book, fhe loves you:-Have not your worship a wart above your eye?

FENT. Yes, marry, have I; what of that?

QUICK. Well, thereby hangs a tale ;-good faith, it is fuch another Nan;-but, I deteft,4 an honest maid as ever broke bread:-We had an hour's talk of that wart;-I fhall never laugh but in that maid's company!-But, indeed, the is given too much to allicholly 5 and mufing: But for youWell, go to.

FENT. Well, I fhall fee her to-day: Hold, there's money for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if thou seeft her before me, commend

me

QUICK. Will I? i'faith, that we will: and I will tell your worship more of the wart, the next time we have confidence; and of other wooers.

FENT. Well, farewell; I am in great hafte now.

[Exit. QUICK. Farewell to your worship.-Truly, an honeft gentleman; but Anne loves him not; for I know Anne's mind as well as another does :-Out upon't! what have I forgot? [Exit.

4 but, I deteft,] She means-I proteft. MALONE. The fame intended mistake occurs in Meafure for Measure, A& II. fc. i: "My wife, fir, whom I deteft before heaven and your honour," &c.-" Doft thou deteft her therefore?"

STEEVENS,

5 to allicholly-] And yet, in a former part of this very fcene, Mrs. Quickly is made to utter the word-melancholy, without the leaft corruption of it. Such is the inconfiftency of the firft folio. STEEvens.

6

Out upon't! what have I forgot?] This excufe for leaving the stage, is rather too near Dr. Caius's "Od's me! qu'ay j'oublié ?" in the former part of the scene. STEEVENS.

ACT II. SCENE I.

Before Page's House.

Enter Miftrefs PAGE, with a letter.

MRS. PAGE. What! have I 'fcaped love-letters in the holy-day time of my beauty, and am I now a fubject for them? Let me fee:

[Reads.

Ask me no reason why I love you; for though love ufe reafon for his precifian, he admits him not for his counfellor: 7 You are not young, no more am

7though love ufe reafon for his precifian, he admits him not for his counfellor:] This is obfcure: but the meaning is, though love permit reafon to tell what is fit to be done, he feldom follows its advice.-By precifian, is meant one who pretends to a more than ordinary degree of virtue and fanctity. On which account they gave this name to the puritans of that time. So Ofborne-" Conform their mode, words, and looks, to these PRECISIANS." And Maine, in his City Match:

"A great PRECISIAN to her for her woman."

WARBURTON.

Of this word I do not fee any meaning that is very appofite to the present intention. Perhaps Falftaff faid, Though love ufe reafon as his phyfician, he admits him not for his counfellor. This will be plain fenfe. Afk not the reason of my love; the bufinefs of reafon is not to affift love, but to cure it. There may however be this meaning in the prefent reading. Though love, when he would fubmit to regulation, may use reafon as kis precifian, or director, in nice cafes, yet when he is only eager to attain his end, he takes not reason for his counsellor. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson wifhes to read phyfician; and this conjecture becomes almost a certainty from a line in our author's 147th fonnet :

My reason the phyfician to my love," &c. FARMER. The character of a precifian seems to have been very generally ridiculed in the time of Shakspeare. So, in The Malcon

I; go to then, there's fympathy: you are merry, fo am I; Ha! ha! then there's more fympathy: you love fack, and fo do I; Would you defire better fympathy? Let it fuffice thee, miftrefs Page, (at the leaft, if the love of a foldier can fuffice,) that I love thee. I will not fay, pity me, 'tis not a foldier-like phrafe; but I fay, love me. By me, Thine own true knight,

By day or night,8
Or any kind of light,
With all his might,

For thee to fight,

John Falftaff.

tent, 1604: "You must take her in the right vein then; as, when the fign is in Pifces, a fishmonger's wife is very fociable: in Cancer, a precifian's wife is very flexible."

Again, Dr. Fauftus, 1604:

"I will fet my countenance like a precifian."

Again, in Ben Jonfon's Cafe is alter'd, 1609: "It is precifianifm to alter that,

"With auftere judgement, which is given by nature."

STEEVENS.

If phyfician be the right reading, the meaning may be this: A lover uncertain as yet of success, never takes reafon for his counsellor, but, when defperate, applies to him as his physician. MUSGRAVE.

