SCENE II. A publick Road near Coventry. Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH. FAL. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of fack: our foldiers fhall march through; we'll to Sutton-Colfield to-night. BARD. Will you give me money, captain? FAL. Lay out, lay out. BARD. This bottle makes an angel. FAL. An if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make twenty, take them all, I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. BARD. I will, captain: farewell. [Exit. FAL. If I be not ashamed of my foldiers, I am a fouced gurnet. I have mifufed the king's prefs 6 lieutenant Peto-] This paffage proves that Peto did not go with the Prince. JOHNSON. 7 -fouced gurnet.] This is a difh mentioned in that laughable poem called The Counter-fcuffle, 1658: "Stuck thick with cloves upon the back, Daintily ftrew'd with pepper black, "Souc'd gurnet." very Souced gurnet is an appellation of contempt very frequently employed in the old comedies. So, in Decker's Honeft Whore, 1635: "Punck! you fouc'd gurnet!” Again, in the Prologue to Wily Beguiled, 1606: "Out you fouced gurnet, you wool-fift!" Among the Cotton MSS. is a part of an old household book for the year 1594. See Vefp. F. xvi: Supper. Paid for a gurnard, viii. d." STEEVENS. A gurnet is a fish very nearly refembling a piper. damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty foldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I prefs me none but good householders, yeomen's fons: inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been afk'd twice on the bans; fuch a commodity of warm flaves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum; fuch as fear the report of a caliver, worse than a struck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck. I It should seem from one of Taylor's pieces, entitled A bawd, 12mo. 1635, that a forced gurnet was fometimes ufed in the fame metaphorical fenfe in which we now frequently use the word gudgeon: "Though the [a bawd] live after the flesh, all is fish that comes to the net with her;-She hath baytes for all kinde of frye a great lord is her Greenland whale; a countrey gentleman is her cods-head; a rich citizen's fon is her fows'd gurnet, or her gudgeon." MALONE. 8 I prefs me none but good householders, &c.] This practice is complained of in Barnabie Riche's Souldier's Wife to Briton's welfare, or Captaine Skill and Captaine Pill, 1604, p. 62: "Sir, I perceive by the found of your words you are a favourite to Captaines, and I thinke you could be contented, that to ferve the expedition of thefe times, we fhould take up honest householders, men that are of wealth and abilitie to live at home, fuch as your captaines might chop and chaunge, and make marchandise of," &c. STEEVENS. 9 worse than a ftruck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck.] The repetition of the fame image difpofed Sir Thomas Hanmer, and after him Dr. Warburton, to read, in oppofition to all the copies, a ftruck deer, which is indeed a proper expreffion, but not likely to have been corrupted. Shakspeare, perhaps, wrote a ftruck forrel, which, being negligently read by a man not skilled in hunter's language, was eafily changed to ftruck fowl. Sorrel is ufed in Love's Labour's Loft for a young deer; and the terms of the chase were, in our author's time, familiar to the ears of every gentleman. JOHNSON. -fowl,] Thus the first quarto, 1598. In a fubfequent copy (1608) the word fowl being erroneously printed fool, that errour was adopted in the quarto 1613, and confequently in the folio, which was printed from it. MALONE. Fowl, feems to have been the word defigned by the poet, who might have thought an oppofition between fowl, i. e. domeftick birds, and wild-fowl, fufficient on this occafion. He has almost the fame expreflion in Much Ado about Nothing: "Alas poor burt fowl! now will he creep into fedges." STEEVENS. prefs'd me none but fuch toafts and butter,' with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their fervices; and now my whole charge confifts of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, flaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his fores: and fuch as, indeed, were never foldiers; but difcarded unjuft fervingmen, younger fons to younger brothers,' revolted tapfters, and oftlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world, and a long peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient:" • —such toafts and butter,] This term of contempt is used in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money: 66 They love young toafts and butter, Bow-bell fuckers." STEEVENS. "Londiners, and all within the found of Bow-bell, are in reproch called cocknies, and eaters of buttered toftes." Moryfon's Itin. 1617. MALONE. 