Which, wafh'd away, fhall fcour my fhame with it. 'Would they were multitudes; and on my head The long-grown wounds of my intemperance: K. Henry. A hundred thousand rebels die in this: Thou shalt have charge, and fovereign trust, herein. Enter Blunt. How now, good Blunt? thy looks are full of speed. K. Henry. The earl of Westmorland fet forth to-day; With him my fon, lord John of Lancaster; For this advertisement is five days old: On On Wednesday next, Harry, thou fhalt fet forward: Our meeting is Bridgnorth; and, Harry, you SCENE III. Changes to the Boar's-head tavern in Eaft-cheap. Fal. Bardolph, am not I fallen away vilely fince this last action? Do I not bate? do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady's loofe gown; I am wither'd, like an old apple John. Well, I'll repent, and that fuddenly, while I am in fome liking, I fhall 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 horse. The infide of a church!-Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me. Bard. Sir John, you are fo fretful, you cannot live long. Fal. Why, there is it:-come, fing me a bawdy fong, to 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 a brewer's borse.] I fuppofe a brewer's horse was apt to be lean with hard work. JOHNSON. A brewer's horfe does not, perhaps, mean a dray-horse, but the cross-beam on which beer-barrels are carried into cellars, &c. Perhaps the allufion is to the taper form of this machine. STEEVENS. bawdy bawdy-house, not above once in a quarter of an hour; paid money that I borrow'd, three or four times; liv'd well, and in good compafs: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass. Bard. Why, you are fo fat, Sir John, that you muit needs be out of all compafs; out of all reasonable compais, Sir John. Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lanthorn in the poop, but 'tis in the nofe of thee; thou art the knight of the burning lamp. Berd. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm. Fal. No, I'll be fworn; I make as good use of it as many a man does of a death's head, or a memento mori. I never fee thy face, but I think upon hell fire, and Dives that liv'd 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 darkness. When thou ran'ft up Gadshill 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, an everlafting bonfire light. Thou haft faved me a thousand 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. 2 the knight of the burning lamp.] This is a natural picture. Every man who feels in himfelf the pain of deformity, however, like this merry knight, he may affect to make fport with it among thofe whom it is his intereft to please, is ready to revenge any hint of contempt upon one whom he can. afe with freedom. JOHNSON. The knights of the burning lamp, and the knights of the burning pestle, are both the heroes of feparate romances. STEEVENS. good cheap-J Cheap is market, and good cheap therefore is a bon-marchè. JOHNSON, 3 . 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. Enter Hoftefs. How now, 4 dame Partlet the hen, have yet who pick'd my pocket? you enquir'd Hoft. Why, Sir John! what do you think, Sir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have fearch'd, I have enquired, fo has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, fervant by fervant. The tithe of a hair was never loft in my houfe before. Fal. You lie, hoftefs; Bardolph was fhav'd, 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 fo in mine own houfe before. Fal. Go to, I know you well enough. Hoft. No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John: I know you, Sir John: you owe me money, Sir 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 boulters of them. This expreffion is ufed by Sir Thomas North in his translation of Plutarch. Speaking of the fcarcity of corn in the time of Coriolanus, he fays, "that they perfuaded themselves that "the corn they had bought, fhould be fold good cheap." And again in these two proverbs, 4 They buy good cheap that bring nothing home." "He'll ne'er have thing good cheap that's afraid to ask the price." STEEVENS. dame Partlet-] Dame Partlet is the name of the hen in the old story-book of Reynard the Fox. STEEVENS. Hoft. Hoft. Now as I am a true woman, Holland of eight fhillings an ell. You owe money here befides, Sir John, for your diet and by-drinkings; and money lent you, four-and-twenty pounds. 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: 5 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? 7 Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I fhall have my pocket pick'd? I 5 have what call you rich?] A face fet with carbuncles is called a rich face Legend of Capt. Jones. JOHNSON. 6 a younker of me?] This contemptuous diftin&tion is very common in the old plays. So in B. and Fletcher's Elder Brother: "I fear he'll make an afs of me, a younker." STEEVENS. 7 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 catie;" for inne originally fignified a boufe or habitation. [Sax. inne, domus, domicilium.] When the word inne began to change its meaning, and to be ufed to fignify a boufe of entertainment, the proverb, ftill continuing in force, was applied in the latter fenfe, as it is here ufed by Shakespeare; or perhaps Falstaff here humorously puns upon the word inne, in order to reprefent the wrong done him more strongly. In John Heywood's Works, imprinted at London 1598, 4to, bl. 1. is a dialogue wherein are pleafantly contrived the "number of all the effectual proverbs in our English tongue, "&c. together with three hundred epigrams on three hundred proverbs." In chap. 6, is the following, 66 "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 lo nye thee, "That no man in his inne can take cafe by thee." Otherwife, "Thou takeft thine eafe in thine inne, but I fee Now |