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tience; throw cold water on thy choler:" go about the fields with me through Frogmore; I will bring thee where mistress Anne Page is, at a farm-house a feasting; and thou shall woo her: Cry'd game, said I well??

throw cold water on thy choler:] So, in Hamlet: "Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper

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Sprinkle cool patience." STEEVens.

cry'd game, said I well?] Mr. Theobald alters this nonsense to try'd game; that is, to nonsense of a worse complexion. Shakspeare wrote and pointed thus, CRY AIM, said I well? i. e. consent to it, approve of it. Have not I made a good proposal? for to cry aim signifies to consent to, or approve of any thing. So, again in this play: And to these violent proceedings all my neighbours shall CRY AIM, i. e. approve them. And again, in King John, Act II. sc. ii:

"It ill becomes this presence to cry aim
"To these ill-tuned repetitions."

i. e. to approve of, or encourage them. The phrase was taken, originally, from archery. When any one had challenged another to shoot at the butts, (the perpetual diversion, as well as exercise, of that time,) the standers-by used to say one to the other, Cry aim, i. e. accept the challenge. Thus Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Fair Maid of the Inn, Act V. make the Duke say:

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must I cry AIME

"To this unheard of insolence?"

i. e. encourage it, and agree to the request of the duel, which one of his subjects had insolently demanded against the other.But here it is remarkable, that the senseless editors, not knowing what to make of the phrase, Cry aim, read it thus:

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must I cry AI-ME;"

as if it was a note of interjection. So again, Massinger, in his Guardian:

"I will CRY AIM, and in another room

"Determine of my vengeance."

And again, in his Renegado:

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"to play the pander

"To the viceroy's loose embraces, and cry aim,
"While he by force or flattery," &c.

But the Oxford editor transforms it to Cock o' the Game; and his improvements of Shakspeare's language abound with these

CAIUS. By gar, me tank you for dat: by gar, I love you; and I shall procure-a you de good guest,

modern elegances of speech, such as mynheers, bull-baitings, &c. WARBurton.

Dr. Warburton is right in his explanation of cry aim, and in supposing that the phrase was taken from archery; but is certainly wrong in the particular practice which he assigns for the original of it. It seems to have been the office of the aim-crier, to give notice to the archer when he was within a proper distance of his mark, or in a direct line with it, and to point out why he failed to strike it. So, in All's lost by Lust, 1633:

"He gives me aim, I am three bows too short;
"I'll come up nearer next time.”

Again, in Vittoria Corombona, 1612:

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"I'll give aim to you,

"And tell how near you shoot."

Again, in The Spanish Gipsie, by Rowley and Middleton, 1653: "Though I am no great mark in respect of a huge butt, yet I can tell you, great bobbers have shot at me, and shot golden arrows; but I myself gave aim, thus:-wide, four bows; short, three and a half;" &c. Again, in Green's Tu Quoque, (no date) "We'll stand by, and give aim, and holoo if you hit the clout." Again, in Jarvis Markham's English Arcadia, 1607: "Thou smiling aim-crier at princes' fall." Again, ibid. "while her own creatures, like aim criers, beheld her mischance with nothing but lip-pity." In Ames's Typographical Antiquities, p. 402, a book is mentioned, called "Ayme for Finsburie Archers, or an Alphabetical Table of the name of every Mark in the same Fields, with their true Distances, both by the Map and the Dimensuration of the Line, &c. 1594." Shakspeare uses the phrase again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, scene the last, where it undoubtedly means to encourage:

"Behold her that gave aim to all thy vows."

So, in The Palsgrave, by W. Smith, 1615:

"Shame to us all, if we give aim to that."

Again, in The Revenger's Tragedy, 1607:

"A mother to give aim to her own daughter!"

Again, in Fenton's Tragical Discourses, bl. I. 1567: "Standyng rather in his window to-crye ayme, than helpyng any waye to part the fraye," p. 165. b.

The original and literal meaning of this expression may be ascertained from some of the foregoing examples, and its figurative one from the rest; for, as Dr. Warburton observes, it can

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de earl, de knight, de lords, de gentlemen, my patients.

