Clarence.

O, I have pass'd a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days;
So full of dismal terror was the time.

Richard III, Act 1, Scene 4.

When ended was my tale of Melibee,
And of Prudence and hire benignitee,
Our hoste saide: as I am faithful man,
And by the precious corpus Madrian,

I hadde lever than a barell of ale,

That goode lefe my coif had herde this tale.

Chaucer, The Monkes Prologue.

Holofernes.

Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it. Love's Labour's Lost, Act 5, Scene 1.

"

III.

Him therefore now the obiect of his spight
And deadly food he makes: him to offend
By forged treason, or by open fight,
He seekes, of all his drifte the aymed end:
Thereto his subtile engins he does bend,
His practick witt and his fayre fyled tonge,
With thousand other sleightes; for well he kend
His credit now in doubtfull ballaunce hong:
For hardly could bee hurt, who was already stong.
Faerie Queene, Book II, Canto I.

As for your handsome faces and filed tongues,
Curl'd millers' heads, I have another ward for them.
Beaumont and Fletcher, The Loyal Subject, Act 3, Scene 2.

Olde men, whiche have used in tyme passed to bable

In barbaryke langage, and wordes course and vyle

May lerne here, theyr maners and tonges newe to fyle."

The Myrrour of Good Maners etc. translate into englysshe.

"Better it is saith he (Royer Bacon) to heare a rude and simple idiot preach of the truth, without apparance of skill and learned eloquence than a profound cleartie to set foorth, with great shew of learning, and boast of filed utterance."

Holinshed, The Description of Britaine, Book I, Cap. IX.

Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps;
And they that watch see time how slow it creeps.

Scene II. Capulet's orchard.
Enter Juliet.

Juliet.

Lucrece.

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a waggoner
As Phaethon would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway's 'eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty.

Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child that hath now robes
And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,
And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks
But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.

Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 2.

This passage in Romeo and Juliet was probably written by Shakespeare in remembrance of Spensers Epithalamion which contains the same ideas expressed in almost the same words; thus,

Ah! when will this long weary day have end,

And lende me leave to come unto my love?

How slowly do the houres theyr numbers spend? -
How slowly does sad Time his feathers move?
Hast thee, O fayrest planet, to thy home,
Within the westerne fome:

Thy tyred steedes long since have need of rest.
Long though it be, at last I see it gloome,
And the bright evening-star with golden creast
Appeare out of the east.

Fayre childe of beautie! glorious lampe of love!
That all the host of heaven in rankes doost lead,

And guidest lovers through the nights sad dread,
How chearefully thou lookest from above,

And seemst to laugh atweene thy twinkling light,
As ioying in the sight

Of these glad many, which for ioy do sing,

That all the woods them answer, and their eccho ring!
Now welcome, night! thou night so long expected,
That long daies labour doest at last defray,
And all my cares, which cruell Love collected,
Hast sumd in one, and cancelled for aye:

Spread thy broad wing over my love and me,
That no man may us see;

And in thy sable mantle us enwrap,

From feare of perrill and foule horror free.

XVI.

Spenser, Epithalamion.

Thus whilest all things in troublous uprore were,
And all men busie to suppresse the flame,

The loving couple neede no reskew feare,

But leasure had and liberty to frame

Their purpost flight, free from all mens reclame;

And Night, the patronesse of love-stealth fayre,
Gave them safe conduct till to end they came:

So beene they gone yfere, a wanton payre

Of lovers loosely knit, where list them to repayre.

Juliet says,

The Faerie Queene, Book III, Canto X.

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus lodging: such waggoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the west.

Spenser says,

Hast thee, O fayrest planet, to thy home,
Within the westerne fome

Thy tyred steeds long since have need of rest.

he also calls the horses of the sun tyred steeds which Juliet calls fiery footed steeds; again Juliet says,

"Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway's eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen."

and Spenser after welcoming the night says,

Spread thy broad wing over my love and me,
That no man may us see;

And in thy sable mantle us enwrap,

From feare of perrill and foule horror free."

and he speaks of the bright evening-star that guidest lovers through the night's sad dread and of its twinkling light.

And he, good prince, having all lost,

By waves from coast to coast is tost:
All perishen of man, of pelf,
Ne aught escapen but himself;
Till fortune, tired with doing bad,
Threw him ashore, to give him glad:
And here he comes. What shall be next,
Pardon old Gower, this longs the text.

Pericles, Act 2.

A pemantus' grace.
Immortal gods, I crave no pelf;
I pray for no man but myself:
Grant I may never prove so fond,
To trust man on his oath or bond;
Or a harlot, for her weeping;
Or a dog, that seems a-sleeping;
Or a keeper with my freedom;
Or my friends, if I should need 'em.
Amen. So fall to 't:

Rich men sin, and I eat root.

Timon of Athens, Act 1, Scene 2.

