dance which they use also in Spain, and in other places, and because it took originall from thence, it is called the Canaries." Thoinot Arbeau likewise mentions this opinion, but is himself, in common with some others, inclined to think that the dance originated from a ballet composed for a masquerade, in which the performers were habited as kings and queens of Morocco, or as savages with feathers of different colours. He then describes it as follows:-A lady is taken out by a gentleman, and after dancing together to the cadences of the proper air, he leads her to the end of the hall; this done he retreats back to the original spot, always looking at the lady. Then he makes up to her again, with certain steps, and retreats as before. His partner performs the same ceremony, which is several times repeated by both parties, with various strange fantastic steps, very much in the savage style. This dance was sometimes accompanied by the castagnets. The following Canary tune is from Arbeau.

Sc. 1. p. 236.

COST. Guerdon,-O sweet guerdon !

Mr. Steevens deduces this word from the middle age Latin regardum. It is presumed that few if any words are derived from the Latin of that period, which itself was rather corrupted by the introduction of terms from the living languages of Europe Latinized by the Monkish writers. Guerdon, as used by us, is immediately from the French; not equivalent, as some have imagined, with don de guerre, but formed from the Teutonic werd or wurth, i. e. price, value.

Sc. 1. p. 237.

BIRON. This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy.

If, as Mr. Steevens observes, the advocates for Shakspeare's learning, on a presumption that he might have been acquainted with the Roman. flammeum, or seen the celebrated gem of the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, had applauded the choice of his epithet, it is certain they would have shown very little skill or critical judgment on the occasion. By wimpled, Shakspeare means no more than that Cupid was hood-winked, alluding to the usual representation in paintings where he

is exhibited with a bandage over his

eyes. It may

be observed here that the blindness of the God of love is not warranted by the authority of any ancient classic author, but appears to have been the . invention of some writer of the middle ages; not improbably Boccaccio, who in his Genealogy of the Gods gives the following account: "Oculos autem illi fascia tegunt, ut advertamus amantes ignorare quo tendant; nulla eorum esse indicia, nullæ rerum distinctiones, sed sola passione duci.' lib. ix. c. 4.

The oldest English writer who has noticed the blindness of love is Chaucer, in his translation of the Roman de la rose,

"The God of love, blind as stone."

But this line is not in the French original. Shakspeare himself has well accounted for Cupid's blindness;

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind."

M. N. Dream, Act i. Sc. 1.

Sc. 1. p. 240.

BIRON. And I to be a corporal of the field.

Dr. Farmer's quotation of the line from Ben Jonson, "As corporal of the field, maestro del

campo," "has the appearance, without perhaps the intention, of suggesting that these officers were the same: this however was not the fact. In Styward's Pathway to martiall discipline, 1581, 4to, there is a chapter on the office of maister of the campe, and another on the electing and office of the foure corporalls of the fields; from which it appears that "two of the latter were appointed for placing and ordering of shot, and the other two for embattailing of the pikes and billes, who according to their worthinesse, if death hap neth, are to succeede the great sergeant or sergeant major."

Such part of Mr. Steevens's note as relates to the invention of clocks may, in a future edition, be rendered more correct by çonsulting Beckman's History of inventions. It is certain that we had clocks in England before the reign of Elizabeth; but they were not in general use till that time, when most, if not all, of them were imported from Germany. These clocks resembled what are still made for the use of the lower classes of people by several ingenious Germans established in London.

Sc. 1. p. 242.

BIRON. Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.

Alluding to the homely proverb "Joan's as good as my lady in the dark :" and in Markham's Health to the gentlemanly profession of serving men, sign. I. 3, we have "What hath Joan to do with my lady?”

PRIN.

ACT IV.

Scene 1. Page 243.

my friend, where is the bush

That we must stand and play the murderer in?

The practice of ladies shooting at deer in this passage alluded to, is of great antiquity, as may be collected from Strutt's Sports and pastimes of the people of England, p. 9. The old romances abound with such incidents; but one of the most diverting is recorded in The history of prince Arthur, part 3, chap. cxxiv, where a lady huntress wounds Sir Lancelot of the Lake, instead of a deer, in a manner most "comically tragical."