Mal. By my life, this is my lady's hand: these be her very C's, her U's, and her T's, and thus makes she her great P's.
Mr. Ritson having with great probability supplied the whole direction of the letter, there seems to be no foundation left for Blackstone's conjecture. Malvolio had no motive for any coarse allusion. With respect to the instance of the letter in All's well that ends well not being recited literally by Helen, it must be recollected that there was no reason for making her do so, as she talks in blank verse; and it would therefore have been improper that she should have given more than the substance of the letter.
Scene 5. Page 93.
Mal. ... and wish'd to see thee cross-gartered.
Of this fashion but few vestiges remain; a circumstance the more remarkable, as it must have been at one time extremely common among the beaux in Elizabeth's reign. In the English edition of Junius's Nomenclator, 1585, 12mo, mention is made of "hose garters, going acrosse, or over-thwart, both above and below the knee." In the old comedy of The two angrie women of Abingdon, 1599, 4to, a serving-man is thus described:
"... hee's a fine neate fellow,
A spruce slave, I warrant ye, he'ele have
His cruell garters crosse about the knee."
Scene 5. Page 94.
Mal. I will be point-de-vice [device].
As the instances of this expression are of rare occurrence, those which follow are offered as likely to be useful to the author of any future work that may resemble the well-planned, but unfinished glossary of obsolete and provincial words by the late Dr. Boucher. In the interlude of The nature of the four elements, Sensuality, one of the dramatis personæ, promises a banquet