SHAKSPEARE. Fa. I love thees and none but thee; help me away: Merry Wives of Windsor. Help to cover your master, boy: call your let me creep in here: I'll never men mistress Ford: -you dissembling knight! He goes into the bofket: they cover him with fout linen: ACT. III. SCENE III. [Exeunt. ALL. Have with you, to fee this monster. SCENE III. A Room in Ford's Houfe. Enter Mrs. FORD and Mrs. PAGE. MRS. FORD. What, John! what, Robert! MRS. PAGE. Quickly, quickly: Is the buck basket MRS. FORD. I warrant :-What, Robin, I fay. Enter Servants with a Basket. MRS. PAGE. Come, come, come. MRS. PAGE. Give your men the charge; we muft be brief. MRS. FORD. Marry, as I told you before, John, and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brewhouse; and when I fuddenly call you, come forth, The phrafe," to drink in pipe-wine"-always feemed to me a very frange one, till I met with the following paffage in King James's firft fpeech to his parliament, in 1604; by which it appears that "to drink in" was the phrafeology of the time: "who either, being old, have retained their first drunken-in liquor," &c. MALONE. I have feen the phrafe often in books of Shakspeare's time, but neglected to mark the paffages. The following, however, though of somewhat later authority, will confirm Mr. Malone's obfervation. "A player acting upon a stage a man killed; but being troubled with an extream cold, as he was lying upon the ftage fell a coughing; the people laughing, he rushed up, ran off the flage, faying, thus it is for a man to drink in porridg, for then he will be fure to cough in his grave." Jocabella, or a Cabinet of Conceits, By Robert Chamberlaine, 1640, N° 84. REED. and (without any paufe, or ftaggering,) take this basket on your fhoulders: that done, trudge with it in all hafle, and carry it among the whitfters* in Datchet mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch, clofe by the Thames' fide. MRS. PAGE. You will do it? MRS. FORD. I have told them over and over; they lack no direction: Be gone, and come when you are called. [Exeunt Servants. MRS. PAGE. Here comes little Robin. Enter ROBIN. MRS. FORD. How now, my eyas-mufket?' what news with you? 2 the whiters-] i. e. the blanchers of linen. DOUCE. 3 How now, my eyas-mufket?] Eyas is a young unfledg'd hawk; I fuppofe from the Italian Niafo, which originally fignified any young bird taken from the neft untiedg'd, afterwards a young hawk. The French, from hence, took their niais, and ufed it in both thofe fignifications; to which they added a third, metaphorically, a filly fellow; un garçon fort niais, un niais. Mufket fignifies a sparrew hawk, or the fmalleft fpecies of hawks. This too is from the Italian Mufchetto, a fmall hawk, as appears from the original fignification of the word, namely, a troublefome finging fly. So that the humour of calling the little page an eyas-mufket is very intelligible. WARBURTON. So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608: "no hawk fo haggard but will ftoop to the lure: no nieffe fo ramage but will be reclaimed to the lungs." Eyas-mufket is the fame as infant Lilliputian. Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. I. c. xi. ft. 34. ་་ youthful gay, "Like eyas-hauke, up mounts unto the skies, In The Booke of Haukyng, &c. commonly called The Book of St. Altans, bl. 1. no date, is the following derivation of the word; but whether true or erroneous, is not for me to determine: “ An hauk is called an eyefe from her ejon. For an hauke that is brought up under a bullarde or pullock, as many ben, have watry en," &c. STEEVENS. ROB. My mafter fir John is come in at your backdoor, miftrefs Ford; and requefts your company. MRS. PAGE. You little Jack-a-lent, have you been true to us? ROB. Ay, I'll be fworn: My master knows not of your being here; and hath threaten'd to put me into everlasting liberty, if I tell you of it; for, he fwears, he'll turn me away. MRS. PAGE. Thou'rt a good boy; this fecrecy of thine fhall be a tailor to thee, and fhall make thee a new doublet and hofe.-I'll go hide me. MRS. FORD. Do fo:-Go tell thy mafter, I am alone. Miftrefs Page, remember you your cue. [Exit ROBIN. MRS. PAGE. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hifs me. [Exit Mrs. PAGE. MRS. FORD. Go to then; we'll ufe this unwhol fome humidity, this grofs watry pumpion;-we'll teach him to know turtles from jays.' Enter FALSTAFF, FAL. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? 6 Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough;" 4 Jack-a-lent,] A Jack o' lent was a puppet thrown at in Lent, like throve-cocks. So, in The Weakest goes to the Wall, 1609: "A mere anatomy, a Jack of Lent." Again, in The Four Prentices of London, 1615: 66- "Now you old Jack of Lent, fix weeks and upwards." Again, in Greene's Tu Quoque: -for if a boy, that is throwing at his Jack o' Lent, chance to hit me on the shins," &c.. See a note on the laft fcene of this comedy. STEEVENS. STEEVENS. 6 Have I caught my heavenly jewel? This is the first line of the fecond fong in Sidney's Aftrophel and Stella, TOLLEY. -Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough;] This 7 1 this is the period of my ambition: O this bleffed hour! MRS. FORD. O fweet fir John! FAL. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, miftrefs Ford. Now fhall I fin in my wifh: I would thy husband were dead; I'll fpeak it before the best lord, I would make thee my lady. MRS. FORD. I your lady, fir John! alas, I fhould be a pitiful lady. FAL. Let the court of France fhow me fuch another; I fee how thine eye would emulate the diamond: Thou haft the right arched bent of the brow, that becomes the fhip-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance." fentiment, which is of facred origin, is here indecently introduced. It appears again, with fomewhat lefs of profaneness, in The Winter's Tale, Aa IV. and in Othello, A& II. STEEVENS. 8-arched bent-] Thus the quartos 1602, and 1619. The folio reads-arched beauty. STEEVENS. The reading of the quarto is fupported by a paffage in Antony and Cleopatra: Eternity was in our lips and eyes," Blifs in our brows-bent." MALONE. that becomes the fhip-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Ve netian admittance.] Inftead of-Venetian admittance, the old quarto reads or any Venetian attire." STEEVENS. The old quarto reads-tire-vellet, and the old folio readsor any tire of Venetian admittance. So that the true reading of the whole is this, that becomes the hip-tire, the tire-VALIANT, or any tire of Venetian admittance. The fpeaker tells his mistress, she had a face that would become all the head-dreffes in fashion. The shiptire was an open head-drefs, with a kind of fcarf depending from behind. Its name of hip-tire was, I prefume, from its giving the wearer fome resemblance of a ship (as Shakspeare fays) in all her trim with all her pennants out, and flags and ftreamers flying. This was an image familiar with the poets of that time. Thus Beaumont and Fletcher, in their play of Wit without Money: She spreads fattens as the king's fhips do canvas every where; the --- |