act ii. sc. 4.

[204] _i.e._, Be placed at the bottom of them, and act as the sole to the shoe.--_Steevens._

[205] The old copy has it, _Enter Have-at-all_; but it is an obvious error of the press.--_Collier._

[206] See note to "The Antiquary" [act i., sc. 1, vol. 13].

[207] A term anciently used in salutation, or rather in drinking. See Selden's notes on the ninth song of Drayton's "Polyolbion," and [Steevens's] notes on "Macbeth," act i. sc. 7, for a particular account of the origin of this phrase.--_Steevens._

[208] [A term in fencing.]

[209] [Cartwright's adoption of the English of a period of which he was evidently very ignorant, has made his character of "The Antiquary" a very tedious and troublesome one. By _intermete_ we are here to understand _intermit_; but there is no such word in early English. _Intermit_ occurs in Coleridge's "Glossary," 1859.]

[210] To do.

[211] [Old copy, _paynant_.]

[212] _Morglay_ was the sword of Bevis of Southampton. It afterwards became a cant word for a sword in general. See "Every Man in his Humour," Act iii. so. 1; also "Every Woman in her Humour," 1609, sig. D 4--

"Had I been accompanied with my toledo or _morglay_."

[213] Pity.

[214] _Now_ complete. The passage requires this explanation, or poor Moth's argument seems to want force, his present hopes being founded on a supposition that all possible discoveries to be made by beating have been already made.

[215] Moth here seems to allude to the following circumstance in the English History: "But uppon the morne followynge, both hostes joyned agayne, and fought egerly: contynuyng whych fyghte, Edrycus espying Edmunde to be at advauntage of wynnyng of the feld, sodaynly pyght a dead mannes hed upon a speare head, and cryed to the host of Englyshmen, _fle, fle, ye Englyshmen, and save youre selfes, lo here is the heade of Edmunde your kinge_."--Fabyan's "Chronicle."

[216] Verstegan, in his "Restitution of Decayed Intelligence," 1634, p. 130, gives the following account of this transaction:--"King Hingistus prepared them a feast; and after the Brittains were well whitled with wine, he fell to taunting and girning at them; whereupon blowes ensued; and the Brittish nobility there present, being in all three hundreth, were all of them slaine; as William of Malmesbury reporteth: though others make the number more, and say that the Saxons had each of them a _seax_ (a kind of crooked knife) closely in his pocket, and that at the watch-word, _Nem cowr seaxes_, which is, _take your seaxes_, they suddainely, and at unwares, slew the Brittaines."

[217] Care not.

[218] Gift.

[219] In spite of.

[220] Always.

[221] A lively spark.

[222] [Old copy, _syren_.] So in "Timon of Athens," act iv. sc. 3--

"The _tub_-fast and the diet."

See a note on that passage, Shakespeare, viii. 409, edit. 1778.--_Steevens._

[223] [Old copy repeats _taking_ after _of_, as it appears, erroneously, since it spoils the sense, and is not essential to the metre, such metre as it is! _By my swear_, by my oath: it is an unusual phrase, but occurs again just below.]

[224] John Dod, a learned and pious divine, born in Cheshire, educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, and afterwards successively minister of Hanwell, Oxfordshire, Fenny Drayton, Leicestershire, Canons Ashby and Fawsley in Northamptonshire, though for a time silenced in each of them. He is commonly called the _Decalogist_, having with Robert Cleaver, another Puritan, written "An Exposition on the Ten Commandments." He died at Fawsley in 1645, aged about ninety years. [For whatever the preceding account may be worth it is retained; but _Dod's blessing_ seems to be merely a whimsical corruption of _God's blessing_.]

[225] This was John Knox, the celebrated reformer in Scotland. See his character in Robertson's "History of Scotland," i. 130.