MRS. FORD. O fweet fir John!

FAL. Miftrefs Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, mistress Ford. Now fhall I fin in my wish: I would thy husband were dead; I'll speak it before the best lord, I would make thee my lady.

MRS. FORD. I your lady, fir John! alas, I should be a pitiful lady.

FAL. Let the court of France fhow me fuch another; I fee how thine eye would emulate the diamond: Thou haft the right arched bent 5 of the brow, that becomes the fhip-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance."

arched bent-] Thus the quartos 1602, and 1619. The folio reads-arched beauty. STEEVENS.

The reading of the quarto is fupported by a paffage in Antony and Cleopatra :

Eternity was in our lips and eyes,

"Blifs in our brows-bent." MALONE.

that becomes the Ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.] Inftead of-Venetian admittance, the old quarto reads-" or any Venetian attire." STEEVENS.

The old quarto reads-tire-vellet, and the old folio readsor any tire of Venetian admittance. So that the true reading of the whole is this, that becomes the Ship-tire, the tire-VALIANT, or any tire of Venetian admittance. The speaker tells his miftress, she had a face that would become all the head dreffes in fashion. The hip-tire was an open head dress, with a kind of fcarf depending from behind. Its name of Ship-tire was, I prefume, from its giving the wearer fome refemblance of a Jhip (as Shakspeare fays) in all her trim: with all her pendants out, and flags and ftreamers flying.

This was an image familiar with the poets of that time. Thus Beaumont and Fletcher, in their play of Wit without Money: "She spreads fattens as the king's fhips do canvas every where; the may space her mifen," &c. This will direct us to reform the following word of tire-valiant, which I fufpect to be corrupt, valiant being a very incongruous epithet for a woman's head dress: I fuppofe Shakspeare wrote tirevailant. As the hip-tire was an open head dress, so the tire

MRS. FORD. A plain kerchief, fir John: my brows become nothing elfe; nor that well neither.

vailant was a clofe one, in which the head and breast were covered as with a veil. And these were, in fact, the two different head dreffes then in fashion, as we may fee by the pictures of that time. One of which was fo open, that the whole neck, breafts, and fhoulders, were opened to view the other, fo fecurely inclosed in kerchiefs, &c. that nothing could be seen above the eyes, or below the chin. WARBURTON.

In the fifth act, Fenton mentions that his mistress is to meet him

"With ribbons pendant flaring 'bout her head." This, probably, was what is here called the Ship-tire.

MALONE.

the tire valiant,] I would read-tire volant. Stubbes, who defcribes most minutely every article of female drefs, has mentioned none of these terms, but speaks of vails depending from the top of the head, and flying behind in loofe folds. The word volant was in ufe before the age of Shakspeare. I find it in Wilfride Holme's Fall and evil Successe of Rebellion, 1537:

-high volant in any thing divine."

Tire vellet, which is the reading of the old quarto, may be printed, as Mr. Tollet obferves, by mistake, for tire-velvet. We know that velvet-hoods were worn in the age of Shakfpeare. STEEVENS.

Among the prefents fent by the Queen of Spain to the Queen of England, in April 1606, was a velvet cap with gold buttons. Catharine's cap, in The Taming of the Shrew, is likewise of velvet.

Tire-volant, however, I believe with Mr. Steevens, was the poet's word. "Their heads (fays Nafhe in 1594) with their top and top-gallant lawne baby caps, and fnow-refembled filver curlings, they make a plain puppet-stage of. Their breafts they embufke up on hie, and their round rofeate buds they immodeftly lay forth, to fhew, at their hands there is fruit to be hoped." Christ's Tears over Jerufalem, 4to. 1594. MALONE.

of Venetian admittance.] i. e. of a fashion received or admitted from Venice. So, in Weftward Hoe, 1606, by Decker and Webster:-" now fhe's in that Italian head-tire you fent her." Dr. Farmer proposes to read—” of Venetian remittance.”

STEEVENS,

FAL. Thou art a traitor" to fay fo: thou would'st make an abfolute courtier; and the firm fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait, in a femi-circled farthingale. I fee what thou wert, if fortune thy foe were not; nature is thy friend: Come, thou canst not hide it.

8

In how much request the Venetian tyre formerly was held, appears from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1624:"let her have the Spanish gate, [gait] the Venetian tire, Italian complements and endowments." MALONE.

