-but let that pafs. Peter Simple, you fay your name is ?

SIM. Ay, for fault of a better.

QUICK. And master Slender's your master?
SIM. Ay, forfooth.

QUICK. Does he not wear a great round beard," like a glover's paring-knife?

SIM. No, forfooth: he hath but a little wee face, with a little yellow beard; a Cain-colour'd beard, 8

6

7

a great round beard, &c.] See a note on K. Henry V. A&III. fc. vi: And what a beard of the general's cut," &c. MALONE. a little wee face,] Wee, in the northern diale&, fignifies very little. Thus, in the Scottish proverb that apologizes for a little woman's marriage with a big man: "A wee mouse will 'creep under a mickle cornftack." COLLINS.

So, in Heywood's Fair Maid of the Weft, a comedy, 1631: "He was nothing fo tall as I; but a little wee man, and fomewhat hutch-back'd."

Again, in The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll, 1600: "Some two miles, and a wee bit, fir." Wee is derived from weenig, Dutch. 4to, 1619, we might be led to of a weakly man, and has as it Macbeth calls one of the meffengers Whey-face. STEEVENS.

On the authority of the read whey-face:"-Somewhat were a whey-coloured beard.”

Little wee is certainly the right reading, it implies fomething extremely diminutive, and is a very common vulgar idiom in the Wee alone, has only the fignification of little.

North.

land:

Thus Cleve

"A Yorkshire wee bit, longer than a mile." The proverb is a mile and a wee bit; i. c. about a league and a half. RITSON.

8 -a Cain-colour'd beard.] Cain and Judas, in the tapestries and pictures of old, were reprefented with yellow beards.

THEOBALD.

Theobald's conje&ure may be countenanced by a parallel expreffion in an old play called Blurt Mafter Constable, or, The Span niard's Night-Walk, 1601:

QUICK. A foftly-fprighted man, is he not?

8

SIM. Ay, forfooth: but he is as tall a man of his hands, as any is between this and his head; he hath fought with a warrener.

Again, in Soliman and Perfeda, 1599, Bafilifco fays:

66

where is the eldeft fon of Priam,

"That Abraham-colour'd Trójan ?"

I am not however, certain, but that Abraham may be a corrup tion of auburn.

Again, in The Spanish Tragedy, 1603:

"And let their beards be of Judas his own colour.”

Again, in A Chriftian turn'd Turk, 1612:

"That's he in the Judas beard."

Again, in The Infatiate Countefs. 1613:

«I ever thought by his red beard he would prove a Judas.” In an age, when but fmall part of the nation could read, ideas were frequently borrowed from reprefentations in painting or tapeftry. A cane-colour'd beard however, [the reading of the quarto,] might fignify a beard of the colour of cane, i. e. a fickly yellow; for fraw-coloured beards are mentioned in A Midsummer Night's Dream. STEEVENS.

The words of the quarto,-a whey-colour'd beard, ftrongly favour this reading; for whey and cane are nearly of the fame colour. MALONE.

The new edition of Leland's Collectanea, Vol. V. p. 295, afferts, that painters conftantly reprefented Judas the traytor with a red head. Dr. Plot's Oxfordshire, p. 153, fays the fame. This conceit is thought to have arifen in England, from our ancient grudge to the red-haired Danes. TOLLET.

See my quotation in King Henry VIII. A& V. fċ. ii.

STEEVENS.

8 -as tall a man of his hands,] Perhaps this is an allufion to the jockey measure, fo many hands high, used by grooms when fpeaking of horfes. Tall, in our author's time, fignified not only height of ftature, but ftoutnefs of body. The ambiguity of the phrafe feems intended. PERCY.

Whatever be the origin of this phrafe, it is very ancient, being ufed by Gower :

"A worthie knight was of his honde,
There was none fuche in all the londe.”

De Confeffione Amantis, lib. v. fol. 118. b.

STEEVENS

QUICK. HOW fay you?-O, I fhould remember him; Does he not hold up his head, as it were? and ftrut in his gait ?

SIM. Yes, indeed, does he.

QUICK. Well, heaven fend Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell master parfon Evans, I will do what I can for your mafter: Anne is a good girl, and I wifh--

Re-enter RUGby.

RUG. Out, alas! here comes my mafter.

QUICK. We fhall all be fhent:" Run in here, good young man; go into this closet. [Shuts Simple in the clofet.] He will not ftay long.-What, John Rugby! John, what, John, I fay!Go, John, go enquire for my mafter; I doubt, he be not well, that he comes not home:-and down, down, adown-a,' &c. [ fings.

