the door-keeper, inquiring who they were, was told that they were three very necessary men, Ford, Broome, and Fenton. The name in the play which Pope restored to Brook' was then Broome."

66

"Will you go, MYNHEERS ?"-The folio reading is An-heires, which is evidently a misprint for something else, and the quartos afford no light. Various emendations, as cavalieres," "on hearts," and "hear us," have been conjectured. The one adopted in the text seems most likely to have been the one thus mistaken, and is in the Poet's manner, just as he calls Shallow "cavalero."

"with my long sword.”—Before the introduction of rapiers, the swords in use were of an enormous length, and sometimes raised with both hands. Shallow, with an old man's vanity, censures the innovation, by which lighter weapons were introduced, tells what he could once have done with his long sword, and ridicules the terms and rules of the rapier.-JOHNSON.

stands so firmly on his wife's frailty"—A phrase equivalent to saying, "has such perfect confidence in his frail wife."

SCENE II.

"FAL. I will not lend thee a penny.”
The passage in the quarto is thus:-
Fal. I'll not lend thee a penny.

Pist. I will retort the sum in equipage.
Fal. Not a penny.'

The editors could not be satisfied to receive the answer of Pistol, "Why then the world's mine oyster," etc., without retaining the weaker passage, "I will retort the sum in equipage."-KNIGHT.

Yet Falstaff's answer seems to require Pistol's renewal of his demand. I think that the author, in enlarging and improving the play, added the two lines, and that by some mistake of his own, or of the copyist or printer, they were thought to be meant not as an addition, but to be substituted. All the editors except Knight and Collier have therefore retained the line.

Equipage is mentioned by Davies as one of the new affectations of that age, and Bulokar, (English Exposition, 1616,) defines it to mean horse furniture, especially for occasions of parade: this we may suppose Pistol meant to "convey."

"— lost the handle of her fan”—The fans of Elizabeth's days were far more costly than those of modern date. The fan itself was composed of ostrich or other valuable feathers, and the handles were usually silver or gold, and sometimes inlaid with jewels.

"A short knife and a THRONG.”—i. e. a crowd, in which you can use your "short knife" in cutting purses. Some editors have injuriously substituted "thong" for throng.

to your manor of PICKT-HATCH❞—A low neighbourhood in the east of London. "I proceeded toward Pickt-hatch, intending to beginne there first, which, as I may fitly name it, is the very skirts of all brothelhouses."-The Black Booke; by T. M.

· your RED-LATTICE phrases”—i. e. your publichouse language: public-houses were distinguished by red lattices.

- she leads a very FRAMPOLD life with him."— Frampold is a very common word in authors of the time, but variously spelled: it usually means vexatious, or uneasy, as here. It is still used in Norfolk.

"- of all loves"-By all means. This pretty antique phrase is now obsolete. We have it in OTHELLO: "The general so likes your music, that he desires you, of all loves, to make no more noise with it."

"FORD disguised."-The husband becoming the unknown confidant of the object of his suspicions, is the leading idea of one of the tales of Straparola, the Italian novelist, (Le tredeci piaceroli notti,) which had been translated by Tarlton, in 1590. Shakespeare had unquestionably read this story in some shape, as he has used several of the incidents, and some passages of the dialogue seem to have been suggested by expressions in the tale. But the main story and characters have no similitude. Such use of literary materials no more detracts from the general originality of an author, than the use of facts drawn from history or from actual observation.

A similar confidence of the young lover to his aged rival, is the chief source of comic interest in Moliere's Ecole des Femmes, which the critics have received as his own invention, (as it probably was,) while he was assailed for having borrowed some other incidents from a novel of his contemporary, Scaron.

"and flying what pursues."-This couplet is printed in Italic, and marked with inverted commas in the folio, 1623: it is probably a quotation, although the writer of it has not been discovered.

thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy montant."-These, and others that precede them, are Anglicised terms of the fencing-school.

"Thou art a CASTALIAN," etc.-The Host ridicules the Doctor through his ignorance of English. He is a "heart of elder," the elder being filled with soft pith: he is a Castilian, that name being an opprobrious designation for the Spaniards, whom the English of Elizabeth's time hated as much as their descendants were accustomed to hate the French.-KNIGHT.

