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you fhall got so hall you, mafter Page;-and you,

Sir Hugh.

Shal. Well, fare you well-we shall have the freer wooing at mafter Page's. on to 22

Caius, Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.

觱 Hot Farewell, my hearts will to my honeft knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him.

Ford [Afide. I think, I fhall drink in pipe-wine firft with him; I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?

All Have with you, to fee this monfter. [Exeunt.

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Enter Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Page, and fervants with a basket.
Mrs. Ford. What, John what, Robert!

Mrs. Page. Quickly, quickly; is the buck-bafket-
Mrs. Ford. I warrant:What, Robin, I fay.
Mrs. Page. Come, come, come.

Mrs. Ford. Here, fet it down.”

Mrs. Page. Give your men the charge; we must be brief.

Hoft. Farewell, my bearts: Twill to my honeft knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him.

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Ford. [Afide.] I think, I shall drink ÎN PIPE-vine first with him: I'll make him dance. To drink in pipe-vine, is a phrafe which I cannot understand. May we not suppose that Shakespeare rather wrote ? I think I shall drink HORN-PIPE wine first with him: I'll make him dance.'

Canary is the name of a dance, as well as of a quine. Ford lays hold of both fenfes; but, for an obvious reason, makes the dance a born-pipe. It has been already remarked, that Shakespeare has frequent allufions to a éuckold's horns.' TYRWHITT.

Pipe is known to be a veffel of wine, now containing two hogf heads. Pipe wine is therefore wine, not from the bottle, but the pipe; and the text confits in the ambiguity of the word, which fignifics both a cafk of wine, and a musical instrument.

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JOHNSON.

Mrs.

Mrs. Ford. Marry, as I told you before, John, and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brew houfe; and when I fuddenly call on you, come forth,/and (without any paufe, or ftaggering) take this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all hafte, and carry it among the whititers in Datchet mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch, close by the Thames fide.

Mrs. Page. You will do it?

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Mrs. Ford. I have told them over and over; they łack no direction: Be gone, and come when you are call'd. [Exeunt Servants. Mrs. Page. Here comes little Robin..

Mrs. Ford. news with you?

Enter Robin,

2

How now, my eyas-mufket?what

Rob.

take this basket on your shoulders:] It is not improbable but that Shakespeare, in the character of Falstaff, might have aimed fome strokes at the corpulence and intemperance of Ben Jonfon. Mr. Oldys, in his MS. additions to Langbaine's account of English dramatic poets, introduces the following story of Ben, which was found in a memorandum book, written in the time of the civil wars, by Mr. Oldifworth, who was fecretary to Philip, earl of Pembroke..

"Mr. Cambden recommended him to Sir Walter Raleigh, who trusted him with the care and inftruction of his eldest son, Walter, a gay fpark, who could not brook Ben's rigorous treatment; but perceiving one foible in his difpofition, made ufe of that to throw off the yoke of his government. This was an unlucky habit that Ben had contracted, through his love of jovial company, of being overtaken with liquor, which Sir Walter of all vices did moft abominate, and hath most exclaimed against. One day when Ben had taken a plentiful dofe, and was fallen into a found fleep, young Raleigh got a great basket and a couple of men, who laid Ben in it, and then with a pole carried him between their shoulders to Sir Walter, telling him, that their young mafter had fent home his

tutor." STEEVENS.

7 How now, my eyas-mufket?] Eyas is a young unfledg'd hawk; I fuppofe from the Italian Niafo, which originally fignified any young bird taken from the neft unfledg'd, afterwards a

young

Rob. My mafter fir John is come in at your backdoor, miftrefs Ford; and requests your company. Mrs. Page. You little Jack-a-lents, have you been

true to us?

Roble Ay, I'll be fworn: My mafter knows not of your being here; and hath threaten'd to put me into everlasting liberty, if I tell you of it; for, he fwears, he'll turn me away.

Mrs. Page. Thou'rt a good boy; this fecrecy of thine fhall be a tailor to thee, and fhall make thee a new doublet and hofe.-I'll go hide me.

Mrs. Ford. Do fo:-Go tell thy mafter, I am alone. Mistress Page, remember you your cue. [Exit Robin.

young hawk. The French, from hence, took their niais, and ufed it in both thofe fignifications; to which they added a third, metaphorically a filly fellow; un garçon fort niais, un niais. Mufket fignifies a fparrow hawk, or the smalleft fpecies of hawks. This too is from the Italian Mufchetto, a small hawk, as appears from the original fignification of the word, namely, a troublesome flinging fly. So that the humour of calling the little page an eyas-mufket is very intelligible. WARBURTON.

So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608: "no hawk fo haggard but will ftoop to the lure: no nice fo ramage but will be reclaimed to the lunes." Eyas-mufket is the fame as infant Lilliputian. Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, b. i. c.

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youthful gay

"Like eyas-hauke, up mounts into the skies,

His newly budded pinions to effay."