The tall man of the old dramatick writers, was a man of a bold, intrepid difpofition, and inclined to quarrel; fuch as is defcribed by Mr. Steevens in the fecond fcene of the third act of this play. M. MASON,

"A tall man of his hands" fometimes meant quick-handed, active; and as Simple is here commending his mafter for his gymnaftick abilities, perhaps the phrase is here used in that sense. See Florio's Italian Didionary, 1598, in v. " Manefco. Nimble or quick-handed; a tall man of his hands." MALONE.

We Shall all be fhent:] i. e. Scolded, roughly treated. So

in the old Interlude of Nature, bl. 1. no date:

2

I can tell thee one thyng,

"In fayth you wyll be fhent." STEEVENS.

and down, down, adown-a, &c.] To deceive her master, fhe fings as if at her work. SIR J. HAWKINS.

This appears to have been the burden of fome fong then well known. In Every Woman in her Humour, 1609, fign. E 1. Onc of the characters says, Hey good boies! i'faith now a three man's E

Vol. V.

66

Enter Doctor CAIUS."

CAIUS. Vat is you fing? I do not like defe toys; Pray you, go and vetch me in my clofet un boitier verd; a box, a green-a box; Do intend vat I fpeak? a green-a box.

QUICK. Ay, forfooth, I'M fetch it you. I am glad he went not in himfelf: if he had found the young man, he would have been horn-mad.

[Afide. CAIUS. Fe, fe fe, fe; ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je m'en vais à la Cour, la grande affaire.

fong, or the old downe adowne: well things must be as they may; fil's the other quart: mufkadine with an egge is fine, there's a time for all things, bonos nochios." REED.

3 Enter Door Caius.] It has been thought flrange, that our author fhould take the name of Caius [an eminent phyfician who flourished in the reign of Elizabeth, and founder of Caius College in our univerfity] for his Frenchman in this Comedy; but Shakfpeare was little acquainted with literary hiftory; and without doubt, from this unusual name, supposed him to have been a foreigu quack. Add to this, that the do&or was handed down as a kind of Roficrucian: Mr. Ames had in MS. one of the Secret Writings of Dr. Caius." FARMER.

This character of Dr. Caius might have been drawn from the life; as in Jacke of Dover's Quest of Enquirie, 1604, (perhaps a republication,) a flory called The Foole of Winfor begins thus: Upon a time there was in Winfor a certain fimple outlandishe doctor of phifike belonging to the deane," &c. STEEVENS.

4 un boitier verd;] Boitier in French fignifies a cafe of furgeon's inftruments. GREY.

I believe it rather means a box of falve, or cafe to hold fimples, for which Caius profeffes to feek. The fame word, fomewhat curtailed, is ufed by Chaucer, in The Pardoneres Prologue, v. 12241:

And every boift ful of thy leraaric."

Again, in The Skynners' Play, in the Chefter Colle&ion of Myfteries, MS. Harl. p. 149: Mary Magdalen says:

แ

"To balme his bodye that is fo brighte,

Boyfte here have I brought." STEEVENS,

1

QUICK. Is it this, fir?

CAIUS. Ouy; mette le au mon pocket; Depeches quickly-Vere is dat knave Rugby?

QUICK. What, John Rugby! John !

RUG. Here, fir.

CAIUS. You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby: Come, take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to de court.

RUG. 'Tis ready, fir, here in the porch.

CAIUS. By my trot, I tarry too long:-Od's me! Qu'ay j'oublié? dere is fome fimples in my clofet, dat I vill not for the varld I fhall leave behind. QUICK. Ah me! he'll find the young man there, and be mad.

CAIUS. O diable, diable! vat is in my closet?Villainy! larron! [Pulling Simple out.] Rugby, iny rapier.

QUICK. Good master, be content.

CAIUS. Verefore fhall I be content-a?

QUICK. The young man is an honeft man. CAIUS. Vat fhall de honeft man do in my closet? dere is no honeft man dat fhall come in my clofet. QUICK. I beseech you, be not fo flegmatick; hear the truth of it: He came of an errand to me from parfon Hugh.

CAIUS. Vell.

SIM. Ay, forfooth, to defire her to-
QUICK. Peace, I pray you.

CAIUS. Peace-a your tongue:-Speak-a your tale. SIM. To defire this honeft gentlewoman, your maid, to speak a good word to miftrefs Anne Page for my mafter, in the way of marriage.