FAL. As I was then advised by my learned counfel in the laws of this land-fervice, I did not come. CH. JUST. Well, the truth is, fir John, you live in great infamy.

FAL. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in lefs.

CH. JUST. Your means are very flender, and wäfte is great.

your

FAL. I would it were otherwife; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.

CH. JUST. You have misled the youthful prince.

FAL. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.5

CH. JUST. Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound; your day's fervice at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'erpofting that action.

CH. JUST. But fince all is well, keep it fo: wake not a fleeping wolf.

FAL. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox. CH. JUST. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out:

5 he my dog.] I do not understand this joke. Dogs lead the blind, but why does a dog lead the fat? JOHNSON.

If the fellow's great belly prevented him from seeing his way, he would want a dog as well as a blind man. FARMER.

And though he had no abfolute occafion for him, Shakspeare would still have fupplied him with one. He feems to have been very little folicitous that his comparisons fhould answer completely on both fides. It was enough for him that men were fometimes led by dogs. MALONE.

FAL. A waffel candle, my lord; all tallow: if I did fay of wax, my growth would approve the

truth.

CH. JUST. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

FAL. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

CH. JUST. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel."

A waffel candle, &c.] A waffel candle is a large candle lighted up at a feaft. There is a poor quibble upon the word wax, which fignifies increase as well as the matter of the honeycomb. JOHNSON.

The fame quibble has already occurred in Love's Labour's Loft, A&t V. fc. ii:

"That was the way to make his godhead wax.'

See Vol. VII. p. 165, n. 6. MALONE.

STEEVENS.

1 You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.] Thus the quarto, 1600. Mr. Pope reads with the folio, 1623,-evil angel. STEEVENS.

What a precious collator has Mr. Pope approved himself in this paffage! Befides, if this were the true reading, Falstaff could not have made the witty and humorous evafion he has done in his reply. I have reftored the reading of the oldest quarto. The Lord Chief Juftice calls Falftaff the Prince's ill angel or genius: which Falftaff turns off by faying, an ill angel (meaning the coin called an angel) is light; but, furely, it cannot be faid that he wants weight: ergo-the inference is obvious. Now money may be called ill, or bad; but it is never called evil, with regard to its being under weight. This Mr. Pope will facetioufly call restoring loft puns: but if the author wrote a pun, and it happens to be loft in an editor's indolence, I fhall, in spite of his grimace, venture at bringing it back to light.

THEOBALD.

"As light as a clipt angel," is a comparison frequently used in the old comedies. So, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: The law fpeaks profit, does it not?

"Faith, fome bad angels haunt us now and then."

STEEVENS.

FAL. Not fo, my lord; your ill angel is light; but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me without weighing: and yet, in fome refpects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell: Virtue is of fo 8 little regard in these cofter-monger times, that true valour is turned bear-herd: Pregnaney' is made a tapfter, and hath his quick wit wafted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age fhapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, confider not the capacities of us that are young: you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confefs, are wags too.

CH. JUST. Do you fet down your name in the fcroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moift eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreafing leg? an increafing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind fhort? your chin double? your wit fingle? and every part about you blafted with

8

2

I cannot go, I cannot tell:] I cannot be taken in a reckoning; I cannot pass current. JOHNSON.

9 in thefe cofter-monger times,] In these times when the prevalence of trade has produced that meanness that rates the merit of every thing by money. JOHNSON.

A cofter-monger is a coftard-monger, a dealer in apples called by that name, because they are shaped like a coftard, i. e. man's head. See Vol. VII. p. 56, n. 3; and p. 60, n. 8.1

I

2

STEEVENS. Pregnancy-] Pregnancy is readinefs. So, in Hamlet: "How pregnant his replies are?" STEEVENS.

your wit fingle ?] We call a man fingle-witted, who attains but one fpecies of knowledge. This fenfe I know not how to apply to Falstaff, and rather think that the Chief Justice hints at a calamity always incident to a grey-haired wit, whofe

antiquity?3 and will you yet call yourself young હૈ Fye, fye, fye, fir John!

misfortune is, that his merriment is unfafhionable. His allufions are to forgotten facts; his illuftrations are drawn from notions obfcured by time; his wit is therefore single, fuch as none has any part in but himself. JOHNSON.

I believe all that Shakspeare meant was, that he had more fut than wit; that though his body was bloated by intemperance to twice its original fize, yet his wit was not increafed in proportion to it.

In ancient language, however, fingle often means fmall, as in the inftance of beer; the ftrong and weak being denominated double and fingle beer. So, in The Captain, by Beaumont and Fletcher: fufficient fingle beer, as cold as chryftal." Macbeth also speaks of his "fingle state of man." See Vol. X. p. 49, n. 6. STEEVENS.

Johnson's explanation of this paffage is not conceived with his ufual judgment.-It does not appear that Falftaff's merriment was antiquated or unfashionable; for if that had been the cafe, the young men would not have liked it fo well, nor would that circumftance have been perceived by the Chief Juftice, who was older than himself. But though Falstaff had such a fund of wit and humour, it was not unnatural that a grave judge, whofe thoughts were conftantly employed about the serious bufiness of life, fhould confider fuch an improvident, diffipated old man, as fingle-witted, or half-witted, as we should now term it. So, in the next Act, the Chief Juftice calls him, a great fool; and even his friend Harry, after his reformation, bids him not to anfwer" with a fool-born jeft," and adds, " that white hairs ill become a fool and jefter."

I think, however, that this speech of the Chief Justice is fomewhat in Falftaff's own ftyle; which verifies what he fays of himself, that all the world loved to gird at him, and that he was not only witty in himself, but the cause that wit is in other men." M. MASON.

I think Mr. Steevens's interpretation the true one. Single, however, (as an anonymous writer has obferved,) may mean, feeble or weak. So, in Fletcher's Queen of Corinth, A& III. fc. i:

"All men believe it, when they hear him speak,

"He utters fuch fingle matter, in fo infantly a voice." Again, in Romeo and Juliet: "O fingle-foal'd jeft, folely fingular for the fingleness," i. e. the tenuity.

FAL. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and fomething a round belly. For my voice,-I have loft it with hollaing, and finging of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box o'the ear that the prince gave you,—he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a fenfible lord. I have checked him for it; and the young lion repents: marry, not in afhes, and fackcloth; but in new filk, and old fack,4

CH. JUST. Well, heaven fend the prince a better companion!

FAL. Heaven fend the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

CH. JUST. Well, the king hath feyered you and prince Harry: I hear, you are going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland.

FAL. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kifs my lady peace

In our author's time, as the fame writer obferves, fmall beer was called fingle beer, and that of a stronger quality, double beer. MALONE.

3 antiquity?] To ufe the word antiquity for old age, is not peculiar to Shakspeare. So, in Two Tragedies in One, &c. 1601:

4

"For falfe illufion of the magiftrates

"With borrow'd shapes of falfe antiquity." STEEVENS. marry, not in afhes, and fackcloth; but in new filk, and old fack.] So, Sir John Harrington, of a reformed brother. Epigrams, L. 3, 17:

"Sackcloth and cinders they advise to use ;

Sack, cloves and fugar thou would'ft have to chufe."

BOWLE.