to justify Theobald in preferring this word to headborough, glossaries are of no use. As to the office of third-borough, it is known to all acquainted with the civil constitution of this country to be coextensive with that of the constable. Sir JOHN HAWKINS. 13. Falls asleep.] The spurious play already mentioned in the preliminary observations to the play, page 4, begins thus: "Enter a Tapster, beating out of his doores Slie drunken. "Taps. You whoreson drunken slave, you had best be gone, "And empty your drunken panch somewhere else, "For in this house thou shalt not rest to-night. [Exit Tapster. Slie. Tilly vally; by crisee Tapster Ile fese you anone: "Fills the t'other pot, and all's paid for: looke you, "I dooe drink it of mine own instigation. Omne bene. "Heere Ile lie awhile: why Tapster, I say, "Fill's a fresh cushen heere: "Heigh ho, heere's good warme lying. [He falles asleepe. "Enter a nobleman and his men from hunting." STEEVENS. 16. Brach Merriman,-the poor cur is imbost, And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach.] Here, says Pope, brach signifies a degenerate hound: but Edwards explains it a hound in general. That the latter of these criticks is right, will appear from the use of the word brach in Sir T. More's Comfort against Tribulation, book iii. chap. 24. "Here it must be known of some men that can skill of hunting, whether that we mistake not our terms, for then are we utterly ashamed as ye wott well.—And I am so cunning, that I cannot tell, whether among them a bitche be a bitche or no; but as I remember she is no bitch but a brache." The meaning of the latter part of the paragraph seems to be, "I am so little skilled in hunting, that I can hardly tell whether a bitch be a bitch or not; my judgment goes no further than just to direct me to call either dog or bitch by their general name-Hound." I am aware that Spelman acquaints his reader, that brache was used in his days for a lurcher, and that Shakspere himself has made it a dog of a particular species: "Mastiff, greyhound, mungrill grim, K. Lear, act iii. sc. 5. But it is manifest from the passage of More just cited, that it was sometimes applied in a general sense, and may therefore be so understood in the passage before us; and it may be added, that brache appears to be used in the same sense by Beaumont and Fletcher. "A. Is that your brother? E. Yes, have you lost your memory? A. As I live he is a pretty fellow. r. O this is a sweet brache." Scornful Lady, act i. WARTON. SC. 1. 16. Imbost,] A hunting term; when a deer is hard run and foams at the mouth, he is said to be emboss'd. WARTON. Lilly, in his Midas, 1592, has not only given us the term, but the explanation of it. "Pet. There was a boy leash'd on the single, because when he was imboss'd he took soyle. "Li. What's that? "Pet. Why a boy was beaten on the tayle with a leathern thong, because, when he fom'de at the mouth with running, he went into the water." See vol. iv. p. 98. STEEVENS. I believe brach Merriman means only Merriman the brach. So in the old song, "Cow Crumbocke is a very good cow." Brach, however, appears to have been a particular sort sort of hound. In an old metrical charter, granted by Edward the Confessor to the hundred of Cholmer and Dancing, in Essex, there are the two following lines: "Four greyhounds & six Bratches, "For hare, fox, and wild-cattes.” Merriman surely could not be designed for the name of a female of the canine species. STEEVENS. It seems from the commentary of Ulitius upon Gratius, from Caius de Canibus Britannicis, from bracco, in Spelman's Glossary, and from Markham's Country Contentments, that brache originally meant a bitch. TOLLET. 18. -how Silver made it good] This is a technical term. It occurs likewise in the 23d song of Drayton's Polyolbion : "What's offer'd by the first, the other good doth STEEVENS. make." 63. And when he says he is—say that he dreams, For he is nothing but a mighty lord.] I should rather think that Shakspere wrote: "And when he says he's poor, say, that he dreams." The dignity of a lord is then significantly opposed to the poverty which it would be natural for him to acknowledge. STEEVENS. If any thing should be inserted, it may be done thus: "And when he says he's Sly, say that he dreams." The |