PAGE. It could not be judg'd, fir. SLEN. You'll not confefs, you'll not confefs. SHAL. That he will not;-'tis your fault, 'tis your fault-Tis a good dog. PAGE. A cur, fir. SHAL: Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog; Can there be more faid? he is good, and fair.-Ís fir John Falstaff here? PAGE. Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office between you. EVA. It is fpoke as a chriftians ought to fpeak. Cotswold games, not founded till the reign of James the First, ascertains a period of time beyond which our author must have made the additions to his original rough draft, or, in other words, compofed the prefent comedy. James the First came to the crown in the year i603. And we will fuppose that two or three more years at leaft must have passed before these games could have been effectually established. I would therefore, at the earliest, date this play about the year 1607. T. WARTON. The Annalia Dübrenfia confifts entirely of recommendatory verses. DOUCE. The Cotswold hills in Gloucestershire are a large tract of downs, famous for their fine turf, and therefore excellent for courfing. I believe there is no village of that name. BLACKSTONE. 8 tis your fault, 'tis your fault: Of these words, which are addreffed to Page, the fenfe is not very clear. Perhaps Shallow means to say, that it is a known failing of Page's not to confess that his dog has been out-run. Or, the meaning may be,-'tis your misfortune that he was out-run on Cotswold; he is, however, a good dog. So perhaps the word is used afterwards by Ford, fpeaking of his jealousy : 'Tis my fault, mafter Page; I fuffer for it." MALONE. Perhaps Shallow addreffes thefe words to Slender, and means to tell him, it was his fault to undervalue a dog whofe inferiority in the chafe was not afcertained." STEEVENS. not that fo, mafter Page? He hath wrong'd me;indeed, he hath;-at a word, he hath;-believe me;-Robert Shallow, Efquire, faith, he is wrong'd. PAGE. Here comes fir John. Enter Sir John FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, NYM, and PISTOL. FAL. Now, mafter Shallow; you'll complain of me to the king? SHAL. Knight, you have beaten my men, kill'd my deer, and broke open my lodge. 9. FAL. But not kifs'd your keeper's daughter? FAL. I will anfwer it ftraight;-I have done all this:That is now anfwer'd. SHAL. The Council fhall know this. FAL. 'Twere better for you, if it were known in counfel: you'll be laugh'd at. 9 -and broke open my lodge.] This probably alludes to fome real incident, at that time well known. JOHNSON. So probably Falstaff's answer. FARMER. 2 'Twere better for you, if it were known in counsel:] The old copies read-Twere better for you, if 'twere known in council. Perhaps it is an abrupt fpeech, and must be read thus:Twere better for you-iftwere known in council, you'll be laugh'd at. 'Twere better for you, is, I believe, a menace. JOHNSON. Some of the modern editors arbitrarily read-if 'twere not known in council:--but I believe Falstaff quibbles between council and counfel. The latter fignifies fecrecy, So, in Hamlet: "The players cannot keep counfel, they'll tell all." Falstaff's meaning feems to be 'twere better for you if it were known only in fecrecy, i. e. among your friends. complaint would fubje& you to ridicule. A more publick Thus, in Chaucer's Prologue to the Squires Tale, v. 10305, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit: "But were ye what? in confeil be it feyde, EVA. Pauca verba, fir John; good worts. FAL. Good worts! good cabbage.'-Slender, I broke your head; What matter have you againft me? SLEN. Marry, fir, I have matter in my head against you; and against your concy-catching rafcals, Bardolph, Nym, and Piftol. They carried me to the tavern, and made me drunk, and afterwards pick'd my pocket.' Again, in Gammer Gurton's Needle, laft edit. p. 29: "But firft for you in council, I have a word or twaine." STEEVENS. Mr. Ritfon fuppofes the prefent reading to be juft, and quite in Falflaff's infolent ineering manner. "It would be much better, indeed, to have it known in the council, where you would only be laughed at." REED. The fpelling of the old quarto (counfel,)as well as the general purport of the paffage, fully confirms Mr. Steevens's interpretation. "Shal. Well, the Council fhall know it. Fal. 