Though Shakspeare was, in general, a most correct and careful writer, that he sometimes wrote hastily it would be vain to deny. In the third line of the foregoing extract, the meaning clearly is, "as which token of duty;" and it is the performance of this "token of duty" which Katharine hopes may "do him ease." The imitator, as usual, has caught something of the words of the original which he has laboured to reproduce at a most unusual sacrifice of grammar and sense; the following passage appearing to represent that the wives, by laying their hands under their husbands' feet—no reference being made to the act as a token of duty—in some unexplained manner, "might procure them ease."
"Laying our hands under their feet to tread,
If that by that we might procure their ease,
And, for a precedent, I'll first begin
And lay my hand under my husband's feet."—p. 213.
One more instance, and I have done. Shakspeare has imparted a dashing humorous character to this play, exemplified, among other peculiarities, by such rhyming of following words as—
"Haply to wive and thrive as least I may."
"We will have rings and things and fine array."
"With ruffs, and cuffs, and farthingales and things."
I quote these to show that the habit was Shakspeare's. In Act I. Sc. 1. occurs the passage—"that would thoroughly woo her, wed her, and bed her, and rid the house of her." The sequence here is perfectly natural: but observe the change: in Ferando's first interview with Kate, he says,—