Coufin, on Wednesday next our council we WEST. I will, my liege. [Exeunt SCENE II. The fame. Another Room in the Palace. Enter HENRY Prince of Wales, and FALSTAFF. FAL. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad? P. HEN. Thou art fo fat-witted, with drinking of old fack, and unbuttoning thee after fupper, and fleeping upon benches after noon, that thou haft forgotten to demand that truly which thou would'st truly know. What a devil haft thou to do with the time of the day? unless hours were cups of fack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the figns of leaping-houses, and 3 Than out of anger can be uttered.] That is, "More is to be faid than anger will fuffer me to fay more than can iffue from a mind difturbed like mine." JOHNSON. 4 : to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know.] The Prince's objection to the queftion feems to be, that Falstaff had asked in the night what was the time of the day. JOHNSON. This cannot be well received as the objection of the Prince; for presently after, the Prince himself fays: "Good morrow, Ned," and Poins replies: "Good morrow, fweet lad." The truth may be, that when Shakspeare makes the Prince with Poins a good morrow, he had forgot that the fcene commenced at night. STEEVENS, the bleffed fun himself a fair hot wench in flamecolour'd taffata; I fee no reafon, why thou fhould'st be fo fuperfluous to demand the time of the day. FAL. Indeed, you come near me, now, Hal: for we, that take purfes, go by the moon and feven ftars.; and not by Phoebus,-he, that wandering knight fo fair. And, I pray thee, fweet wag, when thou art king,-as, God fave thy grace, (majesty, I should fay; for grace thou wilt have none,) P. HEN. What! none? FAL. No, by my troth; not so much as will ferve to be prologue to an egg and butter. P. HEN. Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly. FAL. Marry, then, fweet wag, when thou art king, let not us, that are fquires of the night's body, be called thieves of the day's beauty; let 5 Phoebus,-he, that wandering knight fo fair.] Falstaff starts the idea of Phoebus, i. e. the fun; but deviates into an allufion to El Donzel del Febo, the knight of the fun in a Spanish romance tranflated (under the title of The Mirror of Knighthood, &c.) during the age of Shakspeare. This illuftrious perfonage was "moft excellently faire," and a great wanderer, as those who travel after him throughout three thick volumes in 4to. will difcover. Perhaps the words " that wandering knight fo fair," are part of fome forgotten ballad on the subject of this marvellous hero's adventures. In Peele's Old Wives Tale, Com. 1595, Eumenides, the wandering knight, is a character. STEEVENS. to me. let not us, that are fquires of the night's body, be called thieves of the day's beauty;] This conveys no manner of idea How could they be called thieves of the day's beauty? They robbed by moonshine; they could not steal the fair day-light. I have ventured to fubftitute booty and this I take to be the meaning. Let us not be called thieves, the purloiners of that booty, which, to the proprietors, was the purchase of honest labour and industry by day. THEOBALD. : It is true, as Mr. Theobald has observed, that they could not fteal the fair day-light; but I believe our poet by the expreffion, thieves of the day's beauty, meant only, let not us who are body us be-Diana's forefters," gentlemen of the fhade, minions of the moon: And let men fay, we be men of good government; being governed as the fea is, by our noble and chafte mistress the moon, under whofe countenance we-steal. P. HEN. Thou fay'ft well; and it holds well too: for the fortune of us, that are the moon's men, doth ebb and flow like the fea; being governed as the fea is, by the moon. As, for proof, now: A purfe of gold most resolutely fnatched on Monday night, and moft diffolutely spent on Tuesday morn Squires to the night, i. e. adorn the night, be called a disgrace to the day. To take away the beauty of the day, may probably mean, to difgrace it. A fquire of the body, fignified originally, the attendant on a knight; the person who bore his head-piece, fpear, and fhield. It became afterwards the cant term for a pimp; and is fo ufed in the fecond part of Decker's Honeft Whore, 1630. Again, in The Witty Fair One, 1633, for a procurefs: "Here comes the fquire of her miftrefs's body." Falstaff, however, puns on the word knight. See the Curialia of Samuel Pegge, Efq. Part I. p. 100. STEEVENS. There is alfo, I have no doubt, a pun on the word beauty, which in the western counties is pronounced nearly in the fame manner as booty. See King Henry VI. P. III: "So triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty." 7 Diana's forefters, &c.] "Exile and flander are juftly mee awarded, MALONE. My wife and heire lacke lands and lawful right; "And me their lord made dame Diana's knight." So lamenteth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, in The Mirror for Magifirates. HENDERSON. We learn from Hall, that certain perfons who appeared as forefters in a pageant exhibited in the reign of King Henry VIII. were called Diana's knights. MALONE. 