the noble: Therefore let me have right, and let desert

mount.

P. John. Thine 's too heavy to mount.

Fal. Let it shine then.

P. John. Thine 's too thick to shine.

Fal. Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me good, and call it what you will.

P. John. Is thy name Colevile?1

Cole.
It is, my lord.
P. John. A famous rebel art thou, Colevile.
Fal. And a famous true subject took him.
Cole. I am, my lord, but as my betters are,
That led me hither: had they been rul'd by me,
You should have won them dearer than you have.

Fal. I know not how they sold themselves: but thou, like a kind fellow, gavest thyself away: and I thank thee for thee.

Re-enter WESTMORELAND.

P. John. Now, have you left pursuit?

West. Retreat is made, and execution stay'd.

P. John. Send Colevile, with his confederates, To York, to present execution:

Blunt, lead him hence; and see you guard him sure. [Exeunt some with Co

And now despatch we toward the court, my lords;

I hear, the king my father is sore sick:

Our news shall go before us to his majesty,-
Which, cousin, you shall bear,-to comfort him;
And we with sober speed will follow you.

Fal. My lord, I beseech you, give me leave to go through Glostershire: and, when you come to court, stand my good lord, 'pray, in your good report.2

1 Colevile?] From the present seeming deficiency in the structure of this and the two subsequent lines containing Colevile's name, and from the manner in which it is repeatedly spelt in the old copies, viz. Collevile, I suspect it was designed to be pronounced as a trisyllable. Steevens.

2 stand my good lord, 'pray, in your good report] We must either read, pray let me stand, or, by a construction somewhat harsh, understand it thus: Give me leave to go-and-stand―. To stand in a report, referred to the reporter, is to persist; and Falstaff did not ask the prince to persist in his present opinion.

Johnson

P. John. Fare you well, Falstaff: I, in my condition, Shall better speak of you than you deserve.3

[Exit.

Stand my good lord, I believe, means only stand my good friend, (an expression still in common use) in your favourable report of me. So, in The Taming of the Shrew:

"I pray you, stand good father to me now."

Again, in King Lear:

conjuring the moon

"To stand his auspicious mistress."

Mr. M. Mason observes that the same phrase occurs in Ben Jonson's Case is altered, where Onion says to Chamont:

"Monsieur Chamont, stand you my honour'd Sir." Steevens. Mr. Steevens is certainly right. In a former scene of this play, the Hostess says to the Chief Justice, "good my lord, be good unto me; I beseech you, stand to me." Though an equivoque may have been there intended, yet one of the senses conveyed by this expression in that place is the same as here. So, in Cymbeline:

"Be my good lady."

Again, more appositely, in Coriolanus :

his gracious nature "Would think upon you for Standing your friendly lord."

Again, in The Spanish Tragedy :

66

What would he with us?

"He writes us here-

"To stand good lord, and help him in distress." Malone. Stand is here the imperative word, as give is before. Stand my good lord, i. e. be my good patron and benefactor. Be my good lord was the old court phrase used by a person who asked a favour of a man of high rank So, in a letter to the Earl of Northumberland, (printed in the Appendix to The Northumberland Houshold Book) he desires that Cardinal Wolsey would so far "be his good lord," as to empower him to imprison a person who had defrauded him. Percy.

3- I, in my condition,

Shall better speak of you than you deserve.] I know not well the meaning of the word condition in this place; I believe it is the same with temper of mind: I shall, in my good nature, speak better of you than you merit. Johnson.

I believe it means, I, in my condition, i. e. in my place as commanding officer, who ought to represent things merely as they are, shall speak of you better than you deserve.

So, in The Tempest, Ferdinand says:

I am, in my condition,

"A prince, Miranda

Dr. Johnson's explanation, however, seems to be countenanced by Gower's address to Pistol, in K. Henry V, Act V, sc. i: "- - let a Welsh correction teach you a good English condition." Steevens.

6

Fal. I would, you had but the wit; 'twere better than your dukedom.4-Good faith, this same young soberblooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh;5-but that 's no marvel, he drinks no wine. There's never any of these demure boys come to any proof: for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness; and then, when they marry, they get wenches: they are generally fools and cowards;which some of us should be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish, and dull, and crudy vapours which environ it: makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive,1 full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes; which delivered o'er to the voice, (the tongue) which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is,—the warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice: but the sherris warms it, and makes it

4

your dukedom.] He had no dukedom. See Vol. VIII, p. 144. Ritson.

5

this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh;] Falstaff here speaks like a veteran in life. The young prince did not love him, and he despaired to gain his affection, for he could not make him laugh. Men only become friends by community of pleasures. He who cannot be softened into gaiety, cannot easily be melted into kindness.

