449

My lord, old fir John, with half a dozen more, are at the door; Shall I let them in?

P. HEN. Let them alone awhile, and then open the door. [Exit Vintner.] Poins!

Re-enter POINS.

POINS. Anon, anon, fir.

P. HEN. Sirrah, Falstaff and the reft of the thieves are at the door; Shall we be merry?

POINS. As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye; What cunning match have you made with this jeft of the drawer? come, what's the issue?

P. HEN. I am now of all humours, that have fhow'd themselves humours, fince the old days of goodman Adam, to the pupil age of this present twelve o'clock at midnight. [Re-enter Francis with wine.] What's o'clock, Francis?

FRAN. Anon, anon, fir.

P. HEN. That ever this fellow fhould have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman!— His industry is-up-stairs, and down-ftairs; his eloquence, the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy's mind,' the Hot-fpur of the north; he that kills me fome fix or feven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and fays to his wife,-Fie upon this quiet life! I want work. O my

7 I am not yet of Percy's mind,] The drawer's anfwer had interrupted the prince's train of difcourfe. He was proceeding thus: I am now of all humours that have showed themselves humours;

-I am not yet of Percy's mind; that is, I am willing to indulge myself in gaiety and frolick, and try all the varieties of human life. I am not yet of Percy's mind,-who thinks all the time lost that is not fpent in bloodfhed, forgets decency and civility, and has nothing but the barren talk of a brutal foldier. JoHNSON.

VOL. VIII.

Gg

Sweet Harry, fays fhe, how many haft thou kill'd today? Give my roan horse a drench, says he; and anfwers, Some fourteen, an hour after; a trifle, a trifle. I pr'ythee, call in Falstaff; I'll play Percy, and that damn'd brawn fhall play dame Mortimer his wife. Rivo, fays the drunkard. Call in ribs, call in tallow.

Enter FALSTAFF, GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and PETO.

POINS. Welcome, Jack. Where haft thou been? FAL. A plague of all cowards, I fay, and a vengeance too! marry, and amen!-Give me a cup of fack, boy.-Ere I lead this life long, I'll few nether-stocks, and mend them, and foot them too. A plague of all cowards!-Give me a cup of fack, rogue. Is there no virtue extant? [He drinks.

P. HEN. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a difh of butter? pitiful-hearted Titan, that melted at the

Rivo,] This was perhaps the cant of the English taverns.

JOHNSON.

This conjecture Dr. Farmer has fupported by a quotation from Marston:

"If thou art fad at others' fate,

"Rivo, drink deep, give care the mate."

I find the fame word ufed in the comedy of Blurt Mafter Constable, 1602:

Yet to endear ourselves to thy lean acquaintance, cry rivo ho! laugh and be fat," &c.

Again, in Marton's What you will, 1607:

that rubs his guts, claps his paunch, and cries rivo," &c. Again: "Rivo, here's good juice, fresh borage, boys." Again: "Sing, fing, or ftay: we'll quaffe, or any thing:

9

"Rivo, Saint Mark!" STEEVENS.

nether-flocks,] Nether-ftocks are stockings. See King Lear, Act II. fc. iv. STEEVENS.

sweet tale of the fon! if thou didft, then behold that compound.

Didft thou never fee Titan kifs a dish of butter? pitiful-hearted Titan! that melted at the fweet tale of the fon!] The ufual reading has hitherto been the fweet tale of the fun. The prefent change will be accounted for in the course of the following annotations. STEEVENS..

All that wants reftoring is a parenthefis, into which (pitifulhearted Titan!) fhould be put. Pitiful-hearted means only amorous, which was Titan's character: the pronoun that refers to butter. The heat of the fun is figuratively reprefented as a love-tale, the poet having before called him pitiful-hearted, or amorous.

WARBURTON. The fame thought, as Dr. Farmer obferved to me, is found among Turberville's Epitaphs, p. 142:

"It melts as butter doth against the funne."

The reader, who inclines to Dr. Warburton's opinion, will please to furnish himself with fome proof that pitiful-hearted was ever ufed to fignify amorous, before he pronounces this learned critick's emendation to be juft.

In the oldeft copy, the contested part of the paffage appears thus: at the fweet tale of the fonnes.

Our author might have written-pitiful-hearted Titan, who melted at the feet tale of his fon, i. e. of Phaeton, who, by a plaufible ftory, won on the eafy nature of his ather fo far, as to obtain from him the guidance of his own chariot for a day.

As grofs a mythological corruption, as the foregoing occurs in Locrine, 1595:

"The arm-ftrong offspring of the doubted knight,

"Stout Hercules" &c.

Thus all the copies, ancient and modern. But I fhould not hefitate to read-doubled night, i. e. the night lengthened to twice its ufual proportion, while Jupiter poffeffed himself of Alcmena; a circumstance with, which every fchool-boy is acquainted.

STEEVENS.

