of fack with lime in it; a villainous coward.-Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhang'd in England; and one of them is fat, and grows old; God help the while! a bad world, I fay! I would I were a weaver; I could fing pfalms or any thing: A plague of all cowards, I fay ftill! Eliot, in his Orthoepia, 1593, speaking of fack and rhenish, fays: "The vintners of London put in lime, and thence proceed infinite maladies, fpecially the gouttes." FARMER. 66 From the following paffage in Greene's Ghoft haunting Coniecatchers, 1604, it feems as though lime was mixed with the fack for the purpofe of giving ftrength to the liquor: -a christian exhortation to Mother Bunch would not have done amiffe, that she fhould not mixe lime with her ale to make it mightie." REED. Sack, the favourite beverage of Sir John Falstaff, was, according to the information of a very old gentleman, a liquor compounded of fherry, cyder, and fugar. Sometimes it should feem to have been brewed with eggs, i. e. mulled. And that the vintners played tricks with it, appears from Falftaff's charge in the text. It does not feem to be at prefent known; the sweet wine fo called, being apparently of a quite different nature. RITSON. That the fweet wine at prefent called fack, is different from Falftaff's favourite liquor, I am by no means convinced. On the contrary, from the fondnefs of the English nation for fugar at this period, I am rather inclined to Dr. Warburton's opinion on this fubject. If the English drank only rough wine with fugar, there appears nothing extraordinary, or worthy of particular notice; and that their partiality for fugar was very great, will appear from the paffage in Hentzner already quoted, p. 381, as well as the paffage from Moryfon's Itinerary, which being adopted by Mr. Malone in his note, ibid. need not to be here repeated. The addition of fugar even to fack, might, perhaps, to a tafte habituated to sweets, operate only in a manner to improve the flavour of the wine. I would I were a the first edition [the quarto could fing pfalms or any thing. REED. weaver; I could fing pfalms &c.] In 1598,] the paffage is read thus: I In the firft folio thus: I could fing P. HEN. How now, wool-fack? what mutter you? FAL. A king's fon! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all all manner of fongs. Many expreffions bordering on indecency or profaneness are found in the first editions, which are afterwards corrected. The reading of the three laft editions, I could fing pfalms and all manner of fongs, is made without authority out of different copies. JOHNSON. The editors of the folio, 1623, to avoid the penalty of the ftatute, 3 Jac. I. c. xxi. changed the text here, as they did in many other places from the fame motive. MALONE. In the perfecutions of the Proteftants in Flanders under Philip II. those who came over into England on that occafion, brought with them the woollen manufactory. These were Calvinifts, who were always diftinguished for their love of pfalmody. WARBURTON. I believe nothing more is here meant than to allude to the practice of weavers, who, having their hands more employed than their minds, amuse themfelves frequently with fongs at the loom. The knight, being full of vexation, wishes he could fing to divert his thoughts. Weavers are mentioned as lovers of mufick in The Merchant of Venice. [Twelfth Night, Vol. IV. p. 56, n. 3.] Perhaps " to fing like a weaver" might be proverbial. JOHNSON. Dr. Warburton's obfervation may be confirmed by the following paffage Ben Jonfon, in The Silent Woman, makes Cutberd tell Morofe, that the parfon caught his cold by fitting up late, and finging catches with cloth-workers." STEEVENS. So, in The Winter's Tale: 66 -but one puritan among them, and he fings pfalms to hornpipes." MALONE. The Proteftants who fled from the perfecution of the Duke d'Alva were mostly weavers and woollen manufacturers: they fettled in Glocestershire, Somersetshire, and other counties, and (as Dr. Warburton obferves,) being Calvinifts, were diftinguished for their love of pfalmody. For many years the inhabitants of thefe counties have excelled the reft of the kingdom in the skill of vocal harmony. SIR J. HAWKINS. S —a dagger of lath,] i. e. fuch a dagger as the Vice in the old moralities was arm'd with. So, in Twelfth Night: thy fubjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You prince of Wales! P. HEN. Why, you whorefon round man! what's the matter? FAL. Are you not a coward? answer me to that; and Poins there? POINS. 