"Jetting Gill,
Jumping Will,
O'r the floore will have their measure;
Kit and Kate
There will waite,
Tib and Tom will take their pleasure."
Thomas Drant in his translation of Horace's Arte of poetrye, 1567, 4to, has Englished fricti ciceris et nucis emptor, by Tom and Tib, &c.; and in A satyr against Satyrs, or St. Peter's vision transubstantiated, 1680, 4to, are these lines:
"O' th same bead-string with fryar hang'd a nun,
What, would not you have Tib to follow Tom?"
Scene 3. Page 257.
Hel. To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress
Fall, when love please! marry to each, but one!
Mr. Tyrwhitt regards the latter exclamation as ludicrous, in consequence of Helena's limitation of one mistress to each lord, and would therefore give it to Parolles. Mr. Mason, on the contrary, is of opinion that the words but one, mean except one; that the person excepted is Bertram, whose mistress Helena hoped she herself should be; and that she makes the exception out of modesty, as otherwise it would extend to herself. Of these two opinions the first is the most probable, deriving considerable support from the one in the preceding line; for if Shakspeare had meant except one, he would have written "a fair and virtuous mistress." Helena's exception as stated by Mr. Mason might indeed have been made on the score of modesty so far as regarded her beauty; but she could not with propriety admit that she had no virtue.
Scene 3. Page 257.
Laf. I'd give bay Curtal.
Mr. Steevens should have added that this was a proper name for a horse, as well as an appellation for a dock'd one. "Their knavery is on this manner; they have always good geldings and trusty, which they can make curtailes when they list, and againe set too large tailes, hanging to the fetlockes at their pleasure."—Martin Marhall's apologie to the belman of London, 1610, sign. G. Curtail is not from cur and tail, as stated in some dictionaries, but from the French tailler court.