And see already, how he doth begin Wor. Cousin,' farewell:-No further go in this, I trust. Hot. Uncle, adieu :--O, let the hours be short, Till fields, and blows, and groans applaud our sport! [Exeunt. 2 Car. Pease and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots: this house is turned upside down, since Robin ostler died. 1 Car. Poor fellow! never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was the death of him. 2 Car. I think, this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas : I am stung like a tench." 1 Car. Like a tench? by the mass, there is ne'er a king in Christendom could be better bit than I have been since the first cock. quite starved.'-What, ostler !-A plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy head? canst not hear? An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to break the pate of thee, I am a very villain.-Come, and be hang'd:-Hast no faith in thee? Enter GADSHILL.10 Gads. Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock ? 1 Car. I think it be two o'clock. Gads. I pr'ythee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable. 1 Car. Nay, soft, I pray ye; I know a tric worth two of that, i'faith, Gads. I pr'ythee, lend me thine. 2 Car. Ay, when? canst tell?-Lend me thy lantern, quoth a ?-marry, I'll see thee hanged first. Gads. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London? 2 Car. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.-Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call up the gentlemen; they will along with company, for they have great charge. [Exeunt Carriers. Gads. What, ho! chamberlain ! Cham. [Within.] At hand, quoth pick-purse.11 Gads. That's even as fair as-at hand, quoth the chamberlain: for thou variest no more from picking of purses, than giving direction doth from labour. ing; thou lay'st the plot how.12 Enter Chamberlain. Cham. Good morrow, master Gadshill. It holds current, that I told you yesternight: There's a franklin in the wild of Kent, hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold: I heard him tell it to one of his company, last night at supper; a kind of auditor; one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call for eggs and butter: They will away presently. Gads. Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicho las' clerks, 14 I'll give thee this neck. Cham. No, I'll none of it: I pr'ythee, keep that for the hangman; for, I know, thou worship'st Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may. Gads. What talkest thou to me of the hangman? 2 Car. Why, they will allow us ne'er a jorden,if I hang, I'll make a fat pair of gallows: for, if I and then we leak in your chimney; and your chamber-lie breeds fleas like a loach." 1 Car. What, ostler! come away and be hanged, 1 This was a common address in Shakspeare's time to nephews, nieces, and grand-children. See Holinshed, passim. Hotspur was Worcester's nephew. hang, old Sir John hangs with me; and, thou knowest, he's no starveling. Tut! there are other Trojans that thou dreamest not of, the which, for sport sake, are content to do the profession some grace; that would, if matters should be looked into, for their own credit sake, make all whole. I am joined with no foot land-rakers,'' no long-staff, sixpenny strikers;16 none of these mad, mustachio, purple occurred. Such a package was much more likely to be meant than a bale. The poet perhaps intended to mark the petty importance of the carrier's business. 9 This is one of the poet's anachronisms. Turkeys were not brought into England until the reign of HenVIII. 2 Charles' wain was the vulgar name for the constellation called the great bear. It is a corruption of Charles or Churl's wain. Chorl is frequently used for a coun-ry tryman in old books, from the Saxon ceorl. 3 Out of all cess' is out of all measure.' Excessively, præter modum. To cess, or assess, was to number, muster, value, measure, or appraise. 4 Dank is moist, wet, and consequently mouldy. 5 Bots are worms; a disease to which horses are very subject. 6 Dr. Farmer thought tench a mistake for trout; probably alluding to the red spots with which the trout is covered, having some resemblance to the spots on the skin of a flea-bitten person. 7 It appears from a passage in Holland's translation of Pliny's Nat. Hist. b. ix. c. xlvii. that anciently fishes were supposed to be infested with fleas. Last of all some fishes there be which of themselves are given to breed fleas and lice; among which the chalcis, a kind of turgot, is one.' Mason suggests that breeds fleas as fast as a loach breeds loaches,' may be the meaning of the passage; the loach being reckoned a peculiarly prolific fish. 10 Gadshill has his name from a place on the Kentish Road, where robberies were very frequent. A curious narrative of a gang, who appear to have infested that neighbourhood in 1590, is printed from a MS. paper of Sir Roger Manwood's in Boswell's Shakspeare, vol xvi. p. 431. plays. 