number; you must have but four here, sir;and so, I pray you go in with me to dinner.

Fal. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry dinner. I am glad to see you, in good troth, master Shallow.

Shal. O, sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in St. George's field.

Fal. No more of that, good master Shallow, no more of that.

Shal. Ha, it was a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?

Fal. She lives, master Shallow.

Shal. She never could away with me."

Fal. Never, never: she would always say she could not abide master Shallow.

Shal. By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?

Fal. Old, old, master Shallow.

Shal. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old; certain, she's old; and had Robin Nightwork by old Nightwork, before I came to Clement's inn.

Sil. That's fifty-five years ago.

Shal. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen!-Ha, sir John, said I well?

Fal. We have heard the chimes at midnight, master Shallow.

Shal. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, sir John, we have; our watchword was 'Hem, boys!'—Come, let's to dinner; come, let's to dinner :-O, the days that we have seen!-Comc, come.

[Exeunt FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, and SILENCE. Bull. Good master corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and here is four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief be hanged, sir, as go and yet, for mine own part, sir, I do not care: but, rather, because I am unwilling, aud, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much. Bard. Go to; stand aside.

Moul. And good master corporal captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do anything about her, when I am

She never, &c. This is still a common colioquial expression; but it was not obsolete or inelegant in the time of Locke, who, in the "Conduct of the Understanding," says, "with those alone he converses, and can away with no company whose discourse goes beyond what claret or dissoluteness inspires." This expression of dislike was familiar to all the writers of Shakspere's time. In Ben Jonson, (Bartholomew Fair) we have, "I could never away with that stiff-necked generation."

gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself: you shall have forty, sir."

Bard. Go to; stand aside.

Fee. I care not;-a man can die but once: We owe a death;-I will never bear a base mind:-if it be my destiny, so; if it be not, so: No man's too good to serve his prince; and, let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.

Bard. Well said; thou art a good fellow.
Fee. Nay, I'll bear no base mind.

b

Fal. Mouldy, and Bull-calf:-For you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service; and, for your part, Bull-calf grow till you come unto it; I will none of you.

Shal. Sir John, sir John, do not yourself wrong; they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.

Fal. Will you tell me, master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit, master Shallow.-Here's Wart-you see what a ragged appearance it is: he shall charge you, and discharge you, with the motion of a pewterer's hammer; come off, and on, swifter than he that gibbets-on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow,-give me this man; he presents no mark to the enemy; the foe-man may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife: And, for a retreat, how swiftly will this Fecble, the woman's tailor, run off? O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph.

a Forly, sir. Bull-calf had bribed Bardolph with "four Harry ten shillings." Mouldy says, "you shall have forty, sir" the same sum-forty shillings. Capell ingeniously proposes to read, four, too, sir.

Till you are past service. So the old copies. Tyrwhitt changed the text into, stay at home still: you are past service;-by which change he very happily contrived to spoil the antithesis.

c Caliver. The caliver was smaller than the musket, and was fired without a rest. Wart, the "little, lean, old, chapped" fellow, was armed with a light piece, which he was able to manage.

Shal. He is not his craft's-master, he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-end green, (when I lay at Clement's inn,-I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show,) there was a little quiver fellow, and he would manage you his piece thus and he would about, and about, and come you in, and come you in: rah, tah, tuh, would he say; bounce, would he say; and away again would he go, and again would he come :—I shall never see such a fellow.

Fal. These fellows will do well, master Shallow.—Farewell, master Silence; I will not use many words with you:-Fare you well, gentlemen both I thank you: I must a dozen mile to-night.-Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.

Shal Sir John, heaven bless you, and prosper your affairs, and send us peace! As you return, visit my house; let our old acquaintance be renewed: peradventure, I will with you to the

court.

Fal. I would you would, master Shallow. Shal. Go to; I have spoke at a word. Fare you well. [Exeunt SHALLOW and SILENCE. Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. On, Bardolph; lead the men away. [Exeunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, &c.] As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do see the bottom of justice Shallow. How subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same starved justice hath lone nothing but prate to me of the wildness of

a Quirer, nimble.

his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull-street; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's-inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: he was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invincible: " he was the very genius of famine; he came ever in the rear-ward of the fashion; [and sung those tunes to the over-scutched huswifes that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his fancies, or his good-nights.]—And now is this Vice's dagger' become a squire; and talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and I'll be sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head, for crowding among the marshal's men. I saw it; and told John of Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have truss'd him, and all his apparel, into an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for nim, a court; and now hath he land and beeves. Well; I will be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall go hard, but I will make him a philosopher's two stones to me: If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason, in the law of nature, but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.

[Exil.

a Invincible. Steevens and others read invisible. Maone properly held to the old reading, and so did Capell before him. The meaning is-his dimensions were such that thick sight could not master them.

b Two stones. The alchemists had two stones,--or, as is expressed by Churchyard, "a stone for gold," and "a stone for health." But Falstaff perhaps means, that Shallow should be worth two philosopher's stones to him Zachary Jackson would read, "a philosopher's true stone."

1 SCENE II.-" Skogan's head."

WHO was Skogan? has produced as fierce a controversy, if not so elaborate, as, Who wrote 'Icon Basilike'? It seems there were two Skogans; the one,

"A fine gentleman, and master of arts,

Of Henry the Fourth's time, that made disguises
For the king's sons, and writ in ballad-royal
Daintily well."

