ر and foining o'nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven ? Enter behind, Prince HENRY and POINs, disguised like drawers. FAL. Peace good Doll! do not speak like a death's head; do not bid me remember mine end. 2 Tidy has two fignifications, timely and neat. In the first of these senses, I believe, it is used in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584: " I myself have given good, tidie lambs. STEEVENS. From Ben Jonson's play of Bartholomew Fair, welearn, that it was the custom formerly to have booths in Bartholomew Fair, in which pigs were dressed and fold, and to these it is probable the allufion is here, and not to the pigs of pafte mentioned by Dr. Johnfon. The practice of roasting pigs at Bartholomew Fair continued until the beginning of the present century, if not later. It is mentioned in Ned Ward's London Spy, 1697. When about the year 1708 fome attempts were made to limit the duration of the Fair to three days, a poem was published entitled The Pigs Petition against Bartholomew Fair, &c. See Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, 1780, Vol. XII. P. 419. Tidy, I apprehend, means only fat, and in that fenfe it was certainly sometimes used. See an old tranflation of Galateo of Manners and Behaviour, bl. 1. 1578, p. 77: --and it is more proper and peculiar speache to say, the shivering of an ague, than to call it the colde; and flesh that is tidie, to terme it rather fat than fulfome." REED. Again, in Gawin Douglas's tranflation of the 5th Aneid: " And als mony fwine and tydy qwyis." STEEVENS. See also D'Avenant's burlesque Verses on a long Vacation, written about 1630: "Now London's chief on saddle new "Rides into fair of Barthol'mew; " He twirls his chain, and looking big "As if to fright the head of pig, "Till female with great belly call," &c. MALONE. like a death's head;) It appears from the following paffage in Marfton's Dutch Courtezan, 1605, that it was the custom VOL. XIII. H DOL. Sirrah, what humour is the prince of? FAL. A good shallow young fellow : he would have made a good pantler, he would have chipp'd bread well. DOL. They say, Poins has a good wit. FAL. He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit is as thick as Tewksbury muflard; there is no more conceit in him, than is in a mallet.4 * DOL. Why does the prince love him so then ? FAL. Because their legs are both of a bigness; and he plays at quoits well; and eats conger and fennel; and drinks off candles' ends for flapdragons; and rides the wild mare with the boys ; for the bawds of that age to wear a death's head in a ring, very probably with the common motto, memento mori. Cocledemoy, speaking of some of these, says: --as for their death, how can it be bad, fince their wickedness is always before their eyes, and a death's head most commonly on their middle finger." Again, in Maffinger's Old Law: " -- fell some of my cloaths to buy thee a death's head, and put it upon thy middle finger: your leaft confidering bawds do so much." Again, in Northward Hoe, 1607:" - as if I were a bawd, no ring pleases me but a death's head." On the Stationers book, Feb. 21, 1582, is entered a ballad intitled Remember thy End. STEEVENS. Falstaff's allusion, I should have supposed, was to the death's head, and motio on hatchments, grave-stones, and the like. Such a ring, however, as Mr. Steevens describes, but without any inscription, being only brass, is in my possession. RITSON. 3 --Tewksbury mustard ;) Tewksbury is a market town in the county of Gloucester, formerly noted for mustard-balls made there, and sent into other parts. GREY. 66 * in a mallet.) So, in Milton's prose works, 1738, Vol. I. p. 300: Though the fancy of this doubt be as obtuse and sad as any mallet." TOLLET. *-tats conger and fennel; and drinks off candles' ends for Hapdragons; Conger with fennel was formerly regarded as a pro and jumps upon joint-stools; and swears with a vocative. It is mentioned by Ben Jonson in his Bartholomew Fair : "like a long lac'd conger with green fennel in the joll of it." And in Philafter, one of the ladies advises the wanton Spanish prince to abftain from this article of luxury. Greene likewife in his Quip for an upstart Courtier, calls fennel " women's weeds," " fit generally, for that fex, fith while they are maidens they wish wantonly." The qualification that follows, viz. that of swallowing candles' ends by way of flapdragons, feems to indicate no more than that the Prince loved him because he was always ready to do any thing for his amusement, however abfurd or unnatural. Nash, in his Pierce Pennyleffe his Supplication to the Devil, advises hard drinkers, to have some shooing horne to pull on their wine, as a rasher on the coals, or a red herring; or to ftir it about with a candle's end to make it tafte the better," &c. And Ben Jonson, in his News from the Moon, &c. a masque, speaks of those who eat candles' ends, as an act of love and gallantry; and Beaumont and Fletcher in Monfieur Thomas: “ rouse her health in cans, and candles' ends." ca In Rowley's Match at Midnight, 1633, a captain says, that his " corporal was lately choak'd at Delf by swallowing a flapdragon. " Again, in Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1605: "-have I not been drunk to your health, fwallow'd flapdragons, eat glasses, drank urine, stabb'd arms, and done all the office of protested gallantry for your fake?" Again, in The Chriftian turn'd Turk, 1612: “ --as familiarly as pikes do gudgeons, and with as much facility as Dutchmen fwallow flapdragons." STEEVENS. A flapdragon is some small combustible body, fired at one end and put afloat in a glass of liquor. It is an act of a toper's dexterity to toss off the glass in such a manner as to prevent the flapdragon from doing mischief. JOHNSON. 