MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. ACT I. SCENE I. Windfor. Before Page's House. Enter Justice SHALLOW, SLENDER, and Sir HUGH EVANS. SHAL. Sir Hugh,1 perfuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it : if he were twenty fir I Sir Hugh,] This is the first, of fundry instances in our poet, where a parson is called Sir. Upon which it may be observed, that anciently it was the common defignation both of one in holy orders and a knight. Fuller, somewhere in his Church History says, that anciently there were in England more firs than knights; and so lately as temp. W. & Mar. in a depofition in the Exchequer in a case of tythes, the witness speaking of the curate, whom he remembered, styles him, Sir Giles. Vide Gibson's View of the State of the Churches of Door, HomeLacy, &c. p. 36. SIR J. HAWKINS. Sir is the defignation of a Bachelor of Arts in the Universities of Cambridge and Dublin; but is there always annexed to the furname;-Sir Evans, &c. In confequence, however, of this, all the inferior Clergy in England were diftinguished by this title affixed to their christian names for many centuries. Hence our author's Sir Hugh in the present play, Sir Topas in Twelfth Night, Sir Oliver in As you like it, &c. MALONE. John Falstaff's, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire, SLEN. In the county of Glofter, justice of peace, and coram. SHAL, Ay, cousin Slender, and Cuft-alorum.3 Sir feems to have been a title formerly appropriated to such of the inferior clergy as were only Readers of the service, and not admitted to be preachers, and therefore were held. in the lowest estimation; as appears from a remarkable passage in Machell's MS. Collections for the History of Westmoreland and Cumberland, in fix volumes, folio, preserved in the Dean and Chapter's library at Carlifle. The reverend Thomas Machell, author of the Collections, lived temp. Car. II. Speaking of the little chapel of Martindale in the mountains of Westmoreland and Cumberland, the writer says, "There is little remarkable in or about it, but a neat chapel-yard, which by the peculiar care of the old Reader, Sir Richard, * is kept clean, and as neat as a bowling-green." * Richard Berket, Reader, Æt, 74. MS. note. "Within the limits of myne own memory all Readers in chapels were called Sirs,† and of old have been writ so; whence, I suppose, such of the laity as received the noble order of knighthood being called Sirs too, for diftinction fake had Knight writ after them; which had been fuperfluous, if the title Sir had been peculiar to them. But now this Sir Richard is the only Knight Templar (if I may so call him) that retains the old style, which in other places is much laid afide, and grown out of use." PERCY. See Mr. Douce's observations on the title "Sir," (as given to Ecclefiafticks,) at the end of Act V. The length of this curious memoir obliges me to disjoin it from the page to which it naturally belongs. STEEVENS. 2 - a Star-chamber matter of it :) Ben Jonson intimates, that the Star-chamber had a right to take cognizance of fuch matters. See the Magnetic Lady, Act III. sc. iv: 3 "There is a court above, of the Star-chamber, -Cuft-alorum.) This is, I suppose, intended for a corruption of Cuftos Rotulorum. The mistake was hardly defigned by + In the margin is a MS. note seemingly in the hand-writing of Bp. Nicholson, who gave these volumes to the library : "Since I can remember there was not a reader in any chapel but was called Sir." SLEN. Ay, and ratolorum too; and a gentleman born, mafter parfon; who writes himself armigero ;4 in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, armigero. SHAL. Ay, that we do ;5 and have done any time these three hundred years. SLEN. All his successors, gone before him, have done't; and all his ancestors, that come after him, may: they may give the dozen white luces in their coat. SHAL. It is an old coat. the author, who, though he gives Shallow folly enough, makes him rather pedantic than illiterate. If we read : "Shal. Ay, cousin Slender, and Custos Rotulorum." It follows naturally: "Slen. Ay, and Ratolorum too." JOHNSON. I think with Dr. Johnson, that this blunder could scarcely be intended. Shallow, we know, had been bred to the law at Clement's Inn. But I would rather read custos only; then Slender adds naturally, "Ay, and rotulorum too." He had heard the words cuftos rotulorum, and supposes them to mean different offices. FARMER. Perhaps Shakspeare might have intended to ridicule the abbreviations sometimes used in writs and other legal instruments, with which his Justice might have been acquainted. In the old copy the word is printed Cust-alorum, as it is now exhibited in the text. If, however, this was intended, it should be Cust-ulorum; and, it must be owned, abbreviation by cutting off the beginning of a word is not authorized by any precedent, except what we may suppose to have existed in Shallow's imagination. MALONE. 