ated by semination, and yet could never see seed, were much at a loss for a solution of the culty; and as wonder always endeavours to ment itself, they ascribed to fern seed many ange properties, some of which the rustic virs have not yet forgotten or exploded. "Manningtree ox."-Act II. Sc. 4. Manningtree in Essex, and its neighbourhood, are famous for rich pastures. The farms are chiefly tenanted by graziers. Some ox of an unusual size was probably roasted there on some occasion of public festivity, or exposed for money to public show. STEEVENS. JOHNSON. "Out of all cess." -Act II. Sc. 1. That is, out of all measure; the phrase being en from a cess or tax; which being by regular moderate rates, when anything was exorbitant vas said to be out of all cess.-WARBURTON. "Gadshill." - Act II. Sc. 2. Gadshill, the scene of the robbery in this play, is the Kentish road. Steevens informs us, that as rly as 1558, a ballad, entitled, The Robbery at dshill, was entered on the books of the stationers' mpany. The poet, however, on whom the more ted facts of his time were never lost, probably uded to the conduct of a particular gang, who pear, in 1590, to have infested Gadshill and its ighbourhood with more than common boldness, d who, like our author's robbers, were mounted d wore vizors. -BOSWELL. Look down into the Pomegranate." -Act II. Sc. 4. To have windows or loop-holes looking into the oms beneath them was, anciently, a general cus m.-STEEVENS. "Crystal-button." Act II. Sc. 4. Pawnbrokers formerly wore a peculiar dress, the ttons of which were of crystal. "A black taffata onblet, and a spruce leather jerkin with crystal attons. I inquired of what occupation: marry, r, quoth he, a broker." -Greene's Quip for an pstart Courtier. "Caddis garter."-Act II. Sc. 4. Caddis was a kind of coarse ferrett. In Shakpeare's time, the garters were worn in sight, ad were often very costly. He who wore a plainer ort was probably called "caddis garter" in conempt. "At this day, (about 1625) says the coninuator of Stow's Chronicle, men of meane ranke veare garters and shoe roses of more than five pound rice." In a memorandum book kept by Henlowe, step-father to the wife of Alleyn the player, the following item: "Lent unto Thomas Hevode, (the dramatic writer) the 1 of September, 1602, to bye him a payre of silver garters, ¡ s. vi d." MALONE, and STEEVENS. "The strappado." -Act II. Sc. 4. "The strappado is when the person is drawn up o his height, and then suddenly to let him fall half way with a jerk, which not only breaketh his arms o pieces, but also shaketh all his joints out of oint, which punishment is better for a man to be sanged than to undergo.-RANDLE HOLME'S ACA DEMY OF ARMES AND BLAZON. I could have crept into any alderman's thumb ring." Act II. Sc. 4. An alderman's thumb ring is mentioned by Brome, in The Antipodes, 1641. "Item, a distich graven in his thumb ring." Again, in The Northern Lass, 1632. "A good man in the city &c. wears nothing rich about him, but the gout or a thumb ring; and in The Wit's Constable, 1610, "No more wit than the rest of the bench; what lies in his thumb ring."-STEEVENS. "A Welsh hook." -Act II. Sc. 4. The Welsh hook was pointed like a spear, to pash or thrust with; and, below, had a hook to seize the enemy, if he should attempt to escape by Aight.-WHALLEY. "Hide thee behind the arras."-Act II. Sc. 4. When arras was first used in England, it was suspended on hooks driven into the bare walls; this practice was soon changed; for after the damp of the wall had been found to rot the tapestry, it was fixed on wooden frames, at such a distance from the wall, as to prevent its being injured. In old mansions, therefore, sufficient space could have been easily found, to conceal even one of Falstaff's bulk.-MALONE. "As if thou never walked'st further than Finsbury." Act III. Sc. 1. Open walks and fields near Chiswell-street, London-wall, by Moorgate, the common resort of the citizens, as appears from many of our ancient comedies.-STEEVENS. "Holland of eight shillings an ell."-Act III. Sc. 3. Falstaff's shirts, according to this calculation, would come to about 22s. each, and we learn from Stubbe's Anatomie of Abuses, that the shirt of the meanest man cost at least 5s. He thus concludes his invective on this subject: "Insomuch as I have heard of shirts that have cost some ten shillings, some twentie, some fortie, some five pound, some twentie nobles, and (whiche is horrible to heare) some ten pound a piece, yea, the meanest shirt that commonly is worn of any doest cost a crowne, or a noble at the least; and yet this is scarcely thought fine enough for the simplest person that is." MALONE. "Maid Marian." -Act III. Sc. 3. It appears from the old play of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, 1601, that Maid Marian was originally