6 and rides the wild mare with the boys;) He probably means the two-legged mare mentioned by Mr. Steevens in p. 52, n. 9. MALONE. If Poins had ever ridden the mare alluded to by Mr. Steevens, she would have given him such a fall as would effectually prevent him from mounting her a second time. We must therefore suppose it was a less dangerous beast, that would not have disabled him from afterwards jumping upon joint stools, &c. DOUCE. good grace; and wears his boot very smooth, like unto the fign of the leg; and breeds no bate with telling of difcreet stories: and fuch other gambol faculties he hath, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admits him : for the prince himself is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their averdupois. P. HEN. Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off? POINS. Let's beat him before his whore. P. HEN. Look, if the wither'd elder hath not his poll claw'd like a parrot.* 7 -wears his boot very smooth, like unto the fign of the leg;) The learned editor of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 1775, observes that fuch is part of the description of a smart abbot, by an anonymous writer of the thirteenth century: "Ocreas habebat in cruribus, quafi innatæ effent, fine plica porrectas." MS. Bod. James. p. 121. STFEVENS. 8-difcreet stories: ) We should read-indiscreet. 11. 6. WARBURTON. I fuppofe by difcreet ftories, is meant what suspicious masters and mistreifes of families would call prudential information; i. e. what ought to be known, and yet is disgraceful to the teller. Among the virtues of John Rugby, in The Merry Wives of Windfor, Mrs. Quickly adds, that " he is no tell-tale, no breed-bate." STEEVENS. 9-nave of a wheel-] Nave and knave are easily reconciled, but why nave of a wheel? I suppose from his roundness. He was called round man in contempt before. JOHNSON. So, in the play represented before the king and queen in Hamlet: "Break all the spokes and fellies of her wheel, STEEVENS. *his poll claw'd like a parrot.) This custom we may fuppose was not peculiar to Falstaff, especially as it occurred among the French, to whom we were indebted for most of our artificial POINS. Is it not strange, that defire should fo many years outlive performance ? FAL. Kifs me, Doll. P. HEN. Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what says the almanack to that? POINS. And, look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping to his master's old tables;5 his note-book, his counsel-keeper. gratifications. So, in La Venerie &c. by Jaques de Fouilloux, &c. Paris, 4to. 1558: " Le seigneur doit auoir sa petite charette, là où il fera dedans, auec sa fillette, aagée de seize a dix sept ans, la quelle lui frotiera la teste par les chemins." A wooden cut annexed, represents this operation on an old man, who lies along in his carriage, with a girl fitting at his head. STEEVENS. 3 Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction!] This was indeed a prodigy. The astrologers, says Ficinus, remark, that Saturn and Venus are never conjoined. JOHNSON: 4 the fiery Trigon, &c.) Trigonum igneum is the aftronomical term when the upper planets meet in a fiery fign. The fiery Trigon, I think, confifts of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. So, in Warner's Albions England, 1602, B. VI. chap. xxxi: Even at the ferie Trigon shall your chief afcendant be." Again, in Pierce's Supererogation, or a new Praise of the old Affe, &c. by Gabriel Harvey, 1593:" now the warring planet was expected in person, and the fiery Trigon seemed to give the alarm." STEEVENS. So, in A Dialogue both pleasaunt and pietifull, &c. by Wm. Bulleyne, 1564: Aries, Led, and Sagittarius, are hotte, drie, bitter, and cholerike, governing hot and drie thinges, and this is called the fierie triplicitie." MALONE. *-lisping to his master's old tables; &c. ) We should read clasping too his master's old tables; i. e. embracing his mafter's caft-off whore, and now his bawd his note-book, his counfel-keeper]. We have the fame phrase again in Cymbeline : "You clasp young Cupid's tables.' WARBURTON. I believe the old reading to be the true one. Bardolph was very probably drunk, and might lisp a little in his courtship; or might affume an affected softness of speech, like Chaucer's Frere: Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 266: "Somewhat he lisped for his wantonnesse, |