This was Henry Skogan, usually called moral Skogan; and Ben Jonson's brief description of him, given above, will, no doubt, be sufficient for our readers. The other was John Skogan, of the time of Edward IV., who is thus described by Holinshed:"A learned gentleman, and student for a time in Oxford, of a pleasant wit, and bent to merry devises, in respect whereof he was called into the court, where, giving himself to his natural inclination of mirth and pleasant pastime, he played many sporting parts, although not in such uncivil manner as hath been of him reported." Shakspere, say the commentators, committed an anachronism, in describing Skogan the jester as having his head broken by Falstaff. No doubt. All that Shakspere meant to convey was, the name of a buffoon, whose freedoms were thus punished; and the jests of Skogan, the Joe Miller of Shakspere's time, was a book with which the poet's audience would be familiar.

That is true. In 1411, the price of a sheep is stated at 1s. 10d., but in Shakspere's own time, the price varies from 68. 8d. to 15s. The local and temporary allusions throughout Shakspere, of course, refer to matters of his own day.

3 SCENE II." A soldier-like word."

Ben Jonson, in his "Discoveries," (a valuable collection of his miscellaneous remarks,) says, "You are not to cast a ring for the perfumed terms of the time, as accommodation, complement, spirit, &c., but use them properly in their place, as others." Every age has its "perfumed terms,"-words that originate in fashionable society, and descend to the vulgar like cast-off clothes. Shakspere could not render accommodate more ridiculous than to put it into the mouth of Bardolph, and make that worthy maintain it "to be a soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good command." Jonson, in 'Every Man in his Humour,' gives us an example of the fantastic use of the word :-"Hostess, accommodate us with another bed-staff here quickly. Lend us another bed-staff-the woman does not understand the words of action."

SCENE II. "I remember at Mile-end green (when I lay at Clement's inn), I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show, there was," &c.

This passage was formerly pointed thus:-"I remember at Mile-end green, (when I lay at Clement's inn, I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show,) there was," &c. It was considered by the editors, and by Warton especially, that Arthur's show was acted at Clement's inn, of which society Shallow was a member. It has, however, been found that a society for the exercise of archery, calling themselves Prince Arthur's Knights, existed

in Shakspere's time. This society, according to Richard Mulcaster, master of St. Paul's School (in a tract published in 1581 and 1587), was called, The Friendly and Frank Fellowship of Prince Arthur's Knights in and about the City of London.' That the members of the society personated characters in the romance of Arthur we learn from the same tract; for the author mentions Master Hugh Offley as Sir Launcelot, and Master Thomas Smith as Prince Arthur himself. Justice Shallow, might, therefore, very properly personate Sir Dagonet, King Arthur's fool; who, in the Morte d'Arthur, "seems to be introduced like a Shrove-tide cock, for the sake of being buffeted and abused by every one." (Gifford.) There is a proof of the ancient flourishing existence of The Fellowship of Prince Arthur's Knights,' to be found in the following passage of an old book, which gives a description of "a great show and shooting" in 1583. prince of famous memory, King Henry the Eighth, having read in the chronicles of England, and seen in his own time, how armies mixed with good archers have evermore so galled the enemy that it hath been great cause of the victory, he being one day at Mile-end, when Prince Arthur and his knights were there shooting, did greatly commend the game, and allowed thereof, lauding them to their encouragement." It appears also, from an exceedingly rare tract on this society of Prince

The

Arthur (1583), that King Henry VIII. confirmed by charter to the citizens of London the "famous order of Knights of Prince Arthur's Round Table, or society like as in his life time, when he saw a good archer indeed, he chose him, and ordained such a one for a knight of the same order." Henry VIII., like many other tyrants, was sometimes pleased to be jocose and familiar with his subjects; and in this spirit, he not only patronized the Knights of the Round Table, but created a celebrated archer of the name of Barlo, Duke of Shoreditch. The dukedom, it seems, was hereditary; and in 1583, the successor to the original duke had a Baron Stirrop in his court. Prince Arthar and the duke were on the most friendly terms; and a deputation from his highness, upon the day of Prince Arthur's shooting in 1583, presented a buck of that season "to Prince Arthur, who was at his tent, which was at Mile-end green." "The preceding representation of Arthur's show at Mile-end, is composed principally from descriptions in the rare tract we have already mentioned:-'Auncient order, societie and unitie laudable of Prince Arthure and his knightly armoury of the Round Table, with a threefold assertion friendly in favour and furtherance of English Archery at this day. 1583, 4to.; by Richard Robinson;'-and from The Bowman's Glory,' by William Wood.

and the dagger of lath (see Henry IV. Part I. page 190). The origin of the name Vice is involved in considerable obscurity. The subject is highly interesting, but we may more conveniently examine it under the passage in King Richard III. :-

6 SCENE II.-" Tilt-yard." In Aggas's Map of Westminster, drawn 1578, and in another by Norden, 1593, elevations of the tiltyard are given; and in Smith's Antiquities of Westminster, two old pictures are engraved "representing the most material part of St. James's Park, and many of the buildings, part of, or belonging to, the Palace of Whitehall as they were in the time of King Charles II." From these authorities the above represention has been chiefly composed, which exhibits the place as it may be supposed to have appeared from the park, on the occasion of a tilt in the time of Elizabeth. In the

centre, the tilt-yard is seen with its double tier of galleries for spectators; on the right, Holbein's celebrated gate; and on the left, the Old HorseGuards.

7 SCENE II." The case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him."

Formerly there were three kinds of hautboy,the treble, tenor, and bass. We have now but the first of these. The bassoon has superseded the last, and the other is a desideratum. Mersenne describes all three, and gives a wood-cut of each.