a name assumed by Matilda, the daughter of Robert, Lord Fitzwater, while Robin Hood remained in a state of outlawry: "Next 'tis agreed (if therto shee agree) MAT. I am contented; reade on, little John: This lady was poisoned by king John, at Dunmow priory, after he had made several fruitless attempts on her chastity. STEEVENS. "I saw young Harry with his beaver on." The beaver of a helmet is the lower part of it, adapted to the purpose of giving the wearer an opportunity of taking breath when oppressed with heat; or, without putting off the helmet, of taking his repast. Douce. "They'll find linen enough on every hedge." This propensity of soldiers on a march to purloin, is noticed by a writer contemporary with Shakspeare, Barnaby Riche says: "Fyrste by the way as they travayle through the countrey where they chance to lye all night, the good wyfe hath spedde well if she fynde hyr sheets in the morning, or if this happe to fayle, yet a coverlet or curtens from the bed, or a carpet from the table, some bed clothes, or table napkins, or some other thing, must needs packe away with them; there comes nothing amisse if it will serve to by drinke." REED, "Turk Gregory never did such deeds in arms." Act V. Sc. 3. Meaning Gregory VII., called Hildebrand. This furious friar surmounted almost invincible obstacles to deprive the emperor of his right of investiture of bishops, which his pre- | KING HENRY "Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragic volume." Act I. Sc. 1. It may not be amiss to observe, that in the time of our poet, the title-page to an elegy, as well as every intermediate leaf, was totally black. I have several in my possession, written by Chapman, the translator of Homer, which are ornamented in this manner.-STEEVENS. " Fillip me with a three-man beetle." -Act I. Sc. 2. A diversion is common with boys in Warwickshire, on finding a toad, to lay a board, about two feet long, over a stick about three inches in diameter, at right angles; then placing the toad on the lower end of the board, the upper end is struck by a bat or large stick, which throws the reptile forty or fifty feet perpendicular from the earth, and the violence of the fall usually kills it: this is called filliping the toad. A three-man beetle was an implement used for driving piles; it was made of a log of wood about twenty inches in diameter, and fifteen in thickness, with one short and two long handles. A man at each of the long handles manages the fall of the beetle, and a third man at the short handle assists in raising it to strike the blow. Such an implement was very suitable for filliping so corpulent a subject as Falstaff. STEEVENS. "A parcel gilt goblet." -Act II. Sc. 1. A "parcel gilt goblet" is a goblet, gilt only on such parts of it as are embossed. On the books of the Stationers' Company, among their plate 1560, is the following entry:" Item, nine spoynes of silver, whereof vii gylte and ii parcel-gylte." STEEVENS. "I must be fain to pawn my plate.""Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking." Act II. Sc. 2. Mrs. Quickly is here in the same state as the earl of Shrewsbury, who, not having been paid for the diet of Mary, queen of Scots, while she was in his custody in 1580, writes as follows to Thomas Bawdewyn:- " I wold have you bye me glasses to drink in. Send me word what old plat yelds the ounce, for I will not leve me a cuppe of sylvare to drink in, but I wyll see the next terme my creditors payde." STEEVENS. "Boar's Head tavern in Eastcheap." Act II. Sc. 4. The historical Sir John Fastolf, was a considerable benefactor to Magdalen College, Oxford, for which he is celebrated in an annual speech, and though we cannot obtain the particulars at large, the Boar's Head, in Southwark, which still retains that name, though divided into tenements, yielding £150 per annum; and Culdecot Manor, in Suffolk, were part of the lands he bestowed. The Boar's Head was very properly selected as the scene of Prince Henry's revellings, as it was close to his residence. Rymer says: "A mansion called Cold Harbour, (near Allhallows church, Upper Thames Street,) was granted to the Prince of Wales, 11th Henry IV. 1410." Shakespeare must have passed this tavern daily, in his way to the Globe Theatre. "Thou whorson little tidy Bartholomew boar pig." Act II. Sc. 4. From Ben Johnson's play of Bartholomew Fair, we learn, that it was the custom formerly to har booths in Bartholomew fair, in which pigs बता roasted, and to these, it is probable, an allusion here made.