SLY. Y'are a baggage; the Slies are no rogues:3 Look in the chronicles, we came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore, paucas pallabris; let the world flide: Seffa!

HOST. You will not pay for the glaffes you have burst? 6

To pheeze a man, is to beat him; to give him a pheeze, is, to give him a knock. In The Chances, Antonio fays of Don John, I felt him in my small guts; I am fure he has feaz'd me."

M. MASON. To touze or toaze had the fame fignification. See Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: "Arruffare. To touze, to tug, to bang, or rib-baste one." MALONE.

3 10 rogues:] That is, vagrants, no mean fellows, but gentlemen. JOHNSON.

One William Sly was a performer in the plays of Shakspeare, as appears from the lift of comedians prefixed to the folio, 1623. This Sly is likewife mentioned in Heywood's Actor's Vindication, and the Induction to Marston's Malecontent. He was alfo among thofe to whom James I. granted a licence to act at the Globe theatre in 1603. STEEVENS.

4-paucas pallabris;] Sly, as an ignorant fellow, is purpofely made to aim at languages out of his knowledge, and knock the words out of joint. The Spaniards fay, pocas palabras, i. e. few words as they do likewife, Ceffa, i. e. be quiet.

THEOBALD.

This is a burlesque on Hieronymo, which Theobald speaks of in a following note: "What new device have they devifed now? Pocas pallabras." In the comedy of The Roaring Girl, 1611, a cut-purfe makes ufe of the fame words. Again, they appear in The Wife Woman of Hogfden, 1638, and in fome others, but are always appropriated to the loweft characters. STEEVENS.

slet the world flide:] This expreffion is proverbial. It is ufed in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money:

And let the world flide, uncle?" STEEVENS.

-you have burft?] To burst and to break were anciently fynonymous. Falstaff fays, that " "John of Gaunt burft Shallow's head for crowding in among the marshal's men."

Again, in Soliman and Perseda :

"God fave you, fir, you have burst your shin.”

SLY. No, not a denier: Go by, fays Jeronimy;Go to thy cold bed, and warm thee."

Again, in Dr. Philemon Holland's tranflation of Plutarch's Apophthegms, edit. 1603, p. 405. To braft and to burst have the fame meaning. So, in All for Money, a tragedy by T. Lupton, 1574:

" If you forfake our father, for forrow he will braft." In the fame piece, burft is ufed when it suited the rhyme. Again, in the old morality of Every Man:

"Though thou weep till thy hart to-braft." STEEVENS. Burft is ftill used for broke in the North of England. See Dodfley's Collection of Old Plays, edit. 1780, Vol. XII. p. 375. REED.

7

Go by, fays Jeronimy ;-Go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.] The old copy reads-go by S Jeronimie-. STEEVENS.

All the editions have coined a Saint here, for Sly to fwear by. But the poet had no fuch intentions. The paffage has particular humour in it, and must have been very pleafing at that time of day. But I must clear up a piece of ftage history to make it understood. There is a fuitian old play, called Hieronymo; or The Spanish Tragedy: which I find was the common butt of raillery to all the poets in Shakspeare's time: and a paffage, that appeared very ridiculous in that play, is here humorously alluded to. Hieronymo, thinking himself injur'd, applies to the king for justice; but the courtiers, who did not defire his wrongs should be set in a true light, attempt to hinder him from an audience:

"Hiero. Juftice! O! juftice to Hieronymo.

"Lor. Back -feeft thou not the king is bufy? "Hiero. O, is he fo?

King. Who is he, that interrupts our business? "Hiero. Not I:-Hieronymo, beware; go by, go by."

So Sly here, not caring to be dun'd by the Hoftefs, cries to her in effect," Don't be troublesome, don't interrupt me, go by ;" and to fix the fatire in his allufion, pleasantly calls her Jeronimo.

'THEOBALD. The first part of this tragedy is called Jeronimo. The Tinker therefore does not fay Jeronimo as a mistake for Hieronymo.

STEEVENS.

I believe the true reading is-Go by, fays Jeronimo, and that thes was the beginning of the word fays, which, by mistake, the printers did not complete. The quotation from the old play proves that it is Jeronimo himself that fays, Go by. M. MASON.

I have not fcrupled to place Mr. M. Mason's judicious correction in the text. STEEVENS.

Hosr. I know my remedy, I must go fetch the thirdborough. [Exit.

Surely Sly, who in a preceding speech is made to say Richard for William, paucas pallabris for pocas palabras, &c. may be allowed here to mifquote a paffage from the fame play in which that scrap of Spanish is found, viz. The Spanish Tragedy. He afterwards introduces a faint in form.-The fimilitude, however flight, between Jeronimy and S. Jerome, who in Sly's dialect would be Jeremy, may be fuppofed the occafion of the blunder. He does not, I conceive, mean to addrefs the Hostess by the name of Jeronimy, as Mr. Theobald fuppofed, but merely to quote a line from a popular play. Nym, Piftol, and many other of Shakspeare's low characters, quote fcraps of plays with equal infidelity.

There are two paffages in The Spanish Tragedy here alluded to. One quoted by Mr. Theobald, and this other:

"What outcry calls me from my naked bed?"

