312 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



you'l say nothing" on pp. 55, 56, "This Granuffo is 

 a right wise good lord, a man of excellent discourse and 

 never speaks" and on p. 94, we find the following dia- 

 logue : 



" Gon. My Lord Granuffo, this Fawne is an excellent fellow. 



"Don. Silence. 



" Gon. I warrant you for my lord here. 



In the same play (p. 44) are these lines : 



"I apt for love? 

 Let lazy idlenes fild full of wine 

 Heated with meates, high fedde with lustfull ease 

 Goe dote on culler [color]. As forme, why, death a sencc, 

 I court the ladie ? " 



This is Mr. Halliwell's note : " Death a sence. < Earth 

 a sense,' ed. 1633. Mr. Dilke suggests : 'For me, why, 

 earth's as sensible.' The original is not necessarily cor- 

 rupt. It may mean, why, you might as well think 

 Death was a sense, one of the senses. See a like phrase 

 at p. 77." What help we should get by thinking Death 

 one of the senses, it would demand another QEdipus to 

 unriddle. Mr. Halliwell can astonish us no longer, but 

 we are surprised at Mr. Dilke, the very competent 

 editor of the " Old English Plays," 1815. From him we 

 might have hoped for better things. " Death o' sense ! " 

 is an exclamCL 1 , on. Throughout these volumes we find a 

 for o', as, "a clock" for "o'clock," "a the side" for 

 " o' the side." A similar exclamation is to be found in 

 three other places in the same play, where the sense 

 is obvious. Mr. Halliwell refers to one of them on 

 p. 77, " Death a man ! is she delivered ? " The others 

 are, " Death a justice ! are we in Normandy? " (p. 98) ; 

 and " Death a discretion ! if I should prove a foole now," 

 or, as given by Mr. Halliwell, " Death, a discretion ! " 

 Now let us apply Mr. Halliwell's explanation. " Death 

 a man ! " you might as well think Death was a man, 



