word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature.

MAR. He hath, indeed, almost natural: 9 for, befides that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller; and, but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarelling, 'tis thought among the prudent, he would quickly have the gift of a grave.

SIR TO. By this hand, they are scoundrels, and substractors, that say so of him. Who are they? MAR. They that add moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company.

SIR TO. With drinking healths to my niece; I'll drink to her, as long as there is a passage in my throat, and drink in Illyria: He's a coward, and a coyftril, that will not drink to my niece, till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top. What,

He hath indeed, almost natural:]

to regulate this passage differently :

I

He hath indeed, all, most natural,

Mr. Upton proposes

MALONE.

-a coyftril,] i. e. a coward cock. It may, however,

be a keystril, or a bastard hawk; a kind of stone-hawk. So, in Arden of Feversham, 1592: as dear

"As ever coyftril bought so little sport." STEEVENS. A coystril is a paltry groom, one only fit to carry arms, but not to use them. So, in Holinshed's Description of England, Vol. I. p. 162: "Costerels, or bearers of the armes of barons or knights." Vol. III. p. 248: "So that a knight with his esquire and coistrell with his two horses." P. 272 : "women lackies, and coifterels, are confidered as the unwarlike attendants on an army." So again, in p. 127, and 217 of his History of Scotland. For its etymology, see Coustille and Couftillier in Cotgrave's Dictionary. TOLLET.

2

- like a parish-top.] This is one of the customs now laid afide. A large top was formerly kept in every village, to be whipped in frosty weather, that the peasants may be kept warm by exercife, and out of mischief, while they could not

wench? Castiliano vulgo ;3 for here comes Sir Andrew Ague-face.

work. The fame comparison is brought forward in the Night Walker of Fletcher:

" And dances like a town-top, and reels and hobbles." STEEVENS.

"To fleep like a town-top," is a proverbial expreffion. A top is faid to fleep, when it turns round with great velocity, and makes a fmooth humming noise. BLACKSTONE.

3

- Caftiliano vulgo ;) We should read volto. In English, put on your Caftilian countenance; that is, your grave, folemn looks. WARBURTON.

Caftiliano vulgo ;) I meet with the word Castilian and Caftilians in several of the old comedies. It is difficult to affign any peculiar propriety to it, unless it was adopted immediately after the defeat of the Armada, and became a cant term capricioufly expreffive of jollity or contempt. The Hoft, in The Merry Wives of Windfor, calls Caius a Caftilian-king Urinal; and in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, one of the characters says: "Ha! my Caftilian dialogues!" In an old comedy called Look about you, 1600, it is joined with another toper's exclamation very frequent in Skakspeare :

" And Rivo will he cry, and Caftile too." So again, in Marlowe's Jew of Malta, 1633 : "Hey, Rivo Castiliano, man's a man."

Again, in The Stately Moral of the Three Lords of London, 1590:

"Three Cavaliero's Castilianos here," &c.

Cotgrave, however, informs us, that Caftille not only fignifies the nobleft part of Spain, but contention, debate, brabling, altercation. Ils font en Castille. There is a jarre betwixt them; and prendre la Caftille pour autruy: To undertake another man's quarrel. STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens has not attempted to explain vulgo, nor perhaps can the proper explanation be given, unless some incidental application of it may be found in connection with Castiliano, where the context defines its meaning. Sir Toby here, having just declared that he would perfist in drinking the health of his niece, as long as there was a passage in his throat, and drink in Illyria, at the fight of Sir Andrew, demands of Maria, with a banter, Caftiliano vulgo. What this was, may be probably inferred from a speech in The Shoemaker's Holiday, 4to, 1610: "-Away, firke, Scower thy throat, thou shalt wash it with Gastilian licuor." HENLEY.

Enter Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.

SIR AND. Sir Toby Belch! how now, Sir Toby

Belch?

SIR TO. Sweet fir Andrew!

SIR AND. Bless you, fair fhrew.

MAR. And you too, fir.

SIR TO. Accost, fir Andrew, accoft.4

SIR AND. What's that?

SIR To. My niece's chamber-maid.

SIR AND. Good mistress Accost, I defire better acquaintance.

MAR. My name is Mary, fir.

SIR AND. Good Mistress Mary Accoft, -

SIR To. You mistake, knight: accost, is, front her, board her,5 woo her, affail her.

