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you make a younker of me? fhall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I fhall have my pocket pick'd?' I have loft a feal-ring of my grandfather's, worth forty mark.

4 a younker of me?] experienced man easily gull'd.

ment, 1575

A younker is a novice, a young in-
So, in Gascoine's Glafs for Govern

"Thefe yonkers fhall pay for the rost.”

See Spenfer's Eclogue on May, and Sir Tho. Smith's Commonwealth of England, Book I. ch. xxiii.

This contemptuous diftinction is likewife very common in the old plays. Thus, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Elder Brother :

"I fear he'll make an ass of me, a yonker,”

I learn, however, from Smith's Sea-Grammar, 1627, (there was an earlier edition,) that one of the fenfes of the term-younker, was "the young men" employed "to take in the top-failes." They are mentioned as diftinct characters from the failors, who "are the ancient men for hoising the failes," &c. STEEVENS.

5 -Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket pick'd?] There is a peculiar force in thefe words. To take mine eafe in mine inne, was an ancient proverb, not very different in its application from that maxim," Every man's houfe is his caftle;" for inne originally fignified a house or habitation. [Sax. inne, domus, domicilium.] When the word inne began to change its meaning, and to be used to fignify a house of entertainment, the proverb, ftill continuing in force, was applied in the latter fense, as it is here ufed by Shakspeare: or perhaps Falftaff here humoroufly puns upon the word inne, in order to reprefent the wrong done him more strongly.

In John Heywood's Works imprinted at London, 1598, quarto, bl. 1. is" a dialogue wherein are pleasantly contrived the number of all the effectual proverbs in our English tongue, &c. together with three hundred epigrams on three hundred proverbs." In ch. vi. is the following:

"Refty welth willeth me the widow to winne,

"To let the world wag, and take mine eafe in mine inne." And among the epigrams is: [26. Of Eafe in an Inne.] "Thou takeft thine eafe in thine inne fo nye thee, "That no man in his inne can take ease by thee." Otherwife:

"Thou takeft thine eafe in thine inne, but I fee,

"Thine inne taketh neither ease nor profit by thee." Now in the firft of thefe diftichs the word inne is used in its ancient meaning, being spoken by a person who is about to marry

Host. O Jefu! I have heard the prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper.

FAL. How! the prince is a Jack,' a fneak-cup; and, if he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would fay fo.

FAL

Enter Prince HENRY and POINS, marching. STAFF meets the Prince, playing on bis truncheon, like a fife.

FAL. How now, lad? is the wind in that door, i'faith? muft we all march?

a widow for the fake of a home, &c. In the two laft places, inne feems to be used in the fense it bears at prefent. PERCY.

Gabriel Harvey, in a MS. note to Speght's Chaucer, fays, "Some of Heywood's epigrams are fuppofed to be the conceits and devices of pleasant fir Thomas More."

Inne for a habitation, or a recefs, is frequently ufed by Spenfer and other ancient writers. So, in A World tofs'd at Tennis, 1620: "These great rich men muft take their ease in their Inn.” Again, in Greene's Farewell to Follie, 1617: "The beggar Irus that haunted the palace of Penelope, would take his ease in his inne, as well as the peeres of Ithaca.' STEEVENS,

"

I believe inns differed from caftles, in not being of fo much confequence and extent, and more particularly in not being fortified.So Inns of court, and in the universities, before the endowment of colleges. Thus, Trinity college, Cambridge, was made out of and built on the fite of feveral inns. LORT.

6a feal-ring of my grandfather's, worth forty mark.] This seems to have been the ufual price of fuch a ring about Falstaff's time. In the printed Rolls of Parliament, Vol. VI. p. 140, we meet with "A fignet of gold, to the value of XL marcs."

RITSON.

7 the prince is a Jack,] This term of contempt occurs frequently in our author. In The Taming of the Shrew, Katharine calls her mufick-master, in derifion, a twangling Jack. MALONE.

This term is likewife met with in Coriolanus, The Merchant of Venice, Cymbeline, &c. &c. but is ftill fo much in ufe, as scarcely to need exemplification. STEEVENS.

BARD. Yea, two and two, Newgate-fashion."
Hosr. My lord, I pray you, hear me.

P. HEN. What fay'ft thou, miftrefs Quickly?" How does thy husband? I love him well, he is an honeft man.

HOST. Good my lord, hear me.

FAL. Pr'ythee, let her alone, and lift to me.
P. HEN. What fay'ft thou, Jack?

FAL. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, and had my pocket pick'd: this house is turn'd bawdy-house, they pick pockets.

P. HEN. What didft thou lofe, Jack?

FAL. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound a-piece, and a feal-ring of my grandfather's.

P.HEN. A trifle, fome eight-penny matter.

HOST. So I told him, my lord; and I faid, I heard your grace fay fo: And, my lord, he speaks moft vilely of you, like a foul-mouth'd man as he is; and faid, he would cudgel you.

P. HEN. What he did not?

HOST. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me elfe.