8 - minions of the moon:] Thus, as Dr. Farmer observes, Gamaliel Ratfey and his company "became fervants to the moone, for the funne was too hot for them." STEEVENS. ing; got with fwearing-lay by ; and spent with crying bring in: now, in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder; and, by and by, in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows. FAL. By the Lord, thou fay'ft true; lad. And is not my hoftefs of the tavern a most sweet wench ?2 P. HEN. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of got with fwearing-lay by ;] i. e. fwearing at the paffengers they robbed, lay by your arms; or rather, lay by was a phrase that then fignified stand still, addreffed to those who were preparing to rush forward. But the Oxford editor kindly accommodates these old thieves with a new cant phrase, taken from Bagshot-heath or Finchley-common, of lug out. WARBURTON. To lay by, is a phrase adopted from navigation, and fignifies, by flackening fail to become ftationary. It occurs again in King Henry VIII: T 2 "Even the billows of the fea Hung their heads, and then lay by." STEEVENS. and Spent with crying-bring in :] i. e. more wine. MALONE. And is not my hoftefs of the tavern &c.] We meet with the fame kind of humour as is contained in this and the three following speeches, in The Moftellaria of Plautus, A&t I. fc. ii: "Jampridem ecaftor frigidâ non lavi magis lubenter, "Phi. Quid ea meffis attinet ad meam lavationęm? "Sca. Nihilo plus, quam lavatio tua ad meffim." In the want of connection to what went before, probably confifts the humour of the Prince's queftion. STEEVENS. This kind of humour is often met with in old plays. In The Gallathea of Lyly, Phillida fays: "It is a pittie that nature framed you not a woman. "Gall. There is a tree in Tylos, &c. "Phill. What a toy it is to tell me of that tree, being nothing to the purpose," &c. en Jonfon calls it a game at vapours. FARMER. the castle.3 And is not a buff jerkin a moft sweet robe of durance ?4 3 As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the caftle.] Mr. Rowe took notice of a tradition, that this part of Falftaff was written originally under the name of Oldcastle. An ingenious correfpondent hints to me, that the paffage above quoted from our author, proves what Mr. Rowe tells us was a tradition. Old lad of the castle feems to have a reference to Oldcastle. Befides, if this had not been the fact, why, in the epilogue to The Second Part of King Henry IV. where our author promifes to continue his ftory, with Sir John in it, fhould he say, Where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions: for Oldcaftle died a martyr, and this is not the man." This looks like declining a point that had been made an objection to him. I'll give a farther matter in proof, which feems almoft to fix the charge. I have read an old play, called, The famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, containing the honourable Battle of Agincourt. The action of this piece commences about the 14th year of King Henry the Fourth's reign, and ends with Henry the Fifth's marrying Princess Catharine of France. The fcene opens with Prince Henry's robberies. Sir John Oldcastle is one of the gang, and called Jockie; and Ned and Gadshill are two other comrades.-From this old imperfect sketch, I have a fufpicion, Shakspeare might form his two parts of King Henry IV. and his hiftory of King Henry V. and confequently it is not improbable, that he might continue the mention of Sir John Oldcastle, till some descendant of that family moved Queen Elizabeth to command him to change the namie. THEOBALD. my old lad of the cafile.] This alludes to the name Shakfpeare firft gave to this buffoon character, which was Sir John Oldcastle; and when he changed the name he forgot to strike out this expreffion that alluded to it. The reafon of the change was this one Sir John Oldcaftle having fuffered in the time of Henry the Fifth for the opinions of Wickliffe, it gave offence, and therefore the poet altered it to Falstaff, and endeavours to remove the scandal in the epilogue to The Second Part of King Henry IV. Fuller takes notice of this matter in his Church Hiftory" Stage-poets have themselves been very bold with, and others very merry at, the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a boon companion, a jovial royfter, and a coward to boot. The best is, Sir John Falftaff hath relieved the memory of Sir John Oldcaftle, and of late is fubftituted |