NORTH. Come, come, go in with me: 'tis with As with the tide fwell'd up unto its height, SCENE IV. London. A Room in the Boar's Head Tavern, in Eaftcheap. Enter Two Drawers. 1 DRAW. What the devil haft thou brought there? apple-Johns? thou know'ft, fir John cannot endure an apple-John.4 2 DRAW. Mafs, thou fayeft true: The prince once fet a dish of apple-Johns before him, and told him, there were five more fir Johns: and, putting off his an apple-John.] So, in The Ball, by Chapman and Shirley, 1639: thy man, Apple-John, that looks "As he had been a fennight in the straw, "A ripening for the market." This apple will keep two years, but becomes very wrinkled and fhrivelled. It is called by the French,-Deux-ans. Thus, Cogan, in his Haven of Health, 1595: "The beft apples that we have in England are pepins, deufants, coftards, darlings, and fuch other." Again, among inftructions given in the year 1580 to fome of our navigators, "for banketting on fhipboard perfons of credite," we meet with "the apple John that dureth two yeares, to make fhew of our fruits." See Hackluyt, Vol. I. p. 441. STEEVENS. hat, faid, I will now take my leave of thefe fix dry, round, old, withered knights. It angered him to the heart; but he hath forgot that. 1 DRAW. Why then, cover, and set them down : And fee if thou canft find out Sneak's noife; 5 miftrefs Tear-fheet would fain hear fome mufick. Defpatch: 6-The room where they fupped, is too hot; they'll come in ftraight. 2 DRAW. Sirrah, here will be the prince, and master Poins anon: and they will put on two of our 5 Sneak's noife;] Sneak was a street minstrel, and therefore the drawer goes out to liften if he can hear him in the neighbourhood. JOHNSON. A noife of musicians anciently fignified a concert or company of them. In the old play of Henry V. (not that of Shakspeare) there is this paffage: "there came the young prince, and two or three more of his companions, and called for wine good ftore, and then they fent for a noyfe of mufitians," &c. Falstaff addreffes them as a company in another scene of this play. So again, in Weftward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: "All the noife that went with him, poor fellows, have had their fiddle-cafes pulled over their ears.' Again, in The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, a comedy, printed 1598, the Count fays: "O that we had a noise of muficians, to play to this antick as we go." Heywood, in his Iron Age, 1632, has taken two expreffions from thefe plays of Henry IV. and put them into the mouth of Therfites addreffing himself to Achilles : "Where's this great fword and buckler man of Greece? "We fhall have him in one of Sneak's noife, "And come peaking into the tents of the Greeks, With, will you have any mufick, gentlemen?" Among Ben Jonfon's Leges convivales is— Fidicen, nifi accerfitus, non venito." STEEVENS. 6 Despatch: &c.] This period is from the first edition. РОРЕ. These words, which are not in the folio, are in the quarto given to the fecond drawer. Mr. Pope rightly attributed them to the firft. MALONE. jerkins, and aprons; and fir John muft not know of it: Bardolph hath brought word. 1 DRAW. By the mafs, here will be old utis: It will be an excellent ftratagem. 2 DRAW. I'll fee, if I can find out Sneak. [Exit. Enter Hoftefs and DOLL TEAR-SHEET. HOST. I'faith, fweet heart, methinks now you are in an excellent good temperality: your pulfidge 7 here will be old utis:] Utis, an old word yet in use in fome counties, fignifying a merry feftival, from the French huit, octo, ab. A. S. Eahra, Octave fefti alicujus.