2 antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie fie, fir John! FAL. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and fomething a round belly. For my voice,-I have loft it with hollaing, and finging of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgement and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box o'the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have check'd him for it; young men would not have liked it so well, nor would that cir cumftance have been perceived by the Chief Justice, who was older than himself. But though Falstaff had fuch a fund of wit and humour, it was not unnatural that a grave judge whose thoughts were conftantly employed about the serious business of life, should confider such an improvident, dissipated old man, as fingle witted, or half-witted, as we should now term it. So in the next act, the Chief Justice calls him, a great fool; and even his friend Harry, after his reformation, bids him not to answer "with a fool-born jest," and adds, " that white hairs ill become a fool and jester." I think, however, that this fpeech of the Chief Justice is some. what in Falstaff's own style; which verifies what he says of himself, that all the world loved to gird at him, and that he was not only witty in himself, but the cause that wit is in other men." M. MASON. I think Mr. Steeven's interpretation the true one. Single, however, (asan anonymous writer has observed,) may mean, feeble or weak. So, in Fletcher's Queen of Corinth, A& III. fc. i: "All men believe it, when they hear him speak, "He utters fuch fingle matter, in so infantly a voice." Again, in Romeo and Juliet: "O single-foal'd jeft, folely singular for the singleness," i. e. the tenuity. In our author's time, as the fame writer obferves, small beer was called fingle beer, and that of a stronger quality, double beer. 2 MALONE. antiquity? To use the word antiquity for old age, is not peculiar to Shakspeare. So, in Two Tragedies in one, &c. 1601: For falfe illufion of the magiftrates "With bonow'd shapes of falle antiquity." STEEVENS. and the young lion repents: marry, not in ashes, and sackcloth; put in new filk, and old fack.3 3 CH. JUST. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion! FAL. Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him. CH. JUST. Well, the king hath fever'd you and prince Harry: I hear, you are going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland. FAL. Yea: I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my bottle, I would I might never spit white again. 4 There is nota dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it: Well, I cannot last ever: But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they 3 marry, not in ashes, and sackcloth; but in new filk, and old fack. So, Sir John Harrington, of a reformed brother. Epigrams. L. 3. 17: 4 "Sackcloth and cinders they advise to use; BOWLE. Sack, cloves and sugar thou would'st have to chuse." would I might never spit white again. ] i. e. May I never have my ftomach inflamed again with liquor; for, to fpit white is the cousequence of inward heat. So, in Mother Bombie, a comedy, 1594: They have fod their livers in sack these forty years; that makes them fpit white broth as they do." Again, in The Virgin Martyr, by Maffinger: I could not have spit white for want of drink." * But it was always &c.] This speech in the folio concludes at I cannot last ever. All the rest is restored from the quarto. A clear proof of the fuperior value of those editions, when compared with the publication of the players. STEEVENS. have a good thing, to make it too common. If you will needs fay, I am, an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God, my name were not fo terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scour'd to nothing with perpetual motion. CH. JUST. Well, be honest, be honest; And God bless your expedition! FAL. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth? CH. JUST. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear croffes. Fare you well: Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland. [Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant. FAL. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.'-A man can no more feparate age and covetousness, than he can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the 6 you are to impatient to bear croffies.) I believe a quibble was here intended. Falstaff had just asked his lordship to lend him a thousand pound, and he tells him in return, that he is not to be entrusted with money. A cross is a coin so called, because stamped with a cross. So, in As you like it: 7 " If I should bear you, I should bear no crofs." STEEVENS. fillip me with a three-man beetle.] A beetle wielded by three men. POPE. A diversion is common with boys in Warwickshire and the adjoining counties, on finding a toad, to lay a board about two or three feet long, at right angles, over a stick about two or three inches dia meter as per sketch. Then, placing the toad A at A, the other end is struck by a bat or large stick, which throws the creature forty or fifty feet perpendicular from the earth, and its return in general kills it. This is called Filliping the Toad. 1 other; and fo both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy! PAGE. Sir? FAL. What money is in my purse? FAL. I can get no remedy against this confumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.-Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and this to old mistress Urfula, whom I have weekly fworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin: About it; you know where to find me. [Exit Page.] A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one, or the other, plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pen A three-man beetle is an implement used for driving piles, it is made of a log of wood about eighteen or twenty inches diameter, and fourteen or fifteen inches thick, with one shortand two long handles, as per sketch. A man at each of the long handles manages the fall of the beetle, and a third man by the short handle aflifts in raifing it to ftrike the blow. Such an implement was, without doubt, very fuitable for filliping so corpulent a being as Falstaff. With this happy illustration, and the drawings annexed, I was favoured by Mr. Johnson the architect. Sreevens. So, in A World of Wonders, A Mass of Murthers, A Covie of Cofenages, &c. 1595, fign. F. whilft Arthur Hall was weighing the plate, Bullock goes into the kitchen and fetcheth a heavie washing betle, wherewith he comming behinde Hall, strake him," &c. REED. 8 prevent my curses.] To prevent, means in this place to anticipate. So, in the 19th Pfalm : " Mine eyes prevent the night watches." STEEVENS. sion shall seem the more reasonable: A good wit will make use of any thing: I will turn diseases to commodity. SCENE III. York. A Room in the Archbishop's Palace. [Exit. Enter the Archbishop of York, the Lords HASTINGS, ARCH. Thus have you heard our cause, and known our means; And, my most noble friends, I pray you all, MOWB. I well allow the occafion of our arms; HAST. Our present musters grow upon the file BARD. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus ; Whether our present five and twenty thousand HAST, With him, we may. BARD. Ay, marry, there's the point; But if without him we be thought too feeble, 9 to commodity.] i. e. profit, self-interest. See Vol. XI p. 356, n. 5. STEEVENS. i |