"Cried game"-So all the old copies, including the first imperfect sketch. Warburton proposed to read cry aim, a phrase of archery, but figuratively used for assisting, encouraging, in any thing, as the one who cries "Aim!" did the archer. The Host thus says, "Consent, approve; did I not say well?" "Cry aim" is used in this sense in the next act. Much learning has been expended in support of this reading. Those who retain the original cry'd game suppose that the Host addresses Dr. Caius by this as a name. He calls him "heart of elder." Cry'd game, says Stevens, is a professed buck. But, says Knight, surely Anne Page "at a farm-house, a feasting" is the game which the host has cried. The meaning would be perfectly obvious were we to read, Cried I game?

Mr. Halliwell, one of the most learned old-English scholars of his day, confesses, in his late curious edition of the original sketch of this play, that he cannot clear up the obscurity. The fact seems to be that the phrase having been merely colloquial, and not preserved in books, is so obsolete that the meaning can only be guessed at.

ACT III.-SCENE I.

all my neighbours shall CRY AIM."-To cry aim, in archery, was to encourage the archers by crying out Aim when they were about to shoot. Hence it came to be used for to applaud or encourage, in a general sense. Thus, in KING JOHN, act ii. scene 1.

'It ill beseems this presence to cry aim

SINGER.

To these ill-tuned repetitions.' "-he speaks holyday"-That is, a holiday style; as much superior to the common, as is a holiday to an ordinary working day. "He smells April and May" is the ancient phraseology for of April and May, as may be observed in Shakespeare's own use elsewhere.

" 'tis in his BUTTONS."-The general explanation is, this is an allusion to the custom of wearing the flower called bachelor's buttons. Mr. Knight, however, says that a similar phrase, "It does not lie in your breeches," means-It is not within your compass: "'tis in his buttons" therefore means-he's the man to do it; his buttons hold the man. This is certainly a much more probable interpretation, and the context appears not only to warrant but almost require that explanation.---HALLIWELL.

"I shall drink in PIPE-wine first with him"-That is, in wine from the pipe. From the words that follow ("I'll make him dance,") it appears that Ford intends a quibble on the word, by referring it to the musical instrument. "Drink in" is the old phrase for "drink of."

- on an Ash-Wednesday,

When thou didst stand six weeks the Jack o' Lent,
For boys to hurl three rows a penny at thee.'

"Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel ?"-The song in Sidney's "Astrophel and Stella" begins thus:"Have I caught my heavenly jewel Teaching sleep most fair to be!'

if fortune thy foe were not, nature thy friend."So the old copies, which, thus pointed, need no change. We must understand being after "nature."

"-and smell like Bucklersbury in simple-time."Simples were herbs, which were sold at the many apothecaries' shops in Bucklersbury.

"I will ensconce me behind the arras"-The allusions to this convenient mode of concealment are frequent in Shakespeare and other writers of the period. There was a vacant place between the walls and the wooden frames on which the arras was hung.

SCENE IV.

"thy father's wealth"--Some light may be given to those who shall endeavour to calculate the increase of English wealth, by observing, that Latymer, in the time of Edward VI. mentions it as a proof of his father's prosperity, "That though but a yeoman, he

gave his daughters five pounds each for her portion." At the end of Elizabeth's reign, seven hundred pounds formed such a temptation to courtship, as made all other motives suspected. Congreve makes twelve thousand pounds more than a counterbalance to the affectation of Belinda. No poet will now fly his favourite character at less than fifty thousand.-JOHNSON.

"Pll make a shaft or a bolt on't"-The phrase is proverbial-I shall produce some effect, much or little. A shaft was a long sharp arrow; a bolt, a short thick one, used only for birds, and thence called a bird-bolt.

"-come cut and long-tail."-A common old phrase, expressive of dogs of every kind, which Slender applies to persons. The commentators are very learned on the origin of the phrase.