Johnson. 6 to any proof:] i. e. any confirmed state of manhood. The allusion is to armour hardened till it abides a certain trial. So, in King Richard II:

"Add proof unto my armour with thy prayers." Steevens. sherris-sack -] See a former note, Vol. VIII, p. 166, n. 9. Malone.

7

8 It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the crudy vapours ] This use of the pronoun is a familiar redundancy among our old writers. So Latimer, p. 91: "Here cometh me now these holy fathers from their counsels."-"There was one wiser than the rest, and he comes me to the bishop." Edit. 1575, p. 75. Bowle.

9

apprehensive,] i. e. quick to understand. Steevens.

2 -forgetive,] Forgetive from forge; inventive, imaginative. Johnson.

course from the inwards to the parts extreme. It illumineth the face; which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm: and then the vital commoners, and inland petty spirits, muster me all to their captain, the heart; who, great, and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour comes of sherris: So that skill in the weapon is nothing, without sack: for that sets it a-work: and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil; 2 till sack commences it,3 and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it, that prince Harry is valiant: for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, steril, and bare land, manured, husbanded, and tilled, with excellent endeavour of drinking good, and good store of fertile sherris; that he is become very hot, and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them, should be,-to forswear thin potations, and addict themselves to sack.

2

4

kept by a devil;] It was anciently supposed that all the mines of gold, &c. were guarded by evil spirits. So, in Certaine Secrete Wonders of Nature, &c. bl. I. by Edward Fenton, 1569: "There appeare at this day many strange visions and wicked spirites in the metal-mines of the Greate Turke-." "In the mine at Anneburg was a mettal sprite which killed twelve workemen; the same causing the rest to forsake the myne, albeit it was very riche." P. 91.

3

Steevens.

till sack commences it,] I believe, till sack gives it a beginning, brings it into action. Mr. Heath would read commerces it. Steevens.

It seems probable to me, that Shakspeare, in these words, alludes to the Cambridge Commencement; and in what follows to the Oxford Act: for by those different names our two universities have long distinguished the season, at which each of them gives to her respective students a complete authority to use those hoards of learning which have entitled them to their several degrees in arts, law, physick, and divinity. Tyrwhitt.

So, in The Roaring Girl, 1611:

"Then he is held a freshman and a sot,
"And never shall commence.”

Again, in Pasquil's Jests, or Mother Bunch's Merriments, 1604: "A doctor that was newly commenst at Cambridge," &c.

Again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, 1596: Commence, commence, I admonish thee; thy merits are ripe for it, and there have been doctors of thy facul tie." Steevens.

to forswear thin potations,] In the preference given by

Enter BARDOLPH.

How now, Bardolph ?

Bard. The army is discharged all, and gone.

Fal. Let them go. I'll through Glostershire; and there will I visit master Robert Shallow, esquire: I have him already tempering between my finger and my thumb,5 and shortly will I seal with him. Come away. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

Westminster. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King HENRY, CLARENCE, Prince HUMPHREY, WARWICK, and Others.

K. Hen. Now, lords, if heaven doth give successful end To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,

Falstaff to sack, our author seems to have spoken the sentiments of his own time. In the Ordinances of the Household of King James I, dated in 1604, (the second year of his reign) is the following article: "And whereas in times past Spanish wines called sacke, were little or no whit used in our court, and that in late yeares, though not of ordinary allowance, &c.-we understanding that it is used as comon drinke and served at meales, as an ordinary to every meane officer, contrary to all order, using it rather for wantonesse and surfeiting, than for necessity, to a great wastefull expence," &c.

Till the above mentioned period, the "thin potations" complained of by Falstaff, had been the common beverage. See the Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household, &c. published by the Antiquary Society, 4to. 1790.

The ancient and genuine Sherry was a dry wine, and therefore fit to be drank with sugar. What we now use is in some degree sweetened by art, and therefore affords no adequate idea of the liquor that was Falstaff's favourite. Steevens.

5 I have him already tempering &c.] A very pleasant allusion to the old use of sealing with soft wax. Warburton.

This custom is likewise alluded to in Any Thing for a quiet Life, 1662, a comedy, by Middleton:

"You must temper him like wax, or he 'll not seal." Again, in Your Five Gallants, by Middleton, no date:

"Fetch a pennyworth of soft wax to seal letters.”

Steevens.

In our poet's Venus and Adonis, there is an allusion to the same

custom:

"What wax so frozen but dissolves with tempering,
"And yields at last to every light impression!" Malone.