Shal. Four, of which you please. Fal. These fellows will do well, master Shallow. Bard. Sir, a word with you:-I have three-God keep you, master Silence; I will not use pound' to free Mouldy and Bull-calf. Fal. Go to; well. Shal. Come, Sir John, which four will you have? Shal. Marry then, Mouldy, Bull-calf, Feeble, and Shadow. Fal. Mouldy, and Bull-calf:-For you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service :-and, for your part, Bull-calf,-grow till you come unto it; I will none of you. Shal. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong: they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best. Fal. Will you tell me, master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thewes,2 the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit, master Shallow.-Here's Wart; -you see what a ragged appearance it is: he shall charge you, and discharge you, with the motion of a pewterer's hammer; come off, and on, swifter than he that gibbets-on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-fac'd fellow, Shadow,-give me this man; he presents no mark to the enemy: the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife: And, for a retreat,-how swiftly will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, run off? O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones.-Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph. Bard. Hold, Wart, traverse: thus, thus, thus. Fal. Come, manage me your caliver. So:very well-go to:-very good:-exceeding good. -O, give me always a little, lean, old, chapped, bald shot. Well said, i' faith Wart; thou'rt a good scab: hold, there's a tester for thee. Shal. He is not his craft's-master, he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-end green (when I lay at Clement's Inn,-I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show,) there was a little quiver fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus: and 'a would about, and about, and come you in, and come you in rah, tah, tah, would 'a say; bounce, would 'a say; and away again would 'a go, and again would 'a come :-I shall never see such a fel low. 1 Bardolph was to have four pound: perhaps he means to conceal part of his profit. 2 Shakspeare uses thewes in a sense almost peculiar to himself, for muscular strength or sinews. 3 A calirer was less and lighter than a musket; and was fired without a rest. Falstaff's meaning is that though Wart is unfit for a musqueteer, yet, if armed with a lighter piece, he may do good service. 4 Traverse was an ancient military terin for march! 5 Shot, for shooter. many words with you:-Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank you: I must a dozen mile to-night.Bardolph, give the soldiers coats. Shal. Sir John, heaven bless you, and prosper your affairs, and send us peace! As you return, visit my house; let our old acquaintance be renewed: peradventure, I will with you to the court. Fal. I would you would, master Shallow. Shal. Go to; I have spoke, at a word. Fare you well. [Exeunt SHALLOW and SILENCE. Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. On, Bardolph; lead the men away. [Exeunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, &c.] As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he had done about Turnbull Street: and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when he was naked, he was, for all the world like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: he was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invincible: 10 he was the very Genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him mandrake:11 he came ever in the rear-ward of the fashion; and sung those tunes to the overscutched12 huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, and swear-they were his fancies, or his goodnights,13 And now is this Vice's dagger become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt, as if he had been sworn brother to him: and I'll be sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst's his head, for crowding among the marshal's men. I saw it; and told John of Gaunt, he beat his own name;16 for you might have truss'd him, and all his apparel, into an celskin; the case of a treble haut-boy was a mansion for him, a court; and now has he land and beeves. Well; I will be acquainted with him, if I return: and it shall go hard, but I will make him a philosopher's two stones to me: If the young dace be 9 Turnbull-street, or Turnball-street, is a corruption of Turnmill-street, near Clerkenwell; anciently the resort of bullies, rogues, and other dissolute persons. The reader will remember its vicinity to Ruffians' Hall, now Smithfield Market. Pickt Hatch, a celebrated brothelry, is supposed to have been situate in or Dear Turnbull-street. 12 i. e. whipped, carted, says Pope; and notwithstanding Johnson's doubts, Pope is right. A scutcher was a whip or riding rod, according to Cotgrare. And for a further illustration of this pastage the reader, curious in such matters, may turn to Torriano's Italian Dictionary, 1659, in v. Trentuno. 