(1) SCENE II.-Yet is this no charm for the tooth-ache.] In Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 141, is one of these charms:

"To cure the tooth-ach: Out of Mr. Ashmole's manu script writ with his own hand :- Mars, hur, abursa, aburse Jesus Christ for Mary's sake,-Take away this Tooth-Ach. Write the words three times; and as you say the words, let the party burn one paper, then another, and then the last. He says, he saw it experimented, and the party immediately cured."

(2) SCENE III. You speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman.] Of the functionary whom Shakespeare had in view, the ancient watchman of London, there are two or three representations preserved. He was clad in a long loose cloak or coat, which reached to his heels, and was belted at the waist, and he usually carried the pike or halbert called " a bill," with a lantern and a great bell. The charge," or duties of his office, are clearly laid down in the accompanying extract from Dalton's "Country Justice:"

"This watch is to be kept yearly from the feast of the Ascention until Michaelmas, in every towne, and shall continue all the night, sc. from the sunne setting to the sunne rising. All such strangers, or persons suspected, as shall in the night time passe by the watchmen (appointed thereto by the towne constable, or other officer), may be examined by the said watchmen, whence they come, and what they be, and of their businesse, &c. And if they find cause of suspition, they shall stay them; and if such persons will not obey the arrest of the watchmen, the said watchmen shall levie hue and crie, that the offendors may be taken or else they may justifie to beate them (for that they resist the peace and Justice of the Realme), and may also set them in the stockes (for the same) untill the morning; and then, if no suspition be found, the said persons shall be let go and quit: But if they find cause of suspition, they shall forthwith deliver the said persons to the sherife, who shall keepe them in prison untill they bee duely delivered; or else the watchmen may deliver such person to the constable, and so to convey them to the Justice of peace, by him to be examined, and to be bound over, or committed, untill the offenders be acquitted in due manner."

(3) SCENE III.-And one Deformed is one of them; I know him, 'a wears a lock.] The custom, imported from the Continent, of wearing a long lock of hair, sometimes ornamented with gaudy ribbons, came into fashion in the sixteenth century. In Greene's "Quip for an Upstart Courtier," 1592, quoted by Mr. Halliwell, a barber asks his customer, "Will you be Frenchified with a love-lock down to your shoulders, wherein you may hang your mistres' favor?" Against this practice Prynne wrote a treatise, entitled “The Unlovelinesse of Love-lockes, or a Discourse

proving the wearing of a Locke to be unseemely," 1628 and from a passage in his Histriomastix, it appears that the fashion had become prevalent in a class not unlikely to be under the surveillance of worthy Dogberry's "compartners," Hugh Oatcake and George Seacole, " and more especially in long, unshorne, womanish, frizled, loveprovoking haire, and love-lockes growne now too much in fashion with comly pages, youthes, and lewd, effeminate, ruffianly persons."

Manzoni informs us that in Lombardy during the same period, the custom was affected by a lawless class of the community as a cloak for their iniquity, and numerous edicts were promulgated, forbidding the use of locks either before or behind the ears, under a penalty of three hundred crowns, or three years' imprisonment in the galleys. "Bravoes by profession and villains of every kind, used to wear a long lock of hair, which they drew over the face like a vizor on meeting any one, so that the lock might almost be considered a part of the armour, and a distinctive mark of bravoes and vagabonds, whence those characters commonly bore the name of Ciuffi, i. e. Locks." -I Promessi Sposi, Cap. 3.

(4) SCENE IV.-Carduus Benedictus.]

"Blessed Thistle

is called in Latine every where Carduus Benedictus, and in shops by a compound word, Cardo-benedictus; it is a kinde of wilde bastard Saffron.

"Blessed Thistle, taken in meate or drinke, is good for the swimming and giddinesse of the head, it strengthneth memorie, and is a singular remedie against deafnesse."GERARD'S Herbal.

