as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I look'd he should have fent me two and twenty yards of sattin, as I am a true knight, and he sends mesecurity. Well, he may fleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him. Where's Bardolph? PAGE. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horfe. So again, in Northward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: "They will take up, I warrant you, where they may be trusted." Again, in the same piece : "Sattin gowns must be taken up." Again, in Love Restored, one of Ben Joufon's masques : A pretty fine speech was taken up o' the poet too, which if he never be paid for now, 'tis no matter." STEEVENS. 5 p. 43: 6 the horn of abundance, So, in Pasquil's Night-cap, 1612, 1 "But chiefly citizens, upon whose crowne 1 STEEVENS. the lightness of his wife shines through it and yet cannot he fee, though he have his own lantern to light him.) This joke seems evidently to have been taken from that of Plautus : “Quò ambulas tu, qui Vulcanum in cornu conclufum geris?" Amph. Act I. sc. i. and much improved. We need not doubt that a joke was here intended by Plautus; for the proverbial term of horns for cuckoldom, is very ancient, as appears by Artimedorus, who says: Προεπεῖν ἀντῳ ὅτι ἡ γυνή σου πορνεύσει, καὶ πὸ λεγόμενον, κέρατα ἀυτῶ ποιησει, καὶ ὅυτως ἀπέβη. Ὄνειροι. Lib. II. cap. xii. And he copied from those before him. WARBURTON. The fame thought occurs in The Two Maids of Moreclacke, 1609: your wrongs " Shine through the horn, as candles in the eve, FAL. I bought him in Paul's,' and he'll buy me a horfe in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were mann'd, horfed, and wived. 7 I bought him in Paul's, ) At that time the resort of idle people, cheats, and knights of the post. WARBurton. "Paule's So, in Fearful and Lamentable Effects of Two dangerous Comets, &c. no date; by Nashe, in ridicule of Gabriel Harvey: church is in wonderfull perill thys yeare without the help of our confcionable brethren, for that day it hath not eyther broker, maisterless ferving-man, or pennilesse companion, in the middle of it, the ufurers of London have sworne to bestow a newe steeple upon it." In an old Collection of Proverbs, I find the following: "Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, a knave and a jade." J In a pamphlet by Dr. Lodge, called Wit's Miferie, and the World's Madneffe, 1596, the devil is described thus: " In Powls hee walketh like a gallant courtier, where if he meet fome rich chuffes worth the gulling, at every word he speaketh, he maketh a mouse an elephant, and telleth them of wonders, done in Spaine by his ancestors," &c. &c. I should not have troubled the reader with this quotation, but that it in some measure familiarizes the character of Pistol, which (from other passages in the same pamphlet) appears to have been no uncommon one in the time of Shakspeare. Dr. Lodge concludes his description thus: "His courage is boafting, his learning ignorance, his ability weakness, and his end beggary. Again, in Ram-Alley, or Merry-Tricks, 1611: " get thee a gray cloak and hat, " And walk in Paul's among thy cashier'd mates, I learn from a passage in Greene's Disputation between a He Coneycatcher and a She Coneycatcher, 1592, that St. Paul's was a privileged place, so that no debtor could be arrested within its precinas. STEEVENS. In The Choice of Change, 1598, 4to, it is faid, " a man must not make choyce of three thinges in three places. Of a wife in Westminster; of a servant in Paule's; of a horse in Smithfield; least he chuse a queane, a knave, or a jade." See also Moryfon's Itinerary, Part III. p. 53, 1617. REFD. " It was the fashion of those times," [the times of K. James I.] says Osborne, in his MEMOIRS of that monarch," and did fo 1 Enter the Lord Chief Justice, and an Attendant. PAGE. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph. FAL. Wait close; I will not fee him. CH. JUST. what 's he that goes there? ATTEN. Falstaff, an't please your lordship. CH. JUST. He that was in question for the robbery? ATTEN. He, my lord: but he hath fince done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the lord John of Lancafter. CH. JUST. what, to York? Call him back again. ATTEN. Sir John Falstaff ! FAL. Boy, tell him, I am deaf. PAGE. You must speak louder, my master is deaf. CH. JUST. I am fure, he is, to the hearing of any thing good-Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him. continue till these, s the interregnum, ) for the principal gentry, lords, courtiers, and men of all professions, not merely mechanicks, to meet in St. Paul's church by eleven, and walk in the middle ifle till twelve, and after dinner from three to fix; during which time some discoursed of business, others of news. Now, in regard of the universal commerce there happened little that did not first or laft arrive here." MALONE. 8 Lord Chief Justice, This judge was Sir William Gascoigne, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. He died December 17, 1413, and was buried in Harwood church in Yorkshire. His effigy, in judicial robes, is on his monument. STEEVENS. His portrait, copied from the monument, may be found in The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. LI. p. 516. MALONE. ATTEN. Sir John, FAL. What! a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? is there not employment? Doth not the king lack fubjects? do not the rebels need foldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any fide but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst fide, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it. ATTEN. You mistake me, fir, FAL. Why, fir, did I fay you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my foldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had faid fo. ATTEN. I pray you, fir, then fet your knighthood and your foldiership afide; and give me leave to tell you, you'lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man. FAL. I give thee leave to tell me fo! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hang'd: You hunt-counter, hence! avaunt! 9-hunt-counter, That is, blunderer. He does not, I think, allude to any relation between the judge's servant and the counterprison. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson's explanation may be countenanced by the following passage in Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub: Do you mean to make a hare "Of me, to hunt counter thus, and make these doubles, " And you mean no such thing as you send about?" Again, in Hamlet: "O this is counter, you false Danish dogs." STEEVENS. Hunt counter means, base tyke, or worthless dog. There can be no reason why Falstaff should call the attendant a blunderer, but he seems very anxious to prove him a rascal. After all, it is not impoffible the word may be found to fignify a catchpole or bumbailiff. He was probably the Judge's tipstaff. RITSON. Perhaps the epithet hunt-counter is applied to the officer, in reference to his having reverted to Falstaff's salvo. HENLEY. ATTEN. Sir, my lord would speak with you. CH. JUST. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. FAL. My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to fee your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was fick : I hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet fome smack of age in you, some relish of the faltnefs of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health. CH. JUST. Sir John, I fent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. FAL. An't please your lordship, I hear, his majesty is return'd with fome difcomfort from Wales. CH. JusT. I talk not of his majesty : -You would not come when I fent for you. FAL. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this fame whorefon apoplexy. CH. JUST. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you. FAL. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of fleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling. CH. Just. what tell you me of it? be it as it is. FAL. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness. : CH. JUST. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you. I think it much more probable that Falstaff means to allude to the counter-prisou. Sir T. Overbury in his character of A Serjeant's yeoman, 1616, (in modern language, a bailiff's follower,) calls him a Counter-rat." MALONE. |