6 Mile End Green was the place for public sports and exercises. Stowe mentions that, in 1585, 4000 citizens were trained and exercised there. And again, that 30,000 citizens shewed on the 27th August, 1599, on the Miles-end; where they trained all that day and other dayes under their captaines (also citizens) until the 4th of September. The pupils of this military school were 10 Steevens has adopted Rowe's alteration of this word, thought but slightly of. Shakspeare has already re-invincible to invisible, without necessity. The word is ferred to Mile End and its military exercises rather con- metaphorically used for not to be mastered or taken in temptuously in All's Well that Ends Well, Act iv. Sc. 3. 11 See Sir Thomas Brown's Vulzar Errors, 1685, p. 7 Arthur's show was not, as some have supposed, a 72; and note on Act i. Sc. 2, of this play. masque or pageant, in which an exact representation of Arthur and his knights was made, but an exhibition of Toxopholites, styling themselves The Auncient Order, Society, and Unitie laudable of Prince Arthure and his Knightly Armory of the Round Table.' The associates of which were fifty-eight in number, taking the names of the knights in the romantic history of that chivalric worthy. According to their historian and poet, Richard Robinson, this Society was established by charter under King Henry the Eighth, who, when he sawe a good archer indeede, he chose him and ordained such a one for a knight of this order. Robinson's book was printed in 1533, and in a MS. list of his own works, now in the British Museum, he says, 'Mr. Thomas Smith, her majestie's customer, representing himself Prince Arthure, gave me for his booke vs. 66 knightes gave me every one for his xviijd. and every Esqre for his booke viijd, when they shott under the same Prince Arthure at Myles end green.' Shakspeare has His 13 Titles of little poems. 14 For some account of the Vice and his dagger of lath the reader may see Twelfth Night, Act iv. Se. 2. There is something excessively ludicrous in the compa. rison of Shallow to this powerless weapon of that droll personage the Old Vice or fool. 15 Burst, brast and broken, were formerly synony mous; as may be seen under the words break and broken, in Baret. 16 Gaunt is thin, slender. 17 This is only a humorous exaggerative way of expressing He shall be more than the philosopher's stone to me, or twice as good. I will make gold out of him.' a bait for the old pike, I see no reason, in the law | Had not been here, to dress the ugly form ACT IV. SCENE I. A Forest in Yorkshire. Enter the Archbishop of York, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and others. Arch. What is this forest called? [Exit. With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,- Hast. 'Tis Gualtree forest, an't shall please your grace. Arch. Here stand, my lords; and send discoveries forth, To know the numbers of our enemies. 'Tis well done. My friends, and brethren in these great affairs, Their cold intent, tenour, and substance, thus:- Mowb. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground, And dash themselves to pieces. Enter a Messenger. Hast. Now, what news? Mess. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile, In goodly form comes on the enemy: And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number Upon, or near, the rate of thirty thousand. Moub. The just proportion that we gave them out. Let us sway2 on, and face them in the field. 3 Completely accoutred. 4 Baret carefully distinguishes between bloody, full of blood, sanguineous, and bloody, desirous of blood, sanguinarius. In this speech Shakspeare uses the word in both senses. 5 Guarded is a metaphor taken from dress; to guard being to ornament with guards or facings. 6 Formerly all bishops wore white, even when they travelled.-Hody's History of Convocations, p. 141. This white investment was the episcopal rochet. 7 Warburton very plausibly reads glaires; Steevens proposed greares; and this emendation has my full concurrence. It should be remarked that greaves, or leg-armour, is sometimes spelt graves. 8 Grievances. 9 The old copies read from our most quiet there. Warburton made the alteration; I am not quite perFuaded that it was necessary. 10 In Holinshed the Archbishop says, 'Where he and his companie were in armes, it was for feare of the king, to whom he could have no free accesse, by reason of such a multitude of flatterers as were about him.' Your Arch. Wherefore do I this?-so the question stands. Briefly to this end:-We are all diseas'd; What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer. And find our griefs heavier than our offences. West. When ever yet was your appeal denied? And consecrate commotion's bitter edge ?12 I make my quarrel in particular.13 11 Examples of every minute's instance,' are' Examples which every minute instances or supplies. Which even the present minute presses on their notice. 12 Commotion's bitter edge? that is, the edgeof bitter strife and commotion; the sword of rebellion. This line is omitted in the folio. 