Appendix II, [P. 46], par. 8. “But it is rarely known.” Though this is after Shakespeare’s time, the belief, in all probability, was in existence in his day, and shows how the writer of the first and unknown Hamlet followed in Hamlet’s ghost the beliefs of his day.
“Feature.” An example of its being used for the make of a man, and not merely of the features of his countenance, to which it is now appropriated; but till I can find—and as yet I have found none, though I have looked out for it—an example of feature used for things inanimate, I cannot accept the interpretation of song or sonnet in Touchstone’s As You Like It, iii, 3, 3. Feature here, as any shape or proportions, is perfectly intelligible. Did it refer to verse we should expect “features”. From no man, as Touchstone is depicted by Shakespeare, could we less expect verse-making, and all his reference to it in this passage may readily have arisen from his reference to his new situation as like that of the honest poet Ovid among the Goths. Had he been poetical and given her verses, he could not have explained to Aubrey that he, being a poet, only feigned to love her.
[P. 198]. “Primus secundus.” This goes far to show—proves, I think—that the Clown’s “Primo, secundo, tertio is a good play” (Tw. N., v, 1), a passage on which no commentator known to me has touched, thinking it a merely jocular remark, is, in fact, taken from a well-known “play” or game. What the game was is unknown to me, but children still use various numerals, provincial or otherwise, mingled with rhyme, to settle anything, as, for instance, who shall hide in the game of hide and seek.
[P. 471]. “Biggins.” Shows, as does 2 Hy. IV, iv, 5, 27, that, if not nightcaps, they meant, among other significations, caps worn at night and in bed, and that “homely” was not a generic epithet.
Introd. Rainolde Scot’s Will “bank or pond”. I note this because it may possibly help to some future interpretation of Iris’s words in the Tempest, iv, 1, 64, “The banks with pioned ... brims.”
MIDDLETON’S “WITCH”.
[P. 117]. “Marmaritin”, etc. In i, 2, he copies these names, altering only their order for the sake of the verse, and probably for the same reason omitting “Mevais”.