SLEN. Where's Simple, my man? can you tell, coufin?

Eva. Peace: I pray you! Now let us understand: There is three umpires in this matter, as I understand: that is-mafter Page, fidelicet, master Page; and there is myself, fidelicet, myself; and the three party is, lastly and finally, mine hoft of the Garter.

PAGE, We three, to hear it, and end it between them.

EVA. Fery goot: I will make a prief of it in my note-book; and we will afterwards 'ork upon the cause, with as great discreetly 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 purse?

SLEN. Ay, by these gloves, did he, (or I would I might never come in mine own great chamber again else,) of seven groats in mill-fixpences, and two Edward fhovel-boards, that cost me two fhil

what phrase is this, &c.] Sir Hugh is justified in his cenfure of this passage by Peacham, who in his Garden of Eloquence, 1577, places this very mode of expreffion under the article Pleonasmus. HENDERSON.

I

- mill-fixpences,] It appears from a passage in Sir William Davenant's Newes from Plimouth, that these mill fixpences were used by way of counters to cast up money: - A few mill'd fixpences, with which

2

"My purfer cafts accompt." STEEVENS.

-Edward shovel-boards,] One of these pieces of metal is

mentioned in Middleton's comedy of The Roaring Girl, 1611: "-away flid I my man, like a shovel-board Shilling," &c. STEEVENS.

ling and two pence a-piece of Yead Miller, by these gloves,

"Edward Shovel-boards," were the broad shillings of Edw. VI. Taylor, the water-poet, in his Trauel of Twelve-pence, makes

him complain:

- the unthrift every day

"With my face downwards do at shoave-board play; "That had I had a beard, you may suppose,

"They had worne it off, as they have done my nofe." And in a note he tells us: "Edw. fhillings for the most part are used at Shoave-board." FARMER.

In the Second Part of K. Henry IV. Falstaff says, "Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling." This confirms Farmer's opinion, that pieces of coin were used for that purpose. M. MASON.

The following extract, for the notice of which I am indebted to Dr. Farmer, will afcertain the species of coin mentioned in the text. “I must here take notice before I entirely quit the fubject of these last-mentioned shillings, that I have also seen fome other pieces of good filver, greatly resembling the fame, and of the fame date 1547, that have been so much thicker as to weigh about half an ounce, together with fome others that have weighed an ounce." Folkes's Table of English Silver Coins, p. 32. The former of these were probably what cost Master Slender two fhillings and two-pence a-piece. REED.

It appears, that the game of Shovel-board was played with the fhillings of Edward VI. in Shadwell's time; for in his Mifer, Act III. fc. i. Cheatly fays, "She perfuaded him to play with hazard at backgammon, and he has already loft his Edward fhillings that he kept for Shovel-board, and was pulling out broad pieces (that have not feen the fun these many years) when I came away."

In Shadwell's Lancashire Witches, Vol. III. p. 232, the game is called Shuffle-board. It is still played; and I lately heard a man ask another to go into an alehouse in the Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, to play at it. DoUCE.

That Slender means the broad shilling of one of our kings, appears from comparing these words with the corresponding passage in the old quarto: "Ay by this handkerchief did he ;two faire fhovel-board Shillings, befides seven groats in mill fixpences."

How twenty eight pence could be loft in mill-fixpences, Slender, however, has not explained to us. MALONE.

FAL. Is this true, Pistol?

Eva. No; it is false, if it is a pick-purse.
PIST. Ha, thou mountain-foreigner!-Sir John

and master mine,

I combat challenge of this latten bilbo : 3
Word of denial in thy labras here; 4
Word of denial: froth and scum, thou lieft,

3 I combat challenge of this latten bilbo:] Pistol, seeing Slender such a flim, puny wight, would intimate, that he is as thin as a plate of that compound metal, which is called latten; and which was, as we are told, the old orichalc. THEOBALD. Latten is a mixed metal, made of copper and calamine.

MALONE, The sarcafm intended is, that Slender had neither courage nor strength, as a latten sword has neither edge nor fubftance.

HEATH,

Latten may fignify no more than as thin as a lath. The word in fome counties is still pronounced as if there was no h in it: and Ray, in his Dictionary of North Country Words, affirms it to be spelt lat in the North of England,

Falstaff threatens, in another play, to drive prince Henry out of his kingdom with a dagger of lath. A latten bilboe means therefore, I believe, no more than a blade as thin as a latha vice's dagger.