--STEEVENS. "Do not speak like a death's head." -Act II. Sc4 It appears from a passage in Marston's Dend Courtezan, 1605, that it was the custom for the bawds of that age to wear a death's head in a ring. very probably with the common motto, Memen Mori. Cocledemoy speaking of some of these sass "As for their death, how can it be bad, since ther wickedness is always before their eyes, and death's head most commonly on their middle finger STEET ENS "Skogan's head." -Act III. Sc. 2. There has been much dispute about a Jois Scogan, who lived in the reign of Edward IV., and a Henry Scogan, who wrote some poetical trilles during the time of Henry IV. In a masque by Ben Johnson, 1626, we find the following: methinks you should enquire now after Skainan, Scogan's Jests were published by Andrew Borde. a physician in the reign of Henry VIII. Saakspeare had probably met with this book; and as he was careless about anachronisms, this person might have been in his thoughts. Certainty, however, cannot be arrived at on such a subject. "Harry ten shillings." -Act III. Sc. 2. This is an anachronism; there were no edins of ten shillings value in the reign of Henry IV. Shakspeare's Harry ten shillings were those of Hery VII. or VIII; but he thought those might do is any other Henry.-DOUCE. " I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show." Act III. Sc. 2. The story of Sir Dagonet is to be found in La Morte d'Arthure, an old romance, much read in our author's time, or a little before it. When papistry, (says Ascham,) as a standing pool, over flowed all England, few books were read in our tongue, saving certain books of chivalry, as they said, for pastime and pleasure; which books, as some say, were made in monasteries by idle monks. As one for example, La Morte d'Arthure." In this romance Sir Dagonet is King Arthur's fool. Shakespeare would not have shewn his Justice capable of taking any higher character.-JOHNSON. "Turnbull street." - Act III. Sc. 2. Turnbull or Turnmill-street, is near Cow Cross. West Smithfield: it was infamous on account of the debauched characters, of both sexes, with which is abounded. "Philosopher's two stones." - Act III. Sc. 2. sal medicine, and the other a transmuter of base One of which (says Warburton) was an univermetals into gold. This interpretation has been ri diculed, and various others offered. We shall content ourselves with giving an extract from a letter on the subject of the Grand Elixir, written Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, to James I. "I fesse, so long as he conseled the meanes he ought by, I despised all he said: but when tould me that which he hath given your sovrainp to preserve you from all sicknes ever hereer, was extracted out of a t-d, I admired the ow, and for theis reasons: that being a stranger you, yett he hath found out the kind you are ne of, and your natural affections and apetis: 1 so, like a skillful man, hath given you natural cke, which is the onlie means to preserve the lical humours; and thus I conclude: My sow is althfull, my divill's luckie, myself is haj pie, and eds no more than your blessing, which is my felosopher's stone, upon which I build as upon ocke. Your majesties most humble slave and ge,-Stinię."-STEEVENS. ** Whose white investments figure innocence." Act IV. Sc. 1. Formerly, all bishops wore white, even when ey travelled; but the white investment here meant ust be the episcopal rochet, which should be worn the theatric archbishop. - GREY, and TollET. "Kept by a devil."-Act IV. 3. It was anciently supposed, and is still a vulgar suerstition of the east, that mines, containing precious etals, were guarded by evil spirits. So, in Certine Secrete Wonders of Nature, by Edward 'enton, 1569, "There appeare at this day many trange visions and wicked spirites in the metal tines of the Greate Turke In the mine at Anneurg was a metal sprite which killed twelve workhen; the same causing the rest to forsake the ayne, albeit it was very riche." STEEVENS. "Therefore, thou best of gold, art worst of gold; Other, less fine in caral, is more precious, Preserving life in med'cine potable." Act IV. Sc. 4. There has long prevailed an opinion, that a soluion of gold has great medicinal virtues, and that the incorruptibility of gold might be communicated to the body impregnated with it. Some have pretended to make potable gold, among other frauds practised on credulity. - JOHNSON. "Laud be to God!