SCENE IV.-London. A Street. Jaul'd thither Enter Beadles, dragging in Hostess QUICKLY, and By most mechanical and dirty hand :— DOLL TEAR-SHEET. Host. No, thou arrant knave; I would I might die, that I might have thee hanged; thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint. 1 Bead. The constables have delivered her over to me; and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her: There hath been a mau or two lately killed about her. Doll. Nat-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged rascal; an the child I now go with, do miscarry, thou hadst better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-faced-villain. Host. O the Lord, that sir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry! 1 Bead. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again; you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead, that you and Pistol beat among you. Doll. I'll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer! I will have you as soundly swinged for this, you blue-bottle rogue! you filthy famished correctioner; if you be not swinged, I'll forswear Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes. 1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes. 2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. 1 Groom. It will be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation: Despatch, despatch. [Exeunt Grooms. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and the Page. Fal. Stand here by me, master Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do but mark the counteLance that he will give me. Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight. Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me.-0, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. (To Shallow.) But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better; this doth infer the zeal I had to see him. Shal. It doth so. Fal. It shews my earnestness of affection. Shal. It doth so. Fal. My devotion. Fal. It doth, it doth, it doth. Fal. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience Shal. It is most certain. [to shift me. Fal. But to stand stain'd with travel, and sweating with desire to see him; thinking of nothing else; putting all affairs else in oblivion; as if there were nothing else to be done, but to see him Pist. 'Tis semper idem, for absque hoc nihil est : 'Tis all in every part: Shal. Tis so, indeed. Pist. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver, And make thee rage. Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts, Rouse up revenge from ebon den with feil Alecto's snake, For Doll is in; Pistol speaks uought but truth (Shouts within, and the trumpets sound. Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds. Enter the King and his Train, the Chief Justice among them. Fal. God save thy grace, king Hal! my royal Hal! Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame! man. Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy! King. My lord chief justice, speak to that vain I'tis you speak? Ch. Just. Have you your wits? know you what Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart! [prayers; King. I know thee not, old man: Fall to thy How ill white hairs become a fool, and jester! I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane; But, being awake, I do despise my dream. Make less thy body, hence, and more thy grace; Leave gormandizing; know thy grave doth gape For thee thrice wider than for other men:Reply not to me with a fool-born jest ; Presume not, that I am the thing I was: For heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive That I have turn'd away my former self; So will I those that kept me company. When thou dost hear I am as I have been, Approach me; and thou shalt be as thou wast The tutor and the feeder of my riots: Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,As I have done the rest of my misleaders,Not to come near our person by ten mile. For competence of life, I will allow you; That lack of means enforce you not to evil: And, as we hear you do reform yourselves, We will, according to your strength, and quali ties,[lord, Give you advancement.-Be it your charge, my Set on. To see perform'd the tenor of our word.[Exeunt King, and his Train. Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. Shal. Ay, marry, sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. Fal. That can hardly be, master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him: look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement; I will be the man yet, that shall make you great. Shal. I cannot perceive how; unless you give me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand. Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard, was but a colour. (John. Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, sir Fal. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Pistol;-come, Bardolph:-I shall be sent for soon at night. Re-enter Prince JOHN, the Chief Justice, Ch. Just. Go, carry sir John Falstaff to the Fleet; Take all his company along with him. Fal. My lord, my lord, Ch. Just. I cannot now speak: I will hear you Take them away. [soon. Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contentes. [Exeunt Fal. Shal. Pist. Bard. Page and Officers. P. John. I like this fair proceeding of the king's He hath intent, his wonted followers Shall all be very well provided for; But all are banish'd till their conversations Appear more wise and modest to the world. Ch. Just. And so they are. [lord. P. John. The king hath call'd his parliament, my Ch. Just. He hath. [expire, P. John. I will lay odds,-that, ere this year We bear our civil swords, and native fire, As far as France: I heard a bird so sing, Whose music, to my thinking, pleas'd the king. Come, will you hence? [Exeunt. EPILOGUE.-Spoken by a Dancer. First, my fear; then, my court'sy; last, my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say, is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, (as it is very well,) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this; which, if like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I com mit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do. promise you infinitely. will If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment,-to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you;-but, indeed, to pray for the queen. P 37. c. 1,1. 3. Enter RUMOUR.] This speech of Rumour is not inelegant or unpoetical, but it is wholly useless, since we are told nothing which the first scene does not clearly and naturally discover. The only end of such prologues is to inform the audience of some facts previous to the action, of which they can have no knowledge from the persons of the drama. JOHNSON. ACT I. SCENE I. Id. c. 2, l. 12. some stratagem:] Some stratagem means here some great, important, or dreadful event. Id. l. 47. — forspent-] To forspend is to waste, to exhaust. P. 38, c. 1, l. 14. silken point] A point is a string tagged, or lace. Id. 1. 19. —some hilding fellow,] For hilderling, i. e. base, degenerate. Id. l. 23.—like to a title leaf,] It may not be amiss to observe, that, in the time of our poet, the title-page to an elegy, as well as every intermediate leaf, was totally black. I have several in my possession, written by Chapman, the translator of Homer, and ornamented in this manner. STEEVENS. Id. 1. 26.—a witness'd usurpation.] i. e. an attestation of its ravage. Id. 1. 58. Your spirit-] The impression upon your mind, by which you conceive the death of your son. Id. l. 61. - hold'st it fear, or sin,] Fear for danger. Id. 1. 74. · faint quittance.] Quittance is return. Id. c. 2. l. 16. 'Gan vail his stomach,] Began to fall his courage, to let his spirits sink under his fortune. From avaler, Fr. to cast down, or to let fall down. Id. 1. 29.--buckle-] Bend; yield to pressure. Id. l. 33. nice-] i. e. trifling. Id. 1. 49. And darkness be the barrier of the dead!] The conclusion of this noble speech is extremely striking. There is no need to suppose it exactly philosophical; darkness, P. in poetry, may be absence of eyes, as well as privation of light. Yet we may remark, that by an ancient opinion it has been held, that if the human race, for whom the world was made, were extirpated, the whole system of sublunary nature would cease. JOHNSON. 39, c. 1, 1. 21. 1. —— more and less,] More and less mean greater and less. Id. 1. 36. Id. 1. 45. SCENE II. to gird at me: i. e. to gibe. -mandrake,] Mandrake is a root supposed to have the shape of a man; it is now counterfeited with the root of briony. Id. l. 47. I was never manned with an agate till now:] That is, I never before had an agate for my man. Alluding to the little figures cut in agates. and other hard stones, for seals; and therefore he says, I will set you neither in gold nor silver. Id. l. 67. to bear-in hand,] is, to keep in expectation. Id. 1. 71. —— if a man is thorough with them in honest taking up,] That is, if a man by taking up goods is in their debt. To be thorough seems to be the same with the present phrase, -to be in with a tradesman. Id. c. 2, 1.5. I bought him in Paul's,] At that time the resort of idle people, cheats, and knights of the post. Id. 1. 8.-- Lord Chief Justice,] This judge was Sir Wm. Gascoigne, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Id. l. 44. hunt-counter,] Hunt-counter means, base tyke, or worthless dog. P. 40, c. 1, 1.34. A wassel candle, &c.] Awassel candle is a large candle lighted up at a feast. There is a poor quibble upon the word wax, which signifies increase as well as the matter of the honey-comb. Id. l. 45. I cannot go, I cannot tell:] I cannot be taken in a reckoning; I cannot pass current, as the coin called an angel, if good, would. Id. 1. 46. in these coster-monger times,] In these times when the prevalence of trade has produced that meanness that rates the merit of every thing by money. JOHNSON. Id. 1. 47. Pregnancy-] Pregnancy is rea- your wit single?] or small. antiquity?] To use the word antiquity for old age, is not peculiar to ShakId. c. 2, 1. 