5 SCENE II." I bought him in Paul's," &c.

*

Falstaff alludes to a proverbial saying, which is thus given in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy:' "he that marries a wife out of a suspected inn or ale-house, buys a horse in Smithfield, and hires a servant in Paul's, as the diverb is, shall likely have a jade to his horse, a knave for his man, an arrant honest woman to his wife." The middle aisle of the old cathedral of St. Paul's was the resort of idlers, gamesters, and persons in general who lived by their wits. Ben Jonson calls his Captain Bobadill, "a Paul's man." But Paul's was also a sort of exchange; and announcements were fixed upon the pillars that corresponded with the newspaper advertisements of modern times. The "masterless serving-man" set up "his bill in Paul's," as well as the tradesman who called attention to his wares. These advertisements were denominated Si quisses. Paul's was also the resort of newsmongers and politicians; and sometimes was the scene of more important conferences than arose out of the gossip of the day.

Bishop

* Burton is the only English author who uses this word in the meaning of an antithetical saying. (See Richardson's Dictionary.)

Carleton tells us that Babington's and Ballard's conspiracy was "conferred upon in Paul's Church." Osborne, in his Memoirs of James I., states, that Paul's was the resort of "the principal gentry, lords, courtiers, and men of all professions." The spendthrifts resorted there for protection against their creditors; a part of the cathedral being privileged from arrest: "There you may spend your legs in winter a whole afternoon; converse, plot, laugh, and talk anything; jest at your creditor, even to his face; and in the evening, even by lamplight, steal out." (Dekker's Gull's Horn Book, 1609). In Bishop Earle's Microcosmography (1628) we have an exceedingly amusing description of all the general features of Paul's walk, of which the following passage will convey a notion of the style: -"It is a heap of stones and men, with a vast confusion of languages; and, were the steeple not sanctified, nothing liker Babel. The noise in it is like that of bees, a strange humming or buzz, mixt of walking, tongues, and feet. It is a kind of still roar, or loud whisper. It is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and a-foot. It is the synod of all pates politick, jointed and laid together in the most serious posture; and they are not half so busy at the parliament."

under their chieftain, Owen Glendower, ceased not to do much mischief still against the English subjects. But, at the same time, to his further disquieting, there was a conspiracy put in practice against him at home by the Earl of Northumberland, who had conspired with Richard Scrope Archbishop of York, Thomas Mowbray Earl Marshal, son to Thomas Duke of Norfolk, who for the quarrel betwixt him and King Henry had been banished (as before ye have heard), the lords Hastings, Fauconbridge, Berdolfe, and diverse others. It was appointed that they should meet all together with their whole power, upon Yorkeswold, at a day assigned, and that the Earl of Northumberland should be chieftain, promising to bring with him a great number of Scots. The archbishop, accompanied with the Earl Marshal, devised certain articles of such matters as it was supposed that not only the commonalty of the realm, but also the nobility, found themselves aggrieved with: which articles they showed first unto such of their adherents as were near about them, and after sent them abroad to their friends further off, assuring them that for redress of such oppressions they would shed the last drop of blood in their bodies, if need were. The archbishop, not meaning to stay after he saw himself accompanie with a great number of men, that came flocking to York to take his part in this quarrel, forthwith discovered his enterprise, causing the articles aforesaid to be set up in the public streets of the city of York, and upon the gates of the monasteries, that each man might understand the cause that moved him to rise in arms against the king, the reforming whereof did not yet appertain unto him. Hereupon knights, esquires, gentlemen,

yeomen, and other of the commons, assembled together in great numbers, and the archbishop coming forth amongst them, clad in armour, encouraged, exhorted, and by all means he could, pricked them forth to take the enterprise in hand, and thus not only all the citizens of York, but all other in the countries about, that were able to bear weapon, came to the archbishop and to the Earl Marshal. Indeed the respect that men had to the archbishop, caused them to like the better of the cause, since the gravity of his age, his integrity of life, and incomparable learning, with the reverend aspect of his amiable personage, moved all men to have him in no small estimation."