8 Thine own true knight,

By day or night,] This expreffion, ludicrously employed by Falstaff, is of Greek extraction, and means, at all times. So, in the twenty-fecond Iliad, 433:

· ὅ μοι NUKΤΑΣ ΤΕ ΚΑΙ ΗΜΑΡ

Εὐχωλή.

Thus faithfully rendered by Mr. Wakefield:

"My Hector! night and day thy mother's joy."

So likewife, in the third book of Gower, De Confeffione Amantis:

"The fonne cleped was Machayre,

"The daughter eke Canace hight,

By daie bothe and eke by night."

Loud and ftill was another phrafe of fimilar meaning.

STEEVENS.

What a Herod of Jewry is this?-O wicked, wicked, world!-one that is well nigh worn to pieces with age, to fhow himself a young gallant! What an unweighed behaviour 9 hath this Flemish drunkard' picked (with the devil's name) out of my converfation, that he dares in this manner affay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company. !-What fhould I fay to him?-I was then frugal of my mirth: 2-heaven forgive me!-Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament for the putting down of men.3 How fhall I be revenged on him? for

What an unweighed behaviour &c.] Thus the folio 1623. It has been fuggefted to me, that we should read-one. STEEVENS.

1 Flemish drunkard-] It is not without reason that this term of reproach is here ufed. Sir John Smythe in Certain Difcourfes, &c. 4to. 1590, fays, that the habit of drinking to excess was introduced into England from the Low Countries "by fome of our fuch men of warre within these very few years whereof it is come to paffe that now-a-dayes there are very fewe feaftes where our faid men of warre are prefent, but that they do invite and procure all the companie, of what calling foever they be, to carowfing and quaffing; and, because they will not be denied their challenges, they, with many new conges, ceremonies, and reverences, drinke to the health and profperitie of princes; to the health of counsellors, and unto the health of their greatest friends both at home and abroad: in which exercise they never cease till they be deade drunke, or, as the Flemings fay, Doot dronken." He adds, "And this aforefaid deteftable vice hath within these fix or seven yeares taken wonderful roote amongeft our English nation, that in times paft was wont to be of all other nations of Christendome one of the fobereft." REED.

2

I was then frugal of my mirth :] By breaking this fpeech into exclamations, the text may ftand; but I once thought it must be read, If I was not then frugal of my mirth, &c.

3

-for the putting down of men.]

JOHNSON. The word which

feems to have been inadvertently omitted in the folio, was reftored by Mr. Theobald from the quarto, where the corref

revenged I will be, as fure as his guts are made of puddings.

ponding fpeech runs thus: "Well, I fhall truft fat men the worfe, while I live, for his fake. O God; that I knew how to be revenged of him!"-Dr. Johnson, however, thinks that the infertion is unneceffary, as "Mrs. Page might naturally enough, in the first heat of her anger, rail at the fex for the fault of one." But the authority of the original sketch in quarto, and Mrs. Page's frequent mention of the fize of her lover in the play as it now ftands, in my opinion fully warrant the correction that has been made. Our author well knew that bills are brought into parliament for fome purpose that at least appears practicable. Mrs. Page therefore in her paffion might exhibit a bill for the putting down or deftroying men of a particular description; but Shakspeare would never have made her threaten to introduce a bill to effect an impossibility, viz. the extermination of the whole fpecies.

There is no error more frequent at the press than the omiffion of words. In a fheet of this work now before me [Mr. Malone means his own edition] there was an out, (as it is termed in the printing-house,) that is, a paffage omitted, of no less than ten lines. In every fheet fome words are at first omitted.

The expreffion, putting down, is a common phrase of our municipal law. MALONE.

I believe this paffage has hitherto been misunderstood, and therefore continue to read with the folio, which omits the epithet -fat.

The putting down of men, may only fignify the humiliation of them, the bringing them to shame. So, in Twelfth Night, Malvolio fays of the Clown-" I faw him, the other day, put down by an ordinary fool;" i. e. confounded. Again, in Love's Labour's Loft-"How the ladies and I have put him down!" Again, in Much Ado about Nothing-" You have put him down, lady, you have put him down." Again, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 482-" Lucullus' wardrobe is put down by our ordinary citizens."

I cannot help thinking that the extermination of all men would be as practicable a defign of parliament, as the putting down of thofe whofe only offence was embonpoint.

I perfift in this opinion, even though I have before me (in fupport of Mr. Malone's argument) the famous print from P. Brueghel, reprefenting the Lean Cooks expelling the Fat ones.

STEEVENS.