as can hold in; fuch as will ftrike fooner than

comes to admit of any fuch conftruction, I am at a loss to know. To Mr. Pope's fecond conjecture," of cunning men that look sharp, and aim well," I have nothing to reply ferioufly: but choose to drop it. The reading which I have fubftituted, [moneyers] I owe to the friendship of the ingenious Nicholas Hardinge, Efq. A moneyer is an officer of the Mint, who makes coin, and delivers out the king's money. Moneyers are alfo taken for bankers, or those that make it their trade to turn and return money. Either of these acceptations will admirably square with our author's context. THEOBALD.

Mr. Hardinge's conjecture may be fupported by an ancient authority, and is probably right: "- there is a houfe upon Page Greene, next unto the round tuft of trees, fometime in the tenure and occupation of Simon Bolton, Monyer;" i. e. probably banker. Defcription of Tottenham High-Crofs, 1631. REED.

This is a very acute and judicious attempt at emendation, and is not undefervedly adopted by Dr. Warburton. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads great owners, not without equal or greater likelihood of truth. I know not however whether any change is neceffary: Gadshill tells the Chamberlain, that he is joined with no mean wretches, but with burgomafters and great ones, or, as he terms them in merriment by a cant termination, great oneyers, or great-one-éers, as we fay, privateer, auctioneer, circuiteer. This is, I fancy, the whole of the matter. JOHNSON.

Perhaps Shakspeare wrote-onyers, that is, publick accountants; men poffeffed of large fums of money belonging to the ftate.--It is the courfe of the Court of Exchequer, when the fheriff makes up his accounts for iffues, amerciaments, and mefne profits, to fet upon his head o. ni. which denotes oneratur, nifi habeat fufficientem exonerationem: he thereupon becomes the king's debtor, and the parties peravaile (as they are termed in law) for whom he answers, become his debtors, and are difcharged as with refpect to the King.

To fettle accounts in this manner, is ftill called in the Exchequer, to ony; and from hence Shakspeare perhaps formed the word onyers. The Chamberlain had a little before mentioned, among the travellers whom he thought worth plundering, an officer of the Exchequer, a kind of auditor, one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what." This emendation may derive fome fupport from what Gadshill fays in the next fcene: "There's money of the king's coming down the hill; 'tis going to the king's Exchequer." The firft quarto has-oneyres, which the fecond and all the fubfequent copies made oneyers. The original reading gives great probability to Hanmer's conjecture. MALONE.

speak, and speak fooner than drink, and drink fooner than pray: And yet I lie; for they pray

7

-fuch as can hold in; fuch as will strike fooner than speak, and fpeak fooner than drink, and drink, &c.] According to the fpecimen given us in this play, of this diffolute gang, we have no reason to think they were lefs ready to drink than speak. Befides, it is plain, a natural gradation was here intended to be given of their actions, relative to one another. But what has Speaking, drinking, and praying to do with one another? We fhould certainly read think in both places inftead of drink; and then we have a very regular and humourous climax. They will ftrike fooner than speak; and fpeak fooner than think; and think sooner than pray. By which laft words is meant, that "though perhaps they may now and then reflect on their crimes, they will never repent of them." The Oxford editor has dignified this correction by his adoption of it. WARBURTON.

I am in doubt about this paffage. There is yet a part unexplained. What is the meaning of fuch as can hold in? It cannot mean fuch as can keep their own fecret, for they will, he says, Speak fooner than think: it cannot mean fuch as will go calmly to work without unnecessary violence, fuch as is ufed by long-flaff frikers, for the following part will not fuit with this meaning; and though we should read by tranfpofition fuch as will speak fomer than ftrike, the climax will not proceed regularly. I must leave it as it is.

JOHNSON. Such as can hold in, may mean, fuch as can curb old father antic the law, or fuch as will not blab. STEEVENS.

Turbervile's Book on Hunting, 1575, p. 37, mentions huntsmen on horfeback to make young hounds hold in and clofe" to the old ones: fo Gadshill may mean, that he is joined with fuch companions as will hold in, or keep and ftick clofe to one another, and fuch as are men of deeds, and not of words; and yet they love to talk and speak their mind freely better than to drink.

66

66

TOLLET.

I think a gradation was intended, as Dr. Warburton fuppofes. To hold in, I believe, meant to keep their fellows' counfel and their own;" not to discover their rogueries by talking about them. So, in Twelfth Night: that you will not extort from me, what I am willing to keep in." Gadshill therefore, I fuppofe, means to fay, that he keeps company with iteady robbers; fuch as will not impeach their comrades, or make any difcovery by talking of what they have done; men that will ftrike the traveller fooner than talk to him; that yet would fooner fpeak to him than drink, which might intoxicate them, and put them off their guard; and,

continually to their faint, the commonwealth; or, rather, not pray to her, but prey on her; for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots CHAM. What, the common-wealth their boots? will fhe hold out water in foul way?