The Lord Chief Justice, introduced in this scene, -and who appears more prominently in the fifth Act, was Sir William Gascoyne, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. "He died," says Steevens, "December 17, 1413, and was buried in Harwood Church, in Yorkshire." Fuller states, upon the authority of an inscription on his tomb, that he died on Sunday, December 17, 1412. This is, however, contradictory, for the 17th December of that year, did not fall on a Sunday. The assertion of Fuller, however, gave occasion to one of the charges against Shakspere of having brought persons upon the scene who had ceased to exist, the Chief Justice, say the literal critics, died before the accession of Henry V. The point, to our minds, is not worth discussing; but it may be satisfactory to some to know that Shakspere was here perfectly accurate. The Rev. Mr. Tyler has discovered a will of the Chief Justice, made in 1419. The following portrait is from the effigy on his tomb:

SCENE I.-London. A Street.

Enter Hostess; FANG, and his Boy, with her; and SNARE following.

Host. Master Fang, have you entered the action?

Fang. It is entered.

a

Host. Where's your yeoman? Is it a lusty yeoman? will he stand to 't?

Fang. Sirrah, where's Snare?

Host. Ay, ay; good Master Snare! b
Snare. Here, here.

Fang. Snare, we must arrest sir John Falstaff. Host. Ay, good master Snare; I have entered him and all.

a Yeoman. The bailiff's follower was called a sergeant's yeoman.

b Master Snare. We print the passage as in the original. In our first edition we altered the punctuation according to a suggestion of Capell reading

64 Ay, ay; good! master Snare!"

Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives; he will stab.

Host. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly in good faith, he cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon be out: he will foin like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.

Fang. If I can close with him I care not for his thrust.

Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow.

Fang. If I but fist him once; if he come but within my vice;

Host. I am undone with his going; I warrant he is an infinitive thing upon my score:-Good master Fang, hold him sure;-good master Snare, let him not 'scape. He comes continu antly to Piecorner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a saddle; and he is indited to dinner to the

A

lubbar's head in Lumbert-street, to master | Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. hundred mark is long one for a poor lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass, and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong.

Enter Sir JOIN FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLFH. Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmseynose Bardolph with him. Do your offices, do your offices, master Fang, and master Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices.

Fal. How now? whose mare's dead? what's the matter?

Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of mistress Quickly.

Fal. Away, varlets!-Draw, Bardolph; cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel.

Host. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee there. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue!-Murder, murder! O thou honeysuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? O thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a man queller, and a woman queller. Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph.

Fang. A rescue! a rescue!

Host. Good people, bring a rescue. Thou wilt not? thou wilt not? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!

Fal. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.

d

Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, attended.

Ch. Just. What's the matter? keep the peace here, ho!

Host. Good my lord, be good to me! I beseech you, stand to me!

Ch. Just. How now, sir John? what, are you brawling here?

Doth this become your place, your time, and business?

a Long one. So the old copies. Theobald's reading is long loan. But the debt was hardly a loan; it was a score. Sir John had eaten the widow out of house and home; she therefore says that a hundred mark is a long one-a long mark-a long reckoning or score.

b Malmsey-nose. So the folio. In the quarto malmseynose knave.

e Honeysuckle. Supposed to be Mistress Quickly's corruption of homicidal. In the same way honey-seed for homicide.

d Tickle. In folio tuck

You should have been well on your way to York.

Stand from him, fellow.

upon him?

Wherefore hang'st

Host. O, my most worshipful lord, an 't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

Ch. Just. For what sum?

Host. It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, all I have: he hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his :-but I will have some of it out again, or I'll ride thee o'nights, like the

mare.

Fal. I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground to get up.

Ch. Just. How comes this, sir John? Fye! what man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own?

1

Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? Host. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a seacoal fire, on Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father b to a singing-man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us, she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound? And didst not thou, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; saying, that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath; deny it, if thou canst.

Fal. My lord, this is a poor mad soul: and she says, up and down the town, that her eldest son is like you: she hath been in good case, and, the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers, I beseech you, I may have redress against them.

Ch. Just. Sir John, sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the

Parcel-gilt. Partially gilt, or what is now technically called party gilt.

b Liking his father. The folio reads, kening him.