[118] _Gramercy_: great thanks, _grand merci_; or I thank ye, _Je vous remercie_. In this sense it is constantly used by our first writers. A very great critic pronounces it an obsolete expression of surprise, contracted from _grant me mercy_; and cites a passage in "Titus Andronicus" to illustrate his sense of it; but, it is presumed, that passage, when properly pointed, confirms the original acceptation-- CHIRON. Demetrius, here's the son of Lucius, He hath some message to deliver us. AARON. Ay, some mad message from his mad grandfather. BOY. My lords, with all the humbleness I may, I greet your honours from Andronicus-- And pray the Roman gods confound you both. [_Aside_. DEMETRIUS. _Gramercy_, lovely Lucius; what's the news? BOY. That you are both decipher'd (that's the news) For villains mark'd with rape. [_Aside_] May it please you, My grandsire, well advis'd, hath sent by me The goodliest weapon of his armoury, To gratify your honourable youth, The hope of Rome: for so he bid me say; And so I do, and with his gifts present Your lordships, that whenever you have need, You may be armed and appointed well. And so I leave you both--like bloody villains. [_Aside_. --Hanmer's 2d edit., act iv. sc. 2. [The text is the same in Dyce's 2d edit., vi. 326-7.] [119] "Poetaster," act v. sc. 3. [Gifford's edit. ii. 524-5, and the note.] [120] [So in the old copy Kemp is made, perhaps intentionally, to call Studioso. See also _infrá_, p. 198.] [121] [See Kemp's "Nine Daies Wonder," edit. Dyce, ix.] [122] _Sellenger's round_, corrupted from St Leger, a favourite dance with the common people. [123] Old copy reads-- "As you part in _kne_ KEMP. You are at Cambridge still with _sice kne_," &c. The genuine reading, it is presumed, is restored to the text-- "As your part in _cue_. KEMP. You are at Cambridge still with _size cue_," &c. A pun upon the word _cue_, which is a hint to the actor to proceed in his part, and has the same sound with the letter _q_, the mark of a farthing in college buttery-books. To _size_ means to _battle_, or to be charged in the college accounts for provisions. [A _q_ is so called because it is the initial letter of _quadrans_, the fourth part of a penny.] [124] This seems to be quoted from the first imperfect edition of "The Spanish Tragedy;" in the later (corrected) impression it runs thus-- "What outcries pluck me from my naked bed, And chill," &c. --[v. 54.] [125] [Old copy points this sentence falsely, and repeats _thing_.] [126] Old copy, _woe_. [127] [Old copy, _birds_. Perhaps, however, the poet may have meant _swans_.] [128] Old copy, _sooping_. [129] [I think this is much more likely to be an allusion to Shakespeare, than the passage in the prologue to which Hawkins refers.--_Ebsworth_.] [130] [Old copy, _some_.]