Ost. [Within.] Anon, anon.

1 Car. I pr'ythee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in the point; the poor Jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.'

Enter another Carrier.

2 Car. Peas and beans are as dank' here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots:3 this house is turned upside down, since Robin ostler died.

1 Car. Poor fellow! never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was the death of him.

2 Car. I think, this be the most villanous house in all London road for fleas : I am stung like a tench.

1 Car. Like a tench? by the mass, there is ne'er a king in Christendom could be better bit than I have been since the first cock.

2 Car. Why, they will allow us ne'er a jorden, and then we leak in your chimney; and your chamber-lie breeds fleas like a loach.*

1 Car. What, ostler! come away and be hanged, come away.

2 Car. I have a gammon of bacon, and two razes of ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing-cross.

5

I Car. 'Odsbody! the turkies in my pannier are quite starved. What, ostler!-A plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy head? canst not hear? An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to break the pate of thee, I am a very villain.-Come, and be hanged :-Hast no faith in thee?

[1] Out of all cess, means out of all measure: the phrase being taken from a cess, a tax or subsidy; which being by regular and moderate rates, when any thing was exorbitant or out of measure, it was said to be out of all cess. WARBURTON.

[2] Dank, i. e. wet, rotten. POPE.

[3] Bots are worms in the stomach of a horse.

JOHNSON.

[4] The loach is a very small fish, but so exceedingly prolific, that it is seldom found without spawn in it; and it was formerly a practice of the young gallants to swallow loaches in wine, because they were considered as invigorating, and apt to communicate their prolific quality. The carrier therefore means to say, that your chamber-lie breeds fleas as fast as a loach" breeds, not fleas, but loaches. MASON.

A passage in Coriolanus likewise may be produced in support of the interpretation here given :-" and he no more remembers his mother than an eight-year-old horse" i. e. than an eight year old horse remembers his dam. MALONE.

[5] As our author in several passages mentions a race of ginger, I thought proper to distinguish it from the raze mentioned here. The former signifies no more than a single root of it, but a rase is the Indian term for a bale of it. THEO

Enter GADSHILL

Gads. Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock ? 1 Car. I think it be two o'clock.

6

Gads. I pr'ythee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable.

1 Car. Nay, soft, I pray ye; I know a trick worth two of that, i'faith.

Gads. I pr'ythee, lend me thine.

2 Car. Ay, when? canst tell?-Lend me thy lantern, quoth a ?-marry, I'll see thee hanged first.

Gads. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?

2 Car. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.-Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call up the gentlemen; they will along with company, for they have great charge. [Exeunt Carriers.

Gads. What, ho! chamberlain !

Cham. [Within.] At hand, quoth pick-purse.

Gads. That's even as fair as-at hand, quoth the chamberlain for thou variest no more from picking of purses, than giving direction doth from labouring; thou lay'st the plot how.

Enter Chamberlain.

Cham. Good morrow, master Gadshill. It holds current, that I told you yesternight: There's a franklin' in the wild of Kent, hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold: I heard him tell it to one of his company, last night at supper; a kind of auditor; one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call for eggs and butter: They will away presently.

Gads. Sirrah, if they meet not with saint Nicholas' clerks, I'll give thee this neck.

Cham. No, I'll none of it: I pr'ythee keep that for the hangman; for, I know, thou worship'st saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may.

Gads. What talkest thou to me of the hangman? if I hang, I'll make a fat pair of gallows: for, if I hang, old

[6] The carrier, who suspected Gadshill, strives to mislead him as to the hour, because the first observation made in this scene is, that it was four o'clock. STEEVENS.

[7] A franklin is a freeholder. M. MASON.

[8] St. Nicholas was the patron saint of scholars: and Nicholas, or old Nick is a cant name for the devil. Hence he equivocally calls robbers, St. Nicholas's clerks. WARBURTON.

sir John hangs with me; and, thou knowest, he's no starveling. Tut! there are other Trojans that thou dreamest not of, the which, for sport sake, are content to do the profession some grace; that would, if matters should be looked into, for their own credit sake, make all whole. I am joined with no foot land-rakers," no longstaff, sixpenny strikers; none of these mad, mustachio purple-hued malt-worms: but with nobility, and tranquillity; burgomasters, and great oneyers;' such as can hold in; such as will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray: And yet I lie; for they pray continually to their saint, the commonwealth; or, rather, not pray to her, but prey on her; for they ride up and down on her, and make her = their boots.

