ftirrer, by the rood. And how doth my good coufin Silence? SIL. Good morrow, good coufin Shallow. SHAL. And how doth my coufin, your bedfellow? and your faireft daughter, and mine, my goddaughter Ellen ? SIL. Alas, a black ouzel, coufin Shallow. SHAL. By yea and nay, fir, I dare fay, my coufin William is become a good fcholar: He is at Oxford, ftill, is he not? Mayor, or a foolish Juftice of Peace."-And again: “Thou wilt do well in time if thou wilt be ruled by thy betters, that is, by myselfe, and fuch grave aldermen of the play-house as I am." It appears from Nafhe's Apologie of Pierce Penniless, 1593, that he likewife played the Clown: "What can be made of a ropemaker more than a clowne. Will. Kempe, I mistrust it will fall to thy lot for a merriment one of thefe dayes." MALONE. I by the rood.] i. e. the crofs. POPE, Hearne, in his Gloffary to Peter Langtoft, p. 544, under the word cross, obferves, that although the cross and the rood are commonly taken for the fame, yet the rood properly signified formerly the image of Chrift on the crofs; fo as to represent both the cross and figure of our bleffed Saviour, as he fuffered upon it. The roods that were in churches and chapels were placed in fhrines that were called rood lofts. Roodloft, (faith Blount,) is a fhrine whereon was placed the cross of Chrift. The rood was an image of Chrift on the cross, made generally of wood, and erected in a loft for that purpose, juft over the paffage out of the church into the chancel." REED. Bullokar, however, is a better authority than any of these, being contemporary with Shakspeare. In his English Expofitor, 8vo. 1616, he defines roode thus: "In land it fignifies a quarter of an acre. It is sometimes taken for the picture of our Saviour upon the cross." MALONE. 2 Sil.] The oldeft copy of this play was published in 1600. It must however have been acted fomewhat earlier, as in Ben Jonfon's Every Man out of his Humour, which was performed in 1599, is the following reference to it: " No, lady, this is a kinfman to Justice Silence." STEEVENS. SIL. Indeed, fir; to my coft. SHAL. He must then to the inns of court fhortly: I was once of Clement's-inn; where, I think, they will talk of mad Shallow yet. SIL. You were called-lufty Shallow, then, coufin. SHAL. By the mafs, I was called any thing; and I would have done any thing, indeed, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordfhire, and black George Bare, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotfwold man,3-you had not four fuch fwinge-bucklers in all the inns of court 3 Will Squele a Cotswold man,] The games at Cotswold were, in the time of our author, very famous. Of thefe I have feen accounts in feveral old pamphlets; and Shallow, by diftinguishing Will Squele, as a Cotswold man, meant to have him understood as one who was well verfed in manly exercises, and confequently of a daring fpirit, and an athletic conftitution. STEEVENS. The games of Cotswold, I believe, did not commence till the reign of James I. I have never feen any pamphlet that mentions them as having exifted in the time of Elizabeth. Randolph fpeaks of their revival in the time of Charles I.; and from Dover's book they appear to have been revived in 1636. But this does not prove that they were exhibited in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. They certainly were in that of King James, and were probably difcontinued after his death. However, Cotswold might have been long famous for meetings of tumultuous fwinge-bucklers. See Vol. V. p. 16, n. 6. MALONE. -fwinge-bucklers-] Swinge-bucklers and fwash-bucklers were words implying rakes or rioters in the time of Shakspeare. Nash, addreffing himself to his old opponent Gabriel Harvey, 1598, fays: "Turpe fenex miles, 'tis time for fuch an olde foole to leave playing the fwash-buckler." Again, in The Devil's Charter, 1607, Caraffa fays, "when I was a fcholar in Padua, faith, then I could have swinged a fword and buckler," &c. STEEVENS. “West Smithfield (fays the Continuator of Stowe's Annals, again: and, I may fay to you, we knew where the bona-robas 5 were; and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falftaff, now, fir John, a boy; and page to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk." 1631,) was for many years called Ruffians' Hall, by reason it was the ufual place of frayes and common fighting, during the time that fword and buckler were in ufe; when every fervingman, from the base to the best, carried a buckler at his backe, which hung by the hilt or pummel of his fword which hung before him.-Untill the 20th year of Queen Elizabeth, it was ufual to have frayes, fights, and quarrels upon the fundayes and holydayes, fometimes, twenty, thirty, and forty fwords and bucklers, halfe against halfe, as well by quarrels of appointment as by chance. And in the winter feafon all the high ftreets were much annoyed and troubled with hourly frayes, and sword and buckler men, who took pleasure in that bragging fight; and although they made great fhew of much furie, and fought often, yet feldome any man was hurt, for thrusting was not then in ufe, neither would any one of twenty ftrike beneath the wafte, by reason they held it cowardly and beaftly." MALONE. 