4 Accost, fir Andrew, accost.] To accost, had a fignification in our author's time that the word now feems to have loft. In the second part of The English Dictionary, by H. C. 1655, in which the reader "who is defirous of a more refined and elegant speech," is furnished with hard words, " to draw near," is explained thus: "To accoft, appropriate, appropinquate.' See alfo Cotgrave's Dict. in verb. accofter. MALONE.

5

-board her,] "I hinted that bourd was the better reading. Mr. Steevens supposed it should then be bourd with her; but to the authorities which I have quoted for that reading in Jonfon, Catiline, Act I. sc. iv. we may add the following:

"I'll bourd him straight; how now Cornelio ?"

All Fools, Act V. fc. i. "He brings in a parafite that flowteth, and bourdeth them thus." Nash's Lenten Stuff, 1599. "I can bourd when I fee occafion."

'Tis Pity She's a Whore, p. 38. WHALLEY.

I am still unconvinced that board (the naval term) is not the proper reading. It is sufficiently familiar to our author in other places. So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor, Act II. fc. i:

SIR AND. By my troth, I would not undertake

her in this company.

Is that the meaning of

accoft ?

MAR. Fare you well, gentlemen.

SIR To. An thou let part so, fir Andrew, 'would

thou might'st never draw fword again.

SIR AND. An you part so, mistress, I would I

might never draw fword again.

think you have fools in hand?

Fair lady, do you

MAR. Sir, I have not you by the hand.

SIR AND. Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.

MAR. Now, fir, thought is free: 6 I pray you, bring your hand to the buttery-bar, and let it

drink.

SIR AND. Wherefore, sweet heart? what's your metaphor ?

"unless he knew some fstrain in me, that I know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.

"Mrs. Ford. Boarding, call you it? I'll be fure to keep him above deck," &c. &c. STEEVENS.

Probably board her may mean no more than falute her, Speak to her, &c. Sir Kenelm Digby, in his Treatise of Bodies, 1643, fo. Paris, p. 253, speaking of a blind man, says: "Не would at the first aboard of a stranger, as foone as he spoke to him, frame a right apprehenfion of his stature, bulke, and manner of making." REED.

To board is certainly to accost, or address. So, in the History of Celestina the Faire, 1596 : "-whereat Alderine fomewhat displeased for she would verie faine have knowne who he was, boorded him thus." RITSON.

6 Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand!

Mar. Now, fir, thought is free:) There is the fame pleafantry in Lyly's Euphues, 1581: "None (quoth she) can judge of wit but they that have it; why then (quoth he) doeft thou think me a fool? Thought is free, my Lord, quoth fhe." HOLT WHITE.

MAR. It's dry, fir.7

SIR AND. Why, I think so; I am not such an ass, but I can keep my hand dry. But what's your jeft?

MAR. A dry jeft, fir.

SIR AND. Are you full of them?

MAR. Ay, fir; I have them at my fingers' ends : marry, now I let go your hand, I am barren.

[Exit MARIA.

SIR TO. O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary: When did I fee thee so put down?

SIR AND. Never in your life, I think; unless you fee canary put me down: Methinks, sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian, or an ordinary man has: but I am a great eater of beef, and, I believe, that does harm to my wit.

It's dry, fir.] What is the jest of dry hand, I know not any better than Sir Andrew. It may possibly mean, a hand with no money in it; or, according to the rules of physiognomy, she may intend to infinuate, that it is not a lover's hand, a moift hand being vulgarly accounted a fign of an amorous conftitution. JOHNSON.

So, in Monfieur D'Olive, 1606: "But to say you had a dull eye, a sharp nose (the vifible marks of a shrew); a dry hand, which is the sign of a bad liver, as he said you were, being toward a husband too; this was intolerable."

Again, in Decker's Honest Whore, 1635: "Of all dry-fifted knights, I cannot abide that he should touch me." Again, in Westward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1606: "Let her marry a man of a melancholy complexion, she shall not be much troubled by him. My husband has a hand as dry as his brains," &c. The Chief Justice likewife, in The Second Part of K. Henry IV. enumerates a dry hand among the characteristicks of debility and age. Again, in Antony and Cleopatra, Charmian says: "-if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear." All these passages will serve to confirm Dr. Johnson's latter supposition. STEEVENS.