Enter the Lord Chief Justice, attended.

CH. Just. What's the matter? keep the peace here, ho!

HOST. Good my lord, be good to me! I beseech you, fstand to me!

CH. JUST. How now, fir John? what, are you brawling here?

Doth this become your place, your time, and bufinefs?

You should have been well on your way to York. Stand from him, fellow; Wherefore hang'st thou

on him?

Host. O my most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my fuit.

CH. JUST. For what fum ?

Host. It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, all I have: he hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his :- but I will have fome of it out again, or I'll ride thee o'nights, like the mare.

FAL. I think, I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground to get up.

9 to ride the mare, The Hostess had threatened to ride Falstaff like the Incubus or Night-Mare; but his allusion, (if it be not a wanton one,) is to the Gallows, which is ludicrously called the Timber, or two-legg'd Mare. So, in Like will to like, quoth the Devil to the Collier, 1587. The Vice is talking of Tyburn: "This piece of land whereto you inheritors are, "Is called the land of the two-legg'd Mare. "In this piece of ground there is a Mare indeed, " Which is the quickest Mare in England for speed."

CH. JUST. How comes this, fir John? Fie! what man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed, to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own?

FAL. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? Host. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, fitting in my Dolphinchamber, at the round table, by a fea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince

Again:

" I will help to bridle the two-legged Mare
" And both you for to ride need not to spare.

I think the allusion is only a wanton one. MALONE.

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49

STEEVENS.

a parcel-gilt goblet, A parcel-gilt goblet is a goblet gilt only on such parts of it as are emboss'd. On the books of the Stationers' Company, among their plate 1560, is the following entry; "Item, nine spoynes of silver, whereof vii gylte and ii parcell-gylte." The fame records contain fifty instances to the fame purpose of these spoons the faint or other ornament on the handle was the only part gilt.

Thus, in Ben Jonson's Alchemist :

"

or changing "His parcel-gilt to maffy gold. Again, in Heywood's Silver Age, 1613:

" I am little better than a parcel-gilt bawd." Holinshed, defcribing the arrangement of Wolfey's plate, says " and in the council-chamber was all white, and parcel-gilt plate."

STEEVENS.

Langham, describing a bride-cup, says it was "foormed of a fweet sucket barrell, a faire turn'd foot set too it, all seemly be. sylvered and parcel gilt."

Again, in the XII merry ieftes of the widdow Edyth:

" A ftandyng cup with a cover percell gilt. " RITSON. Parcel-gilt meant what is now called by artists party-gilt; that is, where part of the work is gilt, and part left plain or ungilded.

MALONE.

لا

3

broke thy head for liking his father to a fingingman of Windfor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canft thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, 4 come in then, and call me goflip Quickly? coming in to borrow a iness of vinegar; telling us, she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst defire to eat fome; whereby I told thee, they were ill for a. green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, defire me to be no more fo familiarity with fuch poor people; saying, that ere long they should call me madam? And didft thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath; dény it, if thou

canft.

FAL. My lord, this is a poor mad foul; and she says, up and down the town, that her eldest son is like you: she hath been in good cafe, and, the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish

3

T

for liking his father to a finging-man-1 Such is the reading of the first edition; all the rest have - for likening him to a finging man. The original edition is right; the Prince might allow familiarities with himself, and yet very properly break the knight's head when he ridiculed his father. JOHNSON.

Liking is the reading of the quarto, 1600, and is better suited to dame Quickly than likening, the word fubftituted instead of it, in the folio. MALONE.

4

goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife,

A Keech is the fat

of an ox rolled up by the butcher into a round lump. STEEVENS.

5

a mess of vinegar, So, in Mucedorus :

" I tell you all the messes are on the table already,
"There wants not so much as a mess of mustard."

Again, in an ancient interlude published by Raftel; no title or date:

" Ye mary sometyme in a messe of vergesse.

A mess seems to have been the common term for a small proportion

of any thing belonging to the kitchen. STEEVENS. So the scriptural term : - " a mess of pottage.

11

MALONE.

officers, I beseech you, I may have redress against

them.

CH. JUST. Sir John, fir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent fauciness from you, can thrust me from a level confideration; you have, as it appears to me, practifed upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and perfon.

Host. Yea, in troth, my lord.

CH. JUST. Pr'ythee, peace: _ Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villainy you have done with her; the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance.

6

FAL. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap

you have, &c.] In the first quarto it is read thus: - You have, as it appears to me, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and person. Without this, the following exhortation of the Chief justice is less proper. JOHNSON.

In the folio the words " and made her serve," &c. were omitted. And in the fubfequent speech "the villainy you have done with her," is improperly changed to "the villainy you have done her." MALONE.

7

this sneap - A Yorkshire word for rebuke. POPE. Sneap fignifies to check; as children easily sneaped; herbs and fruits Sneaped with cold weather. See Ray's Collection. Again, in Brome's Antipodes, 1638:

This word is derived from fayb, Scotch.

We ftill use saub In

without reply. You call honourable boldness, impudent fauciness: if a man will make court'sy, and fay nothing, he is virtuous: No, my lord, my humble duty remember'd, I will not be your suitor; I say to you, I do defire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.

CH. JUST. You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer in the effect of your reputation, and fatisfy the poor woman.

FAL. Come hither, hostess.

Enter GOWER.

(Taking her afide.

CH.JUST. Now, master Gower; What news? Gow. The king, my lord, and Harry prince of

Wales

Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.
FAL. As I am a gentleman ;

Host. Nay, you faid so before.

FAL. As I am a gentleman; - Come, no more words of it.

HOST. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate, and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.

FAL. Glaffes, glasses, is the only drinking: and

- answer in the effect of your reputation, That is, answer in a manner suitable to your character. JOHNSON.

9

I must be fain to pawn - my plate, -

Glaffes, glaffes, is the only drinking:) Mrs. Quickly is here in the same sfate as the Earl of Shrewsbury, who not having been paid for the diet, &c. of Mary Queen of Scots, while she was in his custody in 1580, writes as follows to Thomas Bawdewya: I wold have you bye me glaffes to drink in: Send me word what