FAL. Now, the report goes, fhe has all the rule of her husband's purfe; the hath legions of angels.5 PIST. As many devils entertain; and, To her, boy, fay I. Nrм. The humour rifes; it is good: humour me the angels. FAL. I have writ me here a letter to her and here another to Page's wife; who even now gave me good eyes too, examin'd my parts with most judicious eyliads :7 fometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, fometimes my portly belly.8 PIST. Then did the fun on dung-hill shine. 5fhe hath legions of angels.] Thus the old quarto. The folio reads—“ he hath a legend of angels." STEEVENS. 6 As many devils entertain;] i. e. do you retain in your fervice as many devils as fhe has angels. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: "Sweet lady, entertain him for your fervant." This is the reading of the folio. MALONE. The old quarto reads: 7 <6 As many devils attend her!" &c. STEEVENS. -eyliads :] This word is differently fpelt in all the copies. It occurs again, in King Lear, A& IV. fc. v: "She gave ftrange wiliads, and most speaking looks, I fuppofe we should write oeillades, French. STEEVENS. . 8 -fometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, fometimes my portly belly.] So, in our author's 20th Sonnet: "An eye more bright than their's, lefs falfe in rolling, "Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth." MALONE. Then did the fun on dung-hill shine.] So, in Lyly's Euphues, 1581: I "The fun fhineth upon the dunghill." HOLT WHITE. that humour.] What diftinguishes the language of Nym from that of the other attendants on Falstaff, is the constant repetition of this phrafe. In the time of Shakspeare fuch 2 FAL. O, fhe did fo courfe o'er my exteriors with fuch a greedy intention, that the appetite of her eye did feem to fcorch me up like a burning glafs! Here's another letter to her: fhe bears the purfe too; she is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty.3 I will be cheater to them both, and they fhall be exchequers to me ;4 they fhall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go, bear thou this letter to mistress Page; and thou this to miftrefs Ford: we will thrive, lads, we will thrive. an affectation feems to have been fufficient to mark a character. In Sir Giles Goofecap, a play of which I have no earlier edition than that of 1606, the fame peculiarity is mentioned in the hero of the piece: -his only reason for every thing is, that we are all mortal; then hath he another pretty phrafe too, and that is, he will tickle the vanity of every thing." STEEVENS. 66 2-intention,] i. e. eagerness of defire. So, in Chapman's tranflation of Homer's Addrefs to the Sun: 3 66 Even to horror bright, "A blaze burns from his golden burgonet; She is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty.] If the tradition be true (as I doubt not but it is) of this play being wrote at Queen Elizabeth's command, this paffage, perhaps, may furnish a probable conjecture that it could not appear till after the year 1598. The mention of Guiana, then fo lately discovered to the English, was a very happy.compliment to Sir Walter Raleigh, who did not begin his expedition for South America till 1595, and returned from it in 1596, with an advantageous account of the great wealth of Guiana. Such an addrefs of the poet was likely, I imagine, to have a proper impreflion on the people, when the intelligence of fuch a golden country was fresh in their minds, and gave them expectations of immenfe gain. THEOBALD. 4 I will be cheater to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me;] The fame joke is intended here, as in The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, Act II: I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater.”By which is meant Efcheatour, an officer in the Exchequer, in no good repute with the common people. WARBUrton. PIST. Shall I fir Pandarus of Troy become, Nrм. I will run no base humour: here, take the humour letter; I will keep the 'haviour of reputation. FAL. Hold, firrah, [to ROB.] bear you these let- Sail like my pinnace to these golden fhores.- 5-bear you thefe letters tightly ;] i.e. cleverly, adroitly. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, Antony, putting on his armour, fays: "More tight at this, than thou." MALONE. No phrafe is fo common in the eastern counties of this kingdom, and particularly in Suffolk, as good tightly, for briskly and effectually. HENLEY. It is ufed in this fenfe in Don Sebaftian, by Dryden, Act II. fc. ii.