lay all night in the windmill in Saint George's Fields. Fal. No more of that, good master Shallow, no more of that. Shal. Ha, it was a merry night. And is Jane Night-work alive. Fal. She lives, master Shallow. Shal. She never could with me away 10 Fal. Never, never: she would always say, she could not abide master Shallow. Shal. By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well? Fal. Old, old, master Shallow. Shal. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old; certain, she's old; and had Robin Night-work by old Night-work, before I came to Clement's Inn. Sil. That's fifty-five years ago. Shal. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen!-Ha, Sir John, said I well? Fal. We have heard the chimes at midnight, master Shallow. Shal. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, Sir John, we have; our watch-word was, Hem, boys!-Come, let's to dinner; come, let's to dinner:-0, the days that we have seen!-Come, [Exeunt FAL. SHAL. and SILENCE. Bull. Good master corporate Bardolph, stand come. 10 This was a common expression of dislike; which is even used at a later period by Locke in his Conduct of the Understanding. It is of some antiquity also; for I find it frequently in Horman's Vulgaria, 1519:- He cannot away to marry Thetis, or to lie with her: Thetidis connubia vitat. I cannot away to be guilty of dissembling: Non sustineo esser conscius mihi dissimulanti. I cannot away with, or agree with, so many melis.' my friend; and here is four Harry ten shillings 11 in French crowns for you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief be hanged, sir, as go: and yet, for mine own. part, sir, I do not care; but rather, because I am unwilling, and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much. Bard. Go to; stand aside. Moul. And, good master corporal captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do any thing about her, when I am gone: and she is old, and cannot help herself: you shall have forty, sir. Bard. Go to; stand aside. Fee. By my troth, I care not;-a man can die but once; we owe God a death;-I'll ne'er bear a base mind-an't be my destiny, so; an't be not, so: No man's too good to serve his prince;' and, let it go which way it will, he that dies this year, is quit for the next. Bard. Well said; thou'rt a good fellow. Re-enter FALSTAFF, and Justices. Fal. Come, sir, which men shall I have? Bard. Sir, a word with you:-I have three pound 12 to free Mouldy and Bull-calf. Fal. Go to; well. Shal. Come, Sir John, which four will you have? 11 There were no coins of ten shillings value in Henry the Fourth's time. Shakspeare's Harry ten shillings were those of Henry VII. or VIII. He thought that those might do for any other Henry. 12 Bardolph was to have four pound: perhaps he means to conceal part of his profit. Fal. Do you choose for me. Shal. Marry then,-Mouldy, Bull-calf, Feeble, and Shadow. Fal. Mouldy, and Bull-calf:-For you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service:-and, for your part, Bull-calf,-grow till you come unto it; I will none of you. Shal. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong: they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best. Fal. Will you tell me, master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thewes 13, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man ! Give me the spirit, master Shallow.-Here's Wart; -you see what a ragged appearance it is: he shall charge you, and discharge you, with the motion of a pewterer's hammer; come off, and on, swifter than he that gibbets-on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-fac'd fellow, Shadow,-give me this man; he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife: And, for a retreat,-how swiftly will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, run off? O, give me the 13 Shakspeare uses thewes in a sense almost peculiar to himself, for muscular strength or sinews. Thus in Julius Cæsar, Act i. Sc. 3: : Romans now Have thewes and limbs like to their ancestors.' And in Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 3:-' For nature, crescent, does not grow alone in thewes and bulk.’ In ancient writers thewes generally signify manners, behaviour, or qualities of the mind or disposition in which sense it is used by Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, and others. Johnson derives the word, in this latter sense, from theaw, Sax.; and in the former from theow, a thigh. Philips, in his World of Words, has 'thight, well compacted, or knit; which he distinguishes as an old word. I do not find it elsewhere. spare men, and spare me the great ones. a caliver 14 into Wart's hand, Bardolph. Bard. Hold, Wart, traverse 15: thus, thus, thus. Fal. Come, manage me your caliver. So:-very well:-go to:-very good:-exceeding good.-0, give me always a little, lean, old, chapped, bald shot 16.-Well said, i'faith Wart; thou'rt a good scab hold, there's a tester for thee. 17 Shal. He is not his craft's-master, he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-end green 17 (when I lay at Clement's Inn,-I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show 18), there was a little quiver 19 fellow, 14 A caliver was less and lighter than a musket; and was fired without a rest. Falstaff's meaning is that though Wart is unfit for a musqueteer, yet, if armed with a lighter piece, he may do good service. 15 Traverse was an ancient military term for march! Thus, in Othello, Iago says to Roderigo :- Traverse; go; provide thy money.' Traverse (says Bullokar), to march up and down, or to move the feet with proportion, as in dancing.' - 16 Shot, for shooter. So in The Exercise of Arms, 1609 :'First of all is in this figure showed to every shot how he shall stand and march, and carry his caliver,' &c. 17 Mile End Green was the place for public sports and exercises. Stowe mentions that, in 1585, 4000 citizens were trained and exercised there. And again, that 30,000 citizens shewed on the 27th of August, 1599, on the Miles-end; where they trained all that day and other dayes under their captaines (also citizens) until the 4th of September. The pupils of this military school were thought but slightly of. Shakspeare has already referred to Mile End and its military exercises rather contemptuously in All's Well that Ends Well, Act iv. Sc. 3. 18 Arthur's show was not, as some have supposed, a masque or pageant, in which an exact representation of Arthur and his knights was made, but an exhibition of Toxopholites, styling themselves The Auncient Order, Society, and Unitie laudable of Prince Arthure and his Knightly Armory of the Round Table.' The associates of which were fifty-eight in number, taking the 19 Quiver is nimble, active. There is a maner of fishe that hyght mugil which is full quiver and swifte.'-Bartholomeus, 1535. VOL. V. FF and a' would manage you his piece thus: and 'a would about, and about, and come you in, and come you in: rah, tah, tah, would 'a say; bounce, would 'a say; and away again would 'a go, and again would 'a come:-I shall never see such a fellow. Fal. These fellows will do well, master Shallow. -God keep you, master Silence; I will not use many words with you:-Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank you: I must a dozen mile to-night.— Bardolph, give the soldiers coats. Shal. Sir John, heaven bless you, and prosper your affairs, and send us peace! As you return, visit my house; let our old acquaintance be renewed: peradventure, I will with you to the court. well. : Fal. I would you would, master Shallow. Shal. Go to; I have spoke, at a word. Fare you [Exeunt SHALLOW and SILEnce. Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. On, Bardolph; lead the men away. [Exeunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, &c.] As I return, I will fetch off these justices I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. names of the knights in the romantic history of that chivalric worthy. According to their historian and poet, Richard Robinson, this society was established by charter under King Henry the Eighth, who, when he sawe a good archer indeede, he chose him and ordained such a one for a knight of this order.' Robinson's book was printed in 1583, and in a MS. list of his own works, now in the British Museum, he says, 'Mr. Thomas Smith, her majestie's customer, representing himself Prince Arthure, gave me for his booke v'. His 56 knightes gave me every one for his xviijd, and every Esqre for his booke viijd, when they shott under the same Prince Arthure at MYLES END GREEN.' Shakspeare has admirably heightened the ridicule of Shallow's vanity and folly, by making him boast in this parenthesis that he was Sir Dagonet, who, though one of the knights, is also represented in the romance as King Arthur's fool. This society is also noticed by Richard Mulcaster (who was a member) in his book Concerning the training up of Children, 1581, in a passage communicated to Malone by the Rev. Mr. Bowle. |