"brav'd;" and, by means of this play, the tailor is entrapped into an
answer. The imitator, having probably seen the play represented, has
carried away the words, but by transposing them, and with the change
of one expression--"men" for "things"--has lost the spirit: there is
a pun no longer. He might have played upon "brav'd," but there he
does not wait for the tailor's answer; and "fac'd," as he has it, can
be understood but in one sense, and the tailor's admission becomes
meaningless. The passage is as follows:--

"_Saudre_. Dost thou hear, tailor? thou hast brav'd many men;
brave not me. Th'ast fac'd many men.

"_Tailor_. Well, Sir?

"_Saudre_. Face not me; I'll neither be fac'd nor brav'd at
thy hands, I can tell thee."--p. 198.

A little before, in the same scene, Grumio says, "Master, if ever I
said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the skirts of it, and beat me to
death with a bottom of brown thread." I am almost tempted to ask if
passages such as this be not evidence sufficient. In the _Taming of
a Shrew_, with the variation of "sew me in a _seam_" for "sew me in
_the skirts of it_," the passage is also to be found; but who can
doubt the whole of this scene to be by Shakspeare, rather than by the
author of such scenes, intended to be comic, as one referred to in my
last communication (No. 15. p. 227., numbered 7.), and shown to be
identical with one in _Doctor Faustus_? I will just remark, too, that
the best appreciation of the spirit of the passage, which, one would
think, should point out the author, is shown in the expression, "sew
me in the _skirts of it_," which has meaning, whereas the variation