11 This is a proverbial phrase, frequently used in olu 12 Thus in the life and death of Gamaliel Ratsey, 1605- -he dealt with the chamberlaine of the house, to learn which way they went in the morning, which the chamberlaine performed accordingly, and that with great care and diligence, for he knew he should partake of their fortunes if they sped.' 13 A freeholder or yeoman, a man above a vassal or villain, but not a gentleman. This was the Franklin of the age of Elizabeth. In earlier times he was a person of much more dignity. See Canterbury Tales, v. 333, and Mr. Tyrwhitt's note upon it. 14 In a note on The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iii. Sc. 1, is an account of the origin of this expression. as applied to scholars; and as Nicholas or old Nick is a cant name for the devil, so thieves are equivocally cal Saint Nicholas' clerks. 8 The commentators have puzzled themselves and their readers about this word razes: Theobald asserts that a raze is the Indian term for a bale. I have somewhere seen the word used for a fraile, or little rush bas-ed ket, such as figs, raisins, &c. are usually packed in; but I cannot now recall the book to memory in which it 15 Footpads. hued malt-worms: but with nobility, and tranquillity; burgomasters, and great oneyers; such as can hold in; such as will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray And yet I lie; for they pray continually to their saint, the commonwealth; or, rather, not pray to her, but prey on her; for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots.* Cham. What, the commonwealth their boots? will she hold out water in foul way? Gads. She will, she will; justice hath liquored her. We steal as in a castle, cock-sure; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible. Cham. Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholden to the night, than to fern-seed, for your walking invisible. Gads. Give me thy hand: thou shalt have a share of our purchase, as I am a true man. Cham. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief. Gads. Go to; Homo is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The Road by Gadshill. Enter PRINCE HENRY, and POINS; BARDOLPH and PETO, at some distance. Poins. Come, shelter, shelter: I have removed Falstaff's horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet." P. Hen. Stand close. Enter FALSTAFF. Fal. Poins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins! P. Hen. Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal; What a brawling dost thou keep? Fal. Where's Poins, Hal? P. Hen He is walked up to the top of the hill, I'll go seek him. [Pretends to seek POINS. Fal. I am accursed to rob in that thief's company: the rascal hath removed my horse, and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the squire further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I 'scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly, any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hang'd; it could not be else; I have drunk medicines.-Poins!-Hal!-a plague upon you both!-Bardolph!-Peto!-I'll starve, ere I'll rob a foot further. An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground, is threescore and ten miles afoot with me; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough: A plague upon't, when thieves cannot be true to one another! [They whistle.] Whew! -A plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues; give me my horse, and be hang'd. P. Hen. Peace, ye fat-guts! lie down; lay thos ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers. Fal. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? Sblood, I'll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again, for all the coin in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt1 me thus ? P. Hen. Thou liest, thou art not colted, thou art uncolted. Fal. I pr'ythee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse: good king's son. P. Hen. Out, you rogue! shall I be your ostler! Fal. Go, hang thyself in thy own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison: When a jest is so forward, and afoot too,-I hate st. Enter GADSHILL. Gads. There's enough to make us all. P. Hen. Sirs, you four shall front them in the Fal. Zounds! will they not rob us? P. Hen. What, a coward, Sir John Paunch? Fal. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet no coward, Hal. P. Hen. Well, we leave that to the proof. Poins. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge; when thou needest him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast. Fal. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged. P. Hen. Ned, where are our disguises? [Exeunt P. HEN. and Porns. Fal. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole," say I; every man to his business. 1 Some of the commentators have been at great pains to conjecture what class of persons were meant by great 5 Fern-seed was supposed to have the power of renoneyers. One proposed to read moneyers; another myn-dering persons invisible: the seed of fern is itself invisiheers; and Malone coins a word, onyers, which he ble; therefore to find it was a magic operation, and in the says may mean a public accountant, from the term use it was supposed to communicate its own property. o-ni, used in the exchequer. The ludicrous nature of 6 Purchase was anciently understood in the sense of the appellations which Gadshill bestows upon his asso-gain, profit, whether legally or illegally obtained. The ciates might have sufficiently shown them that such at- commentators are wrong in saying that it meant stolen tempts must be futile; nobility and tranquillity, bur- goods. gomasters and great oneyers.' Johnson has judiciously explained it. Gadshill tells the chamberlain that he is joined with no mean wretches, but with "burgomasters and great ones," or, as he terms them in merriment by a cant termination, great one-y-ers, or great one-eers, as we say privateer, auctioneer, circuiteer." 