: Page. Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is of no having: he kept company with the wild Prince and Poins; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No, he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of my substance: if he take her, let him take her simply; the wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes not that way.

Ford. I beseech you, heartily, some of you go home. with me to dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have sport; I will show you a monster.Master doctor, you shall go;-so shall you, master Page;—and you, sir Hugh.

Shal. Well, fare you well:-we shall have the freer wooing at master Page's. [Exeunt. SHAL. and SLEN. Caius. Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.

[Exit RUG.

with their mistresses, by carrying the batchelor's buttons (a plant of the Lychnis kind, whose flowers resemble a coat button in form) in their pockets. And they judged of their good or bad success by their growing, or their not growing there. Smith.

Greene mentions these batchelor's buttons in his Quip for an upstart Courtier: "I saw the batchelor's buttons, whose virtue is, to make wanton maidens weep, when they have worne them forty weeks under their aprons," &c.

The same expression occurs in Heywood's Fair Maid of the West, 1631:

"He wears batchelor's buttons, does he not?"

Again, in The Constant Maid, by Shirley, 1640 :

66 I am a batchelor.

"I pray, let me be one of your buttons still then." Again, in  Fair Quarrel, by Middleton and Rowley, 1617: "I'll wear my batchelor's buttons still."

Again, in A woman never vex'd, comedy, by Rowley, 1632:
"Go, go and rest on Venus' violets; shew her
"A dozen of batchelors' buttons, boy."

Again, in Westward Hoe, 1606: "Here's my husband, and no batchelor's buttons are at his doublet." Steevens.

6

of no having:] Having is the same as estate or fortune.

So, in Macbeth:

"Of noble having, and of royal hope."

Again, Twelfth Night:

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My having is not much;

"I'll make division of my present with you:
"Hold, there is half my coffer." Steevens.

Johnson.

Host. Farewel, my hearts: I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him. [Exit Host. Ford. [Aside] I think, I shall drink in pipe-wine first with him; I'll make him dance.7 Will you go, gentles?

All. Have with you, to see this monster.

[Exeunt.

7 Host. Farewel, my hearts: I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him.

Ford. [Aside] I think, I shall drink in pipe-wine first with him; I'll make him dance.] To drink in pipe-wine is a phrase which I cannot understand. May we not suppose that Shakspeare rather wrote, I think I shall drink HORN-PIPE wine first with him: I'll make him dance?

Canary is the name of a dance, as well as of a wine. Ford lays hold of both senses; but, for an obvious reason, makes the dance a horn-pipe. It has been already remarked, that Shakspeare has frequent allusions to a cuckold's horns. Tyrwhitt.

So, in Pasquil's Night-cap, 1612, p. 118:

"It is great comfort to a cuckold's chance

"That many thousands doe the Hornepipe dance."

Steevens.

Pipe is known to be a vessel of wine, now containing two hogsheads. Pipe-wine is therefore wine, not from the bottle, but the pipe, and the jest consists in the ambiguity of the word, which signifies both a cask of wine, and a musical instrument. Johnson. The jest here lies in a mere play of words. "I'll give him pipe-wine, which shall make him dance." Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 1786. Steevens.

The phrase," to drink in pipe-wine"-always seemed to me a very strange one, till I met with the following passage in King James's first speech to his parliament, in 1604; by which it appears that "to drink in" was the phraseology of the time: who either, being old, have retained their first drunkenin liquor," &c. Malone.

I have seen the phrase often in books of Shakspeare's time, but neglected to mark the passages. One of them I have lately recovered: "If he goe to the taverne they will not onely make him paie for the wine, but for all he drinks in besides." Greene's Ghost haunting Conicatchers, 1602, Sig. B 4.-The following also, though of somewhat later authority, will confirm Mr. Malone's observation: "A player acting upon a stage a man killed; but being troubled with an extream cold, as he was lying upon the stage fell a coughing; the people laughing, he rushed up, ran off the stage, saying, thus it is for a man to drink in porridg, for then he will be sure to cough in his grave." Focabella, or a Cabinet of Conceits, by Robert Chamberlaine, 1640, No. 84.

Reed

Enter Mrs. FORD and Mrs. PAGE.

Mrs. Ford. What, John! what, Robert!

Mrs. Page. Quickly, quickly: is the buck-basket— Mrs. Ford. I warrant: What, Robin, I say.

Enter Servants with a basket.

Mrs. Page. Come, come, come.

Mrs. Ford. Here, set it down.

Mrs. Page. Give your men the charge; we must be brief.

Mrs. Ford. Marry, as I told you before, John, and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brew-house; and when I suddenly call you, come forth, and (without any pause, or staggering) take this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters in Datchet mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch, close by the Thames' side.

Mrs. Page. You will do it?

Mrs. Ford. I have told them over and over; they lack no direction; Begone, and come when you are called. [Exeunt Servants.

Mrs. Page. Here comes little Robin.

Enter ROBIN.