"Carduus Benedictus, or blessed Thistell, so worthily named for the singular vertues that it hath.*** Howsoever it be used it strengtheneth all the principall partes of the bodie, it sharpeneth both the wit and memory, quickeneth all the senses, comforteth the stomacke, procureth appetite, and hath a special vertue against poison, and preserveth from the pestilence, and is excellent good against any kind of Fever being used in this manner: Take a dramme of the powder, put it into a good draught of ale or wine, warme it and drinke it a quarter of an hour before the fit doth come, then goe to bed, cover you well with clothes, and procure sweate, which by the force of the herbe will easily come foorth, and so continue until the fit be past or else you may take the distilled water after the same maner. By this meanes you may recover in a short time, yea if it were a pestilentiall fever. So that this remedie be used before twelve houres be past after the disease felt. For which notable effects this herb may worthily be called Benedictus or Omnimorbia, that is a salve for everie sore, not known to Physitians of old time, but lately revealed by the speciall providence of Almightie God."-The Haven of Health, by Thomas Cogan, Maister of Artes and Bacheler of Physicke. Lond. 4to. b. l. 1596.

In some curious observations attached to Pietro Aretino's book of "The Three Impostors," M. De la Monnoie refers to the practice of suspending epitaphs on the hearses and monuments of important personages, as being common in the sixteenth century. "It is the custom with Catholics," he remarks, "to attach to some pillar or other place near to the tombs of deceased persons, and especially such as were of reputation, papers of funeral inscriptions. These inscriptions were, in fact, as they always ought to be, to the honour of the departed individual; but as Aretino had been a notorious libertine, it is quite possible that after his interment some satirist hung the condemnatory epitaph preserved by Moréri, on the door of St. Luke's church, where he was buried." The custom was still general in England when Shakespeare lived; many fine and interesting examples of it existing in the old cathedral of St. Paul's, and other churches of London, down to the time of the Great Fire, in the form of pensile-tables of wood and metal, painted or engraved with poetical memorials, suspended against the columns and walls.* Among these may be particularized the well-known verses on Queen Elizabeth, beginning:

"Spaines Rod, Romes Ruine, Netherlands Reliefe;" which appear to have been very generally displayed in the churches of the realm.

*See Stow, Weever, and Dugdale.

There is another allusion to this graceful custom in the present Comedy, Act IV. Sc. 1:—

"Maintain a mourning ostentation;

And, on your family's old monument,
Hang mournful epitaphs."

And Izaak Walton, in his "Life of Dr. Donne," supplies a curious illustration of it under the date of 1631. The next day after his burial some one of the many lovers and admirers of his virtue and learning, writ this epitaph with a coal on the wall over his grave:

Reader! I am to let Thee know
Doune's Body only lies below;

For, could the Earth his Soul comprise,
Earth would be Richer than the Skies!'"

(2) SCENE II.-1 give thee the bucklers.] This is an expression borrowed from Sword and Buckler play, and often adopted by our old writers, meaning, I yield myself vanquished. Thus, in P. Holland's translation of Pliny's Natural History," B. x. Ch. xxi. :-"It goeth against his stomach (the cock's) to yeeld the gantlet and give the bucklers."

Again, in Greene's Second Part of " "Coney-Catching," 1592: At this his master laught, and was glad for further advantage, to yield the bucklers to his prentice."

And in Chapman's "May-Day," 1611:

"And now I lay the bucklers at your feet."

By force I am stred my fancie to write,
Ingratitude willeth mee not to refraine:
Then blame me not Ladies although I indite
What lighty love now amongst you doth raigne.
Your traces in places, in outward allurements
Doth moove my endevour to be the more playne;
Your nicyngs and ticings with sundrie procurementes
To publish your lightie love doth mee constrayne.

Deceite is not daintie, it coms at eche dish,
Fraude goes a fisshyng with frendly lookes,
Throughe frendship is spoyled the seely poore fish,
That hoover and shover upon your false hookes,
With baight, you lay waight, to catch here and there,
Whiche causeth poore fisshes their freedome to lose:
Then loute ye, and floute ye, wherby doth appere,
Your lightie love Ladies, styll cloaked with glose.

With DIAN so chaste, you seeme to compare,
When HELLENS you bee, and hang on her trayne:
Mee thinkes faithfull Thisbies bee now very rare,
Not one CLEOPATRA, I doubt doth remayne:
You wincke, and you twincke, tyll Cupid have caught,
And forceth through flames your Lovers to sue:
Your lyghtie love Ladies, too deere they have bought,
When nothyng wyll moove you, their causes to rue.

