And not till then.

HOR.

That will not be in haste. [Aside. KATH. Why, sir, I trust, I may have leave to

speak';

And speak I will; I am no child, no babe:
Your betters have endur'd me say my mind;
And, if you cannot, best you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart;
Or else my heart, concealing it, will break :
And, rather than it shall, I will be free
Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.
PET. Why, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap,
A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie:
I love thee well, in that thou lik'st it not.

KATH. Love me, or love me not, I like the cap;

7 Why, sir, I trust, I may have leave to speak, &c.] Shakspeare has here copied nature with great skill. Petruchio, by frightening, starving and overwatching his wife, had tamed her into gentleness and submission. And the audience expects to hear no more of the shrew: when on her being crossed, in the article of fashion and finery, the most inveterate folly of the sex, she flies out again, though for the last time, into all the intemperate rage of her nature. WARBURTON.

8 A custard-COFFIN,] A coffin was the ancient culinary term for the raised crust of a pie or custard. So, in Ben Jonson's Staple of News :

"The red deer pies in your house, or sell them forth, sir, "Cast so, that I may have their coffins all

66 Return'd," &c.

Again, in Ben Jonson's Masque of Gypsies Metamorphosed:

"And coffin'd in crust 'till now she was hoary."

Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair, has a similar term for a woman's cap: for all her velvet custard on her head." STEEVENS.

Again, in a receipt to bake lampreys. MS. Book of Cookery, Temp. Hen. 6:

66

and then cover the coffyn, but save a litell hole to blow into the coffyn, with thy mouth, a gode blast; and sodenly stoppe, that the wynde abyde withynne to ryse up the coffyn that it falle nott down." DOUCE.

And it I will have, or I will have none.

PET. Thy gown? why, ay:-Come, tailor, let us see't.

O mercy, God! what masking stuff is here?
What's this? a sleeve? 'tis like a demi-cannon:
What! up and down, carv'd like an apple-tart?
Here's snip, and nip, and cut, and slish, and slash,
Like to a censer in a barber's shop:-
Why, what, o'devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this?
HOR. I see, she's like to have neither cap nor

gown.

[Aside. TAI. You bid me make it orderly and well, According to the fashion, and the time.

PET. Marry, and did; but if you be remember'd, I did not bid you mar it to the time.

Go, hop me over every kennel home,
For you shall hop without my custom, sir:
I'll none of it; hence, make your best of it.
KATH. I never saw a better-fashion'd gown,
More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commend-
able:

Belike, you mean to make a puppet of me.

PET. Why, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.

TAI. She says, your worship means to make a puppet of her.

PET. O monstrous arrogance! Thou liest,

9 censer] Censers in barber's shops are now disused, but they may easily be imagined to have been vessels which, for the emission of the smoke, were cut with great number and varieties of interstices. JOHNSON.

In King Henry VI. P. II. Doll calls the beadle "thou thin man in a censer." MALONE.

I learn from an ancient print, that these censers resembled in shape our modern brasieres. They had pierced convex covers, and stood on feet. They not only served to sweeten a barber's shop, but to keep his water warm, and dry his cloths on. See note on King Henry IV. P. II. Act V. Sc. IV. STEEVENS.

Thou thread, thou thimble',

Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail,
Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter cricket thou:-
Brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread!
Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant ;
Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard,
As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st!
I tell thee, I, that thou hast marr'd her gown.

TAI. Your worship is deceiv'd; the gown is made Just as my master had direction :

Grumio gave order how it should be done.

GRU. I gave him no order, I gave him the stuff.
TAI. But how did you desire it should be made?
GRU. Marry, sir, with needle and thread.

TAI. But did you not request to have it cut?
GRU. Thou hast faced many things 3.

TAI. I have.

3

GRU. Face not me: thou hast braved many men*; brave not me; I will neither be faced nor braved. I say unto thee,-I bid thy master cut out the gown; but I did not bid him cut it to pieces 3 : ergo, thou liest.

