morrow, Francis; or, Francis, on Thursday; or, indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But, Francis,— Fran. My lord ?

3

P. Hen. Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystalbutton, nott-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, 4 caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish pouch,

Fran. O lord, sir, who do you mean?

P. Hen. Why then, your brown bastard is your only drink: for, look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully in Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so much.

Fran. What, sir?

Poins. [Within.] Francis!

P. Hen. Away, you rogue; Dost thou not hear them call? [Here they both call him: the drawer stands amazed, not knowing which way to go.

Enter Vintner.

Vint. What! stand'st thou still, and hear'st such a calling? Look to the guests within. [Exit FRANCIS.] My lord, old sir John, with half a dozen more, are at the door; Shall I let them in?

P. Hen. Let them alone awhile, and then open the door. [Exit Vintner.] Poins!

Re-enter POINS.

Poins. Anon, anon, sir.

But hark ye;

P. Hen. Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at the door; Shall we be merry? Poins. As merry as crickets, my lad. what cunning match have you made with this jest of the drawer? come, what's the issue?

P. Hen. I am now of all humours, that have show'd themselves humours since the old days of goodman

[3] A person is said to be nott-pated when the hair was cut short and round. PERCY.

[4] The Prince intends to ask the drawer, whether he will rob his master, whom he denotes by many contemptuous distinctions. JOHNS.

In Barret's Alvearie, an old latin and English dictionary, printed in 1580, I find a puke colour explained as being a colour between russet and black, and is rendered in Latin, pullus. STEEV.

[5] Caddis was, I believe, a kind of coarse ferret. The garters of Shakspeare's time were worn in sight, and consequently were expensive. He who would submit to wear a coarser sort, was probably called by this contemptuous distinction. STEEV

[6] Bastard was a kind of sweet wine. The prince finding the waiter not able, or not willing to understand his instigation, puzzles him with unconnected prattle, and drives him away.

JOHNS.

Adam, to the pupil age of this present twelve o'clock at midnight. [Re-enter FRANCIS with wine.] What's o'clock, Francis ?

Fran. Anon, anon, sir.

P. Hen. That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman!-His industry is-up-stairs, and down-stairs; his eloquence, the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the north; he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands and says to his wife,--Fye upon this quiet life! I want work. O my sweet Harry, says she, how many hast thou killed to day? Give my roan horse a drench, says he; and answers, Some fourteen, an hour after; a trifle, a trifle. I pr'ythee, call in Falstaff; I'll play Percy, and that damned brawn shall play dame Mortimer his wife. Rivo, says the drunkard. Call in ribs,

call in tallow.

Enter FALSTAFF, GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and PETO. Poins. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?

Fal. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too marry, and amen!-Give me a cup of sack, boy. -Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew nether-stocks, and mend them, and foot them too. A plague of all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, rogue.-Is there no virtue extant? [He drinks.

P. Hen. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter? pitiful-hearted Titan, that melted at the sweet tale of the son !9 if thou did'st, then behold that compound.

Fal. You rogue, here's lime in this sack too: There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man: Yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it; a

[7] The drawer's answer had interrupted the train of the Prince's discourse. He was proceeding thus, "I am now of all humours that have shew. ed themselves humoursI am not yet of Percy's mind,”—that is, I am willing to indulge myself in gaiety and frolick, and try all the varieties of human life. "I am not yet of Percy's mind," who thinks all the time lost that is not spent in bloodshed, forgets decency and civility, and has nothing but the barren talk of a brutal soldier. JOHNS. [8] Ribi, that is, drink. HANMER.

[9] Our author might have written-pitiful-hearted Titan, who melted at the sweet tale of his son; i. e. of Phaeton, who, by a plausible story, won on the easy nature of his father so far, as to obtain from him the guidance of his own chariot for a day.

STEEV.

[1] Sack, the favourite beverage of Sir John Falstaff, was, according to the information of a very old gentleman, a liquor compounded of sherry,

villainous coward.-Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhanged in England; and one of them is fat, and grows old: God help the while a bad world, I say! I would, I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or any thing:2 A plague of all cowards, I say still.

P. Hen. How now, wool-sack? what mutter you?

Fal. A king's son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You prince of Wales !

P. Hen. Why, you whoreson round man! what's the matter?

Fal. Are you not a coward? answer me to that; and Poins there?

