か I'll repent, and that fuddenly, while I am in fome liking; I fhall be out of heart shortly, and then I 353, fhall have no ftrength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the infide of a church is made of, I am a pepper-corn, a brewer's horfe: the infide of a church: Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me. BARD. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long. FAL. Why, there is it :-come, fing me a bawdy fong; make me merry. I was as virtuously given, as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough: fwore little; diced, not above seven times a week; went while I am in fome liking;] While I have fome flesh, fome fubftance. We have had well-liking in the fame sense in a former play. MALONE. So, in the book of Job, xxxix. : in good liking." STELVENS. their young ones are 4 a brewer's horse:] I fuppofe a brewer's harfe was apt to be lean with hard work. JOHNSON. A brewer's horfe does not, perhaps, mean a dray-horse, but the cross-beam on which beer-barrels, are carried into cellars, &c. The allufion may be to the taper form of this machine. A brewer's horfe, however, is mentioned in Ariftippus, or The Jovial Philofopher, 1630: to think Helicon a barrel of beer, is as great a fin as to call Pegafus a brewer's horfe.” STEEVENS. The commentators feem not to be aware, that, in affertions of this fort, Falstaff does not mean to point out any fimilitude to his own condition, but on the contrary, fome ftriking diffimilitude. He fays here, I am a pepper-corn, a brewer's horfe; juft as in Act II. fc. iv. he afferts the truth of feveral parts of his narrative, on pain of being confidered as a rogue-a Jew-an Ebrew Jew-a bunch of raddifb-a horfe. TYRWHITT. 3 -the infide of a church:] The latter words (the infide of a church) were, I fufpect, repeated by the mistake of the compofitor. Or Falstaff may be here only repeating his former wordsThe infide of a church!-without any connection with the words immediately preceding. My firit conjecture appears to me the most probable. MALONE. ^ Thus also eleventh book well liking, 2 utmost tip the to a bawdy-house, not above once in a quarter-of an hour; paid money that I borrow'd, three or four times; lived well, and in good compafs: and now I live out of all order, out of all compafs. BARD. Why, you are fo fat, fir John, that you muft needs be out of all compafs; out of all reafonable compass, sir John. FAL. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life: Thou art our admiral,' thou beareft the lantern in the poop,-but 'tis in the nofe of thee; thou art the knight of the burning lamp." BARD. Why, fir John, my face does you no harm. FAL. No, I'll be fworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death's head, or a memento mori: I never fee thy face, but I think up 5 Thou art our admiral, &c.] Decker, in his Wonderful Yeare, 1603, has the fame thought. He is defcribing the Hoft of a country inn: "An antiquary might have pickt rare matter out of his nofe. -The Hamburgers offered I know not how many dollars for his companie in an Eaft-Indian voyage, to have stoode a nightes in the Poope of their Admirall, onely to fave the charges of candles." STEEVENS. This appears to have been a very old joke. So, in A Dialogue both pleajaunt and pietifull, &c. by Wm. Bulleyne, 1564: "Marie, this friar, though he did rife to the quere by darcke night, he needed no candell, his nofe was fo redd and brighte; and although he had but little money in ftore in his purfe, yet his nose and cheeks were well fet with curral and rubies." MALONE. 6the knight of the burning lamp.] This is a natural picture. Every man who feels in himfelf the pain of deformity, however, like this merry knight, he may affect to make sport with it among thofe whom it is his intereft to please, is ready to revenge any hint of contempt upon one whom he can use with freedom. JOHNSON. The knight of the burning lamp, and the knight. of the burning pestle, are both names invented with a design to ridicule the titles of heroes in ancient romances. STEEVENS. on hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would fwear by thy face; my oath fhould be, By this fire: but thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the fon of utter darknefs. When thou ran'ft up Gads-hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus, or a ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou haft faved me a thousand marks in links and torches, 7 By this fire:] Here the quartos 1599, and 1608, very profanely add :—that's God's angel. This paffage is perhaps alluded to in Hiftriomaftrix, 1610, where Afinius fays: " By this candie (which is none of God's angels) I remember you started back at sprite and flame." Mr. Henley, however obferves, that "by the extrusion of the words now omitted, the intended antithefis is loft." 8 Part III: STEEVENS. -thou art a perpetual triumph,] So, in King Henry VI. "And what now refts but that we spend the time A Triumph was a general term for any public exhibition, fuch as a royal marriage, a grand proceffion, &c. &c. which commonly being at night, were attended by multitudes of torch-bearers. STEEVENS. 9 Thou haft faved me a thousand marks &c.] This paffage ftands in need of no explanation; but I cannot help feizing the opportunity to mention that in Shakspeare's time, (long before the streets were illuminated with lamps,) candles and lanthorns to let, were cried about London. So, in Decker's Satiromastix : - doft roar? thou haft a good rouncival voice to cry lantern and candle light." Again, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, among the Cries of London: "Lanthorn and candlelight here, "Maid ha' light here. "Thus go the cries," &c. Again, in K. Edward IV. 1626: "No more calling of lanthorn and candlelight." walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the fack that thou haft drunk me, would have bought me lights as good cheap,' at the deareft chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that falamander of yours with fire, any time this two and thirty years; Heaven reward me for it! BARD. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly! FAL. God-a-mercy! fo fhould I be fure to be heart-burn'd. Enter Hoftefs. How now, dame Partlet' the hen? have you inquired yet, who pick'd my pocket? Again, in Pierce Pennylefs's Supplication to the Devil, 1595: "It is faid that you went up and down London, crying like a lantern and candle man." STEEVENS. 2 good cheap,] Cheap is market, and good cheap therefore is a bon marché. JOHNSON. So, in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1599: "If this weather hold, we fhall have hay good cheap." Again, in the anonymous play of K. Henry V: "Perhaps thou may't agree better cheap now." And again, in thefe two proverbs: "They buy good cheap that bring nothing home." "He'll ne'er have thing good cheap that's afraid to ask the price." Cheap (as Dr. Johnfon has obferved) is undoubtedly an old word for market. So, in the ancient metrical romance of Sir Bevys of Hampton, bl. 1. no date : 66 Tyll he came to the chepe "There he founde many men of a hepe." From this word, Eaft-cheap, Chep-ftow, Cheap-fide, &c. are derived; indeed a paffage that follows in Syr Bevys may feem to fix the derivation of the latter: 3 "So many men was dead, "The Chefe fyde was of blode red." STEEVENS. dame Partlet-] Dame Partlet is the name of the hen Host. Why, fir John! what do you think, fir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have fearch'd, I have inquired, fo has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, fervant by fervant: the tithe of a hair was never loft in my house before. FAL. You lie, hoftefs; Bardolph was fhaved, and loft many a hair: and I'll be fworn, my pocket was pick'd: Go to, you are a woman, go. HOST. Who I? I defy thee: I was never call'd fo in mine own houfe before. FAL. Go to, I know you well enough. Host. No, fir John; you do not know me, fir John: I know you, fir John: you owe me money, fir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it: I bought you a dozen of fhirts to your back. FAL. Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them away to bakers' wives, and they have made bolters of them. HOST. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight fhillings an ell. You owe money here befides, fir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four and twenty pound. FAL. He had his part of it; let him pay. Host. He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing. FAL. How! poor? look upon his face; What call you rich? let them coin his nofe, let them coin his cheeks; I'll not pay a denier. What, will in the old ftory-book of Reynard the Fox: and in Chaucer's tale of The Cock and the Fox, the favourite hen is called dame Pertelote. STEEVENS. 4 What call you rich?] A face fet with carbuncles is called. a rich face. Legend of Capt. Jones. JOHNSON. |