FAL. There's no more faith in thee than in a ftew'd prune; nor no more truth in thee, than in

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Newgate-fabion.] As prifoners are conveyed to Newgate, fastened two and two together. JOHNSON.

So, in Decker's Satiromaftix, 1601: "Why then, come; we'll walk arm in arm, as though we were leading one another to Newgate." REED.

8 There's no more faith in thee than in a ftew'd prune; &c.] The propriety of thefe fimiles I am not fure that I fully understand. A few'd prune has the appearance of a prune, but has no tafte. A drawn fox, that is, an exenterated fox, has the form of a fox

a drawn fox; and for womanhood, maid Marian

without his powers. I think Dr. Warburton's explication wrong, which makes a drawn fox to mean, a fox often hunted; though to draw is a hunter's term for purfuit by the track. My interpretation makes the fox fuit better to the prune. These are very flender difquifitions, but fuch is the task of a commentator.

JOHNSON.

Dr. Lodge, in his pamphlet called Wit's Miferie, or the World's Madneffe, 1596, defcribes a bawd thus: "This is fhee that laies wait at all the carriers for wenches new come up to London; and you shall know her dwelling by a dish of few'd prunes in the window; and two or three fleering wenches fit knitting or fowing in her shop."

In Measure for Measure, Act II. the male bawd excufes himself for having admitted Elbow's wife into his houfe, by saying, "that fhe came in great with child, and longing for stew'd prunes, which ftood in a dish," &c.

Slender, in The Merry Wives of Windfor, who apparently wishes to recommend himself to his miftrefs by a feeming propenfity to love as well as war, talks of having measured weapons with a fencing-mafter for a difb of few'd prunes.

In another old dramatic piece entitled, If this be not a good Play the Devil is in it, 1612, a bravo enters with money, and fays, "This is the penfion of the ftewes, you need not untie it; 'tis ftew-money, fir, few'd prune cash, fir."

Among the other fins laid to the charge of the once celebrated Gabriel Harvey, by his antagonist Nafh, " to be drunk with the firrop or liquor of few'd prunes," is not the leaft infifted on.

Again, in Decker's Honeft Whore, P. II. 1630: "Peace! two dishes of few'd prunes, a bawd and a pander!" Again, in Northward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607, a bawd fays, "I will have but fix ftewed prunes in a dish, and fome of mother Wall's cakes; for my best customers are tailors." Again, in The Noble Stranger, 1640: " to be drunk with cream and fewed prunes!

Pox on't, bawdy-houfe fare." Again, in Decker's Seven deadly Sinnes of London, 1606: "Nay, the fober Perpetuana-suited Puritane, that dares not (fo much as by moone-light) come neare the suburb fhadow of a houfe where they fet feed prunes before you, raps as boldly at the hatch, when he knows Candlelight is within, as if he were a new chofen constable.”

The paffages already quoted are fufficient to fhow that a dish of few'd prunes was not only the ancient defignation of a brothel, but the conftant appendage to it.

From A Treatise on the Lues Venerea, written by W. Clowes, one of her majefty's furgeons, 1596, and other books of the fame VOL. VIII.

M m

may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go.

kind, it appears that prunes were directed to be boiled in broth for those perfons already infected; and that both fter'd prunes and roafted apples were commonly, though unfuccefsfully, taken by way of prevention. So much for the infidelity of stew'd prunes. STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens has fo fully difcuffed the subject of stewed prunes, that one can add nothing but the price. In a piece called Banks's Bay Horfe in a Trance, 1595, we have " A stock of wenches, fet up with their few'd prunes, nine for a tefter," FARMER.

9- —a drawn fox ;] · A drawn fox may be a fox drawn over the ground, to exercise the hounds. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Tamer Tamed:

that drawn fox Morofo."

Mr. Heath obferves, that "a fox drawn over the ground to leave a scent, and exercise the hounds, may be faid to have no truth in it, because it deceives the hounds, who run with the fame cagernefs as if they were in pursuit of a real fox."

I am not, however, confident that this explanation is right. It was formerly fuppofed that a fox, when drawn out of his hole, had the fagacity to counterfeit death, that he might thereby obtain an opportunity to efcape. For this information I am indebted to Mr. Tollet, who quotes Olaus Magnus, Lib. XVIII. cap. xxxix: "Infuper fingit fe mortuam," &c. This particular and many others relative to the fubtilty of the fox, have been tranflated by feveral ancient English writers. STEEVENS.

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maid Marian may be &c.] Maid Marian is a man dreffed like a woman, who attends the dancers of the morris.

JOHNSON.

In the ancient Songs of Robin Hood frequent mention is made of maid Marian, who appears to have been his concubine. I could quote many paffages in my old MS. to this purpose, but shall produce only one:

"Good Robin Hood was living then,

"Which now is quite forgot,

"And fo was fayre maid Marian," &c. PERCY.

It appears from the old play of The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, 1601, that maid Marian was originally a name affumed by Matilda the daughter of Robert Lord Fitzwater, while Robin Hood remained in a ftate of outlawry:

"Next 'tis agreed (if therto fhee agree)

"That faire Matilda henceforth change her name;

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