Sly's making Jeronimy a faint is furely not more extravagant than his exhorting his Hoftefs to go to her cold bed to warm herfelf; or declaring that he will go to his cold bed for the fame purpofe; for perhaps, like Hieronymo, he here addresses himself.

In King Lear, Edgar, when he affumes the madman, utters the fame words that are here put in the mouth of the tinker: "Humph; go to thy cold bed, and warm thee." MALONE.

8 I must go fetch the thirdborough.] The old copy reads : -1 muft go fetch the headborough.

Sly. Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, &c. STEEVENS.

This corrupt reading had pafs'd down through all the copies, and none of the editors pretended to guefs at the poet's conceit. What an infipid, unmeaning reply does Sly make to his Hoftefs? How do third, or fourth, or fifth borough relate to Headborough? The author intended but a poor witticifm, and even that is loft. The Hoftefs would say, that she'd fetch a conftable: and this officer fhe calls by his other name, a Third-borough: and upon this term Sly founds the conundrum in his anfwer to her. Who does not perceive at a fingle glance, fome conceit started by this certain correction? There is an attempt at wit, tolerable enough for a tinker, and one drunk too. Third-borough is a Saxon term fufficiently explained by the gloffaries and in our ftatute-books, no further back than the 28th year of Henry VIII. we find it used to fignify a conflable.

THEOBALD.

In the Perfonæ Dramatis to Ben Jonfon's Tale of a Tub, the high-confiable, the petty-conftable, the bead-borough, and the thirdborough, are enumerated as diftinct characters. It is difficult to say. precifely what the office of third-borough was. STEEVENS.

SLY. Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll anfwer him by law: I'll not budge an inch, boy; let him come, and kindly.

[Lies down on the ground, and falls afleep.

Wind Horns. Enter a Lord from hunting, with Huntsmen and Servants.

LORD. Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds:

Brach Merriman,-the poor cur is embofs'd,'

The office of thirdborough is known to all acquainted with the civil conftitution of this country, to be co-extenfive with that of the conftable. SIR J. HAWKINS.

The office of Thirdborough is the fame with that of Conftable, except in places where there are both, in which cafe the former is little more than the conftable's affiftant. The headborough, petty canftable, and thirdborough, introduced by Ben Jonfon in The Tale of a Tub, being all of different places, are but one and the fame officer under fo many different names. In a book intitled The Conftable's Guide, &c. 1771, it is faid that "there are in feveral counties of this realm other officers; that is, by other titles, but not much inferior to our conftables; as in Warwickshire a thirdborough." The etymology of the word is uncertain. RITSON.

9

thus:

-falls afleep.] The fpurious play, already mentioned, begins

"Enter a Tapfter, beating out of his doores Slie drunken. Tapf. You whorefon drunken flave, you had best be gone, "And empty your drunken panch fomewhere else,

"For in this houfe thou shalt not rest to night. [Exit Tapfter. "Slie. Tilly vally; by crifee Tapfter Ile fefe you anone: "Fills the t'other pot, and all's paid for: looke you,

"I doe drink it of mine own inftigation.

"Heere Ile lie awhile: why Tapfter, I fay,

Fill's a fresh cushen heere:

66

Heigh ho, here's good warme lying.

Omne bene.

[He falls afleepe.

"Enter a noble man and his men from hunting.

STEEVENS.

2 Brach Merriman, the poor cur is embofs'd,] Here, fays Pope, brach fignifies a degenerate hound: but Edwards explains it a hound in general.

And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach.

That the latter of thefe criticks is right, will appear from the ufe of the word brach, in Sir T. More's Comfort against Tribulation, Book III. ch. xxiv :—“ 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 afhamed as ye wott well. And I am fo 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 fo little skilled in hunting, that I can hardly tell whether a bitch be a bitch or not; my judgement goes no further, than juft to direct me to call either dog or bitch by their general nameHound." I am aware that Spelman acquaints his reader, that brache was used in his days for a lurcher, and that Shak speare himfelf has made it a dog of a particular species:

"Maftiff, greyhound, mungrill grim,
"Hound or fpaniel, brach or lym."

King Lear, A& III. fc. v.

But it is manifeft from the paffage of More just cited, that it was fometimes applied in a general fenfe, and may therefore be fo underftood in the paffage before us; and it may be added, that brache appears to be used in the fame sense by Beaumont and Fletcher:

"A. Is that your brother?

"E. Yes, have you loft your memory?

"A. As I live he is a pretty fellow.

"Y. O this is a fweet brach."

Scornful Lady, Act I. fc. i. T. WARTON. I believe brach Merriman means only Merriman the brach. So in the old fong:

"Cow Crumback is a very good cow."

Brach however appears to have been a particular fort of hound. In an old metrical charter, granted by Edward the Confeffor to the hundred of Cholmer and Dancing, in Effex, there are the two following lines:

"Four greyhounds & fix Bratches, "For hare, fox, and wild-cattes.' Merriman furely could not be defigned for the name of a female of the canine fpecies.

STEEVENS.

It seems from the commentary of Ulitius upon Gratius, from Caius de Canibus Britannicis, from bracco, in Spelman's Gloffary, and from Markham's Country Contentments, that brache originally meant a bitch. Ulitius, p. 163, obferves, that bitches have a fuperior fagacity of nofe:" fœminis [canibus] fagacitatis pluri