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QUICK. HOW say you?-O, I should remember him; Does he not hold up his head, as it were? and strut in his gait?

SIM. Yes, indeed, does he.

QUICK. Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell master parson Evans, I will do what I can for your master: Anne is a good girl, and I wish

Re-enter RUGBY.

RUG. Out, alas! here comes my master.

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QUICK. We shall all be shent: Run in here, good young man; go into this closet. [Shuts SIMPLE in the closet.] He will not stay long.-What, John Rugby! John, what, John, I say!-Go, John,

Whatever be the origin of this phrase, it is very ancient, being used by Gower:

"A worthie knight was of his honde,
"There was none suche in all the londe."

De Confessione Amantis, lib. v. fol. 118. b.
STEEVENS.

The tall man of the old dramatick writers, was a man of a bold, intrepid disposition, and inclined to quarrel; such as is described by Steevens in the second scene of the third act of this play. M. MASON.

"A tall man of his hands" sometimes meant quick-handed, active; and as Simple is here commending his master for his gymnastick abilities, perhaps the phrase is here used in that sense. See Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598, in v. "Manesco. Nimble or quick-handed; a tall man of his hands." MALONE. We shall all be shent:] i. e. Scolded, roughly treated. So, in the old Interlude of Nature, bl. I. no date: I can tell thee one thyng, "In fayth you wyll be shent.

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Again, in Chapman's version of the twenty-third book of Homer's Odyssey:

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- such acts still were shent,

"As simply in themselves, as in th' event." STEEVENS.

go enquire for my master; I doubt, he be not well, that he comes not home:—and down, down, adown-a, &c. [Sings.

Enter Doctor CAIUS."

CAIUS. Vat is you sing? I do not like dese toys; Pray you, go and vetch me in my closet un boitier verd; a box, a green-a box; Do intend vat I speak? a green-a box.

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6- and down, down, adown-a, &c.] To deceive her master, she sings as if at her work. SIR J. HAWKINS.

This appears to have been the burden of some song then well known. In Every Woman in her Humour, 1609, sign. E 1, one of the characters says, "Hey good boies! i'faith now a three man's song, or the old downe adowne: well, things must be as they may; fil's the other quart: muskadine with an egg is fine; there's a time for all things, bonos nochios." REED.

7 Enter Doctor Caius.] It has been thought strange that our author should take the name of Caius [an eminent physician who flourished in the reign of Elizabeth, and founder of Caius College in our university] for his Frenchman in this comedy; but Shakspeare was little acquainted with literary history; and without doubt, from this unusual name, supposed him to have been a foreign quack. Add to this, that the doctor was handed down as a kind of Rosicrucian: Mr. Ames had in MS. one of the "Secret Writings of Dr. Caius." FARMER.

This character of Dr. Caius might have been drawn from the life; as in Jacke of Dover's Quest of Enquirie, 1604, (perhaps a republication,) a story called The Foole of Winsor begins thus: Upon a time there was in Winsor a certain simple outlandishe doctor of physicke belonging to the deane," &c. STEEVENS.

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un boitier verd;] Boitier in French signifies a case of surgeon's instruments. GREY.

I believe it rather means a box of salve, or case to hold simples, for which Caius professes to seek. The same word, somewhat curtailed, is used by Chaucer, in The Pardoneres Prologue,

v. 12,241:

"And every boist ful of thy letuarie.”

QUICK. Ay, forsooth, I'll fetch it you. I am glad he went not in himself: if he had found the young man, he would have been horn-mad. [Aside.

CAIUS. Fe, fe fe, fe! ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je m'en vais à la Cour,-la grand affaire.

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QUICK. Is it this, sir?

CAIUS. Ouy; mette le au mon pocket; Depeche, quickly:-Vere is dat knave Rugby?

QUICK. What, John Rugby! John!

RUG. Here, sir.

CAIUS. You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby: Come, take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to de court.

RUG. 'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.

CAIUS. By my trot, I tarry too long:-Od's me! Qu'ay j'oublié ? dere is some simples in my closet, dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind.

QUICK. Ah me! he'll find the young man there, and be mad.

CAIUS. O diable! diable! vat is in my closet?— Villainy! larron! [Pulling SIMPLE out.] Rugby, my rapier.

QUICK. Good master, be content.

CAIUS. Verefore shall I be content-a?

QUICK. The young man is an honest man.

CAIUS. Vat shall the honest man do in my closet? dere is no honest man dat shall come in my closet.

Again, in The Skynners' Play, in the Chester Collection of Mysteries, MS. Harl. p. 149, Mary Magdalen says:

"To balme his bodye that is so brighte,

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Boyste here have I brought." STEEVENS.

QUICK. I beseech

you, be not so flegmatick; hear the truth of it: He came of an errand to me from parson Hugh.

CAIUS. Vell.

SIM. Ay, forsooth, to desire her to

QUICK. Peace, I pray you.

CAIUS. Peace-a your tongue :-Speak-a your tale. SIM. To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to speak a good word to mistress Anne Page for my master, in the way of marriage.

QUICK. This is all, indeed, la; but I'll ne'er put my finger in the fire, and need not.

CAIUS. Sir Hugh send-a you?-Rugby, baillez me some paper: Tarry you a little-a while. [Writes.

QUICK. I am glad he is so quiet: if he had been thoroughly moved, you should have heard him so loud, and so melancholy;-But notwithstanding, man, I'll do your master what good I can : and the very yea and the no is, the French Doctor, my master,--I may call him my master, look you, for I keep his house; and I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat and drink, make the beds, and do all myself;

SIM. 'Tis a great charge, to come under one body's hand.

QUICK. Are you avis'd o'that? you shall find it a great charge: and to be up early and down late; --but notwithstanding, (to tell you in your ear; I

9 dress meat and drink,] Dr. Warburton thought the word drink ought to be expunged; but by drink Dame Quickly might have intended potage and soup, of which her master may be supposed to have been as fond as the rest of his countrymen. Malone.

would have no words of it;) my master himself is in love with mistress Anne Page: but notwithstanding that, I know Anne's mind,-that's neither here nor there.

CAIUS. You jack'nape; give-a dis letter to Sir Hugh: by gar, it is a shallenge: I vill cut his troat in de park; and I vill teach a scurvy jack-a-nape priest to meddle or make:-you may be gone; it is not good you tarry here:-by gar, I vill cut all his two stones; by gar, he shall not have a stone to trow at his dog. [Exit SIMPLE. QUICK. Alas, he speaks but for his friend.

CAIUS. It is no matter-a for dat:-do not you tell-a me dat I shall have Anne Page for myself?by gar, I vill kill de Jack priest; and I have appointed mine host of de Jarterre to measure our weapon:-by gar, I vill myself have Anne Page.

QUICK. Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well: we must give folks leave to prate: What, the good-jer!2

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CAIUS. Rugby, come to the court vit me ;-By

de Jack priest;] Jack, in our author's time, was a term of contempt: "So, saucy Jack," &c. See K. Henry IV. P. I. Act III. sc. iii: "The prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup ;" and Much Ado about Nothing, Act I. sc. i: "do you play the flouting Jack?" MALONE.

2 What, the good-jer!] She means to say-" the goujere," i. e. morbus Gallicus. So, in K. Lear:

"The goujeres shall devour them.”

See Hanmer's note, King Lear, Act V. sc. iii., STEEVENS.

Mrs. Quickly scarcely ever pronounces a hard word rightly. Good-jer and Good-year were in our author's time common corruptions of goujere; and in the books of that age the word is as often written one way as the other. MALONE.

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