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In the Booke of Haukyng, &c. commonly called the Book of St. Albans, bl. 1. no date, is the following derivation of the word; but whether true or erroneous, is not for me to determine :

An-hauke is called an eyee from her eyen. For an hauke that is brought up under a butlarde or puttock, as many ben, have watry even, &0." STEEVENS.

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Fack-a-lent,-] A Jack o' lent was a puppet thrown at in dent, like fhrove-cocks. So, in The Weakest goes to the Wall, 1618: A mere anatomy, a fuck of Lent." ric Again, in the Four Prentices of London, 1632:

in omowe Now you old Jack of Lent, fix weeks and upwards." Again, in Greene's Tu Quoque, 1599: "-for if a boy that is throwing at his fack o' Lent, chance to hit me on the fhins, &c." -See a note on the laft fcene of this comedy. STEEVENS.

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Mrs. Page. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss [Exit Mrs. Page. Mrs. Ford. Go to then;--we'll ufe this unwholfome humidity, this grofs watry pumpion;-we’H teach him to know turtles from jays

·Enter Falstaff.

14

Fal. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel'? Why, now let me die, for I have liv'd long enough; this is the period of my ambition: O this bleffed hour! Mrs. Ford. O fweet fir John!

Fal. Miftrefs Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, miftrefs Ford. Now fhall I fin in my wifh: I would thy husband were dead; I'll fpeak it before the best lord, I would make thee my lady.

Mrs. Ford. I your lady, fir John! alas, I fhould be a pitiful lady.

Fal. Let the court of France fhew me fuch another; I fee how thine eye would emulate the diamond: Thou haft the right arched bent of the brow, that becomes the fhip-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.

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"Whofe mother was her painting, &c." STEEVENS. Have I caught my heavenly jewel?] This is the first line of the fecond fong in Sidney's Aftrophel and Stella. TOLLET. 312 Why, now let me die; for I have lived long enough; This fentiment, which is of facred origin, is here indecently introduced. It appears again, with fomewhat lefs of profaneness, in the Winter's Tale, act IV. and in Othello, act II. STEEVENS. arched bent] Thus the quartos 1602, and 1619. The folio reads arched beauty. STEEVENS. van

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4 that becomes the ship tire, the tire-VALMAN TY or any Venetian attire.] The old quarto reads; tire-vellet, and the old folio reads, or any tire of Venetian admittance. So that the true reading of the whole is this, that becomes the hip-tire, the tire-VALIANT, er any tire of Venetian admittance. The fpeaker tells his mistress, the had a face that would become all the head dreffes in fafhion. The hip-tive was an open head-drefs, with a kind of fearf depending from Lehind. Its name of hip-tire was, I prefume, from its giv

Mrs. Ford. A plain kerchief, fir John: my brows become nothing else; nor that well neither.

Fal.

ing the wearer fome refemblance of a ship (as Shakespeare fays) in all her trim: with all her pennants out, and flags and ftreamers flying. Thus Milton, in Samfon Agonifies, paints Dalila :

"But who is this, what thing of fea or land?

"Female of fex it seems,

"That fo bedeck'd, ornate and gay,

Comes this way failing..

Like a ftately ship

"Of Tarfus, bound for the ifles

Of Javan or Gadier,

With all her bravery on, and tackle trim,

Sails fill'd, and ftreamers waving,

Thus

"Courted by all the winds that hold them play." This was an image familiar with the poets of that time. Beaumont and Fletcher, in their play of Wit without Money: "She fpreads fattens as the king's fhips do canvas every where, The may fpace her mifen, &c." This will direct us to reform the following word of tire-valiant, which I fufpect to be corrupt, valiant being a very incongruous epithet for a woman's head-drefs. I fuppofe Shakespeare wrote tire-voilant. As the hip-tire was an open head-drefs, fo the tire-voilant was a clofe one; in which the head and breaft were covered as with a veil. And thefe were, in fact, the two different head-dreffes then in fafhion, as we may fee by the pictures of that time. One of which was fo open, that the whole neck, breafts, and shoulders, were opened to view the other, fo fecurely inclofed in kerchiefs, &c. that nothing could be feen above the eyes, or below the chin.

or any Venetian attire.] This is a wrong reading, as appears from the impropriety of the word attire here ufed for a woman's head-drefs: whereas it fignifies the drefs of any part. We fhould read therefore, or any 'tire of Venetian admittance. For the word attire, reduced by the aphærefis, to 'tire, takes a new fignification, and means only the head drefs. Hence tire-woman, for a dreffer of the head. As to the meaning of the latter part of the fentence, this may be feen by a paraphrafe of the whole fpeech. Your face is fo good, fays the fpeaker, that it would become any head-drefs worn at court, either the open or the clofe, or indeed any rich and fashionable one worth adorning with Venetian point, or which will admit to be adorned. [Of Venetian adınittance.] The fashionable lace, at that time, was Venetian point. WARBURTON, This note is plaufible, except in the explanation of Venetian

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admittance:

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