Cham. What, the commonwealth their boots? will she hold out water in foul way?

Gads. She will, she will; justice hath liquored her. We steal as in a castle, cock sure; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible.

Cham. Nay, by my faith; I think you are more beholden to the night, than to fern-seed, for your walking invisible.

Gads. Give me thy hand: thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as I am a true man.

5

Cham. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.

Gads. Go to; Homo is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave. [Exeunt.

[9] That is, with no padders, no wanderers on foot. No long-staff, sixpenny strikers,'-no fellows that infest the roads with long staffs and knock men down for six-pence. None of these mad mustachio purple-hued malt-worms,'-none of those whose faces are red with drinking ale. JOHNSON.

[1] Perhaps Shakespeare wrote onyers, that is, public accountants; men possessed of large sums of money belonging to the state.

MALONE.

[2] 'Such as can hold in,' may mean, such as can curb old father antic the law, or such as will not blab. STEEVENS.

[3] A satire on the chicane in the courts of justice; which supports ill men in their violations of the law, under the very cover of it. WARBURTON.

[4] Fern is one of those plants which have their seed on the back of the leaf so small as to escape the sight. Those who perceived that fern was propagated by semination, and yet could never see the seed, were much at a loss for the solution of the difficuly; and as wonder always endeavours to augment itself, they ascribed to fern-seed many strange properties, some of which the rustic virgins have not yet forgotten or exploded. JOHNSON.

JOHNSON

[5] Purchase is the term used in law for any thing not inherited but acquired. Anciently the cant term for stolen gods.

13

STEEVENS.

SCENE II.

Th road by Gadshill. Enter Prince HENRY and POINS = BARDOLPH and PETO, at some distance.

Poins. Come, shelter, shelter; I have removed Falstaff's horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet.

P. Hen. Stand close.

Enter FALSTAFF.

Fal. Poins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins!

P. Hen. Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal; What a brawling dost thou keep?

Fal. Where's Poins, Hal?

P. Hen. He is walked up to the top of the hill; I'll go seek him. [Pretends to seek POINS. Fal. I am accursed to rob in that thief's company: the rascal hath removed my horse, and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the squire further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I 'scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; it could not be else; I have drunk medicines.-Poins !Hala plague upon you both!-Bardolph !-Peto !—I'll starve, ere I'll rob a foot further. An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground, is three-score and ten miles afoot with me; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough: A plague upon't, when thieves cannot be true to one another! [They whistle.] Whew!-A plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues; give me my horse, and be hanged.

P. Hen. Peace, ye fat-guts! lie down; lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers.

Fal. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? 'Sblood, I'll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again, for all the coin in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt' me thus ?

[6] Alluding to the vulgar notion of love-powder.

JOHNSON.

[7] To colt, is to fool, to trick; but the prince taking it in another sense, opposes it by uncolt, that is unhorse.

JOHNSON.

P. Hen. Thou liest, thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.

Fal. I pr'ythee, good prince Hal, help me to my horse; good king's son.

P. Hen. Out, you rogue! shall I be your ostler!

Fal. Go, hang thyself in thy own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison: When a jest is so forward, and afoot too, I hate it.

Gads. Stand.

Enter GADSHill.

Fal. So I do, against my will.

Poins. O, 'tis our setter: I know his voice.

Enter BARDOlph.

Bard. What news?

Gads. Case ye, case ye; on with your visors; there's money of the king's coming down the hill; 'tis going to the king's exchequer.

Fal. You lie, you rogue; 'tis going to the king's tav

ern.

Gads. There's enough to make us all.

Fal. To be hanged.

P. Hen. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned Poins, and I will walk lower: if they 'scape from your encounter, then they light on us.

Peto. How many be there of them?

Gads. Some eight, or ten.

Fal. Zounds! will they not rob us?

P. Hen. What, a coward, sir John Paunch?

Fal. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet no coward, Hal.

P. Hen. Well, we leave that to the proof.

Poins. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge; when thou needest him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast.

Fal. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged.
P. Hen. Ned, where are our disguises?

Poins. Here, hard by ; stand close.

[Exeunt P. HENRY and POINS.

[8] Alluding to the order of the garter, in which he was enrolled as heir-apparent.

JOHNSON.