I have followed the reading of the original copy in 1598, rejecting only the double genitive, for it reads-of the fon's. Sun, which is the reading of the folio, derives no authority from its being found in that copy; for the change was made arbitrarily in the quarto 1604, and adopted of course in that of 1608 and 1613, from the latter of which the folio was printed; in confequence of which the accumulated errors of the five preceding editions were incorporated in the folio copy of this play.

FAL. You rogue, here's lime in this fack too:

Mr. Theobald reads-pitiful-hearted butter, that melted at the freet tale of the fun;-which is not fo abfurd as-pitiful-hearted Titan, that melted at the fweet tale of the fun,-but yet very exceptionable; for what is the meaning of butter melting at a tale? or what idea does the tale of the fun here convey? Dr. Warburton, who, with Mr. Theobald, reads-fun, has extracted fome fenfe from the paffage by placing the words" pitiful-hearted Titan" in a parenthefis, and referring the word that to butter; but then, befides that his interpretation pitiful-hearted, which he fays means amorous, is unauthorized and inadmiffible, the fame objection will lie to the sentence when thus regulated, that has already been made to the reading introduced by Mr. Theobald.

The Prince undoubtedly, as Mr. Theobald obferves, by the words " Didft thou never see Titan kifs a dish of butter?" alludes to Falftaff's entering in a great heat, "his fat dripping with the violence of his motion, as butter does with the heat of the fun.” Our author here, as in many other places, having ftarted an idea, leaves it, and goes to another that has but a very flight connection with the former. Thus the idea of butter melted by Titan, or the Sun, fuggefts to him the idea of Titan's being melted or softened by the tale of his fon, Phaëton: a tale, which undoubtedly Shakspeare had read in the third book of Golding's Tranflation of Ovid, having, in his defcription of Winter, in The Midfummer Night's Dream, imitated a paffage the is found in the fame page in which the hiftory of Phaeton is related. I should add that the explanation now given was fuggefted by the foregoing note.-I would, however, wish to read-thy fon. In the old copies, the, thee, and thy are frequently confounded.

I am now [This conclufion of Mr. Malone's note is taken from his Appendix.] perfuaded that the original reading—fon's, however ungrammatical, is right; for fuch was the phraseology of our poet's age. So again in this play:

"This abfence of your father's draws a curtain." not-of your father.

So, in The Winter's Tale: "

Again, in K. John:

the letters of Hermione's-,"

"With them a bastard of the king's deceas'd.”

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"Nay, but this dotage of our general's-."

Again, in Cymbeline :

or could this carl,

"A very drudge of nature's,

How little attention the reading of the folio, ("

of the

fun's,)" is entitled to, may appear from hence. In the quarto copy

There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man: Yet a coward is worse than a cup

of 1613 we find-" Why then 'tis like, if there comes a hot Jun,"-instead of a hot June. There, as in the inftance before us, the error is implicitly copied in the folio.-In that copy alfo, in Timon of Athens, Act IV. fc. ult. we find 'twixt natural funne and fire," inftead of “ -'twixt natural fon and fire." MALONE. Till the deviation from established grammar, which Mr. Malone has ftyled the phrafeology of our poet's age," be fupported by other examples than fuch as are drawn from the most incorrect and vitiated of all publications, I muft continue to exclude the double genitive, as one of the numerous vulgarifms by which the early printers of Shakspeare have difgraced his compofitions.

It must frequently happen, that while we fuppofe ourselves ftruggling with the defects and obfcurities of our author, we are in reality bufied by omiffions, interpolations, and corruptions. chargeable only on the ignorance and careleffness of his original tranfcribers and editors. STEEVENS.

3 -here's lime in this fack too: There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man:] Sir Richard Hawkins, one of Queen Elizabeth's fea-captains, in his Voyages, p. 379, fays: "Since the Spanish facks have been common in our taverns, which for confervation are mingled with lime in the making, our nation complains of calentures, of the ftone, the dropfy, and infinite other diftempers, not heard of before this wine came into frequent ufe. Befides, there is no year that it wafteth not two millions of crowns of our fubftance, by conveyance into foreign countries." I think Lord Clarendon, in his Apology, tells us, "That sweet wines before the Restoration were fo much to the English taste, that we engroffed the whole product of the Canaries; and that not a pipe of it was expended in any other country in Europe." But the banifhed cavaliers brought home with them the gouft for French wines, which has continued ever fince. WARBURTON.

Dr. Warburton does not confider that fack, in Shakspeare, is most probably thought to mean what we now call fberry, which, when it is drank, is itill drank with fugar. JOHNSON,

Rhenifh is drank with fugar, but never fberry.

The difference between the true fack and sherry, is diftinctly marked by the following paffage in Fortune by Land and Sea, by Heywood and Rowley, 1655:

"Rayns. Some fack boy &c.

"Drawer. Good fberry fack, fir?

"Rayns. I meant canary, fir: what, haft no brains?"

STEEVENS,