HOST. Here's goodly stuff toward!

FAL. Give me my rapier, boy.

DOL. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.

FAL. Get you down stairs.

[Drawing, and driving PISTOL out. HOST. Here's a goodly tumult ! I'll forswear keeping house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights. So; murder, I warrant now.--Alas, alas! put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons. [Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH. DOL. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal is gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you. HOST. Are you not hurt i' the groin'? methought he made a shrewd thrust at your belly.

Re-enter Bardolph.

FAL. Have you turned him out of doors?
BARD. Yes, sir. The rascal's drunk: you have

hurt him, sir, in the shoulder.

FAL. A rascal! to brave me!

DOL. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you!

Alas,

poor ape, how thou sweat'st! Come, let me wipe thy face;-come on, you whoreson chops :-Ah, rogue! i' faith, I love thee. Thou art as valourous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the nine worthies. lain!

"I hate this lothsome life,

"O Atropos draw nie,

"Untwist ye thred of mortall strife,

Ah, vil

"Send death, and let mee die." STEEVENS.

5 Are you not hurt I' THE GROIN?] Falstaff had promised to marry Mrs. Quickly, who, on this occasion, appears to have had the widow Wadman's solicitudes about her. STEEVENS.

6-АH, villain!] Thus the folio: the quarto reads—a villain ; which I once thought might be right, and that she meant Pistol. But I have observed that a is frequently printed in the quarto copies for ah: the reading of the folio is therefore certainly right.

MALONE.

FAL. A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.

Doz. Do, if thou darest for thy heart: if thou dost, I'll canvas thee between a pair of sheets".

Enter Musick.

PAGE. The musick is come, sir.

FAL. Let them play ;-Play, sirs.-Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me like quicksilver.

DoL. I' faith, and thou followedst him like a church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting o' days,

7- I'll CANVAS thee between a pair of SHEETS.] This phrase occurs in the 12th Mery Ieste of the Widow Edyth, 1573:

"Hore, hore, by coks blood euen here,

"Sayd Cotes, and it were not for shame,

"I should canvas thee, and make thee lame." STEEVENS. Doll's meaning here is sufficiently clear. There is however an allusion which might easily escape notice, to the material of which coarse sheets were formerly made. So, in the MS. Account-book of Mr. Philip Henslow, which has been already quoted: "7 Maye, 1594. Lent goody Nalle upon a payre of canvas sheates, for v s." MALONE.

8

little TIDY BARTHOLOMEW BOAR PIG,] For tidy, Sir T. Hanmer reads tiny; but they are both words of endearment, and equally proper. Bartholomew boar-pig is a little pig made of paste, sold at Bartholomew fair, and given to children for a fairing. JOHNSON.

Tidy has two significations, 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, we learn, that it was the custom formerly to have booths in Bartholomew Fair, in which pigs were dressed and sold, and to these it is probable the allusion is here, and not to the pigs of paste mentioned by Dr. Johnson.

The practice of roasting pigs at Bartholomew Fair continued until the beginning of the last century, if not later. It is mentioned in Ned Ward's London Spy, 1697. When about the year 1708 some attempts were made to limit the duration of the fair to three days, a poem was published entitled The Pig's Petition

and foining o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

Enter behind, Prince HENRY and Porns, disguised like Drawers.

FAL. Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's head: do not bid me remember mine end.

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 sense it was certainly sometimes used. See an old translation 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 fulsome." REED.

Again, in Gawin Douglas's translation of the 5th Eneid:

"And als mony swine 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

66

Rides into fair of Barthol'mew;

"He twirls his chain, and looking big

"As if to fright the head of pig,

"That gaping lies on greasy stall,

"Till female with great belly call," &c.

Coles, whose Dictionary explains many of Shakspeare's words, interprets tidy by dapper, habilis, agilis; for dapper, he gives us homunculus agilis, animosus. And this I believe is the meaning here. Doll meant to praise Falstaff's nimbleness and agility in fighting o' days and foining o' nights. MALONE.

