. 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:-Come, tailor, let us O mercy, God! what masking stuff is here? Why, what, o'devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this? 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: 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. $ 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. note on King Henry IV. P. II. Act V. sc. iv. STEEVENS. See KATH. I never saw a better-fashion'd gown, More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable: 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, thou thread, Thou thimble,9 Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail, TAI. Your worship is deceiv'd; the GRU. I gave him no order, I gave him the stuff. 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. 1 be-mete-] i. e. be-measure thee. STEEVENS. GRU. Thou hast faced many things." 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 :* ergo, thou liest. TAI. Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify. PET. Read it. GRU. The note lies in his throat, if he say I said so. 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. -faced many things.] i. e. turned up many gowns, &c. with facings, &c. So, in King Henry IV: "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. 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. - 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 loosebodied gown, wench, and let it go." STEEVENS. See Dodsley's Old Plays, Vol. III. p. 479, edit. 1780. REED. 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. 6 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. TAI. This is true, that I say; an I had thee in place where, thou shoud'st know it. GRU. I am for thee straight: take thou the bill," give me thy mete-yard, and spare not me. - a small compassed cape ;] A compassed cape is a round cape. 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 in Vol. II: "3 of June 1594. Lent, upon a womanes gowne of villet in grayne, with a velvet cape imbroidered with bugelles, for xxxvi s." MALONE. 7. 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. 8 thy 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 "Shall mete thy grave out." STEevens. HOR. God-a-mercy, Grumio! then he shall have no odds. PET. Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me. tress. 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? Take up my mistress' gown to his master's use! 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: |