march about the stage, and serving men come forth with their napkins.

STEEVENS

579. This scene is added since the first copy.

STEEVENS. 580. -he shift a trencher, &c.] Trenchers were still used by persons of good fashion in our author's time. In the household book of the earls of Northumberland, compiled at the beginning of the same century, it appears that they were common to the tables of the first nobility. PERCY.

They continued common much longer in many publick societies, particularly in colleges and inns of court; and are still retained at Lincoln's-Inn.

NICHOLS. On the books of the Stationers-Company, in the year 1554, is the following entry: "Item, payd for x dosyn of trenchers, xxì d." STEEVENS.

585. -court-cupboard.-] I am not very certain that I know the exact signification of court-cupboard. Perhaps it is what we call at present the side-board. It is, however, frequently mentioned in the old plays. So, in Chapman's May-Day, 1611:

"Court-cupboards planted with flaggons, cans, cups, beakers," &c.

Two of these court-cupboards are still in StationersHall. STEEVENS.

The use which to this day is made of those cupboards is exactly described in the above-quoted line of Chapman; to display at publick festivals the flaggons, cans, cups, beakers, and other antique silver

vessels

vessels of the company, some of which (with the names of the donors inscribed on them) are remark. ably large. NICHOLS.

586. -save me a piece of march-pane ;-] Marchpane was a confection made of pistachio-nuts, almonds, and sugar, &c. and in high esteem in Shakspere's time; as appears from the account of Queen Elizabeth's entertainment in Cambridge. It is said that the university presented Sir William Cecil, their chancellor, with two pair of gloves, a march-pane, and two sugar-loaves.

Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, Vol. II. p. 29.

GREY. March-pane was a kind of sweet bread or biscuit; called by some almond-cake. Hermolaus Barbarus terms it mazapanis, vulgarly Martius panis G. macepain and massepain, It. marsapane, il macapan. B. marcepeyn, i. e. massa pura. But, as few understood the.. meaning of this term, it began to be generally, though corruptly, called massepeyn, marcepeyn, martsepeyn; and in consequence of this mistake of theirs, it soon took the name of martius panis, an appellation transferred afterwards into other languages. See Junius.

HAWKINS.

March-pane was a constant article in the deserts of our ancestors. So, in Acolastus, a comedy, 1540: "-seeing that the issue of the table, fruits and cheese, or wafers hypocras, and marchpanes or comfytures, be brought in." See Dugdale's Orig. Jurid. p. 133.

In the year 1560, I find the following entry on the books of the Stationers-Company: "Item, payd for ix marshe paynes, xxvis. viiid.” STEEVENS.

603. You're welcome, gentlemen. -] These two lines, omitted by the modern editors, I have replaced fro the folio. JOHNSON.

604. A hall! a hall!] Such is the old reading, and the true one, though the modern editors read, A ball! a ball! The former exclamation occurs frequently in the old comedies, and signifies, make room. So, in the comedy of Doctor Dodypoll, 1600: "Room! room! a hall! a hall!"

Again, in Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub: "Then cry, a hall! a hall!"

Again, in an Epithalamium, by Christopher Brooke, published at the end of England's Helicon, 1614:

"Cry not, a hall, a hall; but chamber-roome : "Dancing is lame," &c. And numberless other passages. STEEVENS. 608. good cousin Capulet,] This cousin Capulet is uncle in the paper of invitation; but as Capulet is described as old, cousin is probably the right word in both places. I know not how Capulet and his lady might agree, their ages were very disproportionate; he has been past masking for thirty years, and her age, as she tells Juliet, is but eight-and-twenty.

JOHNSON. Cousin was a common expression from one kinsman to another, out of the degree of parent and child, brother

brother and sister. Thus in Hamlet, the king his uncle and stepfather addresses him with

"But now my cousin Hamlet and my son.” And in this very play, act iii. lady Capulet says: "Tybalt my cousin !—O my brother's child.”

So, in As You Like It:

"Ros. Me uncle?

"Duke. You cousin!"

And Olivia, in Twelfth Night, constantly calls her uncle Toby cousin.

REMARKS. 609. -our dancing days:] Thus the folio: the quarto reads, “ our standing days.”.

STEEVENS.

619. will you tell me, &c.] This speech stands thus in the first copy:

Will you tell me that it cannot be so ?

His son was but a ward three years ago;

Good youths i'faith !—Oh, youth's a jolly thing!" There are many trifling variations in almost every speech of this play; but when they are of little consequence I have forborne to encumber the page by the insertion of them. The last, however, of these three lines is natural, and worth preserving.

STEEVENS. 621. What lady's that, which doth enrich the hand Of yonder knight?] Here is another proof that our author had the poem, and not Painter's Novel, in his mind. In the latter we are told—“ A certain lord of that troupe took Juliet by the hand to dance."

In the poem of Romeus and Juliet, as in the play, her partner is a knight:

"With torch in hand a comely knight did fetch

her forth to dance."

MALONE.

625. cheek of night] Shakspere has the same thought in his 27th Sonnet:

"Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,

"Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new."

The quartos, 1597, 1599, 1609, 1637, and the folio, 1623, read,

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night.

It is to the folio, 1632, that we are indebted for the present reading; but I know not that it is the true STEEVENS. 626. Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear:] So, in Lilly's Euphues:

one.

"A fair pearl in a Morian's ear."

T. H. W.

633. For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.] Thus

verb is common to our old writers.

So, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, Book X.

chap. 59.

"his countermand should have contraried

So."