9 like a DEATH'S HEAD;] It appears from the following passage in Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1605, that it was the custom 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, since their wickedness is always before their eyes, and a death's head most commonly on their middle finger.'

66

Again, in Massinger's Old Law: "-sell some of my cloaths to buy thee a death's head, and put it upon thy middle finger: your least considering bawd's do so much."

66

Again, in Northward Hoe, 1607 : -as if I were a bawd, no ring pleases me but a death's head."

On the Stationers' books, Feb. 21, 1582, is entered a ballad intitled Remember thy End. STEEVENS.

DOL. Sirrah, what humour is the prince of?

FAL. A good shallow young fellow: he would have made a good pantler, he would have chipped 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 mustard'; there is no more conceit in him, than is in a mallet 2.

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 flap-dragons; and rides the wild mare with the boys *;

Falstaff's allusion, I should have supposed, was to the death's head, and motto 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.

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.

2 in a MALLET.] So, in Milton's Prose Works, 1738, vol. i. p. 330: "Though the fancy of this doubt be as obtruse and sad as any mallet." TOLLET.

3

eats CONGER and FENNEL; and drinks off CANDLES' ENDS for FLAP-DRAGONS;] Conger with fennel was formerly regarded as a provocative. It is mentioned by Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair: "-like a long-laced conger with green fennel in the joll of it." And in Philaster, one of the ladies advises the wanton Spanish prince to abstain from this article of luxury.

Greene likewise, in his Quip for an upstart Courtier, calls fennel "women's weeds,"-fit generally for that sex, sith while they are maidens they wish wantonly."

The qualification that follows, viz. that of swallowing candles' ends by way of flap-dragons, seems to indicate no more than that the Prince loved him, because he was always ready to do any thing for his amusement, however absurd or unnatural. Nash, in his Pierce Pennylesse his Supplication to the Devil, advises hard drinkers " to have some shooing horne to pull on their wine, as a rasher on the coais, or a red herring; or to stir it about with a candle's end to make it taste the better," &c.

And Ben Jonson, in his News from the Moon, &c. a masque,

and jumps upon joint-stools; and swears with a good grace; and wears his boot very smooth, like unto the sign of the leg; and breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories, and such other gambol

speaks of those who eat candles' ends, as an act of love and gallantry; and Beaumont and Fletcher, in Monsieur Thomas: carouse her health in cans, and candles' ends."

In Rowley's Match at Midnight, 1633, a captain says, that his corporal was lately choaked at Delf by swallowing a flapdragon."

Again, in Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1605: " have I not been drunk to your health, swallowed flapdragons, eat glasses, drank urine, stabbed arms, and done all the offices of protested gallantry for your sake?"

Again, in The Christian turn'd Turk, 1612: "as familiarly as pikes do gudgeons, and with as much facility as Dutchmen swallow fapdragons." STEEVENS.

A flap-dragon 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 flap-dragon from doing mischief. JOHNSON.

4- and rides the wild MARE with the boys ;] Riding the wild mare," is another name for the childish sport of see-saw, or what the French call bascule and balançoire. DOUCE.

5 wears his boot very smooth, like unto the sign of the leg ;] The learned editor of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 1775, observes, that such is part of the description of a smart abbot, by an anonymous writer of the thirteenth century: "Ocreas habebat in cruribus, quasi innatæ essent, sine plicâ porrectas." MS. Bod. James, n. 6, p. 121. STEEVENS.

6

DISCREET stories ;] We should read-indiscreet.

WARBURTON.

I suppose by discreet stories is meant what suspicious masters and mistresses 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 Windsor, Mrs. Quickly adds, that "he is no tell-tale, no breedbate." STEEVENS.

Dr. Warburton would most unnecessarily read indiscreet. Mr. Steevens supposes that "by discreet stories is meant what suspicious masters and mistresses of families would call prudential information; i. e. what ought to be known, and yet is disgraceful to the teller." But Poins, of whom Falstaff is speaking, had no masters or mistresses; and if it be recollected with what sort of