walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the fack that thou haft drunk me, would have bought me lights as good cheap, at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that falamander of yours with fire, any time this two and thirty years; Heaven reward me for it! BARD. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!

FAL. God-a-mercy! fo fhould I be fure to be heart-burn'd.

Enter Hoftefs.

How now, dame Partlet' the hen? have you inquired yet, who pick'd my pocket?

Again, in Pierce Pennylefs's Supplication to the Devil, 1595: "It is faid that you went up and down London, crying like a lantern STEEVENS.

and candle man."

2-good cheap,] Cheap is market, and good cheap therefore is a bon marché. JOHNSON.

So, in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1599:

"If this weather hold, we fhall have hay good cheap."

Again, in the anonymous play of K. Henry V:

66

Perhaps thou may'ft agree better cheap now."

And again, in thefe two proverbs:

They buy good cheap that bring nothing home."

"He'll ne'er have thing good cheap that's afraid to ask the price."

Cheap (as Dr. Johnson has obferved) is undoubtedly an old word for market. So, in the ancient metrical romance of Sir Bevys of Hampton, bl. 1. no date:

66

Tyll he came to the chepe

"There he founde many men of a hepe."

From this word, Eaft-cheap, Chep-ftow, Cheap-fide, &c. are derived; indeed a paffage that follows in Syr Bevys may seem to fix the derivation of the latter:

3

"So many men was dead,

"The Chepe fyde was of blode red." STEEVENS.

dame Partlet-] Dame Partlet is the name of the hen

HOST. Why, fir John! what do you think, fir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my houfe? I have fearch'd, I have inquired, fo has my hufband, man by man, boy by boy, fervant by fervant: the tithe of a hair was never loft in my house before.

FAL. You lie, hoftefs; Bardolph was fhaved, and loft many a hair: and I'll be sworn, my pocket was pick'd: Go to, you are a woman, go.

HOST. Who I? I defy thee: I was never call'd fo in mine own house before.

FAL. Go to, I know you well enough.

HOST. No, fir John; you do not know me, fir John: I know you, firJohn: you owe me money, fir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it: I bought you a dozen of fhirts to your back.

FAL. Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them away to bakers' wives, and they have made bolters of them.

HOST. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight fhillings an ell. You owe money here befides, fir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four and twenty pound.

FAL. He had his part of it; let him pay. HOST. He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing. FAL. How! poor? look upon his face; What call you rich? let them coin his nofe, let them coin his cheeks; I'll not pay a denier. What, will

in the old ftory-book of Reynard the Fox: and in Chaucer's tale of The Cock and the Fox, the favourite hen is called dame Pertelote. STEEVENS.

4

What call you rich?] A face fet with carbuncles is called a rich face. Legend of Capt. Jones. JOHNSON.

you make a younker of me? fhall I not take mine eafe in mine inn, but I fhall have my pocket pick'd?' I have loft a feal-ring of my grandfather's, worth forty mark."

4 a younker of me?] experienced man eafily gull'd.

ment, 1575

A younker is a novice, a young in-
So, in Gafcoine's Glass for Govern

Thefe yonkers fhall pay for the roft."

See Spenfer's Eclogue on May, and Sir Tho. Smith's Commonwealth of England, Book I. ch. xxiii.

This contemptuous distinction is likewife very common in the old plays. Thus, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Elder Brother:

"I fear he'll make an afs of me, a yonker.”

I learn, however, from Smith's Sea-Grammar, 1627, (there was an earlier edition,) that one of the fenfes of the term-younker, was "the young men" employed" to take in the top-failes." They are mentioned as diftinct characters from the failors, who "are the ancient men for hoifing the failes," &c. STEEVENS.

66

5 -Shall I not take mine eafe in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket pick'd?] There is a peculiar force in these words. To take mine eafe in mine inne, was an ancient proverb, not very different in its application from that maxim, Every man's houfe is his caftle;" for inne originally fignified a houfe or habitation. [Sax. inne, domus, domicilium.] When the word inne began to change its meaning, and to be ufed to fignify a house of entertainment, the proverb, ftill continuing in force, was applied in the latter fenfe, as it is here used by Shakspeare: or perhaps Falstaff here humoroufly puns upon the word inne, in order to reprefent the wrong done him more strongly.