4 - who writes himself armigero;) Slender had seen the Justice's attestations, signed " -jurat' coram me, Roberto Shallow, Armigero;" and therefore takes the ablative for the nominative case of Armiger. STEEVENS. 5 Ay, that we do ;) The old copy reads-" that I do." The present emendation was suggested to me by Dr. Farmer. STEEVENS. 6 - and have done -] i. e. all the Shallows have done. Shakspeare has many expreffions equally licentious. MALONE. EVA. The dozen white louses do become an old coat well; it agrees well, passant: it is a familiar beast to man, and fignifies-love. SHAL. The luce is the fresh fish; the falt fish is an old coat.8 The dozen white louses do become an old coat well; &c.] So, in The Penniless Parliament of thread-bare Poets, 1608 : "But amongst all other decrees and statutes by us here set downe, wee ordaine and commaund, that three thinges (if they be not parted) ever to continue in perpetuall amitie, that is, a Louse in an olde doublet, a painted cloth in a painter's shop, and a foole and his bable." STEEVENS. 8 The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat.] That is, the fresh fish is the coat of an ancient family, and the falt fish is the coat of a merchant grown rich by trading over the fea. JOHNSON. I am not fatisfied with any thing that has been offered on this difficult passage. All that Mr. Smith told us was a mere gratis dictum. [His note, being worthless, is here omitted.] I cannot find that falt fish were ever really borne in heraldry. I fancy the latter part of the speech should be given to Sir Hugh, who is at cross purposes with the Justice. Shallow had faid just before, the coat is an old one; and now, that it is the luce, the fresh fish. No, replies the parson, it cannot be old and fresh too"the falt fish is an old coat." I give this with rather the more confidence, as a similar mistake has happened a little lower in the scene," Slice, I fay!" cries out Corporal Nym, “Pauca, pauca: Slice! that's my humour." There can be no doubt, but pauca, pauca, should be spoken by Evans. Again, a little before this, the copies give us : "Slender. You'll not confefs, you'll not confefs. "Shallow. That he will not-'tis your fault, 'tis your fault :tis a good dog.” Surely it should be thus : "Shallow. You'll not confefs, you'll not confefs. "Slender. That he will not. "Shallow. Tis your fault, 'tis your fault," &c. FARMER. This fugitive scrap of Latin, pauca, &c. is used in several old pieces, by characters who have no more of literature about them than Nym. So, Skinke, in Look about you, 1600 : "But pauca verba, Skinke." Again, in Every Man in his Humour, where it is called the Lenchers' phrase. STEEVENS. SLEN. I may quarter, coz? Shakspeare seems to frolick here in his heraldry, with a design not to be easily understood. In Leland's Collectanea, Vol. I. P. II. p. 615, the arms of Geffrey de Lucy are " de goules poudre a croifil dor a treis luz dor." Can the poet mean to quibble upon the word poudré, that is, powdred, which fignifies falted; or strewed and sprinkled with any thing? In Meafure for Measure, Lucio says-" Ever your fresh whore and your powder'd bawd." TOLLET. The luce is a pike or jack: So, in Chaucer's Prol. of the Cant. Tales, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. pp. 351, 352: " Full many a fair partrich hadde he in mewe, In Ferne's Blazon of Gentry, 1586, quarto, the arms of the Lucy family are represented as an instance, that "figns of the coat should fomething agree with the name. It is the coat of Geffray Lord Lucy. He did bear gules, three lucies hariant, argent." Mr. William Oldys, (Norroy King at Arms, and well known from the share he had in compiling the Biographia Britannica, among the collections which he left for a Life of Shakspeare,) observes that" there was a very aged gentleman living in the neighbourhood of Stratford, (where he died fifty years since,) who had not only heard, from several old people in that town, of Shakspeare's tranfgreffion, but could remember the first stanza of the bitter ballad, which, repeating to one of his acquaintance, he preserved it in writing; and here it is, neither better nor worse, but faithfully transcribed from the copy which his relation very courteoufly communicated to me." "A parliement member, a juftice of peace, "We allow by his ears but with asses to mate. "Contemptible as this performance muft now appear, at the time when it was written it might have had fufficient power to irritate a vain, weak, and vindictive magistrate; especially as it was affixed to several of his park-gates, and confequently pub |