I speake not for spite, ne do I disdayne,
Your beautie fayre Ladies, in any respect:
But ones Ingratitude doth mee constrayne,
A childe hurt with fire, the same to neglect:
For proovyng in lovyng, I finde by good triall,
When Beautie had brought mee unto her becke:
She staying, not waying, but made a deniall,
And shewyng her lightie love, gave me the checke.

Thus fraude for frendship, did lodge in her brest,
Suche are most women, that when they espie,
Their lovers inflamed with sorowes opprest,
They stande then with Cupid against their replie
They taunte, and they vaunte, they smile when they vew,
How Cupid had caught them under his trayne,
But warned, discerned, the proofe is most true,
That lightie love Ladies, amongst you doth reigne.

It seemes by your doynges, that Cressed doth scoole ye,
Penelopes vertues are cleane out of thought:

Mee thinkes by your constantnesse, Heleyne doth rule ye,
Whiche, both Greece and Troy, to ruyne hath brought:
No doubt, to tell out, your manyfolde driftes,
Would shew you as constant, as is the Sea sande:
To truste so unjust, that all is but shieftes,
With lightie love bearyng your lovers in hande.

If ARGUS were lyvying whose eyes were in nomber,
The Peacockes plume painted, as Writers replie,
Yet Women by wiles, full sore would him cumber,
For all his quicke eyes, their driftes to espie:
Suche feates, with disceates, they dayly frequent,
To conquere Mennes mindes, their humours to feede,
That bouldly I may geve Arbittrement:
Of this your lightie love, Ladies in deede.

Ye men that are subject to Cupid his stroke,
And therein seemeth to have your delight:
Thinke when you see baight theres hidden a hooke,
Whiche sure wyll have you, if that you do bight:
Suche wiles, and suche guiles, by women are wrought,
That halfe their mischiefes, men cannot prevent,
When they are most pleasant unto your thought,
Then nothyng but lightie love, is their intent.

Consider that poyson doth lurke often tyme
In shape of sugre, to put some to payne:
And fayre wordes paynted, as Dames can desire,
The olde Proverbe saith doth make some fooles faine:
Be wise and precise, take warning by mee,
Trust not the Crocodile, least you do rue:
To womens faire wordes, do never agree:
For all is but lightie love, this is most true.

ANEXES SO daintie, Example may bee,
Whose lightie love caused young IPHIS his woe,
His true love was tryed by death, as you see,
Her lightie love forced the knight therunto:
For shame then refrayne you Ladies therefore,
The Cloudes they doo vanish, and light doth appeare:
You can not dissemble, nor hide it no more,
Your love is but lightie love, this is most cleare.

For Troylus tried the same over well,

In lovyng his Ladie, as Fame doth reporte:
And likewise Menander, as Stories doth tell,
Who swam the salt Seas, to his love, to resorte:
So true, that I rue, such lovers should lose
Their labour in seekyng their Ladies unkinde :
Whose love, thei did proove, as the Proverbe nowe goes
Even very lightie love, lodgde in their minde.

I touche no suche Ladies, as true love imbrace,
But suche as to lightie love dayly applie:
And none wyll be grieved, in this kinde of case,
Save suche as are minded, true love to denie:
Yet frendly and kindly, I shew you my minde,
Fayre Ladies I wish you, to use it no more,
But say what you list, thus I have definde,
That lightie love Ladies, you ought to abhore.

To trust womens wordes, in any respect,
The danger by mee right well it is seene:
And Love and his Lawes, who would not neglect,
The tryall whereof, moste peryllous beene:
Pretendyng, the endyng, if I have offended,

1 crave of you Ladies an Answere againe : Amende, and whats said,' shall soone be amended, If case that your lightie love, no longer do rayne.

Finis. By Leonard Gybson. Imprinted at LONDON, in the upper end of Fleet lane, by Richard Ihones: and are to be solde at his shop joyning to the South-West Dore of Saint Paules Church.