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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 share in our purchase,3 as I am a true man.

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

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

"- had you Gyges' ring,

"Or the herb that gives invifibility?"

Again, in Ben Jonfon's New Inn:

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-I had

"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 reafoning, 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 sense 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 Addison. 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:

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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.

SCENE II.

The Road by Gadshill.

[Exeunt.

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

POINS. Come, fhelter, fhelter; I have remov’d Falstaff's horse, 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?

4 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 answers, that though he might have reafon to change the word true, he might have fpared man, for homo 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, n. 4. MALONE.

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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 into taffata, to fret, fret." STEEVENS.

gum

I'll

P. HEN. He is walk'd up to the top of the hill; go feek him. [Pretends to feek POINS. FAL. I am accurft to rob in that thief's company: the rafcal hath removed my horfe, and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the fquire further afoot, I fhall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I 'scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forfworn his company hourly any time this two and twenty years, and yet I am bewitch'd with the rogue's company. If the rafcal have not given me medicines to make me love him,' I'll be hang'd; it could not be elfe; I have drunk medicines.Poins!-Hal!-a plague upon you both!-Bardolph!-Peto!-I'll starve, ere I'll rob a foot further. An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to

8

6four foot by the fquire-] The thought is humourous, and alludes to his bulk: infinuating, that his legs being four foot afunder, when he advanced four foot, this put together made four feet fquare. WARBURTON.

I am in doubt whether there is fo much humour here as is fuf

pected: Four foot by the Squire is probably no more than four foot by a rule. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnfon is certainly right. Bishop Corbet fays in one of his poems:

"Some twelve foot by the fquare." FARMER.

All the old copies read by the Squire, which points out the etymology-efquierre, Fr. The fame phrafe occurs in The Winter's Tale: " not the worst of the three, but jumps twelve foot and a half by the fquire." STEEVENS.

See Vol. V. P. 344, n. 9. MALONE.

"medicines to make me love him,] Alluding to the vulgar notion of love-powder. JOHNSON.

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fhe is corrupted

By fpells and medicines bought of mountebanks."

STEEVENS.

• — rob a foot further.] This is only a flight error, which

turn true man, and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chew'd with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground, is threefcore and ten miles afoot with me; and the ftony-hearted villains know it well enough: A plague upon't, when thieves cannot be true to one another! [They whistle.] Whew! -A plague upon you all! Give me my horfe, you rogues; give me my horse, and be hang'd.

P. HEN. Peace, ye fat-guts! lie down; lay thine ear close to the ground, and lift if thou canst hear the tread of travellers,

FAL. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? 'Sblood, I'll not bear mine own flesh fo far afoot again, for all the coin in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye, to colt me thus?

P. HEN. Thou lieft, thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.

FAL. I pr'ythee, good prince Hal, help me to my horfe; good king's fon.

P. HEN. Out, you rogue! fhall I be your oftler? FAL. Go, hang thyfelf in thy own heir-apparent

yet has run through all the copies. We fhould read-rub a foot. So we now fay-rub on. JOHNSON.

Why may it not mean—I will not go a foot further to rob?

STEEVENS. 9to colt-] Is to fool, to trick; but the prince taking it in another fenfe, oppofes it by uncolt, that is, unhorse.

JOHNSON.

you

In the first of these fenfes it is used by Nafhe, in Have with to Saffron Walden, &c. 1596: "His mafter fretting and chaffing to be thus colted of both of them," &c. Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Loyal Subject: "What, are we bobb'd thus ftill? colted and carted?" From Decker's Bell-man's Night-Walkes, &c. 1616, it appears that the technical term for any inn-keeper or hackney. man who had been cheated of horses, was a colt. STEEVENS.

garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of fack be my poison: When a jeft is fo forward, and afoot too,-I hate it.

GADS. Stand.

Enter GADSHILL.

FAL. So I do, against my will.

POINS. O, 'tis our fetter: I know his voice.

Enter BARDOLph.

BARD. What news?+

GADS. Cafe ye, cafe ye; on with your visors; there's money of the king's coming down the hill; 'tis going to the king's exchequer.

FAL. You lie, you rogue; 'tis going to the king's

tavern.

2 heir-apparent garters!]" He may hang himself in his own garters" is a proverb in Ray's Colle&ion. STEEVENS.

3 An I have not ballads made on you all, and fung to filthytunes, let a cup of fack be my poifon :] So, in The Rape of Lucrece: Shall have thy trefpafs cited up in rhymes,

"And fung by children in fucceeding times." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

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faucy lictors

"Will catch at us like ftrumpets, and feald rhimers
"Ballad us out of tune." MALONE.

4 Bard. What news?] In all the copies that I have feen, Poins is made to speak upon the entrance of Gadshill thus:

O, 'tis our fetter; I know his voice-Bardolph, what news? This is abfurd; he knows Gadshill to be the fetter, and aiks Bardolph what news. To countenance this impropriety, the latter editions have made Gadshill and Bardolph enter together, but the old copies bring in Gadshill alone, and we find that Falstaff, who knew their ftations, calls to Bardolph among others for his horse, but not to Gadshill, who was pofted at a distance. We should therefore read:

Poins. O, 'tis our fetter, &c.

Bard. What news?

Gads. Cafe ye, &c. JOHNSON.

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