"happy man be his dole !"-This is a proverbial expression of frequent occurrence. The apparent signification here is: "happiness be his portion who surceeds best," but the general meaning of the phrase may be interpreted: "Let his portion or lot be happy man." Dole is the past participle and past tense of the A. s. verb Dælan, to deal, to divide, to distribute.SINGER.

"Peer-out, peer-out !"--Shakespeare refers to a sport of children, who thus call on a snail to push forth his horns:

661

'Peer-out, peer-out, peer-out of your hole,
Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal.'

there's her thrum'd hat, and her muffler too"Coarse hats were made of the end of a weaver's warp, which is called the thrum. The muffler was used to cover the lower part of the face.

"-full of KNIGHT"-So the folio of 1623. The second folio has "full of the knight," which is the received reading. The article would destroy the wit. The servant uses "knight" as he would say lead.

"Youth in a basket."-So the folio; but Malone introduced, from the quartos, "You, youth in a basket, come out here!" which forms part of a subsequent speech by Ford there, and is no portion of what he says when first he meets the loaded servants. The reading of the folio is natural and intelligible.-COLLIER.

"-- for his wife's LEMAN"-i. e. lover: it was applied to women as well as men-more frequently to the former.

“— in fee simple, with fine and recovery"-This is one of the many examples of Shakespeare's legal knowledge. Ritson says, "fee-simple is the largest estate, and fine and recovery the strongest assurance, known to English law.”

SCENE IV.

"—and TAKES the cattle"-Infects with disease. As, in HAMLET, "no fancy takes."

"Disguis'd like Herne, with huge horns on his head." This line is not in the folio; but it is certainly wanted. The passage in the quarto in which this line occurs is a remarkable example of the care with which the first sketch has been improved:

'Hear my device.

Oft have you heard since Horne the hunter died,
That women to affright their little children
Says that he walks in shape of a great stag.
Now, for that Falstaffe hath been so deceived
As that he dares not venture to the house,
We'll send him word to meet us in the field,
Disguis'd like Horne, with huge horns on his head.
The hour shall be just between twelve and one,
And at that time we will meet him both:
Then would I have you present there at hand,
With little boys disguised and drest like fairies,
For to affright fat Falstaffe in the woods.'

"With some DIFFUSED song."-Diffused is used here, and elsewhere, in the sense of confused, or unintelligible. Palsgrave, in his Eccl. de la Langue Franc, 1530, and Cooper, in his Dictionary, 1584, explain "diffuse" as "hard to be understood."

"-TO-PINCH the unclean knight."-To thus prefixed to the verb, was an old Anglo-Saxon idiom, frequent in Chaucer, Gower, and used by Spenser. It has an augmentative sense, as well-pinched, thoroughly-pinched. It is oftenest used with all prefixed, as "al-to broke his skull," in the English Bible; completely broke his skull.

SCENE V.

"the WISE WOMAN of Brentford."-Scott, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, says "At this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, She is a witch, or she is a wise woman."

“Ay, marry, was it, muscle-shell”"-Simple probably follows up his question relating to the awful old woman, with a look of open-mouthed eagerness; and Falstaff, whom nothing of the ludicrous escapes, calls him "muscle-shell" from that circumstance.

"Ay, sir TIKE"-A word still used in Yorkshire and Scotland, there retaining its ancient sense, of a large dog of some common breed, as a shepherd's dog. Burns marks the distinction, and shows Falstaff's meaning, by making one of his twa dogs "o' high degree," and the other, who is of humbler breed, "a gash and faithful tyke."

"-three Doctor Faustuses."—-Popular audiences had become acquainted with Dr. Faustus, the German necromancer, both from the often-printed popular storybook of his life, and from Marlowe's play, which had been constantly acted from about the year 1590.

is corrupt. Warburton plausibly proposes to read ouphen-heirs, i. e. you elves, who minister and succeed in some of the works of destiny. Dr. Farmer supposes the term to be addressed to a "part of the troop, as mortals by birth, but adopted by the fairies; orphans, in respect of their real parents, and now only dependent on destiny herself." Shakespeare uses the word heirs in the sense of children. By "ouphen-heirs of fixed destiny," he might therefore mean, "fairy children, who execute the decrees of destiny."