5 ·bona-robas-] i. e. ladies of pleasure. Bona Roba, Ital. So, in The Bride, by Nabbes, 1640: "Some bona-roba they have been sporting with." STEEVENS. See Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: " Buona roba, as we fay good stuff; a good wholesome plump-cheeked wench." MALONE. Then was Jack Falstaff, now fir John, a boy; and page to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk.] The following circumftances, tending to prove that Shakspeare altered the name of Oldcastle to that of Falstaff, have hitherto been overlooked. In a poem by J. Weever, entitled, The Mirror of Martyrs, or the Life and Death of that thrice valiant Capitaine and moft godly Martyre Sir John Oldcastle, Knight, Lord Cobham, 18mo. 1601. Oldcastle, relating the events of his life, fays: "Within the fpring-time of my flow'ring youth, "He [his father] ftept into the winter of his age; "Made meanes (Mercurius thus begins the truth) "That I was made Sir Thomas Mowbrais page.' Again, in a pamphlet, entitled, The Wandering Jew telling Fortunes to Englishmen, 4to. (the date torn off, but apparently " SIL. This fir John, coufin, that comes hither anon about foldiers? a republication about the middle of the laft century) [1640] is the following paffage in the Glutton's fpeech: "I do not live by the fweat of my brows, but am almoft dead with fweating. I eate much, but can talk little. Sir John Oldcastle was my great grandfather's father's uncle. I come of a huge kindred." REED. Different conclufions are fometimes drawn from the fame premises. Because Shakspeare borrowed a fingle circumstance from the life of the real Oldcastle, and imparted it to the fictitious Falstaff, does it follow that the name of the former was ever employed as a cover to the vices of the latter? Is it not more likely, because Falstaff was known to poffefs one feature in common with Oldcastle, that the vulgar were led to imagine that Falstaff was only Oldcastle in disguise? Hence too might have arifen the ftory that our author was compelled to change the name of the one for that of the other; a story sufficiently fpecious to have imposed on the writer of The Wandering Jew, as well as on the credulity of Field, Fuller, and others, whofe coincidence has been brought in fupport of an opinion contrary to my own. STEEVENS. Having given my opinion very fully on this point in a former note, (fee Vol. XI. p. 194, & feq. n. 3.) I fhall here only add, that I entirely concur with Mr. Steevens. There is no doubt that the Sir John Oldcastle of the anonymous King Henry V. suggested the character of Falstaff to Shakspeare; and hence he very naturally adopted this circumstance in the life of the real Oldcastle, and made his Falstaff page to Mowbray Duke of Norfolk. The author of The Wandering Jew feems to have been mifunderstood. He defcribes the Glutton as related to some Sir John Oldcastle, and therefore as a man of huge kindred; but he means a fat man, not a man nobly allied. From a pamphlet already quoted, entitled, The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie, it appears that the Oldcastle of the old King Henry V. was reprefented as a very fat man; (fee alfo the prologue to a `play entitled Sir John Oldcastle, 1600, in which the Oldcastle of the old King Henry V. is defcribed as a pampered glutton,") 66 but we have no authority for fuppofing that Lord Cobham was fatter than other men. Is it not evident then that the Oldcastle of the play of King Henry V. was the perfon in the contemplation of the author of The Wandering Jew? and how does the proof that Shakspeare changed the name of his character advance SHAL. The fame fir John, the very fame. I faw him break Skogan's head at the court gate, when by this means one ftep?-In addition to what I have suggested in a former note on this fubject, I may add, that it appears from Camden's Remaines, 1614, p. 146, that celebrated actors were fometimes diftinguished by the names of the perfons they reprefented on the ftage:- "that I may fay nothing of fuch as for well acting on the ftage have carried away the names of the perfonage which they have acted, and loft their names among the people."-If actors, then, were fometimes called by the names of the perfons they reprefented, what is more probable than that Falstaff fhould have been called by the multitude, and by the players, Oldcastle; not only because there had been a popular character of that name in a former piece, whofe immediate fucceffor Falstaff was, and to whose clothes and fictitious belly he fucceeded; but because, as Shakspeare himself intimates in his Epilogue to this play, a falfe idea had gone abroad, that his jolly knight was, like his predeceffor, the theatrical reprefentative of Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham ?—See the note to the Epilogue at the end of this play. MALONE. 7-Skogan's head-] Who Shogan was, may be underftood from the following paffage in The Fortunate Ifles, a mafque, by Ben Jonfon, 1626: 66 -Methinks you fhould enquire now after Skelton, "And mafter Scogan. Scogan? what was he? "Oh, a fine gentleman, and a master of arts "Of Henry the Fourth's times, that made disguises Daintily well," &c. Among the works of Chaucer is a poem called “ Scogan unto the Lordes and Gentilmen of the Kinge's Houfe." STEEVENS. In the written copy, (fays the editor of Chaucer's Works, 1598,) the title hereof is thus : "Here followethe a morall ballade to the Prince, now Prince Henry, the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Gloucefter, the kinges fons, by Henry Scogan, at a fupper among the merchants in the vintrey at London, in the house of Lewis John." The purport of the ballad is to diffuade them from spending their youth "folily." John Skogan, who is said to have taken the degree of mafter of arts at Oxford, " being (fays Mr. Warton) an excellent |