Simp. Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of Brentford?
Mr. Steevens cites Judges v. 29, on this occasion: but the wise ladies there were of a very different character from the old woman of Brentford, even according to the Hebrew text: see the Vulgate and Septuagint versions, where the expression is still more remote. The subject of these wise women will be resumed in a note on Twelfth night, Act III. Scene 4.
ACT V.
Scene 1. Page 475.
Fal. Hold up your head, and mince.
The word is properly explained by Mr. Steevens. Thus in Isaiah iii. 16, "walking and mincing as they go." Wicliffe has "with their feet in curious goyng;" and Tindale, "tryppyng so nicely with their feet." To mince is likewise to walk in a stately, or, as Littelton expresses it, Junonian step.
Scene 2. Page 477.
Slen. I come to her in white, and cry mum, she cries, budget.
The word mumbudget, here divided, is used by Nashe in his Have with you to Saffron Walden, where, speaking of Gabriel Harvey, he says, "no villaine, no atheist, no murderer, but hee hath likened me too, for no other reason in the earth, but because I would not let him go beyond me, or be won to put my finger in my mouth and crie mumbudget when he had baffuld mee in print throughout England." To play mumbudget, is rendered demeurer court, ne sonner mot, in Sherwood's English and French dictionary, 1632, folio. Mumchance is silence; and a mummery was a silent masquerade. Mumbudget may be silence in a budget, a something closed or stopped up, Fr. bouché.
Scene 4. Page 479.