13 SCENE IV.-"A shove-groat shilling." Bardolph was to quoit Pistol down stairs as quickly as the smooth shilling-the shove-groat -flies along the board. Ben Jonson, in the same allusion to quickness, says, "made it run as smooth off the tongue as a shove-groat shilling." Shove-groat, in a statute of the 33rd of Henry VIII., is called a new game; and it was also called slide-groat,-slide-board,-slidethrift, and slip-thrift. The game was no doubt originally played with the silver groat. The broad shilling of Edward VI. came afterwards to be used in this game, which in all probability varied little from shovel-board. Master Slender, in the 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' had

a

15 SCENE II.-" Skogan's head." WHO was Skogan? has produced as fierce controversy, if not so elaborate, as, Who wrote 'Icon Basilike'? It seems there were two Skogans; the one,

"A fine gentleman, and master of arts,

Of Henry the Fourth's time, that made disguises
For the king's sons, and writ in ballad-royal
Daintily well."

This was Henry Skogan, usually called moral Skogan; and Ben Jonson's brief description of him, given above, will no doubt, be sufficient for our readers. The other was John Skogan, of the time of Edward IV., who is thus described by Holinshed:-"A learned gentleman, and student for a time in Oxford, of a pleasant wit, and bent to merry devises, in respect whereof he was called into the court, where, giving himself to his natural inclination of mirth and pleasant pastime, he played many sporting parts, although

not in such uncivil manner as hath been of him

reported." Shakspere, say the commentators, committed an anachronism, in describing Skogan the jester as having his head broken by Falstaff. No doubt. All that Shakspere meant to convey was, the name of a buffoon, whose freedoms were thus punished; and the jests of Skogan, the Joe Miller of Shakspere's time, was a book with which the poet's audience would be familiar. 16 SCENE II.-"A score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds."

"Shakspere," says Dr. Gray, "seems to have been unacquainted with the value of money, and the prices of sheep, and other cattle, at the latter end of the reign of King Henry the Fourth." That is true. In 1411, the price of a sheep is stated at 18. 10d., but in Shakspere's own time the price varies from 68. 8d. to 15s. The local and temporary allusions throughout

17 SCENE II.—“A soldier-like word." Ben Jonson, in his 'Discoveries' (a valuable collection of his miscellaneous remarks), says, "You are not to cast a ring for the perfumed terms of the time, as accommodation, complement, spirit, &c., but use them properly in their place, as others." Every age has its "perfumed terms," words that originate in fashionable society, and descend to the vulgar like cast-off clothes. Shakspere could not render accommodate more ridiculous than to put it into the mouth of Bardolph, and make that worthy maintain it "to be a soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good command." Jonson, in Every Man in his Humour,' gives us an example of the fantastic use of the word :"Hostess, accommodate us with another bedstaff here quickly. Lend us another bed-staff -the woman does not understand the words of action."

18 SCENE II.- "I remember at Mile-end Green, (when I lay at Clement's Inn), I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show, there was," &c.

This passage was formerly pointed thus:-"I remember at Mile-end Green (when I lay at Clement's Inn, I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show,) there was," &c. It was considered by the editors, and by Warton especially, that Arthur's show was acted at Clement's Inn, of which society Shallow was a member. It has, however, been found, that a society for the exercise of archery, calling themselves Prince Arthur's Knights, existed in Shakspere's time. This society, according to Richard Mulcaster, master of St. Paul's School (in a tract published in 1581 and 1587), was called, 'The Friendly and Frank Fellowship of Prince Arthur's Knights in and about the City of London.' That the members of the society personated characters in the romance of Arthur we learn from the same tract; for the author mentions Master Hugh Offley as Sir Launcelot, and Master Thomas Smith as Prince Arthur himself. Justice Shallow might, therefore, very properly personate Sir Dagonet, King Arthur's fool; who, in the Morte d'Arthur, "seems to be introduced like a Shrove-tide cock, for the sake of being buffetted and abused by every one." (Gifford.)