2 A quibble upon boots and booty. Boot is profit, advantage. 7 This allusion we often meet with in the old comedies. Thus in The Malecontent, 1604-'I'll come among you, like gum into taffata, to fret, fret. Velvet and taffata were sometimes stiffened with gum; but the consequence was, that the stuff being thus hardened, quickly rubbed and fretted itself out. 8 i. e. the square or measure. A carpenter's rula was called a square; from esquierre, Fr. 9 Alluding to the vulgar notion of love-powdera. 3 Alluding to boots in the preceding passage. In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff says:- They would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fisher-the wild tricks of a colt. men's boots with me.' 4 As in a castle was a proverbial phrase for security. Stevens has adduced several examples of its use in cotemporary writers 11 i. e. be his lot or portion happiness. This prover bial phrase has been already explained in the notes on The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Taming of the Shrew, and Winter's Tale. knaves! they hate us youth: down with them; fleece them. UNIY and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is there not, besides, the Douglas? Have I not all 1 Trav. 0, we are undone, both we and ours, to for ever. Fal. Hang ye, gorbellied1 knaves; Are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs; I would, your store were here! On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves? young men must live: You are grand-jurors are ye? We'll jure ye, i'faith. [Exeunt FAL. &c. driving the Travellers out. P. Hen. The thieves have bound the true3 men: Now could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever. Poins. Stand close, I hear them coming. Re-enter Thieves. Fal. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day. An the prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there's no equity stirring: there's no more valour in that Poins, than in a wild duck. P. Hen. Your money. [Rushing out upon them. As they are sharing, the Prince and POINS P. Hen, Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse : The thieves are scatter'd, and possess'd with fear -But, for my own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house. He could be contented,-Why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our house: -he shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. The purpose you undertake is dangerous;-Why, that's certain; 'tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink! but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. The purpose you undertake is dangerous; the friends you have named, uncertain; the time itself unsorted; and your whole plot too light, for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.-Say you so, say you so! I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this? By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation: an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue this? Why, my lord of York commends the plot, and the general course of the action. 'Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, 1 Gorbellied is big-paunched, corpulent. is 2 A term of reproach usually applied to avaricious old citizens. It is of uncertain derivation. Cotgrave interprets Un gros marroufle, a big cat; also an ouglie fuske or clusterfist; also a rich churl or fat chuffe." 3 True for honest: thus opposing the true men to the thieves. 4 Argument is subject matter for conversation. meet me in arms by the gh not all their letters and are they not, some of them, set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this? an infidel? Ha! you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the king, and lay open all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skimmed milk with so honourable an action! Hang him! let him tell the king: We are prepared: I will set forward to-night. Enter LADY PERCY. How now, Kate?" I must leave you within these two hours. Lady. O my good lord, why are you thus alone? Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, Hot. What, ho! is Gilliams with the packet gone? Serv. He is, my lord, an hour ago. Serv. One horse, my lord, he brought even now. Hot. That roan shall be my throne. Well, I will back him straight: O esperance!—14 Bid Butler lead him forth into the park, [Exit Servant. Lady. But hear you, my lord. In Virgil 'ferreus somnus.' Homer terms sleep brazen, 10 Retires are retreats. 11 Frontiers formerly meant not only the bounds of different territories, but also the forts built along or near those limits. Thus in Ives's Practice of Fortification, 1589:- A forte not placed where it were needful, might 5 This letter was from George Dunbar, Earl of skantly be accounted for frontier. Florio interprets March, in Scotland. 