GADS. She will, fhe will; juftice hath liquor'd her. We fteal as in a castle, cock-fure; we have the receipt of fern-feed, we walk invifible.

notwithstanding, would prefer drinking, however dangerous, to prayer, which is the last thing they would think of.-The words however will admit a different interpretation. We have often in these plays, "it were as good a deed as to drink." Perhaps therefore the meaning may be,-Men who will knock the traveller down fooner than speak to him; who yet will speak to him and bid him stand, fooner than drink; (to which they are fufficiently well inclined ;) and lastly, who will drink fooner than pray. Here indeed the climax is not regular. But perhaps our author did not intend it fhould be preferved. MALONE.

8 She will, he will; juftice hath liquor'd her.] A fatire on chicane in courts of juftice; which fupports ill men in their violations of the law, under the very cover of it. WARBURTON.

"They

Alluding to boots mentioned in the preceding speech. would melt me (fays Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windfor,) out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with me." See alfo Peacham's Complete Gentleman, 1627, p. 199:

9

"Item, a halfpenny for liquor for his boots." MALONE.

as in a caftle,] This was once a proverbial phrase. So, Dante, (in Purgatorio):

"Sicura quafi rocca in alto monte."

Again, in The Little French Lawyer, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "That noble courage we have feen, and we

"Shall fight as in a castle."

Perhaps Shakspeare means, we fteal with as much fecurity as the ancient inhabitants of caftles, who had thofe ftrong holds to fly to for protection and defence against the laws. So, in King Henry VI Part I. A&III. fc. i:

CHAM. Nay, by my faith; I think, you are more beholden to the night, than to fern-feed, for your walking invisible.

GADS. Give me thy hand: thou shalt have a fhare in our purchase,' as I am a true nan.

by femination, and yet could never fee the feed, were much at lofs for a folution of the difficulty; and as wonder always endeavours to augment itfelf, they afcribed to fern-feed many strange properties, fome of which the ruftick virgins have not yet forgotten or exploded. JOHNSON.

This circumftance relative to fern-feed is alluded to in Beaumont and Fletcher's Fair Maid of the Inn:

"No medicine, fir, to go invifible,

"No fern-feed in my pocket."

Again, in P. Holland's Tranflation of Pliny, Book XXVII. ch. ix: " Of ferne be two kinds, and they beare neither floure nor feede." STEEVENS.

The ancients, who often paid more attention to received opinions than to the evidence of their fenfes, believed that fern bore no feed. Our ancestors imagined that this plant produced feed which was invifible. Hence, from an extraordinary mode of reasoning, founded on the fantastic doctrine of fignatures, they concluded that they who poffeffed the fecret of wearing this feed about them would become invifible. This fuperftition the good fsense of the poet taught him to ridicule. It was alfo fuppofed to feed in the courfe of a fingle night, and is called in Browne's Britannia's Paftorals, 1613:

"The wond'rous one-night-feeding ferne."

Abfurd as these notions are, they were not wholly exploded in the time of Addifon. He laughs at "a Doctor who was arrived at the knowledge of the green and red dragon, and had discovered the female fern-feed." Tatler, No. 240. HOLT WHITE.

3 purchase,] Is the term used in law for any thing not inherited but acquired. JOHNSON.

Purchafe was anciently the cant term for ftolen goods. So, in Henry V. A&t III:

"They will steal any thing, and call it purchase.” So, Chaucer:

"And robbery is holde purchase." STEEVENS.

CHAM. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a falfe thief.

GADS. Go to; Homo is a common name to all men. Bid the oftler bring my gelding out of the ftable. Farewell, you muddy knave.

[Exeunt.

Enter Prince HENRY, and POINS; BARDOLPH and PETO, at fome diftance.

POINS. Come, fhelter, fhelter; I have remov'd Falftaff's horfe, and he frets like a gumm'd velvet.' P. HEN. Stand clofe.

Enter FALSTAFF.

FAL. Poins! Poins, and be hang'd! Poins! P. HEN. Peace, ye fat-kidney'd rafcal; What a brawling doft thou keep?

FAL. Where's Poins, Hal?

Homo is a common name &c.] Gadshill had promised as he was a true man; the Chamberlain wills him to promife rather as a falfe thief; to which Gadshill anfwers, that though he might have reafon to change the word true, he might have fpared man, for bomo is a name common to all men, and among others to thieves. JOHNSON.

This is a quotation from the Accidence, and I believe is not the only one from that book, which, therefore, Mr. Capell should have added to his Shakfperiana. LORT.

See Vol. IV. p. 473, n. 2; p. 497, n. 4. and Vol. VI. p. 419, MALONE.

n. 4.

like a gumm'd velvet.] This allufion we often meet with in the old comedies. So, in The Malcontent, 1604: "I'll come among you, like gum into taffata, to fret, fret." STEEVENS.