IV.iii.27 (`is rest to do more exploits with his mace than a morris pike] [W: a Maurice-pike] This conjecture is very ingenious, yet the commentator talks unnecessarily of the _rest of a musket._ by which he makes the hero of the speech set up the _rest_ of a _musket,_ to do exploits with a _pike._ The rest of a _pike_ was a common term, and signified, I believe, the manner in which it was fixed to receive the rush of the enemy. A _morris-pike_ was a pike used in a morris or a military dance, and with which great _exploits_ were _done,_ that is, great feats of dexterity were shewn. There is no need of change. IV.iv.78 (202,3) [kitchen-vestal] Her charge being like that of the vestal virgins, to keep the fire burning. V.1.137 (210,6) [important letters]_Important_ seems to be for _importunate._ (1773) V.i.298 (216,2) [time's deformed hand Have written strange defeatures in my face] _Defeature_ is the privative of _feature._ The meaning is, time hath cancelled my features. V.i.406 (220,7) [After so long grief such nativity!] We should surely read. _After so long grief, such_ festivity. _Nativity_ lying so near, and the termination being the same of both words, the mistake was easy. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING I.i.27 (226,3) [no faces truer] That is, none _honester,_ none _more sincere._ I.i.40 (227,7) [challenged Cupid at the flight] The disuse of the bow makes this passage obscure. Benedick is represented as challenging Cupid at archery. To challenge _at the flight is,_ I believe, to wager who shall shoot the arrow furthest without any particular mark. To _challenge at the bird-bolt,_ seems to mean the same as to challenge at children's archery, with snail arrows such as are discharged at birds. In Twelfth Night Lady Olivia opposes a _bird-bolt_ to a _cannon-bullet,_ the lightest to the heaviest of missive weapons. I.i.66 (228,9) [four of his five wits] In our author's time _wit_ was the general term for intellectual powers. So Davies on the Soul. Wit, _seeking truth from cause to cause ascends._ _And never rests till it the first attain;_ Will, _seeking good, finds many middle ends, But never stays till it the last do gain._ And in another part, _But if a phrenzy do possess the brain, It so disturbs and blots the form of things, As fantasy proves altogether vain, And to the_ wit, _no true relation brings. Then doth the_ wit, _admitting all for true, Build fond conclusions on those idle grounds;_-- The _wits_ seem to have reckoned five, by analogy to the five senses, or the five inlets of ideas. I.i.79 (229,4) [the gentleman is not in your books] This is a phrase used, I believe, by more than understand it. _To be in one's books is to be in one's_ codicils _or_ will, _to be among friends set down for legacies_.