3 younger fons to younger brothers, &c.] Raleigh, in his Dif ourfe on War, ufes this very expreffion for men of defperate fortune and wild adventure. Which borrowed it from the other, I know not, but I think the play was printed before the Difcourfe. JOHNSON. Perhaps Oliver Cromwell was indebted to this fpeech, for the farcasm which he threw out on the foldiers commanded by Hampden: "Your troops are most of them old decayed ferving men and tapfters," &c. STEEVENS. 4 -cankers of a calm world, and a long peace;] So, in The Puritan: " hatch'd and nourished in the idle calmness of peace." Again, in Pierce Penniless his Supplication to the Devil, 1592: all the canker-wormes that breed on the ruft of peace." STEEVENS. 66 " 5 ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient:] Shakspeare ufes this word fo promifcuously to fignify an enfign or standard-bearer, and alfo the colours or ftandard borne, that I cannot be at a certainty for his allufion here. If the text be genuine, I think the meaning muft be, as difhonourably ragged as one that has been an enfign all his days; that has let age creep and fuch have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their fervices; that you would think, upon him, and never had merit enough to gain preferment. Dr. Warburton, who understands it in the fecond conftruction, has fufpected the text, and given the following ingenious emendation: "How is an old-fac'd ancient or enfign, difhonourably ragged? on the contrary, nothing is esteemed more honourable than a ragged pair of colours. A very little alteration will restore it to its original fenfe, which contains a touch of the strongest and most fine-turn'd fatire in the world: ten times more difhonourably ragged than an old feaft ancient; i. e. the colours ufed by the citycompanies in their feafts and proceffions; for each company had one with its peculiar device, which was ufually displayed and borne about on fuch occafions. Now nothing could be more witty or farcaftical than this comparison: for as Falftaff's raggamuffins were reduced to their tatter'd condition through their riotous exceffes; fo this old feaft ancient became torn and fhatter'd, not in any manly exercife of arms, but amidst the revels of drunken bacchanals." THEOBALD. Dr. Warburton's emendation is very acute and judicious; but I know not whether the licentiousness of our author's diction may not allow us to fuppofe that he meant to represent his foldiers, as more ragged, though lefs honourably ragged, than an old ancient. JOHNSON. An old fac'd ancient, is an old ftandard mended with a different colour. It should not be written in one word, as old and fac'd are diftinct epithets. To face a gown is to trim it; an expreffion at prefent in ufe. In our author's time the facings of gowns were always of a colour different from the stuff itself. So, in this play: "To face the garment of rebellion "With fome fine colour." Again, in Ram-alley or Merry Tricks, 1611: "Your tawny coats with greafy facings here." STEEVENS. So, in The Puritan, a comedy, 1607: "full of boles, like a fhot ancient." The modern editors, 'inftead of dishonourable read difhonourably; but the change is unneceffary, for our author frequently ufes adjectives adverbially. So again in this play: "And fince this business so fair is done." Again, in K. Henry VIII: "He is equal ravenous as he is fubtle." Again, in Hamlet: "I am myfelf indifferent honeft.” Again, in The Taming of the Shrew: "Her only fault "Is that he is intolerable curft.” See alfo Vol. VI. p. 318, n. 9. MALONE. 6 that I had a hundred and fifty tatter'd prodigals, lately come from fwine-keeping, from eating draff and hufks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me, I had unloaded all the gibbets, and prefs'd the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat:-Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prifon. There's but a fhirt and a half' in all my company: and the half-fhirt is two napkins, tack'd together, and thrown over the fhoulders like a herald's coat without fleeves; and the fhirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at faint Alban's, or the red-nofe innkeeper of Daintry." But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge. Enter Prince HENRY and WESTMORELAND, P. HEN. How now, blown Jack? how now, quilt? FAL. What, Hal? How now, mad wag? what a devil doft thou in Warwickshire?—My good lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy; I thought, your honour had already been at Shrewsbury. WEST. 'Faith, fir John, 'tis more than time that I were there, and you too; but my powers are 6 gyves on;] i. e. fhackles. POPE. So, in the old Morality of Hycke Scorner: Again: 66 They be yeomen of the wrethe, that be shackled in gyves.” 7 ·There's but a shirt and a half-] The old copies readThere's not a shirt &c. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. In The Merchant of Venice, printed by J. Roberts, 4to. 1600, but has taken the place of not: Repent but you that you fhall lofe your friend." MALONE. of Daintry.] i. e. Daventry. STERVENS. |