-Skinner. РОРЕ. Skinner's explanation of utis (or utas) may be confirmed by the following paffage from T. M.'s Life of Sir Thomas More: "-to-morrow is St. Thomas of Canterbury's eeve, and the utas of St. Peter-." The eve of Thomas à Becket, according to the new ftile, happens on the 6th of July, and St. Peter's day on the 29th of June. Again, in A Contention between Liberality and Prodigality, a comedy, 1602 : "Then if you please, with some roysting harmony, "Let us begin the utas of our iollitie." HENLEY. Old, in this place, does not mean ancient, but was formerly a common augmentative in colloquial language. Old Utis fignifies festivity in a great degree. So, in Lingua, 1607: there's old moving among them." Again, in Decker's comedy, called, If this be not a good Play the Devil is in it, 1612: "We fhall have old breaking of necks then." Again, in Soliman and Perfeda, 1599: "I fhall have old laughing." Again, in Arden of Feverfham, 1592: "Here will be old filching, when the prefs comes out of Paul's." STEEVENS. See Vol. IX. p. 104, n. 4. MALONE. 8 beats as extraordinarily as heart would defire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose: But, i'faith, you have drunk too much canaries and that's a marvellous fearching wine, and it perfumes the blood9 ere one can fay,-What's this? How do you now? HOST. Why, that's well faid; a good heart's worth gold. Look, here comes fir John. Enter FALSTAFF, finging. FAL. When Arthur firft in court'-Empty the jordan. And was a worthy king: [Exit Drawer.] How now, miftrefs Doll? HOST. Sick of a calm: yea, good footh. your pulfidge beats &c.] One would almost regard this speech as a burlesque on the following paffage in the interJude called The Repentance of Mary Magdalene, 1567. Infidelity fays to Mary: 9 "Let me fele your poulíes, miftreffe Mary, be you ficke? By my troth in as good tempre as any woman can be: "Your vaines are as full of blood, lufty and quicke, "In better taking truly I did you never fee." STEEVENS. a marvellous fearching wine, and it perfumes the blood-] The fame phrafeology is feriously used by Arthur Hall, in his tranflation of the first Iliad, 4°. 1581: 66 good Chrife with wine fo red "The aulter throughly doth perfume :· STEEVENS. When Arthur firft in court-] The entire ballad is publifhed in the first volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of ancient English Poetry. STEEVENS. The words in the ballad are "When Arthur first in court began, "And was approved king." MALONE. 2 Sick of a calm:] I fuppofe fhe means to fay of a qualm. STEEVENS. FAL. So is all her fect; 3 an they be once in a calm, they are fick. DOL. You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me ? FAL. You make fat rafcals,+ mistress Doll. 3 So is all her fect;] I know not why fect is printed in all the copies; I believe fer is meant. JOHNSON. Sect is, I believe, right. Falstaff may mean all of her profeffion. In Mother Bombie, a comedy, 1594, the word is frequently used: "Sil. I am none of that fect. "Can. Thy loving fect is an ancient fect, and an honourable," &c. Since the foregoing quotation was given, I have found fect fo often printed for fex in the old plays, that I fuppose these words were anciently fynonymous. Thus, in Marfton's Infatiate Countess, 1613: "Deceives our fect of fame and chastity." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentinian: Modesty was made "When she was firft intended: when the blushes "The pureft temple of her fect, that ever "Made nature a blest founder." Again, in Whetstone's Arbour of Vertue, 1576: "Who, for that these barons so wrought a flaunder to her feet, "Their foolish, rafh, and judgment false, the sharplie did detect." STEEVENS. In Middleton's Mad World my Mafters, 1608, (as Dr. Farmer has elsewhere observed,) a courtezan fays, "it is the eafieft art and cunning for our fect to counterfeit sick, that are always full of fits, when we are well," I have therefore no doubt that fect was licentiously ufed by our author, and his contemporaries, for fex. MALONE. I believe fect is here used in its ufual fenfe, and not for fex. Falftaff means to fay, that all courtezans, when their trade is at a ftand, are apt to be fick. Douce. You make fat rafcals,] Falstaff alludes to a phrase of the foreft. Lean deer are called rafcal deer. He tells her he calls him wrong, being fat he cannot be a rafcal. JOHNSON. |