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Will you buy any tape,

Or lace for your cape,

My dainty duck, my dear-a?

Any silk, any thread,

Any toys for your head,

Of the new'st, and fin'st, fin'st wear-a?

Come to the pedler;

Money's a medler,

That doth utter all men's ware-a.

9

[Exeunt Clown, AUTOLYCUS, DORCAS,

and MOPSA.

Enter a Servant.

SERV. Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, 'that have

That doth utter all men's ware-a.] To utter. To bring out, or produce. JOHNSON.

To utter is a legal phrase often made use of in law proceedings and Acts of Parliament, and signifies to vend by retail. From many instances I shall select the first which occurs. Stat. 21 Jac. I. c. 3, declares that the provisions therein contained shall not prejudice certain letters patent or commission granted to a corporation " concerning the licensing of the keeping of any tavern or taverns, or selling, uttering, or retailing of wines to be drunk or spent in the mansion-house of the party so selling or uttering the sam

same." REED.

See Minshieu's DICT. 1617: "An utterance, or sale."

MALONE.

Master, there are three carters, three shepherds, three neatherds, and three swine-herds,] Thus all the printed copies hitherto. Now, in two speeches after this, these are called four threes of herdsmen. But could the carters properly be called herdsmen? At least, they have not the final syllable, herd, in their names; which, I believe, Shakspeare intended all the four threes should have. I therefore guess he wrote: - Master, there are three goat-herds, &c. And so, I think, we take in the four species of cattle usually tended by herdsmen. THEOBALD.

made themselves all men of hair; they call them

2

all men of hair;] Men of hair, are hairy men, or satyrs. A dance of satyrs was no unusual entertainment in the middle ages. At a great festival celebrated in France, the king and some of the nobles personated satyrs dressed in close habits, tufted or shagged all over, to imitate hair. They began a wild dance, and in the tumult of their merriment one of them went too near a candle and set fire to his satyr's garb, the flame ran instantly over the loose tufts, and spread itself to the dress of those that were next him; a great number of the dancers were cruelly scorched, being neither able to throw off their coats nor extinguish them. The king had set himself in the lap of the dutchess of Burgundy, who threw her robe over him and saved him. JOHNSON.

The curious reader, who wishes for more exact information relative to the foregoing occurrence in the year 1392, may consult the translation of Froissart's Chronicle, by Johan Bourchier knyght, lorde Berners, &c. 1525, Vol. II. сар. С.xcii. fo. CCxliii: "Of the aduenture of a daunce that was made at Parys in lykenesse of wodehowses, wherein the Frenche kynge was in parell of dethe." STEEVENS.

Melvil's Memoirs, p. 152, edit. 1735, bear additional testimony to the prevalence of this species of mummery:

"During their abode, [that of the embassadors who assembled to congratulate Mary Queen of Scots on the birth of her son,] at Stirling, there was daily banqueting, dancing, and triumph. And at the principal banquet there fell out a great grudge among the Englishmen: for a Frenchman called Bastian devised a number of men formed like satyrs, with long tails, and whips in their hands, running before the meat, which was brought through the great hall upon a machine or engine, marching as appeared alone, with musicians clothed like maids, singing, and playing upon all sorts of instruments. But the satyrs were not content only to make way or room, but put their hands behind them to their tails, which they wagged with their hands in such sort, as the Englishmen supposed it had been devised and done in derision of them; weakly apprehending that which they should not have appeared to understand. For Mr. Hatton, Mr. Lignish, and the most part of the gentlemen desired to sup before the queen and great banquet, that they might see the better the order and ceremonies of the triumph: but so soon as they perceived the satyrs wagging their tails, they all sat down upon the bare floor behind the back of the table, that they might not see themselves derided, as they thought. Mr. Hatton said unto me, if it were not in the queen's presence, he would put a dagger to the heart of that French knave Bastian, who he alledged had done it out of despight that the queen made more of them than of the Frenchmen." REED.

The following copy of an illumination in a fine MS. of Froissart's Chronicle, preserved in the British Museum, will serve to illustrate Dr. Johnson's note, and to convey some idea, not only of the manner in which these hairy men were habited, but also of the rude simplicity of an ancient Ball-room and Masquerade. See the story at large in Froissart, B. IV. chap. lii. edit. 1559. DOUCE.

[graphic]

selves saltiers: and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in't; but they themselves are o'the mind, (if it be not too rough for some, that know little but bowling,) it will please plentifully.

SHEP. Away! we'll none on't; here has been too much humble foolery already :- I know, sir, we weary you.

POL. You weary those that refresh us: Pray, let's see these four threes of herdsmen.

SERV. One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the king; and not the worst of the three, but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squire.

SHEP. Leave your prating; since these good men are pleased, let them come in; but quickly now.

they call themselves saltiers:] He means Satyrs. Their dress was perhaps made of goat's skin. Cervantes mentions in the preface to his plays that in the time of an early Spanish writer, Lopè de Rueda, "All the furniture and utensils of the actors consisted of four shepherds' jerkins, made of the skins of sheep with the wool on, and adorned with gilt leather trimming: four beards and periwigs, and four pastoral crooks;little more or less." Probably a similar shepherd's jerkin was used in our author's theatre. MALONE.

4

-gallimaufry-] Cockeram, in his Dictionarie of hard Words, 12mo. 1622, says, a gallimaufry is " a confused heape of things together." STEEVENS.

-bowling, Bowling, I believe, is here a term for a dance of smooth motion, without great exertion of agility.

JOHNSON.

The allusion is not to a smooth dance, as Johnson supposes, but to the smoothness of a bowling green. M. MASON.

by the squire.] i. e. by the foot-rule: Esquierre, Fr. See Love's Labour's Lost, Vol. VII. p. 177, n. 2. MALONE.

SERV. Why, they stay at door, sir.

[Exit.

Re-enter Servant, with Twelve Rusticks habited like Satyrs. They dance, and then exeunt.

POL. O, father, you'll know more of that hereafter.

Is it not too far gone? - 'Tis time to part them.He's simple, and tells much. [Aside.]-How now,

fair shepherd?

Your heart is full of something, that does take
Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young,
And handed love, as you do, I was wont
To load my she with knacks: I would have ransack'd
The pedler's silken treasury, and have pour'd it
To her acceptance; you have let him go,
And nothing marted with him: If your lass
Interpretation should abuse; and call this,
Your lack of love, or bounty; you were straited
For a reply, at least, if you make a care

Of happy holding her.

FLO.

Old sir, I know

Pol. O, father, you'll know more of that hereafter.] This is replied by the King in answer to the Shepherd's saying, since these good men are pleased. WARBURTON.

The dance which has intervened would take up too much time to preserve any connection between the two speeches. The line spoken by the King seems to be in reply to some unexpressed question from the old Shepherd. RITSON.

This is an answer to something which the Shepherd is supposed to have said to Polixenes during the dance. M. MASON.

*straited-] i. e. put to difficulties. STEEVENS.

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