HOST. For the which, I will be thy adversary towards Anne Page; said I well?

CAIUS. By gar, 'tis good; vell said.

HOST. Let us wag then.

CAIUS. Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.

[Exeunt.

mean nothing in these latter instances, but to consent to, approve, or encourage. It is not, however, the reading of Shakspeare in passage before us, and, therefore, we must strive to produce some sense from the words which we find there--cry'd game.

the

We yet say, in colloquial language, that such a one is-game -or game to the back. There is surely no need of blaming Theobald's emendation with such severity. Cry'd game might mean, in those days,—a professed buck, one who was as well known by the report of his gallantry, as he could have been by proclamation. Thus, in Troilus and Cressida:

"On whose bright crest, fame, with her loud'st O-yes, "Cries, this is he."

Again, in All's well that ends well, Act II. sc. i:

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find what you seek,

"That fame may cry you loud."

Again, in Ford's Lover's Melancholy, 1629:

"A gull, an arrant gull by proclamation."

Again, in King Lear: "A proclaimed prize." Again, in Troilus and Cressida:

"Thou art proclaimed a fool, I think."

Cock of the Game, however, is not, as Dr. Warburton pronounces it, a modern elegancy of speech, for it is found in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. XII. c. 74: "This cocke of game, and (as might seeme) this hen of that same fether." Again, in The Martial Maid, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "O craven chicken of a cock o' th' game!"

And in many other places. STEEVENS.

ACT III. SCENE I.

A Field near Frogmore.

Enter Sir HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE.

EVA. I pray you now, good master Slender's serving-man, and friend Simple by your name, which way have you looked for master Caius, that calls himself Doctor of Physick?

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SIM. Marry, sir, the city-ward, the park-ward, every way; old Windsor way, and every way but the town way.

EVA. I most fehemently desire you, you will also look that way.

SIM. I will, sir.

EVA. 'Pless my soul! how full of cholers I am, and trempling of mind!—I shall be glad, if he have deceived me:-how melancholies I am!-I will knog his urinals about his knave's costard, when I have good opportunities for the 'ork:'pless my soul! [Sings.

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the city-ward,] The old editions read-the Pittieward, the modern editors the Pitty-wary. There is now no place that answers to either name at Windsor. The author might possibly have written (as I have printed) the City-ward, i. e. towards London.

In the Itinerarium, however, of William de Worcestre, p. 251, the following account of distances in the city of Bristol occurs: "Via de Pyttey a Pyttey-yate, porta vocata Nether Pittey, usque antiquam portam Pyttey usque viam ducentem ad Wynch-strete continet 140 gressus," &c. &c. The word-Pittey, therefore, which seems unintelligible to us, might anciently have had an obvious meaning. STEEVENS.

To shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals;

• To shallow rivers, &c.] This is part of a beautiful little poem of the author's; which poem, and the answer to it, the reader will not be displeased to find here.

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.

"Come live with me, and be my love,
"And we will all the pleasures prove
"That hills and vallies, dale and field,
"And all the craggy mountains yield.
"There will we sit upon the rocks,
"And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
"By shallow rivers, to whose falls
"Melodious birds sing madrigals:
"There will I make thee beds of roses
"With a thousand fragrant posies,
"A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
"Imbroider'd all with leaves of myrtle;
"A gown made of the finest wool,
"Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
"Fair lined slippers for the cold,
"With buckles of the purest gold;

"A belt of straw,

and ivy

buds,

"With coral clasps, and amber studs:
"And if these pleasures may thee move,
"Come live with me, and be my love.

"Thy silver dishes for thy meat,

"As precious as the gods do eat,

"Shall on an ivory table be

"Prepared each day for thee and me.
"The shepherd swains shall dance and sing,
"For thy delight each May morning:
"If these delights thy mind may move,
"Then live with me, and be my love."*

THE NYMPH'S REPLY TO THE SHEPHERD.

"If that the world and love were young, "And truth in every shepherd's tongue,

The conclusion of this and the following poem seem to have furnished Milton with the hint for the last lines both of his Allegro and Penseroso.

STEEVENS.

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