istence of The Fellowship of Prince Arthur's Knights,' to be found in the following passage of an old book, which gives a description of "a great show and shooting" in 1583. "The prince of famous memory, King Henry the Eighth, having read in the chronicles of England, and seen in his own time, how armies mixed with good archers have evermore so galled the enemy that it hath been great cause of the victory, he being one day at Mile-end, when Prince Arthur and his knights were there shooting, did greatly commend the game, and allowed thereof, lauding them to their encouragement." It appears also, from an exceedingly rare tract on this society of Prince Arthur (1583), that King Henry VIII. confirmed by charter to the citizens of London, the "famous order of Knights of Prince Arthur's Round Table, or society: like as in his life time, when he saw a good archer indeed, he chose him, and ordained such a one for a knight of the same order." Henry VIII., like many other tyrants, was sometimes pleased to be jocose and familiar with his subjects; and in this spirit, he not only patronized the Knights of the Round Table, but created a celebrated archer of the name of Barlo, Duke of Shoreditch. The dukedom, it seems, was hereditary; and in 1583, the successor to the original duke had a Baron Prince Arthur and the Stirrop in his court. duke were on the most friendly terms; and a deputation from his highness, upon the day of Prince Arthur's shooting in 1583, presented a buck of that season "to Prince Arthur, who was at his tent, which was at Mile-end Green."

19 SCENE II." This Vice's dagger."

In Harsenet's 'Declaration of Popish Impostures,' 1603 (quoted in Malone's History of the Stage,' Boswell, iii. 27), we have the following description of the Vice: "It was a pretty part in the old church-plays, when the nimble Vice would skip up nimbly like a jack-an-apes into the devil's neck, and ride the devil a course, and belabour him with his wooden dagger, till he made him roar, whereat the people would laugh to see the devil so Vice-haunted." The costume is that usually assigned to this personage

the long petticoat guarded with lace, the cap with ass's ears, and the dagger of lath (see

Henry IV, Part I.' page 190). The origin of the name Vice is involved in considerable obscurity. The subject is highly interesting, but

23 SCENE I.-" Gualtree forest." THIS forest is in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and was formerly called Galtres forest. It is thus mentioned by Skelton:

"Thus stode I in the frythy forest of Galtres." Frythy is woody.

23 SCENE I.-"Whose white investments figure innocence."

The ordinary costume of a bishop, not only when he was performing his episcopal functions, but when he appeared in public, and even when he travelled, was a vestment of white linen. From a passage in a letter of Erasmus, it appears that Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, when he was about to cross the sea, laid aside this linen vest, "which they always use in England."

24 SCENE I.-" Their beavers down." In Hamlet,' Act I., Scene 2, we find this passage, " He wore his beaver up." In the first Part of 'Henry IV.,' page 275, we have seen that the beaver was sometimes used to express a helmet generally. The passage before us, and the passage in 'Hamlet' have been considered contradictory; and some have supposed that Shakspere confounded the beaver and visor. Douce shows that both the beaver and visor moved up,-and when so, the face was exposed; when the beaver was down, the face was covered; -and the beaver and visor were both down in the battle or the tournament. The following representations, which are taken from Meyrick and Skelton's 'Ancient Armour,' will be more satisfactory than any verbal description:

1.

5.

4. "An armet" (from specimens in Goodrich Court) of the time of Philip and Mary, the umbril of which has attached to it three wide bars to guard the face, over which the beaver, formed of three overlapping lames perforated, is made to draw up.

5. "A helmet" (ditto) of the time of Queen Elizabeth. This has a visor and beaver. The latter when up exposes the face, while in the armet, Fig. 4, such a position guards

it.

This "armet," however, appears to have been of an unusual construction. Shakspere alludes to the common beaver both in 'Hamlet,' and in the passage before us; and in these no contradiction is involved.

25 SCENE III.-" I will have it in a particular ballad," &c.

In Ben Jonson's 'Bartholomew Fair,' we have the following passage: "O, sister, do you remember the ballads over the nursery chimney at home, o' my own pasting up? there be brave pictures." Very few ballads of Shakspere's time appeared without the decoration of a rude wood