Theobald, however, is right in his assertion that latten was a metal. So Turbervile, in his book of Falconry, 1575 : "you must set her a latten bason, or a veilel of stone or earth." Again, in Old Fortunatus, 1600: "Whether it were lead or latten that hasp'd down those winking casements, I know not." Again, in the old metrical Romance of Syr Bevis of Hampton, bl, 1, no date:

"Windowes of latin were set with glasse." Latten is still a common word for tin in the North.

STEEVENS,

I believe Theobald has given the true sense of latten, though he is wrong in supposing, that the allusion is to Slender's thinness. It is rather to his softness or weakness. TYRWHITT.

• Word of denial in thy labras here ;) I suppose it should rather be read :

"Word of denial in my labras hear;"

That is, hear the word of denial in my lips. Thou ly'st.

JOHNSON,

SLEN. By these gloves, then 'twas he.

NrM. Be advised, fir, and pass good humours: I will say, marry trap, with you, if you run the nuthook's humour on me, that is the very note of it.

SLEN. By this hat, then he in the red face had it: for though I cannot remember what I did when you made me drunk, yet I am not altogether an afs.

FAL. What say you, Scarlet and John ?" BARD. Why, fir, for my part, I say, the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five sentences.

Eva. It is his five senses: fie, what the igno

rance is!

We often talk of giving the lie in a man's teeth, or in his throat. Pistol chooses to throw the word of denial in the lips of his adversary, and is supposed to point to them as he speaks. STEEVENS.

There are few words in the old copies more frequently misprinted than the word hear. Thy lips," however, is certainly right, as appears from the old quarto : "I do retort the lie even in thy gorge, thy gorge, thy gorge." MALONE.

5

-marry trap,] When a man was caught in his own stratagem, I suppose the exclamation of infult was-marry, trap! JOHNSON.

6

- nuthook's humour - Nuthook is the reading of the folio. The quarto reads, base humour.

If you run the nuthook's humour on me, is, in plain English, if you say I am a thief. Enough is faid on the subject of hooking moveables out at windows, in a note on K. Henry IV.

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STEEVENS.

- Scarlet and John?] The names of two of Robin Hood's companions; but the humour confists in the allusion to Bardolph's red face; concerning which, see The Second Part of Henry IV. WARBURTON.

BARD. And being fap, fir, was, as they fay, cashier'd; and fo conclufions pass'd the careires.9 SLEN. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter: I'll ne'er be drunk whilft I live again,

* And being fap,] I know not the exact meaning of this cant word, neither have I met with it in any of our old dramatic pieces, which have often proved the best comments on Shakspeare's vulgarisms.

Dr. Farmer, indeed, observes, that to fib is to beat; so that being fap may mean being beaten; and cashiered, turned out of company. STEEVENS.

The word fap, is probably made from vappa, a drunken fellow, or a good-for-nothing fellow, whose virtues are all exhaled. Slender, in his answer, seems to understand that Bardolph had made ufe of a Latin word: "Ay, you spake in Latin then too;" as Piftol had just before. S. W.

It is not probable that any cant term is from the Latin; nor that the word in question was so derived, because Slender miftook it for Latin. The mistake, indeed, is an argument to the contrary, as it shows his ignorance in that language. Fap, however, certainly means drunk, as appears from the gloffaries.

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DOUCE.

-careires.] I believe this strange word is nothing but the French cariere; and the expreffion means, that the commor bounds of good behaviour are overpaffed. JOHNSON.

To pass the cariere was a military phrafe, or rather perhaps a term of the manege. I find it in one of Sir John Smythe's Difcourses, 1589, where, fpeaking of horses wounded, he says" they, after the first shrink at the entering of the bullet, doo pass their carriere, as though they had verie little hurt." Again, in Harrington's tranflation of Ariosto, b. xxxviii.

stanza 35:

"To stop, to start, to pass carier, to bound."

STEEVENS.

Bardolph means to fay, "and fo in the end he reel'd about with a circuitous motion, like a horse, paffing a carier." To pass a carier was a technical term. So, in Nathe's Have with you to Saffron Walden, &c. 1596: "- her hotteft fury may be resembled to the paffing of a brave cariere by a Pegafus."

We find the term again used in K. Henry V. in the fame manner as in the passage before us: "The king is a good king, but-he paffes fome humours and cariers." MALONE.