"Raise up the organs of her fantasy."

That is, let her who has performed her religious duties be secure against the grosser illusions of fancy; have her sleep, like that of infancy, free from disordered dreams. It was supposed that invisible beings had the power of disturbing with dreams, or otherwise annoying, those who had not prayed ere they slept. Imogen exclaims

"To your protection I commend me, gods!
From fairies, and the tempters of the night,
Guard me, beseech ye!"

"Honi soit qui mal y PENSE"-" Pense" is a dissyllable, as the final e, though not accented, was anciently sounded, especially in Norman-French, though I should think with an obscure sound, more like uh than the accented French e.

"I smell a man of middle earth."-By this term is merely meant a mortal man, in contradistinction to a spirit of the earth or of the air, such as a fairy or gnome. It was in use in the north of Scotland a century since, and appears borrowed from the Saxon Middan Eard.-Singer.

"—still pinch him to your time"-Theobald and Malone here insert a speech from the quarto: "It is right; indeed he is full of lecheries and iniquity." Theobald says "this speech is very much in character for Sir Hugh." He forgets that the real actors of the comedy are here speaking in assumed characters. Pistol has a speech or two; but all traces of Pistol's own character are suppressed. The entire scene is elevated into pure poetry in the amended edition, and none of the coarseness of the original is retained. For example, in the quarto, Sir Hugh says,

'Where's Pede?

Go and see where brokers sleep,

And fox-eyed serjeants with their mace:
Go lay the proctors in the street,

And pinch the lousy serjeant's face;
Spare none of those when they're a-bed

But such whose nose looks blue and red.'

these fair YOKES."--The extremities of yokes for oxen as still used in several counties of England, bend upwards, and rising very high, in shape resemble horns. In Cotgrave's Dictionary, voce JUELLES, we have "Arched or yoked vines; vines so under-propped or fashioned that one may go under the middle of them." See also Hutton's Latin, Greek, and English Lexicon, 1585, in voce JUGUM; "a thing made with forkes. like a gallowes, a frame whereon vines are joyned."

"ignorance itself is a PLUMMET o'er me"-Johnson would read plume; Dr. Farmer planet. Tyrwhitt's explanation of the old reading is satisfactory to meIgnorance is not so low as I am by a plummet or plumb-line's length.

to repay that money will be a biting affliction."Here the quartos add what is worth giving in a note, though it should not be inserted in the text, as in some editions, since the author in his corrected edition rejected it, and substituted the speeches of Page and his wife:

'Mrs. Ford. Nay, husband, let that go to make amends:
Forgive that sum, and so we'll all be friends.

Ford. Well, here's my hand: all's forgiven at last.
Fal. It hath cost me well: I have been well pinched and wash'd.'

THE verses sung by Sir Hugh are from a beautiful pastoral, formerly attributed to Shakespeare, and printed in an earlier edition of his sonnets, 1599. It was then accompanied by an answer signed Ignoto. Walton, in his "Compleat Angler," has inserted both, describing the first as "that smooth song which was made by Kit Marlowe, and an answer to it by Sir Walter Raleigh, in his younger days." Whether the pastoral be Shakespeare's or Marlowe's, both it and the answer are what Walton calls them, "old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good;" and we therefore think, with Dr. Johnson, that "the reader will not be displeased to find them here:"

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.

'Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.
There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, by whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals:
There will I make thee beds of roses,
With a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull:
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw, and ivy buds,
With coral clasps, and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.
Thy silver dishes for thy meat,
As precious as the gods do eat,

Shall on an ivory table be

Prepared each day for thee and me.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing,
For thy delight each May morning;
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love."

THE NYMPH'S REPLY TO THE SHEPHERD.
If that the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
But time drives flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage, and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
And all complain of cares to come:
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields.
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.
Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw, and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps, and amber studs;
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee, and be thy love.
What should we talk of dainties then,
Of better meat than's fit for men?
These are but vain: that's only good
Which God hath bless'd and sent for food.
But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, and age no need;
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.'