ADDENDA, &c.

Tempest, Vol. III. p. 7. n. 9.

-bring her to try with main course.]

This phrase occurs also in Smith's Sea-Grammar, 1627, 4o, under the article How to handle a ship in a storme. "Let us lie at Trie with our maine course; that is, to hale the tacke aboord, the sheat close aft, the boling set up, and the helme tied close aboord." p. 40. STEEVENS.

Tempest, Vol. III. p. 121.

Dele the whole of note 8. Broom groves is undoubtedly the true reading, and only wanted proper explanation.

Broom, in this place, signifies the Spartium scoparium, of which brooms are frequently made. Near Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire it grows high enough to conceal the tallest cattle as they pass through it; and in places where it is cultivated, still higher: a circumstance that had escaped my notice, till I was told of it by Professor Martin, whose name I am particularly happy to insert among those of other friends who have honoured and improved this work by their various communications. STEEVENS.

Gent. of Verona, Vol. III. p. 184, 1. 16, for Look, read, And. Ibid. p. 200, l. 12, for she made, read, she bath made. Ibid. p. 240, 1. 4, for therefore, read, thereof.

Merry Wives, &c. Vol. III. p. 381, n. 6.

up with your fights,] This passage may receive an additional and perhaps a somewhat different illustration from John Smith's Sea-Grammar, 4°. 1627. In page 58 he says, "But if you see your chase strip himself into fighting sailes, that is, to put out his colours in the poope,

end of his yards' arms, &c. provide yourself to fight." Again, p. 60. “Thus they use to strip themselves into their short sailes, or fighting sailes, which is only the fore sail, the maine and fore top sailes, because the rest should not be fired or spoiled; besides they would be troublesome to handle, hinder our sights and the using our armes : he makes ready his close fights fore and aft." In a former passage, p. 58, he has said that "a ship's close fights are small ledges of wood laid crosse one another, like the grates of iron in a prison's window, betwixt the maine mast and the fore mast, and are called gratings or nettings," &c.

Twelfth Night, Vol. IV. p. 139, n. 8.

STEEVENS.

Dr. Farmer would read fat instead of tall, the former of these epithets, in his opinion, being referable to the following words-a good bousekeeper. STEEVENS.

All's well, &c. Vol. VI. p. 187. Dele n. 4.

I have here been guilty of an oversight. The King of France's disorder is specified as follows in Painter's Translation from Boccaccio's Novel, on which this play was founded: "She heard by report that the French King had a swelling upon his breast, which by reason of ill cure, was growen into a fistula," &c.—There was consequently no ground for my former supposition. STEEVENS.

All's well, &c. Vol. VI. p. 275, add to n. 4.

I took this lark for a bunting.] This is a fine discrimination between the possessor of courage, and him that only has the appearance of it.

The bunting is in feather, size, and form, so like the sky-lark, as to require nice attention to discover the one from the other; it also ascends and sinks in the air nearly in the same manner: but it has little or no song, which gives estimation to the sky-lark. J. JOHNSON.

King Richard II. Vol. VIII. p. 188. To follow Dr. Farmer's note.

"And

Bacon elsewhere glances at the same transaction. "for your comparison with Richard II. I see you follow "the example of them that brought him upon the stage, "and into print in Queen Elizabeth's time." Works. Vol. IV. p. 278. The partizans of Essex had, therefore, procured the publication as well as the acting of this play. HOLT WHITE.

King Richard II. Vol. VIII. p. 330. n. 4.

Since the foregoing Note was printed off, I have satisfied. myself, that this ballad was written, not on the conspiracy against Henry IV. but on the death of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, who was taken and beheaded by the captain of a ship called Nicholas of the Tower, in May, 1450, when it appears to have been composed, and is consequently to be regarded as a satire upon the ministers or court party of that time. RITSON.

Troilus and Cressida, Vol. XI. p. 310.

Mr. Vaillant adds to n. 9. that Cotton dedicated his Treatise on Fishing to his father Walton; and that Ashmole in his Diary observes-" April 3. Mr. William Backhouse of Swallowfield in com. Berks, caused me to call him father thenceforward." STEEVENS.

Troilus and Cressida, Vol. XI. p. 388.

My sacred aunt.] It is remarkable that the Greeks give to the uncle the title of Sacred, 90s. Patruus avunculus πρὸς παῖρος θείος, Gaz. de Senec, patruus " πρὸς μητρὸς θείος, avunculus, Budæi Lexic.-90s is also used absolutely for To węòs walgos Delos, Euripid. Iphigen. Taurid. 1. 930.

Ιφι. Ἥ που νοσούνας θεῖος υβρισεν δόμους. And Xenoph. Κύρου maid. lib. 1. passim. VAILLANT.

elsewhere expressed, that this Play was not the entire composition of Shakspeare, to whom the Grecism before us was probably unknown. STEEVENS.

Romeo and Juliet, Vol. XIV. p. 427.

proves thee far and wide a broad goose.] To afford some meaning to this poor but intended witticism, Dr. Farmer would read-" proves thee far and wide abroad, goose." STEEVENS.

Romeo and Juliet, Vol. XIV. p. 541, add to n. 7.

By the Statutes of Trinity College, Cambridge, ch. 22. it is declared-That no batchelor or scholar shall go into the town without a companion as a witness of his honesty, on pain for the first offence to be deprived of a week's commons, with further punishment for the offence if repeated. REED.

DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER.

Shakspeare's House; to face p. 17, Vol. I.

The fac-simile of Shakspeare's hand-writing, with a label and seal, to face his Mortgage, Vol. I. p. 89.

The fac-simile of the hand-writing of Shakspeare and the witnesses to his will, to face p. 101, Vol. I.

The Morris-dancers to be placed at the end of Vol. VIII.

IT feems to be a kind of refpect due to the memory of excellent men, efpecially of those whom their wit and learning have made famous, to deliver fome account of themselves, as well as their works, to pofterity. For this reafon, how fond do we fee fome people of difcovering any little perfonal story of the great men of antiquity! their families, the common accidents of their lives, and even their shape, make, and features, have been the subject of critical inquiries. How trifling foever this curiofity may seem to be, it is certainly very natural; and we are hardly fatisfied with an account of any remarkable perfon, till we have heard him defcribed even to the very cloaths he wears. As for what relates to men of letters, the knowledge of an author may fometimes conduce to the better underftanding his book; and though the works of Mr. Shakspeare may feem to many not to want a comment, yet I fancy fome little account of the man himself may not be thought improper to go along with them.

He was the fon of Mr. John Shakspeare, and was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire, in April 1564. His family, as appears by the register