Thou THREAD, thou thimble,] We should only read :
O monstrous arrogance! thou liest, thou thimble.

He calls him afterwards-a skein of thread. RITSON.

The tailor's trade, having an appearance of effeminacy, has always been, among the rugged English, liable to sarcasms and contempt. JOHNSON.

2

be-METE-] i. e. be-measure thee. STEEVENS.

3 -FACED many things.] i. e. turned up many gowns, &c. with facings, &c. So, in King Henry IV.:

4

66

To face the garment of rebellion "With some fine colour."

STEEVENS.

BRAVED many men ;] i. e. made many men fine. Bravery was the ancient term for elegance of dress. STEevens.

5 but I did not bid him cut it to pieces:] This scene appears to have been borrowed from a story of Sir Philip Caulthrop, and John Drakes, a silly shoemaker of Norwich, which is related in Leigh's Accidence of Armorie, and in Camden's Remaines.

DOUCE.

TAI. Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify.

So.

PET. Read it.

GRU. The note lies in his throat, if he say I said

TAI. Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown:

GRU. Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown sew me in the skirts of it, and beat me to death with a bottom of brown thread: I said, a gown.

PET. Proceed.

TAI. With a small compassed cape";

GRU. I confess the cape.

TAI. With a trunk sleeve ;

GRU. I confess two sleeves.
TAI. The sleeves curiously cut.

PET. Ay, there's the villainy.

GRU. Error i'the bill, sir; error i'the bill. I commanded the sleeves should be cut out, and sewed up again; and that I'll prove upon thee, though thy little finger be armed in a thimble.

6

LOOSE-BODIED gown,] I think the joke is impaired, unless we read with the original play already quoted-a loose body's gown. It appears, however, that loose-bodied gowns were the dress of harlots. Thus, in The Michaelmas Term, by Middleton, 1607: "Dost dream of virginity now? remember a loose-bodied gown, wench, and let it go." STEEVENS.

See Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. iii. p. 479, edit. 1780.

7

cape.

REED.

a small COMPASSED CAPE ;] A compassed cape is a round To compass is to come round. JOHNSON.

Thus in Troilus and Cressida, a circular bow window is called -a compassed window.

Stubbs, in his Anatomy of Abuses, 1565, gives a most elaborate description of the gowns of women; and adds, "Some have capes reaching down to the midst of their backs, faced with velvet, or else with some fine wrought taffata, at the least, fringed about, very bravely." STEEVENS.

So, in the Register of Mr. Henslowe, proprietor of the Rose Theatre, (a manuscript of which an account has been given before): "3 of June 1594. Lent, upon a womanes gowne of villet in grayne, with a velvet cape imbroidered with bugelles, for xxxvi s." MALONE.

TAI. This is true, that I say; an I had thee in place where; thou should'st know it.

GRU. I am for thee straight: take thou the bill 8, give me thy mete-yard, and spare not me.

HOR. God-a-mercy, Grumio! then he shall have no odds.

PɛT. Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me. GRU. You are i'the right, sir; 'tis for my mistress. PET. Go, take it up unto thy master's use.

GRU. Villain, not for thy life: Take up my mistress' gown for thy master's use!

PET. Why, sir, what's your conceit in that? GRU. O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for:

Take up my mistress' gown to his master's use!
O, fye, fye, fye!

PET. Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor

paid :—

[Aside.

Go take it hence; be gone, and say no more.
HOR. Tailor, I'll pay thee for thy gown to-morrow.
Take no unkindness of his hasty words:

Away, I say; commend me to thy master.

[Exit Tailor.

PET. Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your

father's,

Even in these honest mean habiliments;

Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor:
For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;

And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit.

8

take thou the BILL,] The same quibble between the written bill, and bill the ancient weapon carried by foot-soldiers, is to be met with in Timon of Athens. STEEVENS.

9thy METE-yard,] i. e. thy measuring-yard. So, in The Miseries of Inforc'd Marriage, 1607:

"Be not a bar between us, or my sword

66

Shall mete thy grave out." STEEVENS.