and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing-lay by; and spent with crying -bring in 5: now, in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder; and, by and by, in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.

Fal. By the Lord, thou say'st true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench? P. Hen. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And is not a buff jerkin, a most sweet robe of durance??

4 To lay by is to be still. It occurs again in King Henry VIII.:

Even the billows of the sea

Hung their heads, and then lay by.'

Steevens says that it is a term adopted from navigation.

5 i. e. bring in more wine.'

6 Old lad of the castle. This passage has been supposed to have a reference to the name of Sir John Oldcastle. Rowe says that there was a tradition that the part of Falstaff was originally written by Shakspeare under that name. Fuller, in his Church History, book iv. p. 168, mentions this change in the following manner Stage poets have themselves been very bold with, and others very merry at, the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a boon companion, a jovial royster, and a coward to boot. The best is, Sir John Falstaff hath relieved the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of late is substituted buffoon in his place.' In confirmation of this, it may be remarked

7 The buff, or leather jerkin, was the common habit of a serjeant, or sheriff's officer, and is called a robe of durance on that account, as well as for its durability: an equivoke is intended, In the Comedy of Errors, Act iv. Sc. 2, it is called an everlasting garment. Durance might also have signified some lasting kind of stuff, such as is at present called everlasting. Thus, in Westward Hoe, 1607, Where did'st thou buy this buff? Let me live but I will give thee a good suit of durance. Wilt thou take my bond, &c.' Again, in The Devil's Charter, 1607, Varlet of velvet, my moccado villain, old heart of durance, my strip'd canvas shoulders, and my perpetuana pander.' And in The Three Ladies of London, 1584,As the taylor that out of seven yards stole one and a half of durance.' Sir T. Cornwalleys, in his Essays, says, 'I refuse to weare buffe for the lasting; and shall I be content to apparell my braine in durance.'

Fal. How now, how now, mad wag? what, in thy quips, and thy quiddities? what a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?

P. Hen. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?

Fal. Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning, many a time and oft.

P. Hen. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part? Fal. No; I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.

P. Hen. Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin

that one of Falstaff's speeches in the first edition has Old. instead
of Falst. prefixed to it: and in the epilogue to the Second Part
of King Henry IV. the poet makes a kind of retractation for
having made too free with Sir John Oldcastle's name—' Where,
for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless he be
killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and
this is not the man.' Add to this, that Nathaniel Field, in his
Amends for Ladies, 1618, alludes to Falstaff's definition of honour
in the following words, which he attributes to Oldcastle:-
Did you never see

The play where the fat knight, hight Oldcastle,
Did tell you truly what this honour was.'

Field, who was a player, was hardly likely to have been mistaken, or to have confounded characters. It is true that in the old play of King Henry V. which had been exhibited before 1589, Sir John Oldcastle is a character, and fills the place of Falstaff as companion to the prince in his revels and his robberies. But as Shakspeare took the hint from the old play, why might he not take the name also? and change it when he found that he was injuring a worthy person; or at the instance of the queen (as it has been said) out of respect to the memory of Lord Cobham. Weaver describes Oldcastle, as Shakspeare does Falstaff, to have been the page of Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk: and Oldcastle is alluded to as the fat knight in other old books. Against the weight of all this evidence Steevens and Malone have contended; but, as Reed justly observes, they have opposed conjecture and inference alone-conjecture very ingeniously suggested, and inference very subtilly extracted; but weighing nothing against what is equivalent to positive evidence.' The reader will find the whole voluminous controversy at the end of the First Part of King Henry IV. in Boswell's edition.

would stretch; and where it would not, I have used credit.

my

Fal. Yea, and so used it, that were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent,—But, I pr'ythee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? and resolution thus fobbed as it is, with the rusty curb of old father antick the law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.

P. Hen. No; thou shalt.

Fal. Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I'll be a brave judge.

P. Hen. Thou judgest false already; I mean, thou shalt have the hanging of the thieves, and so become a rare hangman.

Fal. Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my humour, as well as waiting in the court, I can tell you.

P. Hen. For obtaining of suits?

Fal. Yea, for obtaining of suits: whereof the hangman hath no lean wardrobe. 'Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib3 cat, or a lugged bear.

