The which if he be pleas'd I shall perform, K. Hen. A hundred thousand rebels die in this ;- How now, good Blunt? thy looks are full of speed. K. Hen. The earl of Westmoreland fet forth to-day; 4 So hath the business that I come to speak of.] So alfo the bufi nefs that I come to speak of, hath speed; i. e. requires immediate attention and difpatch. Mr. Pope changed bath to is, and the alteration has been adopted, in my opinion unneceffarily, by the subsequent editors. MALONE. 5 Lord Mortimer of Scotland bath fent word,] There was no fuch perfon as lord Mortimer of Scotland; but there was a lord March of Scotland, (George Dunbar) who having quitted his own country in difguft, attached himself fo warmly to the English, and did them fuch fignal fervices in their wars with Scotland, that the Parliament petitioned the king to bestow fome reward on him. He fought on the fide of Henry in this rebellion, and was the means of faving his life at the battle of Shrewsbury, as is related by Holinfhed. This, no doubt, was the lord whom Shakspeare defigned to reprefent in the act of fending friendly intelligence to the king. Our author had a recollection that there was in thefe wars a Scottish lord on the king's fide, who bore the fame title with the English family, on the rebel fide, (one being the earl of March in England, the other earl of March in Scotland,) but his memory deceived him as to the particular name which was common to both. He took it to be Mortimer, instead of March. STEEVENS, Forward; on Thursday, we ourselves will march: 6 Advantage feeds him fat, while men delay. [Exeunt. SCENE III. Eaft-cheap. A Room in the Boar's-head Tavern. Fal. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely fince this laft action? do I not bate? do I not dwindle? Why, my fkin hangs about me like an old lady's loofe gown 7; I am wither'd like an old apple-John. Well, I'll repent, and that fuddenly, while I am in fome liking*; I shall be out of heart fhortly, and then I fhall have no ftrength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the infide of a church is made of, I am a pepper-corn, a brewer's horfe ; the infide of a church: Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me. feeds him- i.e. himself. MALONE. Bard. 7-my fkin bangs about me like an old lady's loofe gown ;] Pope has in the Dunciad availed himfelf of this idea: "In a dun night-gown of his own loofe fkin." MALONE. -while I am in fome liking;] While I have fome flesh, fome fubftance. We have had good-liking in the fame fenfe in a former play. MALONF. 8 -a brewer's borse;-] fuppofe a brewer's borfe was apt to be lean with hard work. JOHNSON. A brewer's borse does not, perhaps, mean a dray-bore, but the crofs-beam on which beer-barrels are carried into cellars, &c. The allufion may be to the taper form of this machine. A brewer's korfe is, however, mentioned in Ariftippus, or The Jovial Philofopher, 1630: "- to think Helicon a barrel of beer, is as great a fin as to call Pegafus a brewer's borse." STEEVENS. The commentators feem not to be aware, that, in affertions of this fort, Falstaff does not mean to point out any fimilitude to his own condition, but on the contrary fome striking diffimilitude. He fays here, I am a pepper-corn, a brewer's borfe; just as in Act II. fc. iv. he afferts the truth of feveral parts of his narrative, on pain of being confidered as a rogue-a Jew-an Ebrew Jew-a bunch of raddisha borse. TYRW. 9 I am a pepper corn, a brewer's borfe; the infide of a church:] P 3 The Bard. Sir John, you are fo fretful, you cannot live long. Fal. Why, there is it :-come, fing me a bawdy fong; make me merry. I was as virtuously given, as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough: fwore little; diced, not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house, not above once in a quarter-of an hour; paid money that I borrow'd, three or four times; lived well, and in good compass and now I live out of all order, out of all compafs. Bard. Why, you are fo fat, fir John, that you must needs be out of all compafs; out of all reasonable compafs, fir John. Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life: Thou art our admiral, thou beareft the lantern in the poop, but 'tis in the nose of thee; thou art the knight of the burning lamp'. Bard. Why, fir John, my face does you no harm. Fal. No, I'll be fworn; I make as good use of it as The latter words (the infide of a church) were, I fufpect, repeated by the mistake of the compofitor. Falstaff is here mentioning (as Mr. Tyrwhitt has obferved) things to which he is very unlike; things remarkably small and thin. How can the infide of a church come under that defcription? Perhaps, however, the allufion may be to the pious ufes to which churches are appropriated." I am as thin as a brewer's borse; I am as holy as the infide of a church.” Or Falstaff may be here only repeating his former words-The infide of a church! without any connexion with the words immediately preceding. My first conjecture appears to me the most probable. MALONE. As the infide of a church confifts of a vacant choir, there is humour in Falstaff's comparison of himself, who is all filled up with guts and midriff, to fuch an empty building. STEEVENS. It should however be remembered, that churches are not always empty, though the congregations in them are often thin; and that there is nothing in the text to fhew that Falstaff means an empty church. MALONE. I the knight of the burning lamp.] This is a natural picture. Every man who feels in himself the pain of deformity, however, like this merry knight, he may affect to make sport with it among those whom it is his intereft to pleafe, is ready to revenge any hint of contempt upon one whom he can ufe with freedom. JOHNSON. The knight of the burning lamp, and the knight of the burning pefle, are both names invented with a defign to ridicule the titles of heroes ancient romances. STEEVENS. many a man doth of a death's head, or a memento mori : I never fee thy face, but I think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would fwear by thy face; my oath fhould be, By this fire: but thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the fon of utter darknefs. When thou ran'ft up Gads-hill in the night to catch my horfe, if I did not think thou had'ft been an ignis fatuus, or a ball of wild-fire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph 3, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou haft faved me a thoufand marks in links and torches, 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 deareft 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 heartburn'd. 2-By this fire:] Here the quartos 1599, and 1608, very profanely add that's God's Angel. STEEVENS. The first quarto, 1598, reads-By that fire, that's God's angel. MALONE. 30, thou art a perpetual triumph,] See Vol. II. p. 442, n. 4. MALONE. 4- -Thou baft faved me a thousand marks, &c.] This paffage stands in need of no explanation; but I cannot help feizing the opportunity to mention that in Shakspeare's time, (long before the streets were illuminated with lamps,) candles and lantborns to let, were cried about London. In Pierce Pennylefs's Supplication to the Devil, 1595: “It is faid that you went up and down London, crying like a lantern and candle man." STEEVENS. s-good cheap-] Cheap is market, and good cheap therefore is a bon marchè. JOHNSON. So, in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1599: "If this weather hold, we fhall have hay good cheap." Cheap (as Dr. Johnson has obferved) is undoubtedly an old word for market. From this word Eaft-cheap, Chep-ftow, Cheap fide, &c. are derived. STEEVENS. Enter HOSTESS. How now, dame Partlet the hen? have you enquired yet, who pick'd my pocket? Hoft. Why, fir John! what do you think, fir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my houfe? I have fearch'd, I have enquired, 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 fworn, my pocket was pick'd: Go to, you are a woman, go. Hoft. Who I? I defy thee: I was never call'd so in mine own house before. Fal. Go to, I know you well enough. Hoft. No, fir John; you do not know me, fir John: I know you, fir John: 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. Hoft. 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. Hoft. 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 you make a younker of me? shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I 6 dame Partlet-] Dame Partlet is the name of the hen 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. ? - What call you rich ?] A face fet with carbuncles is called a rich face. Legend of Capt. Jones. JOHNSON. 8 -a younker of me?] A younker is a novice, a young inexperienced man easily gull'd. STEEVENS. fhall |