'Twere better for you 'twere known in counfell. You'll be laugh't at." In an office-book of Sir Heneage Finch, Treafurer of the Chambers to Queen Elizabeth, (a Mf. in the British Museum,) I observe that whenever the Privy Councel is mentioned, the word is always fpelt Counsel fo that the equivoque was lefs ftrained then thau it appears now. "Mum is Counfell, viz. filence," is among Howel's Proverbial Sentences. See his DICT. folio, 1660. MALONE. 3 Good worts! good cabbage.] Worts was the ancient name of all the cabbage kind. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentinian: "Planting of worts and onions, any thing." STEEVENS. 4 -coney-catching rafcals.] A coney-catcher was, in the time of Elizabeth, a common name for a cheat or sharper. Green, one of the first among us who made a trade of writing pamphlets, publifhed A Detection of the Frauds and Tricks of Coney-catchers and Couzeners. JOHNSON. So, in Decker's Satiromaftix: "Thou shalt not coney-catch me for five pounds."; STEEVENS. They carried me, &c.] Thefe words, which are neceffary to introduce what Falstaff says afterwards, [“Piftol, did you pick mafter Slender's purfe?] I have reftored from the early quarto. my BAR. You Banbury cheese!" PIST. How now, Mephoftophilus?" 8 NYм. Slice, I fay! pauca, pauca; flice! that's humour.. Of this circumftance, as the play is exhibited in the folio, Sir John could have no knowledge. Malone. We might fuppofe that Falstaff was already acquainted with this robbery, and had received his fhare of it, as in the case of the haudle of miftrefs Bridget's fan, Ad II. fc. ii. His queftion, therefore, may be faid to arife at once from confcious guilt and pretended ignorance. I have, however, adopted Mr. Malone's restoration. STEEVENS, 6 You Banbury cheese!] This is faid in allufion to the thin carcase of Slender. The fame thought occurs in Jack Drum's Entertainment, 1601:- "Put off your cloaths, and you are like a 'Banbury cheese, nothing but paring." So Heywood, in his collection of epigrams: “I never saw Banbury cheese thick enough, "But I have oft feen Effex cheese quick enough." STEEVENS. 7 How now, Mephoftophilus?] This is the name of a spirit or familiar, in the old ftory book of Sir John Fauftus, or John Fauft: 10 whom our author afterwards alludes, A&II. fc. ii. That it was a cant phrase of abuse, appears from the old comedy cited above, called A pleafant Comedy of the Gentle Craft, Signat. H 3. "Away you Illington whitepot; hence you hopper-arse, you barley-pudding full of maggots, you broiled carbonado: avaunt, avaunt, Mephoftophilus,” In the fame vein, Bardolph here also calls Slender, "You Banbury cheese." T. WARTON. Piftol means to call Slender a very ugly fellow. So, in Nofce te, (Humors) by Richard Turner, 1607: "O face, no face hath our Theophilus, But the right forme of Mephoftophilus. "I know 'twould feive, and yet I am no wizard, "To playe the Devil 'the vault without a vizard.” Again, in, The Mufes Looking Glass, 1638: "We want not you to play Mephotophiius. A pretty natural vizard!" STEEVENS. 8 Slice, I fay! pauca, pauca;] Dr. Farmer (fee a former note, p. 10, n. 8.) would transfer the Latin words to Evans. But the SLEN. Where's Simple, my man?-can you tell, coufin? EVA. Peace: I pray you! Now let us underftand: There is three umpires in this matter, as I understand: that is-master Page, fidelicet, master Page; and there is myself, fidelicet, myfelf; and the three party is, laftly and finally, mine hoft of the Garter. PAGE. We three, to hear it, and end it between them. EVA. Fery good: I will make a prief of it in my note-book; and we will afterwards 'ork upon the caufe, with as great difcreetly as we can. FAL. Piftol, PIST. He hears with ears. EVA. The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this,* He hears with ear? Why, it is affectations. FAL. Pistol, did you pick master Slender's purfe? SLEN. Ay, by thefe gloves, did he, (or I would I might never come in mine own great chamber again elfe,) of feven groats in mill-fixpences,' and old copy, language: I think, is right. Piftol, in K. Henry V. ufes the fame "I will hold the quondam Quickly "For the only fhe; and pauca, there's enough." In the fame fcene Nym twice ufes the word folus. MALONE. -that's my humour.] So, in an ancient Mf. play, entitled The Second Maiden's Tragedy: "I love not to difquiet ghofts, fir, "Of any people living; that's my humour, fir." See a following note, A& II. fc. i. STEEVENS. 2 what phrafe is this, &c.] Sir Hugh is juftified in his cenfure of this paffage by Pecham, who in his Garden of Eloquence, 1577, places this very mode of expreffion under the article Pleonafmus. HENDERSON. 3-mill-fixpences,] It appears from a paffage in Sir William |