—" tightly, I fay, go tightly to your business." REED. 6 my pinnace-] A pinnace feems anciently to have fignified a small veffel, or floop, attending on a larger. So, in Rowley's When you fee me you know me, 1613: was lately fent "With threefcore fail of fhips and pinnaces." Again, in Muleaffes the Turk, 1610: "Our life is but a failing to our death Through the world's ocean: it makes no matter then, "Whether we put into the world's vaft fea Shipp'd in a pinnace, or an argofy." At prefent it fignifies only a man of war's boat. A paffage fimilar to this of Shakspeare occurs in The Humourous Lieutenant, by Beaumont and Fletcher : this fmall pinnace "Shall fail for gold." STEEVENS. A pinnace is a fmall veffel with a square ftern, having fails and oars, and carrying three mafts; chiefly used (fays Rolt, in bis Dictionary of Commerce,) as a Scout for intelligence, and for landing of men. MALONE. Falstaff will learn the humour of this age," French thrift, you rogues; myself, and skirted page. [Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN. PIST. Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd, and fullam holds, And high and low beguile the rich and poor: 9 8 Thus the 4to. 1619: The STEEVENS. Let vultures gripe thy guts!] This hemiftich is a burlefque on a paffage in Tamburlaine, or The Scythian Shepherd, of which play a more particular account is given in one of the notes to Henry IV. P. II. A&t II. fc. iv. STEEVENS. I fuppofe the following is the paffage intended to be ridiculed: and now doth ghastly death "With greedy talents [talons] gripe my bleeding heart, "And like a harper [harpy] tyers on my life." Again, ibid: "Griping our bowels with retorted thoughts." MALONE. 9 for gourd, and fullam holds, And high and low beguile the rich and poor:] Fullam is a cant term for falfe dice, high and low. Torriano, in his Italian Dictionary, interprets Pife by falfe dice, high and low men, high fullams and low fullams. Jonfon, in his Every Man out of his Humour, quibbles upon this cant term : "Who, he ferve? He keeps high men and low men, he has a fair living at Fullam."-As for gourd, or rather gord, it was another. inftrument of gaming, as appears from Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady: "And thy dry bones can reach at nothing now, but GORDS or nine-pins.' WARBURTON. In The London Prodigal I find the following enumeration of falfe dice: "I bequeath two bale of falfe dice, videlicit, high men and low men, fulloms, ftop cater-traies, and other bones of function." Green, in his Art of Juggling, &c. 1612, fays, "What fhould I fay more of falfe dice, of fulloms, high men, lowe men, gourds, and brizled dice, graviers, demies, and contraries?" Again, in The Bellman of London, by Decker, 5th edit. 1640; among the falfe dice are enumerated, "a bale of fullams."-"A bale of gordes, with as many high-men as lowmen for paffage." STEEVENS. Gourds were probably dice in which a secret cavity had been Tester I'll have in pouch, when thou shalt lack, NYм. I have operations in my head,' which be humours of revenge. PIST. Wilt thou revenge? NÝм. By welkin, and her ftar! PIST. With wit, or steel? NYM. With both the humours, I: I will difcufs the humour of this love to Page.2 How Falstaff, varlet vile, His dove will prove, his gold will hold, made; fullams, those which had been loaded with a small bit of lead. High men and low men, which were likewife cant terms, explain themselves. High numbers on the dice, at hazard, are from five to twelve, inclufive; low, from aces to four. MALONE. The High and low men were falfe dice, which, being chiefly made at Fulham, were thence called "high and low Fulhams." high Fulhams were the numbers, 4, 5, and 6. See the manner in which thefe dice were made, in The Complete Gamefter, p. 12, edit. 1676, 12mo. Douce. I in my head,] Thefe words, which are omitted in the folio, were recovered by Mr. Pope from the early quarto. MALONE. 2 I will difcufs the humour of this love to Page:] The folio reads: to Ford;" but the very reverse of this happens. See Act II. where Nym makes the difcovery to Page, and not to Ford, as here promised; and Pistol, on the other hand, to Ford, and not to Page. Shakspeare is frequently guilty of these little forgetfulneffes. STEEVENS. The folio reads to Ford; and in the next line-and I to Page, &c. But the reverse of this (as Mr. Steevens has obferved) happens in Act II. where Nym makes the discovery to Page, and Piftol to Ford. I have therefore corrected the text from the old quarto, where Nym declares he will make the difcovery to Page; and Piftol fays, "And I to Ford will likewife tell." MALONE. |