In the 14th Henry VII. 1498 Thomas Venables clamat quod si aliquis Tenentiam vel Residentiam infra Dominum sive Manerium de Kinderton in Com. Cestriae Feloniam fecerit, et corpus cujus per ipsum Thomam super factum illud captum, et convictus fuerit habere Pelfram, viz. omnia Bona et Cattala hujusmodi seisire: et ea quae Domino Comiti pertinent, ad Castrum Cestriae praestare et habere omnia inventa domestica et de omni genere Boum, Vaccarum, Boviculorum, Juvencarum, Porcorum Bidentium, unum, viz. melius. Et si de aliquo genere non habuerit nisi, unum clamat habere illud unum cum aliis minutis Animalibus, ut Gallis, Gallinis, Aucis, et hujusmodi et omnes Pannos talliatos et attainiatos, et omnes Carnes attainiatas, et totum Brasium infra unum Quarterium, et de quolibet Tasso Bladi clamat habere Groundstal integrum cujuscunque Tassi, et totum Plumbum extra Fornacem, et omnia Vasa lignea, omnes Mappas, Manutergia, et omnia ad Lectum pertinentia. Linea et Lanea, et omnes Carrectas apparura etc. (Plac. in Itin. apud Cestriam, Blount 151.)

or

According to this old author pelf comprehends goods and chattels but in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie it is used in a less extensive signification: Another of our vulgar makers, spake as ill faringly in this verse written to the dispraise of a rich man and covetous. Thou hast a misers minde thou hast a princes pelfe a lewde term to be spoken of a princes treasure, which in no respect nor for any cause is to be called pelfe, though it were never so meane, for pelfe is properly the scrappes shreds of taylors and of skinners, which are accompted of so vile price as they be commonly cast out of dores, or otherwise bestowed upon base purposes: and carrieth not the like reason or decencie, as when we say in reproch of a niggard or userer, or worldly covetous man, that he setteth more by a little pelfe of the world, than by his credit or health, or conscience. For in comparison of these treasours, all the gold and silver in the world may by a skornefull terme be called pelfe, and so ye see that the reason of the decencie holdeth not alike in both cases.

Puttenham, Arte of Posie, Lib. III, Cap. XXII.

Man. There is a fellow somewhat near the door, he should be a brazier by his face, for, o' my conscience, twenty of the dogdays now reign in 's nose; all that stand about him are under the line, they need no other penance: That firedrake did I hit three times on the head, and three times was his nose discharged against me; he stands there, like a mortarpiece, to blow us. Henry VIII, Act 5, Scene 3.

Knecht. Dort steht ein Kerl so ziemlich nah an der Thüre, der muss ein Kupferschmied seyn nach seinem Gesicht.

Drang. Det står en karl der tätt vid dörren och ser ut i synem som en kopparslagare. Hagbergh.

It has been said that the word brazier used by Shakespeare in this passage signifies a man that manufactures brass and this sense has been

given to the word in the German and Swedish translation, but I think it is worthy of consideration whether Shakespeare does not mean by a brazier one who brews malt, for Coke says,

Mealt or Malt is a Saxon word. In Latin we call it brassio derived of brasso, i. e ebullio, ferveo. In the ancient speech brasiator is taken for a brewer. In Fleta, brasiatores, in Briton pandator or potifex: and brasiaton at this day is used for a maltmaker or malster." 4 Institute.

Est etiam atrox injuria quae perpetuam inducit infamiam cum poena pillorali et tumbrelli, quae quandoque fit per pistores, brasiatores, et alios qui falsis ponderibus utuntur et mensuris, quae etiam fit per cilaria corrupta, et semicoeta vendentes &c. Fleta, Lib. 2, Cap. 1.

and the Bardolphian nose here described is the result of fire within not of external heat.

They will steal any thing, and call it, purchase. Bardolph stole a lute-case: hore it twelve leagues, and sold it for three halfpence. Henry V, Act 3, Scene 2.

Gadshill.

Give me thy hand: thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as I am

a true man.

Chambord.

Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.

I. Henry IV, Act 2, Scene 1.
O Ferdinand,

Do not smile at me, that I boast her off,
For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise,
And make it halt behind her.

Now when Aldeboran was mounted hye,
Above the shinie Cassiopeias chaire,
And all in deadly sleepe did drowned lye,
One knocked at the dore, and in would fare;
He knocked fast, and often curst, and sware,
That ready entraunce wat not at his call;
For on his backe a heavy load he bare
Of nightly stelths, and pillage severall,

Which he had got abroad by purchas criminall.

No doubt the shepheards life was the first example of honest

Felowship, their trude the first art of lawfull acquisition on purchase, For at those daies robbery was a manner of purchase."

Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie, Lib. I, Chap. XVIII.

Macbeth.

Whence is that knocking?

How is 't with me, when every noise appals me?

What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes!
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood