Shakespeare the Boy / With Sketches of the Home and School Life, Games and Sports, Manners, Customs and Folk-lore of the Time

by W. J. Rolfe

Page 63.—Treatably. Tractably, smoothly. Cf. Marston, What You Will, ii. 1: "Not too fast; say [recite] treatably."

Much forder. We find d and th used interchangeably in many words in old writers; as fadom and fathom, murder and murther, etc.

Page 64.—To charge thee with than. We find than for then in Shakespeare, Lucrece, 1440:—

"To Simois' reedy banks the red blood ran,

Whose waves to imitate the battle sought

With swelling ridges; and their ranks began

To break upon the galled shore, and than

Retire again," etc.

Here, it will be seen, the word rhymes with ran and began. On the other hand, than in the early eds. of Shakespeare and other writers of the time is generally then.