Kath, & Why, fir, I truft, I may have leave to fpeak; And speak I will; I am no child, no babe: Kath. Love me, or love me not, I like the cap; And it I will have, or I will have none. Pet. Thy gown? why, ay :-Conie, taylor, let us fee't. O mercy, God? what masking ftuff is here? What's this? a fleeve? 'tis like a demi-cannon: What! up and down, carv'd like an apple-tart? Here's fnip, and nip, and cut, and slish, and slash, Like to a cenfer in a barber's fhop : I Why 8 Why fir, I truft, I may have leave to speak, &c.] Shakspeare has here copied nature with great fkill. Petruchio, by frightening, ftarving, and overwatching his wife, had tamed her into gentleness and fubmiflion. And the audience expects to hear no more of the fhrew: when on her being croffed, in the article of fafhion and finery, the most inveterate folly of the fex, fhe flies out again, though for the last time, into all the intemperate rage of her nature. WARBURTON. 9 A custard-coffin,-] A coffin was the ancient culinary term for the raised cruft of a pye or custard. So, in Ben Jonson's Staple of News: 66 -if you fpend "The red-deer pies in your houfe, or fell them forth, fir, Again, in Ben Jonfon's Mafque of Gypfies Metamorphofed: Why, what, o'devil's name, taylor, call'ft thou this? Hor. I fee, fhe's like to have neither cap nor gown. [Afide. Tay. You bid me make it orderly and well, According to the fashion, and the time, Pet. Marry, and did; but if you be remembred, For you fhall hop without my custom, fir: Pet. Why, true; he means to make a puppet of thee. Tay. She fays, your worship means to make a puppet of her. Pet. Oh monftrous arrogance! Thou lyeft, thou thread, thou thimble", Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail, Grumio gave order how it fhould be done. Gru. I gave him no order, I gave him the stuff. eafily be imagined to have been veffels which, for the emiflion of the smoke, were cut with great number and varieties of interstices. JOHNSON. 2 -thou thimble,] The taylor's trade having an appearance of effeminacy, has always been, among the rugged English, liable to farcafms and contempt. JOHNSON. 3 -be-mete] i. e. be-meafure thee. STEEVENS. Gru. Gru. Marry, fir, with needle and thread. Tay. I have. Gru. Face not me: thou haft brav'd many men'; brave not me; I will neither be fac'd nor brav'd. I fay unto thee,-I bid thy mafter cut out the gown; but I did not bid him cut it to pieces: ergo, thou lieft. Tay. Why, here is the note of the fashion to tef tify. Pet. Read it. Gru. The note lies in his throat, if he say I said so. Tay. Imprimis, a loafe-bodied gown: Gru. Mafter, if ever I faid loofe-body'd gown, fow me up in the fkirts of it, and beat me to death with a bottom of brown thread; I faid, a gown, Pet. Proceed. Tay. With a small compass'd cape"; Gru. I confefs the cape, 4 faced many things.] i. e. turned up many gowns, &c. with facings, &c. So, in Hen. IV: 5 "To face the garment of rebellion "With fome fine colour." STEEVENS. brav'd many men ;] i. e. made many men fine. Brawas the ancient term for elegance of drefs. STEEVENS. very -loofe-body'd gown, I think the joke is impair'd, unless we read with the original play already quoted-a loofe body's gown. It appears, however, that loose-bodied gowns were the dress of barlots. Thus, in the Michaelmas Term by Middleton, 1607: "Doft dream of viginity now? remember a loofc-bodied gown, wench, and let it go." STEEVENS. See Dodley's Old Plays, vol. iii. p. 479. edit. 1780. EDITOR. b -a a fmall compafs'd cape;] Stubbs, in his Anatomy of Abuses, 1565, gives a moft elaborate defcription of the gowns of women; and adds "Some have capes reaching down to the midft of their backs, faced with velvet, or elfe with fome fine wrought taffata, at the leaft, fringed about, very bravely," STELVENS. A compass'd cape is a round cape. To compass is to come round, JOHNSON. Tay 525 Tay. With a trunk fleeve ;- Gru. Error i'the bill, fir; error i'the bill. I com. manded the fleeves fhould be cut out, and fow'd up again; and that I'll prove upon thee, though thy little finger be armed in a thimble. Tay. This is true, that I fay; an I had thee in place where, thou fhou'dft know it. Gru. I am for thee ftraight: take thou the bill, give me thy mete-yard, and spare not me. Hor. God-a-mercy, Grumio! then he fhall have no odds. Pet. Well, fir, in brief, the gown is not for me. Gru. You are i'the right, fir; 'tis for my miftrefs. Pet, Go, take it up unto thy mafter's use. Gru. Villain, not for thy life: Take up my mistress' gown for thy mafter's ufe! Pet. Why, fir, what's your conceit in that? for: Take up my miftrefs's gown unto his master's ufe! Oh, fye, fye, fye! Pet. Hortenfio, fay thou wilt fee the taylor paid : [Afide. Go take it hence; be gone, and fay no more. row. Take no unkindness of his hafty words: [Exit Taylor. 8 take thou the bill.] The fame quibble between the written bill, and bill the ancient weapon carried by foot-foldiers, is to be met with in Timon. STEEVENS. 9thy mete-yard,] i. e. thy meafuring-yard. So, in the Miferics of Infore'd Marriage, 1607: "Be not a bar between us, or my fword Pet. Pet. Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your father's, Even in these honeft mean habiliments; Our purfes fhall be proud, our garments poor: It fhall be what o'clock I fay it is. Hor. Why, fo! this gallant will command the fun. [Exeunt Petruchio, Katharine, and Hortenfio'. * After this exeunt, the characters before whom the play is fuppofed to be exhibited, have been hitherto introduced from the original fo often mentioned in the former notes. "Lord. Who's within there? "Enter Servants. "Afleep again! go take him easily up, and put him in his own apparel again. But fee you wake him not in any cafe." "Serv. It shall be done, my lord; come help to bear him hence. [They bear off Sly." STEEVENS. SCENE |