6 Richard Scroop, archbishop of York. 7 See note on the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act ii. Sc. 3. 8 Shakspeare either mistook the name of Hotspur's wife (which was not Katherine, but Elizabeth), or else designedly changed it, out of the remarkable fondness he seems to have had for the name of Kate. Hall and Holinshed call her erroneously Elinor. 9 In King Richard III. we have leaden slumber" frontiera, a frontire or bounding place: also a skonce, a bastion, a defence, a trench, or block-house, upon or about confines or borders.' 12 Basilisks are a species of ordnance, probably so named from the imaginary serpent or dragon, with figures of which it was ordinary to ornament great guns 13 Occurrences. 14 The motto of the Percy family. 'As quarrellous as the weasel' About his title; and hath sent for you, Hot. So far afoot, I shall be weary, love. Away, you trifler!-Love? I love thee not, Lady. Do you not love me? do you not indeed? Hot. Come, wilt thou see me ride? Hot. Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate? Lady. It must, of force. SCENE IV. Eastcheap. A Poom in the Boar's Poins. Where hast been, Hal? P. Hen. With three or four loggerheads, amongst three or four score hogsheads. I have sounded the very base string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their Christian names, as-Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, that, though I be but prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff; but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy,-by the Lord, so they call me; and when I am king of England, I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call-drinking deep, dying scarlet: and when you breathe in your watering, they cry-hem! and bid you play it off."-To con1 i. e. to strengthen. |clude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an Poins. Francis! P. Hen. Thou art perfect. Enter FRANCIS. [Exit Poiss. Fran. Anon, anon, sir. P. Hen. How old art thou, Francis? Poins. [Within.] Francis! Fran. Anon, sir.-Pray you, stay a little, my lord. Fran. Anon, anon. P. Hen. Anon, Francis? No, Francis: but tomorrow, Francis; or, Francis, on Thursday; or, indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But, Francis,Fran. My lord? P. Hen. Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crys Boar's Head in Southwark, and Caldecot Manor in Suf- 2 Mammets were puppets or dolls, here used by 4 A Corinthian was a wencher a debauchee. The fame of Corinth, as a place of resort for loose women, was not yet extinct. 5 Mr. Gifford has shown that there is no ground for the filthy interpretation of this passage which Steevens chose to give. To breathe in your watering,' is 'to 3 Eastcheap is selected with propriety for the scene of the prince's merry meetings, as it was near his own residence: a mansion called Cold Harbour (near All Hallows Church, Upper Thames Street), was granted to Henry Prince of Wales. 11 Henry IV. 1410. Rymer, vol. viii. p. 628. In the old anonymous play of King Henry V Eastcheap is the place where Henry and his companions meet: Hen. V. You know the old tavern in Eastcheap; there is good wine.' Shakspeare has hung up a sign for them that he saw daily; for the Boar's Head tavern was very near Blackfriars' Playhouse.-Stone's Survey. Sir John Falstaff was in his lifetime a considerable benefactor to Magdalen College, Oxford; and though the College cannot give the particulars at large, the 6 It appears from two passages cited by Steevens that the drawers kept sugar folded up in paper, ready to be delivered to those who called for sack. 7 An under-skinker is a tapster, an under-drawer. Skink is drink, liquor; from scene, drink, Saxon. 8 The prince intends to ask the drawer whether he will rob his master, whom he denotes by these con temptuous distinctions. 9 Nott-pated is shorn-pated, or cropped; having the hair cut close. 10 Puke-stockings are dark-coloured stockings. Puke is a colour between russet and black; pullus, Lat. aç. cording to the dictionaries. By the receipt for dyeing it, it appears to have been a dark gray or slate colour. 11 Caddis was probably a kind of ferret or worsted lace. A slight kind of serge still bears the name of cadis in France. In Glapthorne's Wit in a Constable, we are told of 'footmen in cuddis.' Garters being formerly worn in sight were often of rich materials; to wear a coarse cheap sort was therefore reproachful." Poins. Anon, anon, sir. P. Hen. Sirrah, Falstaf and the rest 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 jest of the drawer? come, what's the issue? P. Hen. I am now of all humours, that have show'd themselves humours, since the old days of good man 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, sir. P. Hen. That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman! -His industry is-up-stairs, and down-stairs; his eloquence, the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the north: he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife,-Fye upon this quiet life! I want work. O my sweet Harry, says she, how many hast thou killed to-day? Give my roan horse a drench, says he; and answers, Some fourteen, an hour after; a trifle, a trifle. pr'ythee, call in Falstaff; I'll play Percy, and that damned brawn