Fang. An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice;6

Host. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he 's an infinitive thing upon my score:-Good master Fang, hold him sure;-good master Snare, let him not 'scape. He comes continuantly to Pye-corner, (saving your manhoods) to buy a saddle; and he 's indited to dinner to the lubbar's head' in Lumbert-street, to master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass, and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong.

Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH. Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-nose1 knave,

6 —an a' come but within my vice;] Vice or grasp; a metaphor taken from a smith's vice: there is another reading in the old edition, view, which I think not so good. Pope.

Vice is the reading of the folio, view of the quarto. Steevens. The fist is vulgarly called the vice in the West of England.

71

Henley.

lubbar's head-] This is, I suppose, a colloquial corruption of the Libbard's head. Johnson.

8 A hundred mark is a long loan-] Old copy-long one. Steevens. A long one? a long what? It is almost needless to observe, how familiar it is with our poet to play the chimes upon words similar in sound, and differing in signification; and therefore I make no question but he wrote-A hundred mark is a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear: i. e. a hundred mark is a good round sum for a poor widow to venture on trust. Theobald.

9 -a poor lone woman -] A lone woman is an unmarried woman. So, in the title-page to A Collection of Records, &c. 1642: "That Queen Elizabeth being a lone woman, and having few friends, refusing to marry" &c. Again, in Maurice Kyffin's translation of Terence's Andria, 1588: "Moreover this Glycerie is a lone woman;"-"tum hæc sola est mulier." In The First Part of King Henry IV, Mrs. Quickly had a husband alive. She is now a widow. Steevens."

1 malmsey-nose-] That is, red nose, from the effect of malmsey wine. Johnson.

Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices, master Fang, and master Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices.

Fal. How now? whose mare 's dead? what 's the matter?

Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of mistress Quickly.

Fal. Away, varlets!-Draw, Bardolph; cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel.

Host. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue! Murder, murder! O thou honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? O thou honey-seed rogue!2 thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller,3 and a woman-queller.

Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph.

Fang. A rescue! a rescue!

Host. Good people, bring a rescue or two.-Thou wo't, wo't thou? thou wo't, wo't thou? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!

Fal. Away, you scullion!5 you rampallian! you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.7

In the old song of Sir Simon the King, the burthen of each stanza is this:

2

honey-suckle villain!-honey-seed rogue!] The landlady's corruption of homicidal and homicide. Theobald.

3 - a man queller,] Wicliff, in his Translation of the New Testament, uses this word for carnifex. Mark, vi, 27: "Herod sent a man-queller, and commanded his head to be brought."

Steevens.

A Thou wo't, wo't thou? &c.] The first folio reads, I think less properly, thou wilt not? thou wilt not? Johnson.

5 Fal. Away, you scullion!] This speech is given to the Page in all the editions to the folio of 1664. It is more proper for Falstaff, but that the boy must not stand quite silent and useless on the stage. Johnson.

6 rampallian!-fustilarian!] The first of these terms of abuse may be derived from ramper, Fr. to be low in the world. The

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, stand to me!

Ch. Just. How now, sir John? what, are you brawling here?

Doth this become your place, your time, and business? 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 suit.

Ch. Just. For what sum?

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 some of it out again, or I'll ride thee o'nights, like the mare.

8

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

other from fustis, a club; i. e. a person whose weapon of defence is a cudgel, not being entitled to wear a sword.

The following passage, however, in A new Trick to cheat the Devil, 1639, seems to point out another derivation of rampallian: "And bold rampallian like, swear and drink drunk."

It may therefore mean a ramping riotous strumpet. Thus, in Greene's Ghost haunting Coneycatchers: "Here was Wiley Beguily rightly acted, and an aged rampalion put beside her schooletricks." Steevens.

Fustilarian is, I believe, a made word, from fusty. Mr. Steevens's last explanation of rampallian appears the true one.

7

* Malone.

I'll tickle your catastrophe.] This expression occurs several times in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, 1608: "Bankes your ale is a Philistine; foxe zhart there fire i'th' tail ont; you are a rogue to charge us with mugs i'th' rereward. A plague o' this wind! O, it tickles our catastrophe." Again: " to seduce my blind customers; I'll tickle his catastrophe for this." Steevens.

8 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.

Ch. Just. How comes this, sir John? Fy! 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 parcelgilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsunweek, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man1 of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow

"In this piece of ground there is a Mare indeed,
"Which is the quickest Mare in England for speed."

Steevens.

I think the allusion is only a wanton one. Malone. 9 — a parcel-gilt goblet,] A parcel-gilt goblet is a goblet gilt only on such parts of it as are embossed. 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 same records contain fifty instances to the same purpose of these spoons the saint or other ornament on the handle was the only part gilt. Thus, in Ben Jonson's Alchemist:

"His parcel-gilt to massy gold." Steevens.

Langham, describing a bride-cup, says it was "foormed of a sweet sucket barrell, a faire turn'd foot set too it, all seemly besylvered and parcel-gilt." Again, in The XII merry Iestes of the Widdow Edyth:

"A standyng cup with a cover parcell gilt. Ritson. Parcel-gilt means what is now called by artists party-gilt; that is, where part of the work is gilt, and part left plain or ungilded. Malone.

-for liking his father to a singing-man -] Such is the reading of the first edition; all the rest have-for likening him to a singing 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 substituted instead of it, in the folio. Malone.

2

goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife,] A Keech is the fat of an ox rolled up by the butcher into a round lump. Steevens.

a mess of vinegar;3 telling us, she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee, they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more familiarity with such poor people; saying, that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath; deny it, if thou

canst.

Fal. My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says, up and down the town, that her eldest son is like you: she hath been in good case, and, the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers, I beseech you, I may have redress against them.

Ch. Just. Sir John, sir 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 sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level consideration; you have,4 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.

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.

3

- 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 Rastel; 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.

4

So the scriptural term: "a mess of pottage." Malone.

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 subsequent speech "the villainy you have done with her," is improperly changed to "the villainy you have done her." Malone.