Eva. It is marring, indeed, if he quarter it. Eva. Yes, py'r-lady; if he has a quarter of your coat, there is but three skirts for yourself, in my fimple conjectures: but this is all one: If fir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my be lished among his neighbours. It may be remarked likewise, that the jingle on which it turns, occurs in the first scene of The Merry Wives of Windfor." I may add, that the veracity of the late Mr. Oldys has never yet been impeached; and it is not very probable that a ballad should be forged, from which an undiscovered wag could derive no triumph over antiquarian credulity. STEEVENS. The luce is the fresh fish; the falt fish is an old coat.] Our author here alludes to the arms of Sir Thomas Lucy, who is faid to have prosecuted him in the younger part of his life for a mifdemesnor, and who is supposed to be pointed at under the character of Justice Shallow. The text, however, by some carelessness of the printer or transcriber, has been so corrupted, that the passage, as it stands at present, seems inexplicable. Dr. Farmer's regulation appears to me highly probable; and in further fupport of it, it may be observed, that some other speeches, befide those he has mentioned, are misplaced in a subsequent part of this scene, as exhibited in the first folio. MALONE. Perhaps we have not yet conceived the humour of Master Shallow. Slender has observed, that the family might give a dozen white Luces in their coat; to which the Justice adds, "It is an old one." This produces the Parson's blunder, and Shallow's correction. "The Luce is not the Louse but the Pike, the fresh fish of that name. Indeed our Coat is old, as I faid, and the fish cannot be fresh; and therefore we bear the white, i. e. the pickled or falt fish." In the Northumberland Household Book, we meet with " nine barrels of white herringe for a hole yere, 4. 10. 0:" and Mr. Pennant in the additions to his London says, "By the very high price of the Pike, it is probable that this fish had not yet been introduced into our ponds, but was imported as a luxury, pickled." It will be still clearer if we read" tho' falt fish in an old coat." FARMER, nevolence, to make atonements and compromises between you. SHAL. The Council shall hear it; it is a riot.9 Eva. It is not meet the Council hear a riot; there is no fear of Got in a riot: the Council, look you, shall defire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your vizaments in that. I SHAL. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the fword should end it. Eva. It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it: and there is also another device in my prain, which, peradventure, prings goot difcretions with it: There is Anne Page, which is daughter to mafter George Page, which is pretty virginity. • The Council shall hear it; it is a riot.] By the Council is only meant the court of Star-chamber, composed chiefly of the king's council fitting in Camera ftellata, which took cognizance of atrocious riots. In the old quarto, "the council shall know it," follows immediately after "I'll make a Star-chamber matter of it." BLACKSTONE. So, in Sir John Harrington's Epigrams, 1618: See Stat. 13. Henry IV. c. 7. GREY. 1 - MALONE. your vizaments in that.] Advisement is now an obfolete word. I meet with it in the ancient morality of Every Man : "That I may amend me with good advysement." Again: Again: " I shall finite without any advysement." "To do with good advysement and delyberacyon." It is often used by Spenser in his Faery Queen. So, B.II. c.9: "Perhaps my fuccour and advizement meete." STEEVENS, -which is daughter to master George Page.] The old copy reads-Thomas Page. STEEVENS. 2 The whole fet of editions have negligently blundered one after another in Page's Christian name in this place; though Mrs. Page calls him George afterwards in at least fix several passages. SLEN. Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and speaks small like a woman.3 Eva. It is that fery verson for all the 'orld, as just as you will defire; and seven hundred pounds of monies, and gold, and filver, is her grandfire, upon his death's-bed, (Got deliver to a joyful refurrections!) give, when she is able to overtake 3-Speaks small like a woman.] This is from the folio of 1623, and is the true reading. He admires her for the sweetness of her voice. But the expression is highly humorous, as making her speaking small like a woman one of her marks of diftinction; and the ambiguity of small, which signifies little as well as low, makes the expression still more pleasant. WARBURTON. Thus, Lear, speaking of Cordelia : " Gentle and low :-an excellent thing in woman." STEEVENS. Dr. Warburton has found more pleasantry here than I believe was intended. Small was, I think, not used, as he supposes, in an ambiguous sense, for "little, as well as low," but fimply for weak, Slender, feminine; and the only pleafantry of the paffage feems to be, that poor Slender should characterise his mistress by a general quality belonging to her whole sex. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Quince tells Flute, who objects to playing a woman's part, "You shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as fmall as you will." MALONE. A fmall voice is a soft and melodious voice. Chaucer uses the word in that sense, in The Flower and the Leaf, Speght's edit. p. 611: "The company answered all, "With voicè sweet entuned, and so small, "That me thought it the sweetest melody.' Again, in Fairfax's Godfrey of Bulloigne, 1.15, ft. 62: "She warbled forth a treble small, "And with sweet lookes, her sweet fongs enterlaced." When female characters were filled by boys, to speak small like a woman must have been a valuable qualification. So, in Marston's What you will: "I was folicited to graunt him leave to play the lady in comedies presented by children; but I knew his voice was too fmall, and his ftature too low. Sing a treble, Holofernes; a very small sweet voice I'le affure you. HOLT WHITE. seventeen years old: it were a goot motion, if we leave our pribbles and prabbles, and defire a marriage between master Abraham, and mistress Anne Page. SHAL. Did her grandfire leave her seven hundred pound ?4 Eva. Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny. SHAL. I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts. Eva. Seven hundred pounds, and poffibilities, is good gifts. SHAL. Well, let us see honest master Page: Is Falstaff there? Eva. Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar, as I do despise one that is false; or, as I despise one * Shal. Did her grandfire leave her Seven hundred pound? I know the young gentlewoman; &c.] These two speeches are by mistake given to Slender in the first folio, the only authentick copy of this play. From the foregoing words it appears that Shallow is the person here addressed; and on a marriage being proposed for his kinsman, he very naturally enquires concerning the lady's fortune. Slender should feem not to know what they are talking about; (except that he just hears the name of Anne Page, and breaks out into a foolish elogium on her ;) for afterwards Shallow says to him,-"Coz, there is, as it were, a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here; do you understand me?" to which Slender replies " if it be so," &c. The tender, therefore, we fee, had been made to Shallow, and not to Slender, the former of which names should be prefixed to the two speeches before us. In this play, as exhibited in the first folio, many of the speeches are given to characters to whom they do not belong. Printers, to save trouble, keep the names of the speakers in each scene ready composed, and are very liable to mistakes, when two names begin (as in the prefent instance) with the same letter, and are nearly of the fame length. -The present regulation was fuggested by Mr. Capell. MALONE. that is not true. The knight, fir John, is there; and, I beseech you, be ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door [knocks] for master Page. What, hoa! Got pless your house here! Enter PAGE. PAGE. Who's there? EVA. Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and justice Shallow: and here young master Slender; that, peradventures, shall tell you another tale, if matters grow to your likings. PAGE. I am glad to see your worships well: I thank you for my venison, master Shallow. SHAL. Master Page, I am glad to see you; Much good do it your good heart! I wished your venison better; it was ill kill'd:-How doth good mistress Page?-and I love you 5 always with my heart, la; with my heart. PAGE. Sir, I thank you. SHAL. Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do. PAGE. I am glad to see you, good master Slender. SLEN. How does your fallow greyhound, fir? I heard say, he was out-run on Cotsale.6 5 - I love you-) Thus the 4to. 1619. The folio-"I thank you-." Dr. Farmer prefers the first of these readings, which I have therefore placed in the text. STEEVENS. • How does your fallow greyhound, fir? I heard say, he was ont-run on Cotsale.] He means Cotswold, in Gloucestershire. In the beginning of the reign of James the First, by permiffion of the king, one Dover, a public-spirited attorney of Barton on the Heath, in Warwickshire, instituted on the hills of Cotswold an annual celebration of games, confifting of rural sports and exercises. These he constantly conducted in person, well mounted, and accoutred in a fuit of his majesty's old clothes; od they were frequented above forty years by the nobility and |