Mr. Steevens has in this edition cancelled a brother commentator's note, which ought on every account to have been retained, and has himself attempted to show that a _shroud_ and not a _coffin_ of cypress or cyprus is intended. It is no easy matter, from the ambiguity of the word, to decide the question. The cypress tree was used by the ancients for funeral purposes, and dedicated to Pluto. As it was not liable to perish from rottenness, it appears to have been used for coffins. See Mr. Gough's Introduction to _Sepulchral monuments_, p. lxvi. In Quarles's _Argalus and Parthenia_, book iii., a knight is introduced, whose "... horse was black as jet, His furniture was round about beset With branches, slipt from the _sad cypresse tree_." In further behalf of the wood, it may be worth remarking that the expression _laid_ seems more applicable to a coffin than to a shroud, in which a party may with greater propriety be said to be _wrapped_; and also that the shroud is afterwards expressly mentioned by itself. It is nevertheless very certain that the fine linen called Cyprus, perhaps from being originally manufactured in the island of that name, was used for shrouds. In the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary's, Cambridge, mention is made of _a sypyrs kyrcher belonging to the cross_. In this instance there being the figure of a dead body on the cross, the cyprus was designed as a shroud. SCENE 5. Page 88. MAL. By my life, this is my lady's hand: these be her very C's, her U's, and her T's, and thus makes she her great P's. Mr. Ritson having with great probability supplied the _whole_ direction of the letter, there seems to be no foundation left for Blackstone's conjecture. Malvolio had no motive for any _coarse_ allusion. With respect to the instance of the letter in _All's well that ends well_ not being recited literally by Helen, it must be recollected that there was no reason for making her do so, as she talks in _blank verse_; and it would therefore have been improper that she should have given more than the _substance_ of the letter. SCENE 5. Page 93. MAL. ... and wish'd to see thee _cross-gartered_. Of this fashion but few vestiges remain; a circumstance the more remarkable, as it must have been at one time extremely common among the beaux in Elizabeth's reign. In the English edition of Junius's _Nomenclator_, 1585, 12mo, mention is made of "hose garters, going _acrosse_, or over-thwart, both above and below the knee." In the old comedy of _The two angrie women of Abingdon_, 1599, 4to, a _serving-man_ is thus described: "... hee's a fine neate fellow, A spruce slave, I warrant ye, he'ele have His cruell _garters crosse about the knee_." SCENE 5. Page 94. MAL. I will be _point-de-vice_ [_device_].