-even there my life must end." Act IV. Sc. 4. "At length he recovered his speech, and understanding and perceiving himself to be in a strange place, which he knew not, he willed to know if the chamber had any particular name, whereunto answer was made that it was called Jerusalem. Then said the king, Lauds be given to the Father of heaven, for now I know I shall die here in this chamber, according to the prophesie of me declared, that I should depart this life in Jerusalem." HOLINSHED. "If I cannot once or twice in a quarter bear out a knave against an honest man, I have very little credit with your lordship." - Act V. Sc. 1. This is no exaggerated picture of the course of justice in those days. The lord keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, in his speech to both houses of parlia■ment, 1559, says: "Is it not a monstrous disguising, to have a justice a maintainer, acquitting some for gain, enditing others for malice, bearing with him as his servant, overthrowing the other as his enemy?" A member of the house of commons in 1601, says: "A justice of peace is a living creature, that for half a dozen of chickens will dispense with half a dozen of penal statutes. If a warrant comes from the lord of the council to levy a hundred men, he will levy two hundred, and what with chopping in and chusing out, he'll gain a hundred pounds by the bargain: nay, he will write the warrant himself, and you must put two shillings in his pocket as his clerk's fee, (when God knows he keeps but two or three hindes) for his better maintenance." BLAKEWAY. It seems to have been usual to serve up carraway seeds in sugar, as a part of the dessert. The custom is evident from a passage in Cogan's Haven of Health: "This is a confirmation of our use in England, for the serving of apples and other fruites last after meals. How be it we are wont to eat carrawies or biskets, or some other kind of comfits or seeds, together with apples, thereby to breake winde engendered by them; and surely it is a very good way for students." - STEEVENS. " And welcome merry Shrovetide."-Act V. Sc. 3. Shrovetide was formerly a season of extraordinary sport and feasting. In the Romish church, there was a feast immediately previous to Lent, which lasted many days. In some cities of France, an officer was annually chosen to preside over the sports for six days before Ash-Wednesday. Some traces of these festivities may still be found in our universities. In the Percy Household Book, 1512, it appears, "that the clergy and officers of Lord Percy's chapel performed a play before his lordshipupon Shrowstewesday at night." -T. WARTON. Fig me like The bragging Spaniard." -Act V. Sc.3 To fig in Spanish, higas dar, is to insult by putting the thumb between the fore and middle finger. This phrase is of Italian origin. When the Milanese revolted against the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, they placed the Empress, his wife, upon a mule, with her head towards the tail, and ignominiously expelled her their city. Frederick afterwards besieged and took the place, and compelled every one of his prisoners, on pain of death, to take with his teeth a fig from the posteriors of a mule. The party was at the same time obliged to repeat to the executioner the words, "Ecco la fica!" (Behold the fig!) From this circumstance, " far la fica" became a term of derision, and was adopted by other nations.-JOHNSON, and DOUCE, "Censers."-Act V. Sc. 4. The sluttery of ancient houses rendered censers or fire-pans, in which coarse perfumes were burnt, most necessary utensils. Lodge tells us, that Lord Paget's house was so small that "after one month it would wax unsavery for hym to contynue in it." In a letter of the earl of Shrewsbury's, respecting his prisoner Mary queen of Scots, we read, " that her majesty was to be removed for fyve or sixe dayes, to klense her chamber, being kept very unklenly." And in the Memoirs of Anne, Countess of Dorset, we are informed of a party of lords and ladies, who" were all lowsy by sitting in Sir Thomas Erskin's chamber." - STEEVENS. "To pray for the queen." -EPILOGUE. It was usual, at the end of a play, for the actors to pray for their patrons. We will give an instance or two: "Preserve our noble queen Elizabeth, and her councell all." New Custom. "This shows like kneeling after the play; I praving for my lord Owemuch and his good countess, our honourable lady and raistress." Middleton's Mad World my Masters. "As duty bids us, for our noble queene let us pray, may use, To correct all those that would her grace and grace's laws abuse Besreching God over us she may reign long. Cambyses KING HENRY V. "Gun-stones." - Act I. Sc. 2. When ordnance was first used, they discharged balls, not of iron, but of stone. So, Holinshed: "About seven of the clocke, marched forward the light pieces of ordnance, with stone and powder." In the Brut of England, it is said, that when Henry V. before Hare-flete, received a taunting message from the dauphine of France, and a ton of tennis balls by way of contempt, "he anone lette make tenes balles for the Dolfin (Henry's ship), in all the hayste that they myght, and they were great gonnestones for the Dolfin to playe with alle. But this game of tennis was too rough for the besieged, when Henry played at the tennis with his hard gonnestones." STEEVENS. "The man that was his bedfellow."