The practice of ladies shooting at deer in this passage alluded to, is of great antiquity, as may be collected from Strutt's Sports and pastimes of the people of England, p. 9. The old romances abound with such incidents; but one of the most diverting is recorded in The history of prince Arthur, part 3, chap. cxxiv. where a lady huntress wounds Sir Lancelot of the Lake, instead of a deer, in a manner most "comically tragical."
Scene 1. Page 246.
Cost. God-dig-you-den all.
"A corruption," says Mr. Malone very justly, "of God give you good even." Howel, at the end of his Parley of the beasts, has an advertisement relating to orthography, in which, after giving several examples that the French do not speak as they write, he observes that "the English come not short of him (the Frenchman); for whereas he writes, God give you good evening, he often saies, Godi, godin." But the whole of what Howel has said on this subject is unfairly pillaged from Claude de Sainliens, or, as he chose to call himself in this country, Hollyband; who after very successfully retorting a charge made by the English, that Frenchmen do not sound their words as they spell them, is nevertheless content to admit that his countrymen do sometimes err, as when they say avoo disné, for avez vous disné? See his treatise De pronuntiatione linguæ Gallicæ, Lond. 1580, 12mo, p. 81. This person was a teacher of languages in London, and wrote several ingenious works, among which is the first French and English dictionary, 1580, and 1593, 4to; afterwards much amplified by Randle Cotgrave, and by him rendered the best repertory of old French that is extant. It is in other respects an extremely valuable work.
Scene 1. Page 49.
Bovet. A phantasm, a Monarcho.
Another trait of this person's character is preserved in Scot's Discoverie of witchcraft, edit. 1584, p. 54, where, speaking of the influence of melancholy on the imagination, he says, "the Italian, whom we call here in England the Monarch, was possessed of the like spirit or conceipt." This conceit was, that all the ships which came into port belonged to him.
Scene 2. Page 526.
Enter Holofernes.
A part of Mr. Steevens's note requires the following correction:—Florio's First fruites were printed in 1578, 4to, by Thomas Dawson. In 1598 he dedicated his Italian and English dictionary to Roger Earl of Rutland, Henry Earl of Southampton, and Lucy Countess of Bedford. As to the edition of 1595, mentioned by Mr. Steevens, does it really exist, or has not too much confidence been placed in the elegant but inaccurate historian of English poetry? See vol. iii. p. 465, note (h).