13 The second line of this very obscure speech is omitted in the folio. As the passage stands I can make nothing of it; nor do any of the explanations which have been offered appear to me satisfactory. I think with Malone that a line has been lost, though I do not agree with him in the sense he would give to it. It is with all proper humility I offer the following reading :— My quarrel general, the commonwealth, i. e. my general cause of discontent is public wrongs, my particular cause the death of my own brother, who was beheaded by the king's order. This circum stance is referred to in the first part of this play : 'The archbishop-who bears hard His brother's death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop." The answer of Westmoreland makes it obvious that West. There is no need of any such redress; West. My father from the breast of Bolingbroke, Moub. Well, by my will, we shall admit no parley. West. That agues but the shame of your offence: A rotten case abides no handling. Hast. Hath the Prince John a full commission, In very ample virtue of his father, To hear, and absolutely to determine Of what conditions we shall stand upon? West. That is intended' in the general's name: I muse, you make so slight a question. Arch. Then take, my lord of Westmoreland, this For this contains our general grievances ;- All members of our cause, both here and hence, West. This will I show the general. Please you, In sight of both our battles we may meet : Upon such large terms, and so absolute, West. You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains. not what: The earl of Hereford was reputed then In England the most valiant gentleman; Mowb. Ay, but our valuation shall be such, Who knows, on whom fortune would then have Shall, to the king, taste of this action: smil'd? But, if your father had been victor there, Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on, To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace, West. Mowbray, you overween, to take it so; That, were cur royal faiths12 martyrs in love, Arch. No, no, my lord; Note this, the king is weary Of dainty and such picking13 grievances: To new-remembrance: For full well he knows, Hast. Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods 6 This is a mistake: he was duke of Hereford. 7 Intended is understood, i. e. meant without expres sing it. Entendu, Fr.; subauditur, Lat. something about redress of public wrongs should have S The old copy reads confin'd. Johnson proposed to fallen from the archbishop. Johnson proposed to read read consign'd; which must be understood in the Latin quarrel instead of brother in the first line, and explain-sense, consignatus, signed, sealed, rutified, confrm. ed the passage much as I have done. I have merely ed; which was indeed the old meaning according to the superadded the line, which seems to me necessary to dictionaries. Shakspeare uses consign and consigning complete the sense, and make Westmoreland's reply in other places in this sense. intelligible. 1 The thirty-seven following lines are not in the quarto. 2 i. e. their lances fixed in the rest for the encounter. 3 It has been already observed that the beaver was a 9 Awful for lawful; or under the due awe of authority. 10 To consist, to rest; consisto.-Baret. 12 The faith due to a king. So in King Henry VIII: moveable piece of the helmet, which lifted up or down,The citizens have shown at full their royal minds," to enable the bearer to drink or breathe more freely. Truncheon, i. e. their minds well affected to the king. 13 Piddling, insignificant. 14 Alluding to the table books of slate, ivory, &c. used by our ancestors. P. John. You are well encounter'd here, my Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop ;- bishop, It is even so :-Who hath not heard it spoken, Arch. Good, my lord of Lancaster, Mowb. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes And though we here fall down, P. John. You are too shallow, Hastings, much To sound the bottom of the after-times. West. Pleaseth your grace to answer them di rectly, How far-forth do you like their articles? P. John. I like them all, and do allow them well: Arch. I take your princely word for these ro dresses. P. John. I give it you, and will maintain my word; And thereupon I drink unto your grace. Hast. Go, captain [To an Officer,] and deliver to the army This news of peace; let them have pay, and part; I have bestow'd to breed this present peace, West. Arch Against ill chances, men are ever merry ; West. Therefore be merry, coz: since sudden P. John. The word of peace is render'd; Hark, Mowb. This had been cheerful, after victory. P. John. [Exit WESTMORELAND. The which hath been with scorn shov'd from the And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains court, Whereon this Hydra son of war is born: Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep, With grant of our most just and right desires : 1 Holinshed says of the Archbishop, that, 'coming foorth amongst them clad in armour, he encouraged and pricked them foorth to take the enterprize in hand.' 2 This expression has been adopted by Milton :Around him all the sanctities of heaven Stood thick as stars.' 3 Dull workings are labours of thought. 4 Raised up in arms. March by us; that we may peruse the men Arch. And, ere they be dismiss'd, let them march by. 6 Alluding to the dragon charmed to rest by the spells of Medea. 7 Succession. 8 Approve. 9. It was Westmoreland who made this deceitful propo sal, as appears from Holinshed:-The earl of Westmoreland, using more policie than the rest, said, whereas our people have been long in armour, let them depart home to their woonted trades: In the mean time lot us drink togither in signe of agreement, that the people 5 Common sense is the general sense of general on both sides may see it, and know that it is true, that danger. we be light at a point.' Re-enter WESTMORELAND. Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still? Will not go off until they hear you speak. Re-enter HASTINGS. Hast. My lord, our army is dispers'd already: Like youthful steers unyok'd, they take their courses East, west, north, south; or, like a school broke up, Each hurries toward his home, and sporting-place. West. Good tidings, my Lord Hastings; for the which I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason: Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while? Fal. I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus; I never knew yet, but rebuke and check was the reward of valour. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet? have I, in my poor and old motion, the expedition of thought? I have speeded hither with the very extremest inch of possibility; I have foundered nine score and odd posts: and here, travel-tainted as I am, have, in my pure and immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colevile of the dale, a most furious knight, and valorous enemy: But what of that? he saw me, and yielded; that I And you, lord archbishop,-and you, Lord Mow- may justly say with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome,' bray, Of capital treason I attach you both. Mowb. Is this proceeding just and honourable? West. Is your assembly so? P. John. Arch. Will you thus break your faith? [Exeunt.2 SCENE III. Another Part of the Forest. Alarums: Excursions. Enter FALSTAFF and COLEVILE, meeting. Fal. What's your name, sir? of what condition are you and of what place, I pray? Cole. I am a knight, sir; and my name is-Colevile of the dale. Fal. Well then, Colevile is your name; a knight is your degree; and your place, the dale: Colevile shall still be your name; a traitor your degree; and the dungeon your place,-a place deep enough: so shall you still be Colevile of the dale. Cole. Are not you Sir John Falstaf? I came, saw, and overcame. P. John. It was more of his courtesy than your deserving. Fal. I know not; here he is, and here I yield him: and I beseech your grace, let it be booked with the rest of this day's deeds; or, by the Lord, I will have it in a particular ballad else, with mine own picture on the top of it, Coleville kissing my foot: To the which course, if I be enforced, if you do not all show like gilt two-pences to me; and I, in the clear sky of fame, o'ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the element," which show like pins' heads to her; believe not the word of the noble : Therefore let me have right, and let desert mount. P. John. Thine's too heavy to mount. P. John. Thine's too thick to shine. It is, my lord. Fal. I know not how they sold themselves: but thou, like a kind fellow, gavest thyself away; and I thank thee for thee. Re-enter WESTMORELAND. Fal. As good a man as he, sir, whoe'er I am. Do ye yield, sir? or shall I sweat for you? If I do sweat, they are drops of thy lovers, and they weep for thy death therefore rouse up fear and trem-To York, to present execution :bling, and do observance to my mercy. Cole. I think, you are Sir John Falstaff; and in that thought, yield me. Fal. I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine; and not a tongue of them all speaks any other word but my name. An I had but a belly of any indifferency, I were simply the most active fellow in Europe: My womb, my womb, my womb undoes me.-Here comes our general. Enter PRINCE JOHN of Lancaster, WESTMORE- P. John. The heat is past, follow no further now Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.- 1 i. e. foolishly. P. John. Now, have you left pursuit ? Fal. My lord, I beseech you, give me leave to go through Glostershire: and, when you come to Court, stand my good lord," 'pray, in your good report. 6 At the king's coming to Durham the Lord Hastings, Sir John Colevile of the dale, &c. being convicted of the conspiracy, were there beheaded.'-Holinshed p. 520. It is to be observed that there are two accounts of the termination of the archbishop of York's conspira cy, both of which are given by Holinshed. He states 2 It cannot but raise some indignation to find this that on the archbishop and earl marshal submitting to horrid violation of faith passed over thus slightly by the the king and to his son Prince John, there present, poet without any note of censure or detestation."'—John- | ' their troopes skaled and fledde their wayes; but being That Shakspeare followed the historians is no pursued, many were taken, many slain, &c.; the archexcuse; for it is the duty of a post always to take the bishop and earl marshall were brought to Pomfret to the side of victue.I had some doubt whether I should re-king, who from thence went to Yorke, whyther the pri tain this reflection upon the pretical ju tice of Shaks- soners were also brought, and there beheaded' It is peare; but I have been determined to do so by the hope this last account that Shakspeare has followed, but with that it may lead to the discussion of the passage. I would ome variation; for the names of Colevile and Hastings not willingly believe that the poet approved this abomi- are not mentioned among those who were beheaded at nable piece of treachery York. 4 A ludicrous term for the stars. 3 Cæsar. 6 It appears that Colevile was designed to be pro. nounced as a trisyllable; it is often spelt Colleville in the old copies. 7 Johnson was so much unacquainted with ancient phraseology as to make difficulties about this phrase, which is one of the most common petitionary forms of our ancestors. Stand my good lord, or be my good |