26. speare. •you are too impatient to bear crosses.] A quibble seems here intended. Falstaff had just asked his lordship to lend him a thousand pound, and he tells him in return that he is not to be entrusted with money. A cross is a coin so called, because stamped with a cross. P. 40, c 2, l. 29. -fillip me with a three-man beetle. A three-man beetle is an implement used for driving piles; it is made of a log of wood about eighteen or twenty inches diameter, and fourteen or fifteen inches thick, with one short and two long handles. A man at each of the long handles manages the fall of the beetle, and a third man, by the short handle, assists in raising it to strike the blow. Such an implement was, without doubt, very suitable for filliping so corpulent a being as Falstaff. Id. l. 33. - prevent my curses.] To prevent means, in this place, to anticipate. Id. l. 50. interest. to commodity.] i. e. profit, self SCENE III. P. 41, c. 1, l. 30. Consent upon a sure foundation;] i. e. agree. Id. l. 50 one power against the French,] During this rebellion of Northumberland and the archbishop, a French army of twelve thousand men landed at Milford Haven, in Wales, for the aid of Owen Glendower. STEE VENS. ACT II. SCENE I. Id. c. 2, l. 19. Where is your yeoman?] A bailiff's follower was, in our author's time, called a serjeant's yeoman. Id. l. 36. -an a' come but within my vice;] Vice or grasp; a metaphor taken from a smith's vice. Id. l. 43. — lubber's head-] This is, I suppose, a colloquial corruption of the Libbard's head. JOHNSON. Id. l. 66. -honey suckle villain!-honey-seed rogue!] The landlady's corruption of homieidal and homicide. Id. l. 78. -rampallian! —fustilarian] The first of these terms may mean a ramping riotous strumpet. Fustilarian is, probably, a made word, from fusty. P. 42, c. 1, l. 31. parcel-gilt goblet,] A parcel-gilt goblet is a goblet gilt only on such parts of it as are embossed. Id. 1. 33. "Wheeson-week,"-MALONE. Id. l. 68. this sneap-] A Yorkshire word for rebuke, or check. Id. l. 76. -answer in the effect of your reputation.] That is, answer in a manner suitable to your character. Id. c. 2, l. 15, in water-work,] i. e. in water colours. tentation is here not boastful show, but simple show. Id. l. 54. -proper fellow of my hands ;] A tail or proper fellow, means a good looking, well made, personable man. Id l. 69. through a red lattice,] i. e. from an ale-house window. Id. l. 78. Althea dreamed, &c.] Shakspeare is here mistaken in his mythology, and has confounded Althea's fire-brand with Hecuba's. The fire-brand of Althea was real: but Hecuba, when she was big with Paris, dreamed that she was delivered of a fire-brand that consumed the kingdom. JOHNSON. Id. c. 2, l. 12. the martlemas, your master?] That is, the autumn, or rather the latter spring. The old fellow with juvenile passions. Id. l. 17. - this wen-] This swoln excrescence of a man. Id. l. 26. - the answer is as ready as a borrower's cap] A man that goes to borrow money, is of all others the most complaisant; his cap is always at hand. Id. 1. 35. I will imitate the honourable Roman in brevity:] I suppose by the honourable Roman is intended Julius Cæsar, whose veni, vidi, vici, seems to be alluded to in the beginning of the letter: I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. The very words of Cæsar are afterwards quoted by Falstaff. HEATH. Id l. 57. -frank?] Frank is sty. Id. 1. 60. Ephesians,] Ephesian was a term in the cant of these times perhaps, a toper. Id. 1. 64. What pagan may that be?] Pagan seems to have been a caut term, implying irregularity either of birth or manners. SCENE III. P. 44. c. 1, l. 52. Did seem defensible :] Defensible does not in this place mean capable of defence, but bearing strength, furnishing the means of defence ;-the passive for the active participle. Id. l. 76. To rain upon remembrance-] Alluding to the plant rosemary, so called, and used in funerals. SCENE IV. Id. c. 2, l. 8. The Boar's Head was near the prince's residence, a mansion called Coldharbour, near All-hallow's church, Upper Thames-street. Id. 1. 20. Sneak's noise ;] Sneak was a street minstrel, and therefore the drawer goes out to listen if he can hear him in the neighbourhood. JOHNSON. Id. l. 28. here will be old utis:] Utis, an old word yet in use in some counties, signifying a merry festival, from the French huot, octo. Id. l. 44. When Arthur first in court-] The entire ballad is published in the first volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of ancient English Poetry Id. l. 47. Sick of a calm:] Perhaps she means to say of a qualm. Id. 1. 51. You make fat rascals,] Falstaff alludes to a phrase of the forest. Lean deer are called rascal deer. He tells her she calls him wrong, being fat he cannot be a rascal. JOHNSON. Id. l. 62. the charged chambers-] To understand this quibble, it is necessary to say, that a chamber signifies not only an apartment, but a piece of ordnance. · all ostentation of sorrow] Os- | Id. l. 67.' -rheumatic—] Rheumatic, in the cant language of the times, signified capricious, humoursome. In this sense it appears to be used in many other old plays. P. 44, c. 2, l. 68. -as two dry toasts:] Which cannot meet but they grate one another. P. 45, c. 1, l. 4. ancient Pistol-] Is the same as ensign Pistol. Falstaff was captain; Peto, lieutenant; and Pistol, ensign, or ancient. Id. L. 17. there comes no swaggerers here.] A swaggerer was a roaring, bullying, blustering. fighting fellow. Id 1 33. --a tame cheater,] Gamester and cheater were, in Shakspeare's age, synonymous terms. Id. l. 39. I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater:] The humour of this consists in the woman's mistaking the title of cheater (which our ancestors