POINS. Falftaff!-faft afleep behind the arras, and fnorting like a horse. P. HEN. Hark how hard he fetches breath: Search his pockets. [Poins fearches.] What haft thou found? POINS. Nothing but papers, my lord. P. HEN. Let's fee what they be POINS. Item, A capon, 2s. 2d. Item, Sauce, 4d. Item, Sack, two gallons, 5s. 8d." read them. 5 Poins. Falstaff! &c.] This fpeech, in the old copies, is given to Peto. It has been transferred to Poins on the fuggestion of Dr. Johnfon. Peto is again printed elsewhere for Poins in this play, probably from a P. only being used in the MS. "What had Peto done, (Dr. Johnfon obferves,) to be trufted with the plot against Falftaff? Poins has the Prince's confidence, and is a man of courage. This alteration clears the whole difficulty; they all retired but Poins, who, with the Prince, having only robbed the robbers, had no need to conceal himself from the travellers." MALONE. 6 Sack, two gallons, 5s. 8d.] It appears from Peacham's Worth of a Penny, that fack was not many years after Shakspeare's death, about two fhillings a quart. If therefore our author had followed his ufual practice of attributing to former ages the modes of his own, the charge would have been here 16s. Perhaps he fet down the price at random. He has, however, as a learned friend obferves to me, fallen into an anachronism, in furnishing his tavern in Eaftcheap with fack in the time of King Henry IV. “The vintners fold no other facks, mufcadels, malmfies, baftards, alicants, nor any other wines but white and claret, till the 33d year of King Henry VIII. 1543, and then was old Parr 60 years of age. All thofe fweet wines were fold till that time at the apothecary's, for no other ufe but for medicines." Taylor's Life of Thomas Parr, 4to. Lond. 1635. "If therefore Falstaff got drunk with fack 140 years before the above date, it could not have been at Mrs. Quickly's." For this information I am indebted to the Reverend Dr. Stock, the accurate and learned editor of Demofthenes. Since this note was written, I have learnt from a paffage in Florio's First Fruites, 1578, with which I was furnished by the late Item, Anchovies, and fack after fupper, 2s. 6d. Item, Bread, a halfpenny. P. HEN. O monftrous! but one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of fack!-What there is elfe, keep clofe; we'll read it at more advantage: there let him fleep till day. I'll to the court in the morning: we must all to the wars, and thy place fhall be honourable. I'll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot; and, I know, his death will be a march of twelve-fcore.' The money fhall Reverend Mr. Bowle, that fack was at that time but fixpence a quart. "Claret wine, red and white, is fold for five pence the quart, and facke for fixpence: mufcadel and malmfey for eight." Twenty years afterwards fack had probably rifen to eight pence or eight pence halfpenny a quart, so that our author's computation is very exact. MALONE. 5 I know, his death will be a march of twelve-score.] i. e. It will kill him to march fo far as twelve-fcore yards. JOHNSON. Ben Jonfon uses the fame expreffion in his Sejanus: "That look'd for falutations twelve-fcore off." Again, in Weftward Hoe, 1606: "I'll get me twelve-fcore off, and give aim." Again, in an ancient MS. play, entitled, The Second Maiden's Tragedy: 66 not one word near it; "There was no fyllable but was twelve-fcore off." STEEVENS. That is, twelve fcore feet; the Prince quibbles on the word foot, which fignifies a measure, and the infantry of an army. I cannot conceive why Johnson fuppofes that he means twelve fcore yards; he might as well extend it to twelve fcore miles. M. MASON. Dr. Johnfon fuppofed that "twelve fcore" meant twelve score yards, because that was the common phrafeology of the time. When archers talked of fending a fhaft fourteen score, they meant fourteen score yards. So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "This boy will carry a letter twenty miles, as eafily as a cannon will shoot point-blank twelve fcore." See alfo King Henry IV. P. II. I have therefore great doubts whether the equivoque pointed out by Mr, Mafon was intended. If not, Mr. Pope's interpretation [twelvefcore foot] is wrong, and Dr. Johnfon's right. MALONE, be paid back again with advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and fo good morrow, Poins. POINS. Good morrow, good my lord. [Exeunt. ACT III. SCENE I. Bangor. A Room in the Archdeacon's Houfe. Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, MORTIMER, and GLENDOWER. MORT. These promises are fair, the parties fure, And our induction" full of profperous hope. Hor. Lord Mortimer,-and coufin Glendower,Will you fit down? And, uncle Worcester :-A plague upon it? GLEND. No, here it is. Sit, coufin Percy; fit, good coufin Hotspur: Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale; and, with Twelve-score always means fo many yards and not feet. There is not the smallest reafon to fuppofe that Shakspeare meant any quibble. DOUCE. 6 induction] That is, entrance; beginning. JOHNSON. An induction was anciently fomething introductory to a play. Such is the bufinefs of the Tinker previous to the performance of The Taming of a Shrew. Shakspeare often uses the word, which his attendance on the theatres might have familiarized to his conception. Thus, in King Richard III: "Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous." STEEVENS. Hor. And you in hell, as often as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of. GLEND. I cannot blame him: at my nativity," The front of heaven was full of fiery fhapes, Of burning creffets; and, at my birth, The frame and the foundation of the earth Shak'd like a coward. Hor. Why, fo it would have done At the fame feason, if your mother's cat had But kitten'd, though yourself had ne'er been born. GLEND. I fay, the earth did shake when I was born. 7 at my nativity, &c.] Moft of thefe prodigies appear to have been invented by Shakspeare. Holinfhed fays only: "Strange wonders happened at the nativity of this man; for the fame night he was born, all his father's horfes in the stable were found to ftand in blood up to their bellies." STEEVENS. In the year 1402, a blazing star appeared, which the Welsh bards reprefented as portending good fortune to Owen Glendower. Shakfpeare had probably read an account of this ftar in fome chronicle, and transferred its appearance to the time of Owen's nativity. MALONE. 8 Of burning creffets;] A creffet was a great light fet upon a beacon, light-house, or watch tower: from the French word croiffette, a little crofs, because the beacons had anciently croffes on the top of them. HANMER. The fame word occurs in Hiftriomaftix, or the Player whipt, 1610: "Come Creffida, my creffet-light, Thy face doth fhine both day and night." In the reign of Elizabeth, Holinfhed fays: "The countie Palatine of Rhene was conveied by creffet-light, and torch-light, to Sir T. Grefham's houfe in Bishopfgate-ftreet." Again, in The Stately Moral of the Three Lords of London, 1590: "Watches in armour, triumphs, creffet-lights." The creffet-lights were lights fixed on a moveable frame or cross, like a turnstile, and were carried on poles, in proceffions. I have feen them reprefented in an ancient print from Van Velde. See alfo a wooden cut in Vol. VII. p. 146. STEEVENS. Hor. And I fay, the earth was not of my mind, If you suppose, as fearing you it shook. GLEND. The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble. Hor. O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire, And not in fear of your nativity. Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth Within her womb; which, for enlargement ftriving, 9 Difeafed nature-] The poet has here taken, from the perverfenefs and contrarioufnefs of Hotfpur's temper, an opportunity of railing his character, by a very rational and philofophical confutation of fuperftitious error. JOHNSON. Is with a kind of cholick pinch'd and vex'd By the imprisoning of unruly wind Within her womb; which, for enlargement ftriving, Shakes the old beldame earth,] So, in our author's Venus and Adonis: "As when the wind, imprifon'd in the ground, 66 Struggling for paffage, earth's foundation shakes, "Which with cold terrours doth men's minds confound." The fame thought is found in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. III. c. ix : like as a boyft rous wind, 66 "Which in th' earth's hollow caves hath long been hid, And, fhut up faft within her prifons blind, "Makes the huge element against her kind "To move, and tremble, as it were aghaft, "Untill that it an iffue forth may find; "Then forth it breakes; and with his furious blast So alfo in Drayton's Legend of Pierce Gaveflon, 1594: "As when within the foft and fpongie foyle "The wind doth pierce the entrails of the earth, "Shakes all the centre, wanting iffue forth," &c. MALONE. |