Mrs. Ford. How now, my eyas-musket? what news with you?

8

the whitsters-] i. e. the blanchers of linen. Douce. 9 How now, my eyas-musket?] Eyas is a young unfledg'd hawk; I suppose from the Italian Niaso, which originally signified any young bird taken from the nest unfledg'd, afterwards a young hawk. The French, from hence, took their niais, and used it in both those significations; to which they added a third, metaphorically, a silly fellow, un garçon fort niais, un niais. Musket signifies a sparrow hawk, or the smallest species of hawks. This too is from the Italian Muschetto, a small hawk, as appears from the original signification of the word, namely, a troublesome stinging fly. So that the humour of calling the little page an eyasmusket is very intelligible. Warburton.

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So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608; no hawk so haggard but will stoop to the lure: no niesse so ramage but will be reclaimed to the lunes." Eyas-musket is the same as infant Lilliputian. Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. I, c. xi, st. 34:

Rob. My master sir John is come in at your backdoor, mistress Ford; and requests your company.

Mrs. Page. You little Jack-a-lent,1 have you been true to us?

Rob. Ay, I'll be sworn: My master knows not of your being here; and hath threatened to put me into everlasting liberty, if I tell you of it; for, he swears, he'll turn me away.

Mrs. Page. Thou 'rt a good boy; this secrecy of thine shall be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and hose.-I'll go hide me.

Mrs. Ford. Do so;-Go tell thy master, I am alone. Mistress Page, remember you your cue. [Exit ROB. Mrs. Page. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me. [Exit Mrs. PAGE.

Mrs. Ford. Go to then; we'll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watry pumpion;—we 'll teach him to know turtles from jays.2

Enter FALSTAFF.

Fal. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? Why,

youthful gay,

"Like eyas-hauke, up mounts unto the skies,
"His newly budded pinions to essay."

In The Booke of Haukyng, &c. commonly called The Book of St. Albans, bl. 1. no date, is the following derivation of the word; but whether true or erroneous is not for me to determine: "An hauk

is called an eyesse from her eyen. For an hauke that is brought up under a bussarde or puttock, as many ben, have watry eyen," &c. Steevens.

I Fack-a-lent,] A Jack o' lent was a puppet thrown at in Lent, like shrove-cocks. So, in The Weakest goes to the Wall, 1600:

"A mere anatomy, a Jack of Lent," Again, in The Four Prentices of London, 1615:

"Now you old Jack of Lent, six weeks and upwards." Again, in Greene's Tu Quoque: for if a boy, that is

66

throwing at his Jack o' Lent, chance to hit me on the shins," &c. See a note on the last scene of this comedy. Steevens.

2 from jays.] So, in Cymbeline:

some jay of Italy,

"Whose mother was her painting," &c. Steevens.

3 Have I caught my heavenly jewel?] This is the first line of the second song in Sidney's Astrophel and Stella. Tollet.

now let me die, for I have lived long enough; this is the period of my ambition: O this blessed hour!

Mrs. Ford. O sweet sir John!

Fal. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would thy husband were dead; I'll speak it before the best lord, I would make thee my lady.

Mrs. Ford. I your lady, sir John! alas I should be a pitiful lady.

Fal. Let the court of France show me such another; I see how thine eye would emulate the diamond: Thou hast the right arched bent of the brow, that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.4

4

that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.] Instead of-Venetian admittance, the old quarto reads" or any Venetian attire." Steevens.

The old quarto reads-tire-vellet, and the old folio readsor any tire of Venetian admittance. So that the true reading of the whole is this, that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-VALIANT, or any tire of Venetian admittance. The speaker tells his mistress, she had a face that would become all the head dresses in fashion. The ship-tire was an open head dress, with a kind of scarf depending from behind. Its name of ship-tire was, I presume, from its giving the wearer some resemblance of a ship (as Shakspeare says) in all her trim: with all her pendants out, and flags and streamers flying.

This was an image familiar with the poets of that time. Thus Beaumont and Fletcher, in their play of Wit without Money: "She spreads sattens as the king's ships do canvas everywhere; she may space her misen," &c. This will direct us to reform the following word of tire valiant, which I suspect to be corrupt, valiant being a very incongruous epithet for a woman's head dress: I suppose Shakspeare wrote tire-vailant. As the ship-tire was an open head dress, so the tire-vailant was a close one, in which the head and breast were covered as with a veil. And these were,

in fact, the two different head dresses then in fashion, as we may see by the pictures of that time. One of which was so open, that the whole neck, breasts, and shoulders, were opened to view: the other, so securely inclosed in kerchiefs, &c. that nothing could be seen above the eyes, or below the chin. Warburton.

In the fifth act, Fenton mentions that his mistress is to meet him

"With ribbons pendant flaring 'bout her head." This, probably, was what is here called the ship-tire. Malone. the tire-valiant,] I would read-tire volant. Stubbes, who describes most minutely every article of female dress, has men