gave to him whom we now, with better manners, call a gamester), for that office of the exchequer called an escheator, well known to the common people of that time; and named, either corruptly or satirically, a cheater. Id. 1 68 with two points-] As a mark of his commission. Id. l. 68. — much!] Much was a common expression of disdain at that time, of the same sense with that more modern one, Marry come up. Id. c. 2, l. 17. down faitors!] i. e. traitors, rascals. Id. I. 18. Have we not Hiren-] A cant word for a harlot Id. l. 24. Cannibals,] By a blunder for Hannibal. ld.1 36. - feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis:] This is a burlesque on a line in an old play The Battle of Alcazar, &c. printed in 1594, in which Muley Mahomet enters to his wife with lion's flesh on his sword: "Feed then, and faint not, my fair Calypolis." Id. 1. 42. Come we to full points here; &c.] That is, shall we stop here, shall we have no further entertainment? JOHNSON. Id. 1. 45. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif:] i. e. kiss thy fist. Id. 1. 49. Galloway nags?] That is, common hacknies. Id. 1.52. like a shove groat shilling:] Perhaps a piece of polished metal made use of in the play of shovel-board. Slide-thrift, or shovegroat, is one of the games prohibited by statute 33 Henry VIII. c. 9. P. 46, c. 1, 7. 45. -nave of a wheel-] Nave and knave are easily reconciled, but why nave of a wheel? I suppose from his roundness. He was called round man, in contempt, before. JOHNSON. Id. 1. 55. the fiery Trigon, &c.] Trigonum | igneum is the astronomical term when the upper planets meet in a fiery sign. Id. l. 64. —a kirtle of?] A woman's kirtle, or rather, upper kirtle (as distinguished from a petticoat, which was sometimes called a kirtle), was a long mantle which reached to the ground, with a head to it that entirely covered the face; and it was, perhaps, usually red. A half-kirtle was a similar garment, reaching only somewhat lower than the waist. Id. 1. 73. Ha! a bastard, &c.] The improbability of this scene is scarcely balanced by the humour. JOHNSON. Id. c. 2, l. 12. -if you take not the heat.] Alluding, perhaps, to the proverb, "Strike while the iron is hot." Id. l. 59. —for suffering flesh to be eaten, &c.] By several statutes made in the reigns of Elzabeth and James I. for the regulation and observance of fish-days, victuallers were ex pressly forbidden to utter flesh in Lent, and to these Falstaff alludes. MALONE. АСТ III. SCENE I. P. 47, c. 1, l. 41. "O sleep, O gentle sleep,”— Id. l. 61. That, with the hurly,] Hurly is noise, derived from the French hurler, to howl, as hurly-burly from hurluberlu, Fr. Id. c. 2, 1. 25. But which of you was by, &c.] He refers to King Richard II. Act IV. sc. ii. But whether the king's or the author's memory fails him, so it was, that Warwick was not present at that conversation. Neither was the king himself present, so that he must have received information of what passed from Northumberland. His memory, indeed, is singularly treacherous, as, at the time of which he is now speaking, he had actually ascended the throne. Besides, Shakspeare has mistaken the name of the present nobleman. The earldom of Warwick was at this time in the family of Beauchamp, and did not come into that of the Nevils till many years after. Id. 1. 33. I had no such intent,] He means, "I should have had no such intent, but that necessity," &c. or Shakspeare has here also forgotten his former play, or has chosen to make Henry forget his situation at the time mentioned. He had then actually accepted the crown. Id. -that Glendower is dead ] Glendower 1.66. did not die till after King Henry IV. Shakspeare was led into this error by Holinshed, who placed Owen Glendower's death in the tenth year of Henry's reign. SCENE JI, P. 48, c. 1, l. 2. by the rood.] i. e. the cross. Id. 1. 22.swinge-bucklers-] Swinge-bucklers and swash-bucklers were words implying rakes or rioters in the time of Shakspeare. Id. 1. 24. Id. Id. bona robas-] i. e. ladies of pleasure. Bona Roba, Ital. 1. 30. Skogan's head-] This was John Scogan, jester to king Edward IV. and not Henry, the poet, who lived long before, but is frequently confounded with him. Our author, no doubt, was well read in John's Jests, "gathered by Andrew Boarde, doctor of physic," and printed in 4to. and black letter, but without date. 1. 31. -a crack.] This is an old Islandic word, signifying a boy or child. Id. l. 48. clapped the clout-] i. e. hit the white mark: at twelve score; i. e. of yards. Id. c. 2, l. 14. - Master Sure-card, as I think.] P. It is observable, that many of Shakspeare's names are invented, and characteristical. Master Forth-right, the tilter; Master Shoe-tie, the traveller; Master Smooth, the silkman; Mrs. Over-done, the bawd; Kate Keep-down, Jane Fight-work, &c. Sure-card was used as a term for a boon companion, so lately as the latter end of the last century, by one of the translators of Suetonius. MALONE. 49, c. 1, l. 35. Here is two more called than your number;} Five only have been called, and the number required is four. Some game seems to have been omitted by the transcriber. The restoration of this sixth man would solve the difficulty that occurs below; for when Mouldy and Bull-calf are set aside, Falstaff, |