Poins. 'Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, I'll stab thee.

Fal. I call thee coward! I'll see thee damned ere I call thee coward but I would give a thousand pound, I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back: Call you that backing of your friends? a plague upon such backing give me them that will face me.-Give me a cup of sack:-I am a rogue, if I drunk to day.

P. Hen. O villain! thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drunk'st last.

Fal. All's one for that. A plague of all cowards still, say I. [He drinks.

P. Hen. What's the matter?

Fal. What's the matter? there be four of us here have ta'en a thousand pound this morning.

P. Hen. Where is it, Jack? where is it?

Fal. Where is it? taken from us it is: a hundred upon poor four of us.

P. Hen. What, a hundred, man?

Fal. I am a rogue, if I were not at half-sword with a

cyder, and sugar. Sometimes it should seem to have been brewed with eggs, i. e. mulled. And that the vintners played tricks with it, appears from Falstaff's charge in the text. It does not seem to be at present known; the sweet wine so called, being apparently of a quite different nature. RITSON. [2] In the persecution of the protestants in Flanders under Philip II. those who came over into England on that occasion, brought with them the woollen manufactory. These were Calvinists, who were always distinguished for their love of Psalmody. WARB.

dozen of them two hours together. I have 'scap'd by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet; four, through the hose; my buckler cut through and through; my sword hacked like a hand-saw, ecce signum. I never dealt better since I was a man: all would not do. A plague of all cowards !-Let them speak if they speak more or less than truth, they are villains, and the sons of darkness.

P. Hen. Speak, sirs; how was it?
Gade. We four set upon some dozen,-
Fal. Sixteen, at least, my lord.
Gads. And bound them.

Peto. No, no, they were not bound.

Fal. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them; or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew.3

Gads. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us,

Fal. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other. P. Hen. What, fought ye with them all?

Fal. All? I know not what ye call, all; but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish: if there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legged creature.

Poins. Pray God, you have not murdered some of them.

Fal. Nay, that's past praying for: for I have peppered two of them: two, I am sure, I have paid; two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal,—if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward ;-here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me,

P. Hen. What, four? thou said'st but two even now. Fal. Four, Hal; I told thee four.

Poins. Ay, ay, he said four.

Fal. These four came all a-front, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus.

P. Hen. Seven? Why,there were but four, even now. Fal. In buckram.

Poins. Ay, four, in buckram suits.

Fal. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.

[3] The natives of Palestine were called Hebrews, by way of distinction from the stranger Jerus denominated Greeks. STEEV.

P. Hen. Pr'ythee, let him alone; we shall have more

anon.

Fal. Dost thou hear me, Hal?

P. Hen. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.

Fal. Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in buckram, that I told thee of,

P. Hen. So, two more already.
Fal. Their points being broken,-
Poins. Down fell their hose. 4

Fal. Began to give me ground: But I followed me close, came in foot and hand; and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid.

P. Hen. O monstrous! eleven buckram men grown out of two!

Fal. But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves, in Kendal5 green, came at my back, and let drive at me ;-for it was so dark, Hal, that thou could'st not see thy hand.

P. Hen. These lies are like the father that begets them; gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brained guts; thou knotty-pated fool; thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-keech,

Fal. What, art thou mad? art thou mad? is not the truth, the truth?

P. Hen. Why, how could'st thou know these men in Kendal green, when it was so dark thou could'st not see thy hand? come tell us your reason; What sayest thou to this?

Poins. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.

Fal. What, upon compulsion? No; were I at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion! if reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.

[4] To understand Poins's joke, the double meaning of point must be remembered, which signifies the sharp end of a weapon, and the lace of a garment. The cleanly phrase for letting down the hose, ad levandum alvum, was, to untruss a point. JOHNS.

[5] Kendal in Westmoreland, is a place famous for making cloths, and dying them with several bright colours.

STEEV.

[6] A keech of tallow is the fat of an ox or cow rolled up by the butcher in a round lump, in order to be carried to the chandler. It is the proper word in use now. PERCY.

A keech is what is called a tallow-loaf in Sussex, and in its form resembles the rotundity of a fat man's belly. COLLINS.

[7] The strappado is when the person is drawn up to his height, and then suddenly to let him fall half way with a jerk, which not only breaketh his arms to pieces, but also shaketh all his joints out of joint. STEEV.