In John Heywood's Works imprinted at London, 1598, quarto, bl. 1. is a dialogue wherein are pleasantly contrived the number of all the effectual proverbs in our English tongue, &c. together with three hundred epigrams on three hundred proverbs." In ch. vi. is the following:

"Refty welth willeth me the widow to winne,

"To let the world wag, and take mine eafe in mine inne.” And among the epigrams is: [26. Of Eafe in an Inne.] "Thou takeft thine eafe in thine inne fo nye thee, "That no man in his inne can take ease by thee." Otherwife:

"Thou takeft thine eafe in thine inne, but I fee,

"Thine inne taketh neither cafe nor profit by thee."

Now in the first of these diftichs the word inne is ufed in its ancient meaning, being spoken by a person who is about to marry

Hosr. O Jefu! I have heard the prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper.

FAL. How! the prince is a Jack,' a fneak-cup; and, if he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would fay fo.

Enter Prince HENRY and POINS, marching. FALSTAFF meets the Prince, playing on his truncheon, like a fife.

FAL. How now, lad? is the wind in that door, i'faith? muft we all march?

a widow for the fake of a home, &c. In the two laft places, inne feems to be used in the fenfe it bears at prefent. PERCY.

Gabriel Harvey, in a MS. note to Speght's Chaucer, fays, "Some of Heywood's epigrams are fuppofed to be the conceits and devices of pleasant fir Thomas More.

Inne for a habitation, or a recefs, is frequently ufed by Spenfer and other ancient writers. So, in A World tofs'd at Tennis, 1620: "These great rich men muft take their eafe in their Inn." Again, in Greene's Farewell to Follie, 1617: "The beggar Irus that haunted the palace of Penelope, would take his eafe in his inne, as well as the peeres of Ithaca." STEEVENS.

I believe inns differed from caftles, in not being of fo much confequence and extent, and more particularly in not being fortified.So Inns of court, and in the universities, before the endowment of colleges. Thus, Trinity college, Cambridge, was made out of and built on the fite of feveral inns. LORT.

6 a a feal-ring of my grandfather's, worth forty mark.] This feems to have been the ufual price of fuch a ring about Falstaff's time. In the printed Rolls of Parliament, Vol. VI. p. 140, we meet with "A fignet of gold, to the value of XL marcs.'

"

RITSON.

7 -the prince is a Jack,] This term of contempt occurs frequently in our author. In The Taming of the Shrew, Katharine calls her mufick-mafter, in derifion, a twangling Jack. MALONE.

This term is likewife met with in Coriolanus, The Merchant of Venice, Cymbeline, &c. &c. but is ftill fo much in ufe, as fcarcely to need exemplification. STEEVENS.

BARD. Yea, two and two, Newgate-fashion."
Host. My lord, I pray you, hear me.

P. HEN. What fay'ft thou, miftrefs Quickly? How does thy husband? I love him well, he is an honeft man.

HOST. Good my lord, hear me.

FAL. Pr'ythee, let her alone, and lift to me.
P. HEN. What fay'st thou, Jack?

FAL. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, and had my pocket pick'd: this house is turn'd bawdy-houfe, they pick pockets.

P. HEN. What didst thou lose, Jack?

FAL. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound a-piece, and a feal-ring of my grandfather's.

P. HEN. A trifle, fome eight-penny matter.

HOST. So I told him, my lord; and I faid, I heard your grace fay fo: And, my lord, he speaks moft vilely of you, like a foul-mouth'd man as he is; and faid, he would cudgel you.

P. HEN. What! he did not?

Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me elfe.

FAL. There's no more faith in thee than in a ftew'd prune; nor no more truth in thee, than in

"Newgate-fashion.] As prifoners are conveyed to Newgate, fastened two and two together. JOHNSON.

So, in Decker's Satiromaftix, 1601: Why then, come; we'll walk arm in arm, as though we were leading one another to Newgate." REED.

8 There's no more faith in thee than in a stew'd prune; &c.] The propriety of thefe fimiles I am not fure that I fully understand. A few'd prune has the appearance of a prune, but has no taste. A drawn fox, that is, an exenterated fox, has the form of a fox