The first passage I take is from Act IV. Sc. 3.

"Grumio. Thou hast fac'd many things?

"Tailor. I have.

"Gru. Face not me: thou hast brav'd many men; brave not me. I will neither be fac'd nor brav'd."

In this passage there is a play upon the terms "fac'd" and "brav'd." In the tailor's sense, "things" may be "fac'd" and "men" may be "brav'd;" and, by means of this play, the tailor is entrapped into an answer. The imitator, having probably seen the play represented, has carried away the words, but by transposing them, and with the change of one expression—"men" for "things"—has lost the spirit: there is a pun no longer. He might have played upon "brav'd," but there he does not wait for the tailor's answer; and "fac'd," as he has it, can be understood but in one sense, and the tailor's admission becomes meaningless. The passage is as follows:—

"Saudre. Dost thou hear, tailor? thou hast brav'd many men; brave not me. Th'ast fac'd many men.

"Tailor. Well, Sir?

"Saudre. Face not me; I'll neither be fac'd nor brav'd at thy hands, I can tell thee."—p. 198.

A little before, in the same scene, Grumio says, "Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the skirts of it, and beat me to death with a bottom of brown thread." I am almost tempted to ask if passages such as this be not evidence sufficient. In the Taming of a Shrew, with the variation of "sew me in a seam" for "sew me in the skirts of it," the passage is also to be found; but who can doubt the whole of this scene to be by Shakspeare, rather than by the author of such scenes, intended to be comic, as one referred to in my last communication (No. 15. p. 227., numbered 7.), and shown to be identical with one in Doctor Faustus? I will just remark, too, that the best appreciation of the spirit of the passage, which, one would think, should point out the author, is shown in the expression, "sew me in the skirts of it," which has meaning, whereas the variation has none. A little earlier, still in the same scene, the following bit of dialogue occurs:—

"Kath. I'll have no bigger; this doth fit the time,

And gentlewomen wear such caps as these.

"Pet. When you are gentle, you shall have one too,

and not till then."

Katharine's use of the term "gentlewomen" suggests here Petruchio's "gentle." In the other play the reply is evidently imitated, but with the absence of the suggestive cue:—