shall play dame Mortimer his wife. Rivo,' says the drunkard. Call in ribs, call in tallow, Enter FALSTAFF, GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and PETO. of butter? pitiful-hearted butter, that melted at the sweet tale of the sun!4 if theu didst, then behold that compound. Fal. You rogue, here's limes in this sack too: There is nothing but roguery to be found in villain ous man: Yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack 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 lives not three good men unhanged in England; and one of them is fat, and grows old: God help the while! a bad world, I say! I would, I were a weaver; I cowards, I say still. could sing psalms or any thing: A plague of all P. Hen. How now, wool-sack? what mutter you? Fal. A king's son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath," and drive all thy subjects 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 whoreson 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 stab thee. Fal. I call thee coward! I'll see thee damned ere I call thee coward: but I would give a thousand pound, I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back: Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! give me them that will face me.-Give me a cup of sack :I am a rogue, if I drunk to-day. P. Hen. O villain, thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drunk'st last. Fal. All's one for that. A plague of all cowards, still stay I. [He drinks. 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-sword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have Poins. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been? 'scap'd by miracle. I am eight times thrust through Fal. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a ven- the doublet; four, through the hose; my buckler geance too! marry, and amen!-Give me a cup of cut through and through; my sword hacked like sack, boy.-Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew nether- a hand-saw, ecce signum. I never dealt better since stocks, and mend them, and foot them too. AI was a man: all would not do. A plague of all plague of all cowards!-Give me a cup of sack, cowards!-Let them speak; if they speak more or rogue. Is there no virtue extant? (He drinks. P. Hen. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish chaunted from market to market to a vile tune and a worse throat; whilst the poor country wench melts like butter to hear them.' 1 A kind of sweet Spanish wine, of which there were two sorts, brown and white. Baret says that 'bastarde 5 Eliot, in his Orthoepia, 1593, speaking of sack and is muscadel, sweete wine, mulsum.' Bastard wines rhenish, says, 'The vintners of London put in lime; are said to be Spanish wines in general, by Olaus Mag-thence proceed infinite maladies, specially the goutes.' He speaks of them with almost as much enthu siasm as Falstaff does of sack, and concludes by saying, Nullum vinum majoris pretií est, quam bastardum, ob dulcedinis nobilitatem.'-De Gent. Septent. p. 521. nus. 2 Of this exclamation, which was frequently used in Bacchanalian revelry, the origin or derivation has not been discovered. 3 Stockings. 6 This is the reading of the first quarto, 1598. The folio reads I could sing all manner of songs.' The passage was probably altered to avoid the penalty of the statute, 3 Jac. I. cxxi. Weavers are mentioned as lov ers of music in the Twelfth Night The protestants who fled from the persecutions of the duke of Alva were mostly weavers, and, being Calvinists, were distinguished for their love of psalmody. Weavers were supposed to be generally good singers: their trade being sedentary, they had an opportunity of practising, and sometimes in parts, while they were at work. 7 A dagger of lath is the weapon given to the Vice in the Old Moralities. In the second part of this play Falstaff calls Shallow a Vice's dagger. 4 Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter? alludes to Falstaff's entering in a great heat, melting with the motion, like butter with the heat of the sun. "Pitiful-hearted is used in the sense which Cotgrave gives to misericordieux, merciful, pitiful, compassionate, tender.' Theobald reads pitiful-hearted but ter,' which is countenanced by none of the old copies, 8 It appears from the old comedy of The Two Angry but affords a clear sense. Malone and Steevens have Women of Abingdon, (1599) that this method of defence each given a reading, founded upon the quarto of 1598, and fight was then going out of fashion:- I see by this which has — at the sweet tale of the sonnes but dearth of good swords that sword and buckler fight bethey differ in their explanations of the passage. Their gins to grow out. I am sorry for it; I shall never see arguments are too long for this place, and are the less good manhood again. If it be once gone, this poking necessary as I do not adopt the readings upon which fight of rapier and dagger will come up then: then a they are founded. Bishop Earle, in his Microcosmo-tall man and a good sword-and-huckler-man will be graphy, giving the character of a pot poet, says, 'His spitted like a cat or a coney: then a boy will be as good frequentest works go out in single sheets, and are as a man,' &c. |