-Act II.Sc.2. Holinshed says: "The said lord Scroop was in such favour with the king, that he admitted him sometime to be his bedfellow." The familiar name of bedfellow, which seems strange to us, was common with the ancient nobility. There is a letter from the sixth earl of Northumberland (still preserved in the collection of the present duke,) addressed "To his beloved cousyn, Thomas Arundel," which begins, "Bedfellow, after my most harté recommendacion." This unseemly custom continued common till the middle of last century, if not later. Cromwell obtained much of his intelligence during the civil wars from the mean men with whom he slept. - STEEVENS, and MALONE. " I saw him fumble with the sheets." -Act II. Sc. 3. "The feast of Crispian." - Act IV. Sc. 3. The battle of Agincourt was fought upon the 25th of October (1415), St. Crispin's day. The l gend upon which this is founded, followsCrie pinus and Crispianus were brethren, born at Rant, from whence they travelled to Soissons in France, about the year 303, to propagate the Christiaan ligion; but because they would not be chargea to others for their maintenance, they exercised the trade of shoemakers; but the governor of the town discovering them to be Christians, ordersi them to be beheaded. From which time, the shor makers made choice of them for their tear saints." - GREY. Catching and pulling at the bed clothes has always been considered as a sign of approaching dissolution. Pliny in his Chapter on the Signs of Death, mentions, "a fumbling and pleiting of the bed"This day shall gentle his condition."clothes." So also in the Ninth Booke of Notable Act IV. Sc.A Things, by Thomas Lupton: "If the foreheade of King Henry V. inhibited any person but such as the sicke wax redde, and his nose waxe sharpe; had right by inheritance, or grant, to assume osale if he pulls straws, or the cloathes of his bedde, are most certain tokens of death." - STEEVENS. "At turning of the tide." -Act II. Sc. 3. It has been a very old opinion, which Mead, de imperio solis, quotes, as if he believed it, that nobody dies but in the time of ebb half the deaths in London confute the notion; but it was common in Shakspeare's age. - JOHNSON. "A pix."-Act III. Sc. 6. In Henry VIIIth's will, we read: "Forasmoch as we have often and many tymes to our inwarde regrete and displeasure, seen at our Jen, in diverse manie churches of our reame, the holie sacrament of the aulter, kept in ful simple and inhonest pixes, specially pixes of copre and tymbre; we have appointed and commaunded the treasurer of our chambre, and maistre of our juell-houss, to cause to be made furthwith, pixes of silver and gilt, in a great nombre, for the keeping of the holie sacrament of the aulter, after the faction of a pixe which we have caused to be delivered to theim. Every of the said pixes to be of the value of iiiil. garnish ed with our armes, and rede roses and poart-colis crowned."-REED. "A beard of the general's cut." -Act III. Sc. 6. It appears from an old ballad, inserted in a miscellany, entitled Le Prince d' Amour, 8vo. 1660, that our ancestors were very curious in the fashion of their beards, and that a certain cut or form was appropriated to the soldier, the bishop, the judge, the clown, &c. The spade-beard and the stilettobeard belonged to the military profession. The of arms, except those who fought with him at the battle of Agincourt, and these last were allowed the chief seats of honour at all feasts and public meetings. TOLLET. "Thou hast unwish'd five thousand men." Act IV. Sc.3. The numbers engaged at the battle of Agincourt are variously stated; Holinshed makes the English army consist of 15,000, and the French of 60.000 horse, besides foot, in all 100,000; while Wal singham and Hardinge represent the English bat as 9,000; and other authors say that the number of the French amounted to 150,000.- STEEVENS. "Monmouth caps." -Act IV. Sc. 7. Monmouth caps were formerly much worn. The best caps (says Fuller, in his Worthies of Wales.) were formerly made at Monmouth, where the Capper's chapel doth still remain. If (he adds) at this day, (1660) the phrase of wearing a Monmouth cap. be taken in a bad acception, I hope the inhabitants of that town will endeavour to disprove the occa sion thereof." - MALONE. "When Alençon and myself were down together." Act IV. Sc.T. This circumstance is not an invention of Shakspeare's. Henry was felled to the ground at the battle of Agincourt, by the duke of Alençon, bat recovered and slew two of the duke's attendants. Afterwards, Alençon was killed by the king's guard, contrary to Henry's intention, who wished to have saved him. - MALONE. "Davy Gam, esquire." -Act IV. Sc. 8. This gentleman being sent by Henry, before the attle, to reconnoitre the enemy, and to find out eir strength, made this report:-" May it please ou, my liege, there are enough to be killed, nough to be taken prisoners, and enough to run vay." He also saved the king's life during the ngagement.