'Zounds," ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, I'll ftab thee. FAL. I call thee coward! I'll fee thee damn'd ere I call thee coward: but I would give a thousand pound, I could run as faft as thou canft. You are ftraight enough in the fhoulders, you care not who fees your back: Call you that, backing of your friends? A plague upon fuch backing! give me them that will face me.-Give me a cup of fack :I am a rogue, if I drunk to-day. P. HEN. O villain! thy lips are scarce wiped fince thou drunk'st last. FAL. All's one for that. A plague of all cowards, ftill fay I. "In a trice, like to the old Vice, "Your need to fuftain: "Who with dagger of lath, "In his rage and his wrath," &c. [He drinks. Again, in Like will to Like, quoth the Devil to the Collier, 1587, the Vice fays: "Come no neer me you knaves for Body o'me, they have tane away my dagger." And in the Second Part of this play, Falftaff calls Shallow a "Vice's dagger." STEEVENS. 6 Poins. 'Zounds, &c.] Thus the first quarto and the three subfequent copies. In the quarto of 1613, Prince being prefixed to this fpeech by the careleffnefs of the printer, the errour, with many others, was adopted in the folio; the quarto of 1613 being evidently the copy from which the folio was printed. MALONE. P. HEN. What's the matter? FAL. What's the matter? there be four of us here have ta'en a thousand pound this morning. P. HEN. Where is it, Jack? where is it? FAL. Where is it? taken from us it is: a hundred upon poor four of us. P. HEN. What, a hundred, man? FAL. I am a rogue, if I were not at half-fword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have 'fcap'd by miracle, I am eight times thruft through the doublet; four, through the hofe; my buckler cut through and through; my fword hack'd like a hand-faw, ecce fignum. I never dealt better fince I was a man: all would not do. A plague of all cowards!-Let them speak: if they speak more or less than truth, they are villains, and the fons of darkness. P. HEN. Speak, firs; How was it? PETO. No, no, they were not bound. 7 my buckler cut through and through;] It appears from the old comedy of The Two Angry Women of Abington, that this method of defence and fight was in Shakspeare's time growing out of fafhion. The play was published in 1599, and one of the characters in it makes the following obfervation: "I fee by this dearth of good fwords, that fword-and-bucklerfight begins to grow out. I am forry for it; I fhall never fee good manhood again. If it be once gone, this poking fight of rapier and dagger will come up then. Then a tall man, and a good fword-and-buckler-man, will be fpitted like a cat, or a coney: then a boy will be as good as a man," &c. STEEVENS. See Vol. III. p. 368, n. 9. MALONE. FAL. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them; or I am a Jew elfe, an Ebrew Jew.' GADS. As we were fharing, fome fix or feven fresh men fet upon us, FAL. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other. P. HEN. What, fought ye with them all? FAL. All? I know not what ye call, all; but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish if there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legg'd crea ture. POINS. Pray God, you have not murder'd fome of them. FAL. Nay, that's past praying for: I have pepper'd two of them: two, I am fure, I have pay'd;' two rogues in buckram fuits. I tell thee what, Hal,-if I tell thee a lie, fpit in my face, call me horse. Thou know'ft my old ward;-here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me, 9 an Ebrew Jew.] So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian." The natives of Paleftine were called Hebrews, by way of diftinction from the Stranger Jews denominated Greeks. STEEVENS. Jews in Shakspeare's time were fuppofed to be peculiarly hardhearted. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: "A Jew would have wept to have seen our parting." MALONE. 2 two, I am fure, I have pay'd;] i. e. drubbed, beaten. So, in Marlowe's tranflation of Ovid's Elegies, printed at Middleburgh, (without date): "Thou cozencft boys of fleep, and doft betray them MALONE. |