May not the tire valiant be so called from the air of boldness and confidence which it might give the wearer? A certain court divine (who can hardly be called a courtly one) in a fermon preached before King James the Firft, thus fpeaks of the ladies' head dreffes : "" Oh what a wonder it is to fee a ship under faile with her tacklings and her mafts, and her tops and top gallants, with her upper decks and her nether decks, and so bedeckt with her streames, flags and enfigns, and I know not what; yea but a world of wonders it is to fee a woman created in God's image, so miscreate oft times and deformed with her French, her Spanish and her foolish fashions, that he that made her, when he looks upon her, fhall hardly know her, with her plumes, her fans, and a filken vizard, with a ruffe, like a faile; yea, a ruffe like a rainbow, with a feather in her cap, like a flag in her top, to tell (I thinke) which way the wind will blow." The MERCHANT ROYALL, a fermon preached at Whitehall before the King's Majeftie, at the nuptialls of Lord Hay and his Lady, Twelfth-day, 1607, 4to. 1615. Again, "it is proverbially faid, that far fetcht and deare bought is fitteft for ladies; as now-a-daies what groweth at home is bafe and homely; and what every one eates is meate for dogs; and wee must have bread from one countrie, and drinke from another; and wee must have meate from Spaine, and fauce out of Italy; and if wee weare any thing, it must be pure Venetian, Roman, or barbarian; but the fashion of all must be French." Ibid. REED. a traitor-] i. e. to thy own merit. STEEVENS.

7

The folio reads-thou art a tyrant, &c. but the reading of the quarto appears to me far better. MALONE.

8

fortune thy foe-]" was the beginning of an old ballad, in which were enumerated all the misfortunes that fall upon mankind, through the caprice of fortune." See note on

ון

MRS. FORD. Believe me, there's no fuch thing

in me.

FAL. What made me love thee? let that perfuade thee, there's fomething extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog, and fay, thou art this and that, like a many of these lifping haw-thorn buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklers-bury1 in fimple-time; I cannot: but I love thee; none but thee; and thou deferveft it.

The Cuftom of the Country, A& I. fc. i. by Mr. Theobald; who obferves, that this ballad is mentioned again in a comedy by John Tatham, printed in 1660, called The Rump, or Mirror of the Times, wherein a Frenchman is introduced at the bonfire made for the burning of the rumps, and, catching hold of Prifcilla, will oblige her to dance, and orders the mufick to play Fortune my Foe. See alfo, Lingua, Vol. V. Dodfley's Collection, p. 188; and Tom Effence, 1677, p. 37. Mr. Ritfon obferves, that "the tune is the identical air now known by the fong of Death and the Lady, to which the metrical lamentations of extraordinary criminals have been usually chanted for upwards of these two hundred years." Reed.

The first stanza of this popular ballad was as follows:

“Fortune, my foe, why doft thou frown on me?

"And will my fortune never better be?

"Wilt thon, I fay, for ever breed my pain,

"And wilt thou not reftore my joys again?" MALONE. This ballad is alfo mentioned by Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 576: "What fhall we do in fuch a cafe?" fing Fortune, my foe ?" STEEVENS.

9 nature is thy friend:] Is, which is not in the old copy, was introduced by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

I

-like Buckler's-bury &c.]

Buckler's-bury, in the time of Shakspeare, was chiefly inhabited by druggifts, who fold all kinds of herbs, green as well as dry. STEEVENS.

2

I cannot cog, and fay, thou art this and that, like a many of thefe lifping haw-thorn buds,-I cannot but I love

thee;] So, in Wily Beguil'd, 1606:

"I cannot play the diffembler,

"And woo my love with courting ambages,

MRS. FORD. Do not betray me, fir; I fear, you love mistress Page.

FAL. Thou might'ft as well fay, I love to walk by the Counter-gate; which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln.3

MRS. FORD. Well, heaven knows, how I love you; and you shall one day find it.

FAL. Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it.

MRS. FORD. Nay, I muft tell you, so you do; or elfe I could not be in that mind.

ROB. [within.] Mistress Ford, mistress Ford! here's mistress Page at the door, fweating, and blowing, and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.

FAL. She fhall not fee me; I will enfconce me behind the arras.4

MRS. FORD. Pray you, do fo; fhe's a very tattling woman.[FALSTAFF hides himself.

Enter Miftrefs PAGE and ROBIN.

What's the matter? how now?

3

"Like one whofe love hangs on his smooth tongue's end; "But in a word I tell the fum of my defires,

"I love faire Lelia." MALONE.

as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln.] Our poet has a fimilar image in Coriolanus:

4

whofe breath I hate,

"As reek o' the rotten fens.' STEEVENS.

behind the arras.] The spaces left between the walls and the wooden frames on which arras was hung, were not more commodious to our ancestors than to the authors of their ancient dramatic pieces. Borachio in Much Ado about Nothing, and Polonius in Hamlet, also avail themselves of this convenient recefs. STEEVENS.