-MALONE. "Do we all holy rites." -Act IV. Sc. 8. "The king, when he saw no appearance of ene mies, caused the retreat to be blowen, and gathering his army together, gave thanks to Almighty God for so happy a victory, causing his prelates and chapelines to sing this psalme, In exitu Israel de Egypto; and commaunding every man to kneel downe at this verse, -Non nobis, domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam; which done, he caused Te Deum and certain anthems to be sung, giving laud and praise to God, and not boasting of his owne force, or any humaine power." KING HENRY VI. (PART I.) Hung be the heavens with black."-Act I. Sc. 1. Alluding to our ancient stage practice, when a agedy was to be performed. So in Sydney's Aradia: "There arose even with the sunne, a vaile f darke cloudes, before his face; which shortly ad blacked over all the face of heaven, preparing (as were) a mournfull stage for a tragedie to be layed upon."-STEEVENS. "Sir John Fastolfe."-Act I. Sc. 1. The historical Fastolfe, here introduced, was a eutenant-general, deputy regent to the Duke of Bedford, in Normandy, and a knight of the garter. Hall and Holinshed say that he was degraded for owardice; but Heylen, in his Saint George for Ingland, tells, that "He was afterwards, upon ood reason by him alledged in his defence, restord to his honour." "This Sir John Fastolfe," coninues he, "was, without doubt, a valiant and wise aptain."-FARMER. "England all Olivers and Rowlands bred." Act I. Sc. 2. "Enter the Bastard of Orleans." -Act I. Sc. 2. Bastard, in former times, was not a term of reroach. Bishop Hurd, speaking of the agreement etween the heroic and Gothic manner, says, at "Bastardy was in credit with both;" and one f William the Conqueror's charters begins, Ego Gulielmus, cognomento Bastardus." (I, Villiam, surnamed the Bastard.)-VAILLANT. Here is my keen edg'd sword, 'eck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side." Act I. Sc. 2. "In a secret place there among old iron, apDinted she hir sword to be sought out and brought r, that with five floure de luces was graven on both les."-HOLINSHED. Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?" -Act I.Sc. 2. Mahomet had a dove, "which he used to feed th wheat out of his ear; which dove, when it was gry, lighted on his shoulder, and thrust its bill to find its breakfast; Mahomet persuaded the le and simple Arabians, that it was the Holy ost that gave him advice." - LIFE OF MAHOT, BY DR. PRIDEAUX. This be Damascus, be thou cursed Cain, slay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt." -Act I. Sc. 3. bout four miles from Damascus is a high hill, orted to be the same on which Cain slew his her Abel-POPE. HOLINSHED. The gardens of Adonis, so frequently mentioned by Greek writers, Plato, Plutarch, &c. were nothing but portable earthen pots, with some lettuce or fennel growing in them. On his yearly festival, every woman carried one of them for Adonis's wor ship, because Venus had once laid him in a lettuce bed. The next day they were thrown away. It will be seen by the text, that the poet has totally misapplied this circumstance. - BENTLEY, &c. "Rhodope." Act I. Sc. 6. Rhodope was a famous strumpet, who acquired immense riches by her trade. The least, but most finished of the Egyptian pyramids, was built at her cost. She is said afterwards to have married Psammetichus, king of Egypt. STEEVENS. " Coffer of Darius." -Act I. Sc. 6. When Alexander the Great took the city of Gaza, the metropolis of Syria, amidst the other sports and wealth of Darius, treasured up there, he found an exceeding rich and beautiful little chest or casket, and asked those about him what they thought fittest to be laid up in it. When they had severally delivered their opinions, he told them, he esteemed nothing so worthy to be preserved in it as Homer's Iliad. THEOBALD. "The Parliament-house." - Act III. Sc. 1. This parliament was held in 1426, at Leicester, though the author of this play has represented it to have been held in London. King Henry was now in the fifth year of his age. In the first parliament which was held in London, shortly after his father's death, his mother Queen Katherine brought the young king from Windsor to the metropolis, and sat on the throne of the parliamenthouse with the infant in her lap. - MALONE. "Thou bastard of my grandfather!" -Act III. Sc. I. The Bishop of Winchester was an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, by Katherine Swynford, whom the duke afterwards married. MALONE. "Ye charming spells, and periapts. -Act V. Sc. 3. Periapts were portions of scripture enclosed in bags of silk or velvet, and worn round the neck; they were sometimes quilted on parts of the dress. They were esteemed preservatives from disease. STEEVENS, &c. |