Your betters have endur'd me say my mind;
And, if you cannot, best you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart;
Or else my heart, concealing it, will break:
And, rather than it shall, I will be free

Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.
Pet. Why, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap,
A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie:

9

I love thee well, in that thou lik'st it not.

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 see 't. O mercy, God! what masking stuff is here? What's this? a sleeve? 'tis like a demi-cannon: What! up and down, carv'd like an apple-tart? Here's snip, and nip, and cut, and slish, and slash, Like to a censer1 in a barber's shop:

9 A custard-coffin,] A coffin was the ancient culinary term for the raised crust of a pie or custard. So, in Ben Jonson's Staple of News:

if you spend

"The red deer pies in your house, or sell them forth, sir, "Cast so, that I may have their coffins all

"Return'd," &c.

Again, in Ben Jonson's Masque of Gypsies Metamorphosed:

"And coffin'd in crust, 'till now she was hoary."

Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair, has a similar term for a woman's cap: 66 for all her velvet custard on her head."

Steevens.

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.

1- 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. 99 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

Why, what, o' devil's name, tailor, callst thou this? Hor. I see, she 's like to have neither cap nor gown.

Tai. You bid me make it orderly and well, According to the fashion, and the time.

[Aside.

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:
I'll none of it; hence, make your best of it.
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,2

Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail,
Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter cricket thou:-
Brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread!
Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant;
Or I shall so be-mete thee3 with thy yard,
As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st!
I tell thee, I, that thou hast marr'd her gown.

Tai. Your worship is deceiv'd; the gown is made
Just as my master had direction:

Grumio gave order how it should be done.

2

Gru. I gave him no order, I gave him the stuff.
Tai. But how did you desire it should be made?
Gru. Marry, sir, with needle and thread.
Tai. But did you not request to have it cut?
Gru. Thou hast faced many things.*

-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.

3

-be-mete-] i. e. be-measure thee. Steevens.

Tai. I have.

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:

7

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.

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.

5 braved many men;] i. e. made many men fine. Bravery was the ancient term for elegance of dress. Steevens.

6 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.

7 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.

8

Reed.

- a small compass'd cape;] A compass'd cape is a round To compass is to come round. Johnson.

Gru. I confess two sleeves.
Tai. The sleeves curiously cut.
Pet. Ay, there's the villainy.

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 should'st know it.

Gru. I am for thee straight: take thou the bill,' give me thy mete-yard,1 and spare not me.

Hor. God-a-mercy, Grumio! then he shall have no odds..
Pet. Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.
Gru. You are i' the right, sir; 'tis for my mistress.
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?

Gru. O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for: Take up my mistress' gown to his master's use! O, fy, fy, fy!

Pet. Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor paid:

Go take it hence; be gone, and say no more.

[Aside.

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 Tai.
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:
For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;

And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit.
What, is the jay more precious than the lark,

• 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.

1

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.

Because his feathers are more beautiful?
Or is the adder better than the eel,
Because his painted skin contents the eye?
O, no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse
For this poor furniture, and mean array.
If thou account'st it shame, lay it on me:
And therefore, frolick; we will hence forthwith,
To feast and sport us at thy father's house.-
Go, call my men, and let us straight to him;
And bring our horses unto Long-lane end,
There will we mount, and thither walk on foot.-
Let's see; I think, 'tis now some seven o'clock,
And well we may come there by dinner time.
Kath. I dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two:
And 'twill be supper time, ere you come there.
Pet. It shall be seven, ere I go to horse:
Look, what I speak, or do, or think to do,
You are still crossing it.-Sirs, let 't alone:
I will not go to-day; and ere I do,

It shall be what o'clock I say it is.

Hor. Why, so! this gallant will command the sun,

SCENE IV.3

Padua. Before Baptista's House.

[Exeunt,

Enter TRANIO, and the Pedant dressed like VINCENTIO. Tra. Sir, this is the house; Please it you that I call?

2 Exeunt.] After this exeunt, the characters before whom the play is supposed to be exhibited, have been hitherto introduced from the original so often mentioned in the former notes.

"Lord. Who's within there?

66

"Enter Servants.

Asleep again! go take him easily up, and put him in his own apparel again. But see you wake him not in any case.