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.

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

CH. JUST. How comes this, Sir John? Fye! 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

8

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

'I will help to bridle the two-legg'd Mare

And both you for to ride need not to spare." STEEVENS.

upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphinchamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson1 week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singingman2 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

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: or changing

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"His parcel-gilt to massy gold." Again, in Heywood's Silver Age, 1613:

"I am little better than a parcel-gilt bawd." Holinshed, describing the arrangement of Wolsey's plate, says: and in the council-chamber was all white, and parcel-gilt plate." STEEVENS.

Langham, describing a bride-cup, says it was "foormed of a sweet sucket barrel, a faire turn'd foot set too it, all seemly besylvered and parcel-gilt." Again, in The XII Merry lestes 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.

I

So,

Wheeson] So the quarto. The folio corrects it— Whitsun; but the blunder is much in the Hostess's manner. Peesel, for Pistol, and many other words mistaken in the same way. MALONE.

2

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.

3

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

then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar3; 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 so 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, as it appears to me, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this

3

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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. So the Scriptural term: a mess of pottage." MALONE.

4

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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

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.

5

FAL. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call honourable boldness, impudent sauciness: if a man will make court'sy, and say nothing, he is virtuous: No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor; I say to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.

CH. JUST. You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.

FAL. Come hither, hostess.

Enter Gower.

[Taking her aside,

CH. JUST. Now, master Gower, what news? Gow. The king, my lord, and Harry prince of Wales

done with her," is improperly changed to "the villainy you have done her." MALONE.

this SNEAP] A Yorkshire word for rebuke. POPE. Sneap signifies to check; as children easily sneaped; herbs and fruits sneaped with cold weather. See Ray's Collection, Again, in Brome's Antipodes, 1638 :

Again:

Again:

"Do you sneap me too, my

lord?"

"No need to come hither to be sneap'd."

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even as now I was not,

"When you sneap'd me, my lord."

The word is derived from snyb, Scotch. We still use snub in the same sense. STEEVENS.

I can find no authority for this Scotch etymology. Boswell. 6 answer in the effect of your reputation,] That is, answer in a manner suitable to your character. JOHNSON.

Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.
FAL. As I am a gentleman;——

HOST. Nay, you said so before.

FAL. As I am a gentleman ;--Come, no more words of it.

HOST. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate, and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.

FAL. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking 7: and for thy walls,-a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the prodigal, or the German hunting in waterwork, is worth a thousand of these bed hangings,

7 - I must be fain to PAWN-MY PLATE,

GLASSES, GLASSES, IS THE ONLY DRINKING :] Mrs. Quickly is here in the same state as the Earl of Shrewsbury, who, not having been paid for the diet, &c. of Mary Queen of Scots, while she was in his custody, in 1580, writes as follows to Thomas Bawdewyn : "I wold have you bye me glasses to drink in: Send me word what olde plat yeldes the ounce, for I wyll not leve me a cuppe of sylvare to drink in, but I wyll see the next terme my creditors payde." See Lodge's Illustrations of English History, vol. ii. p. 252. STEEVENS.

8-GERMAN hunting in WATER-WORK,] i. e. in water co

lours. WARBURTON.

So, in Holinshed, p. 819: "The king for himself had a house of timber, &c. and for his other lodgings he had great and goodlie tents of blue waterwork garnished with yellow and white." It appears also from the same Chronicle, p. 840, that these painted cloths were brought from Holland. The German hunting was therefore a subject very likely to be adopted by the artists of that country.

Drayton, in his 4th Eclogue, speaks contemptuously of such hangings :

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Nor painted rags then cover'd rotten walls." STEevens. The German hunting is, I suppose, hunting the wild boar. Shakspeare, in another place, speaks of "a full-acorn'd boar, a German one." FARMER.

9 these BED-hangings,] We should read dead-hangings, i. e. faded. WARBURTON.

I think the present reading may well stand. He recommends painted canvas instead of tapestry, which he calls bed-hangings, in contempt, as fitter to make curtains than to hang walls.

JOHNSON.