time, Jove, or who can blame me to pifs my tallow? Who comes here? my doe? Enter Mrs. FORD and Mrs. PAGE. Mrs. Ford. Sir John? art thou there, my deer? my male deer? Fal. My doe with the black fcut?-Let the fky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves; hail kifling comfits, and fnow eringoes; let there come a tempeft of provocation," I will fhelter me here. [Embracing her Mrs. Ford. Miftrefs Page is come with me fweetheart. Fal. Divide me like a bribe-buck, each a haunch: I will keep my fides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, 5 This, I find, is technical. In Turberville's Booke of Hunting, 1575: During the time of their rut, the harts live with fmall fuftenance.The red mushroome helpeth well to make them pyje their greace, they are then in fo vehement heate," &c. FARMER. In Ray's Collection of Proverbs, the phrafe is yet further explained: "He has pifs'd his tallow. This is fpoken of bucks who grow lean after rutting-time, and may be applied to men." The phrafe, however, is of French extraction. Jacques de Fouilloux in his quarto volume entitled La Venerie, alfo tells us that ftags in rutting time live chiefly on large red mushrooms, qui aident fort à leur faire piller le fuif." STEEVENS. 6 Potatoes, when they were first introduced in England, were fuppofed to be strong provocatives. See Troilus and Creffida, A&t V. fc. ii. Kiffing comfits were fugar-plums, perfum'd to make the breath fweet. For eating thefe, queen Mab may be said, in Romeo and Juliet, to plague their lips with blifters. Eringoes, like potatoes, were efteemed the beft ftimulatives. But Shakspeare, very probably, had the following artificial tempeft in his thoughts, when he put the words on which this note is founded, into the mouth of Falstaff. Holinfhed informs us, that in the year 1583, for the entertainment of prince Aiafco, was performed "a verie ftatelie tragedie named Dido, wherein the queen's banket (with Æneas' narration of the deftruction of Troie) was lively defcribed in a marchpaine patterne,-the tempeft wherein it hailed fmail comfects, rained roferwater, and fnew an artificial kind of fnow, all strange, marvellous and abundant." Brantome alfo, describing an earlier feast given by the Vidam of Chartres, fays" Au deffert, il y eut un orage artificiel qui, pendant une demie heure entiere, fit tomber une pluie d'eaux odorantes, & un grêle de dragées.” STEEVENS 7 i. e. (as Mr. Theobald observes) a buck fent for a bribe. He addag that the old copies, mistakingly, read-brib'd-buck. STEZYENS. walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman ha! Speak I like Herne the hunter?—Why, now is Cupid a child of confcience; he makes reftitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome! Mrs. Page. Alas! what noife? Mrs. Ford. Heaven forgive our fins! Mrs. Ford. } Mrs. Page Away, away. [Noife within. [They run of Fal. I think, the devil will not have me dainn'd, left the oil that is in me fhould fet hell on fire: he would never elfe crofs me thus. Enter Sir HUGH EVANS, like a fatyr; Mrs. QUICKLY, and PISTOL; ANNE PAGE, as the Fairy Queen, attended by her brother and others, dreffed like fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads.9 Quick. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, Ye moon-fhine revellers, and fhades of night, You 7 Who the fellow is, or why he keeps his shoulders for him, I do not understand. JOHNSON. A walk is that diftrict in a forest, to which the jurifdiction of a particular keeper extends. So, in Lodge's Rofalynde, 1592: "Tell me, forefter, under whom maintaineft thou thy walke ?" MALONE. To the keeper the shoulders and bumbles belong as a perquifite. GREY. "The keeper, by a custom-hath the skin, head, umbles, chine and fhoulders. STEEVENS. 8 A woodman (fays Mr. Reed in a note on Meafure for Measure,) was an attendant on the officer, called Forrefter. It is here, however, used in a wanton fenfe, for one who chooses female game as the object of his purfuit. In its primitive fenfe I find it employed in an ancient MS. entitled The boke of buntyng, that is cleped Mayfter of Game: "And wondre ye not though I fey wodemanly, for it is a poynt of a wodemanny's crafte. And though it be wele fittyng to an hunter to kun do it, yet natheles it longeth more to a wodem annys crafte," &c. A woodman's calling is not very accurately defined, by any author I have met with. STEEVENS. This ftage-direction I have formed on that of the old quarto, corrected by fuch circumstances as the poet introduced when he new-modelled his play. In the folio there is no direction whatsoever. Mrs. Quickly and Pistol feem to have been but ill fuited to the delivery of the speeches here attributed to them; nor are either of those perfonages named by Ford in a former fcene, where the intended plot against Falstaff is mentioned. It is highly probable, (as a modern editor has observed,) that the performer whe You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,2 Pift. Elves, lift your names; filence, you airy toys.< Where fires thou find'ft unrak'd,5 and hearths unswept, There who had reprefented Piftol, was afterwards, from neceffity, employed among the fairies; and that his name thus crept into the copies. He here reprefents Puck, a part which in the old quarto is given to fir Hugh, The introduction of Mrs. Quickly, however, cannot be accounted for in the fame manner; for in the first sketch in quarto, the is particularly defcribed as the Queen of the Fairies; a part which our author afterwards allotted to Anne Page. MALONE. 2 But why orphan-beirs? Destiny, whom they fucceeded, was yet un being. Doubtlefs the poet wrote: "You ouphen beirs of fixed defliny," i. e. you elves, who minifter, and fucceed in fome of the works of destiny. They are called, in this play, both before and afterwards, ouphes; here ouphen; en being the plural termination of Saxon nouns. For the word is from the Saxon Alpenne, lamia, dæmones. Or it may be understood to be an adjective, as wooden, woollen, golden, &c. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton corrects orphan to ouphen; and not without plaufibility, as the word ouphes occurs both before and afterwards. But, I fancy, in acquiefcence to the vulgar doctrine, the addrefs in this line is to a part of the troop, as mortals by birth, but adopted by the fairies: orphans in refpect of their real parents, and now only dependent on deftiny herself. A few lines from Spenfer will fufficiently illuftrate this paffage: "The man whom heavens have ordaynd to bee "He wonneth in the land of Fayeree, "Yet is no Fary borne, ne fib at all "To elfes, but fprong of feed terrestriall, "And whilom by falfe Faries ftolen away, "Whiles yet in infant cradle he did crall," &c. Edit. 1500. B. III. ft. 26. FARMER. Dr. Warburton objects to their being beirs to Deftiny, who was still in being. But Shakspeare, I believe, ufes beirs, with his ufual laxity, for children. So, to inherit is ufed in the fenfe of to poffefs. MALONE. 3 i. e. fellowship. See The Tempeft: "Ariel, and all his quality.” STEEVENS. 4 Thefe two lines were certainly intended to rhyme together, as the preceding and fubfequent couplets do; and accordingly, in the old editions, the final words of each line are printed, oyes and toyes. This, therefore, is a striking inftance of the inconvenience, which has arisen from modern izing the orthography of Shakspeare. TYRWHITT. 5 i. c. unmade up, by covering them with fuel, fo that they may be found There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: s Our radiant queen. hates fluts, and fluttery. Fal. They are fairies; he, that speaks to them, fhall die: I'll wink and couch: No man their works must eye. [Lies down upon his face. Eva. Where's Bede 26-Go you, and where you find a maid, That, ere fhe fleep, has thrice her prayers faid, Raife up the organs of her fantafy,7 Sleep the as found as careless infancy; But found alight in the morning. This phrafe is ftill current in feveral of our midland counties. STEEVENS. 5 The bilberry is the whortleberry. Fairies were always supposed to have a ftrong averfion to fluttery. STEEVENS. Thus the first folio. The quartos-Pead.-It is remarkable that, throughout this metrical bufinefs, Sir Hugh appears to drop his Welch pro nunciation, though he refumes it as foon as he fpeaks in his own character. As Falstaff, however, fuppofes him to be a Welch Fairy, his peculiarity of utterance must have been preferved on the stage, though it be not distinguished in the printed copies. STEEVENS. 7 The fenfe of this fpeech is that the, who had performed her religious duties, fhould be fecure against the illufion of fancy; and have her fleep, like that of infancy, undisturbed by difordered dreams. This was then the popular opinion, that evil spirits had a power over the fancy; and, by that means, could infpire wicked dreams into those who, on their going to fleep, had not recommended themselves to the protection of heaven. So Shakspeare makes Imogen, on her lying down, fay: "From fairies, and the tempters of the night, And this is the fenfe; let us fee how the common reading expresses it; "Raife up the organs of ber fantafy;" i. e. inflame her imagination with fenfual ideas; which is just the contrary to what the poet would have the speaker say. We cannot therefore but conclude he wrote: "REIN up the organs of ber fantafy;" i. e. curb them, that the be no more difturbed by irregular imagi❤ nations, than children in their fleep. For he adds immediately: "Sleep fhe as found as careless infancy WARBURTON. This is highly plaufible; and yet, raife up the organs of ber fantafy, may mean, elevate ber ideas above fenfuality, exalt them to the nobleft contemplation. Mr. Malone fuppofes the fenfe of the paffage, collectively taken, to be as follows. Go you, and wherever you find a maid afleep, that hath thrice prayed to the deity, though, in confequence of her innocence, the fleep as foundly as an infant, elevate her fancy, and amuse her tranquil mind with fome delightful vifion; but those whom you find asleep, without having previously But thofe as fleep, and think not on their fins, Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, fhoulders, fides, and shine. Quick. About, about; Search Windfor caftle, elves, within and out: Strew good luck, ouphes, on every facred room; 8 In ftate as wholfome, & as in ftate 'tis fit; The previously thought on their fins, and prayed to heaven for forgiveness, pinch, &c. It should be remembered that thofe perfons who fleep very foundly, feldom dream. Hence the injunction to "raife up the organs of her fantafy," "Sleep fhe," &c. i. e. though the fleep as found, &c. The fantafies with which the mind of the virtuous maiden is to be amufed, are the reverfe of those with which Oberon disturbs Titania in A Midfummer-Night's Dream: "There fleeps Titania; "With the juice of this I'll ftreak her eyes, "And make her full of bateful fantasies." Dr. Warburton, who appears to me to have totally mifunderstood this paffage, reads-Rein up, &c. in which he has been followed, in my opinion too haftily, by the fubfequent editors. MALONE. 8 Wbolfome here fignifies integer. He wishes the caftle may stand in its prefent state of perfection, which the following words plainly show; cr -as in ftate 'tis fit." WARBURTON. 9 And cannot be the true reading. The context will not allow it; and his court to queen Elizabeth directs us to another : as the owner it." For, fure, he had more address than to be content himself with wishing a thing to be, which his complaifance must suppose actually was, namely, the worth of the owner. WARBURTON. Surely this change is unneceffary. The fairy wishes that the castle and its owner, till the day of doom, may be worthy of each other. Queen Elizabeth's worth was not devolvable, as we have feen by the conduct of her foolish fucceffor. The prayer of the fairy is therefore fufficiently reasonable and intelligible without alteration. STEEVINS. 2 It was an article of our ancient luxury, to rub tables, &c. with aromatic herbs. Pliny informs us, that the Romans did the fame, to drive away evil fpirits. STEVENS. |