P. Hen. Or an old lion; or a lover's lute.

Fal. Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe 9.

8 A gib cat is a male cat, from Gilbert, the northern name for a he cat. Tom cat is now the usual term. Chaucer has gibbe our cat' in the Romaunt of the Rose, as a translation of Thibert le chas.' From Thibert, Tib was also a common name for a cat. Ray has this proverbial phrase,' as melancholy as a gib'd cat.' In Sherwood's English and French Dictionary we have a gibbe (or old male cat) Macou.' It was certainly a name not bestowed upon a cat early in life, as we may be assured by the melancholy character ascribed to it. It did not mean, as some have imagined, a castrated cat.

6

9 Lincolnshire bagpipes' is a proverbial saying, the allusion is as yet unexplained. Perhaps it was a favourite instrument in that county, as well as in the north.

10

P. Hen. What sayest thou to a hare1o, or the melancholy of Moor-ditch 11?

Fal. Thou hast the most.unsavoury similes: and art, indeed, the most comparative 12, rascalliest,sweet young prince,-But, Hal, I pr'ythee, trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God, thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought: An old lord of the council rated me the other day in the street about you, sir; but I marked him not: and yet he talk'd very wisely; but I regarded him not: and yet he talk'd wisely, and in the street too.

P. Hen. Thou did'st well; for wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it 13.

Fal. O thou hast damnable iteration 14; and art,

10 The hare was esteemed a melancholy animal, from her soli tary sitting in her form; and, according to the physic of the times, the flesh of it was supposed to generate melancholy. So in Vittoria Corombona, 1612:

- like your melancholy hare,

Feed after midnight.'

And in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song II :

The melancholy hare is form'd in brakes and briars.' Pierius, in his Hieroglyphics, lib. xii. says that the Egyptians expressed melancholy by a hare sitting in her form.

11 Moor-ditch, a part of the ditch surrounding the city of London, between Bishopsgate and Cripplegate, opened to an unwholesome, impassable morass, and was consequently not frequented by the citizens, like other suburbial fields, and therefore had an air of melancholy. Thus in Taylor's Pennylesse Pilgrimage, 1618-'my body being tired with travel, and my mind attired with moody muddy, Moore-ditch melancholy.'

12 Comparative, this epithet, which is used here for one who is fond of making comparisons, occurs again in Act iii. Sc. 2, of this play:

'stand the push

Of every beardless vain comparative.'

In Love's Labour's Lost, Rosalind tells Biron that he is a man 'full of comparisons and wounding flouts.'

13 This is a scriptural expression. See Proverbs, i. 20 and 24. 14 i. e. thou hast a wicked trick of repetition, and (by thy misapplication of holy texts) art indeed able to corrupt a saint.

indeed, able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal,-God forgive thee for it! Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over; by the Lord, an I do not, I am a villain; I'll be damned for never a king's son in Christendom.

P. Hen. Where shall we take a purse to-morrow, Jack?

Fal. Where thou wilt, lad, I'll make one; an I do not, call me villain, and baffle 15 me.

P. Hen. I see a good amendment of life in thee: from praying, to purse-taking.

Enter POINS, at a distance.

Fal. Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal; 'tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation. Poins!Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a match 16. O, if men were to be saved by merit, what hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the most omnipotent villain, that ever cried, Stand, to a true 17

man.

P. Hen. Good morrow, Ned.

Poins. Good morrow, sweet Hal.-What says

15 To baffle is to use contemptuously, or treat with ignominy; to unknight. It was originally a punishment of infamy inflicted on recreant knights, one part of which was hanging them up by the heels. Hall, in his Chronicle, p. 40, mentions it as still practised in Scotland. Something of the same kind is implied in a subsequent scene, where Falstaff says: hang me up by the heels for a rabbit sucker, or a poulterer's hare.' See King Richard II. Act i. Sc. i. p. 8.

16 To set a match is to make an appointment. So in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, Peace, sir, they'll be angry if they hear you eaves dropping, now they are setting their match. The folio reads set a watch; match is the reading of the quarto.

17 Honest.