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Of all your dear offences!-Bear them hence.

[Exeunt Conspirators, guaredd.

Now, lords, for France; the enterprize whereof
Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.

We doubt not of a fair and lucky war;
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason, lurking in our way,
To hinder our beginnings, we doubt not now,
But every rub is smoothed on our way.
Then, forth, dear countrymen; let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition.

Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance:

No king of England, if not king of France," [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

London. Mrs. Quickly's House in Eastcheap. Enter PISTOL, Mrs. QUICKLY, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy.

Quick. Pr'ythee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

Pist. No; for my manly heart doth yearn.Bardolph, be blithe;-Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins; Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead, And we must yearn therefore.

Bard. 'Would, I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven, or in hell!

Quick. Nay, sure, he 's not in hell; he 's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom

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the signs of war advance:] So, in Phaer's translation of the first line of the eighth Book of the Æneid: Ut belli signum &c. "When signe of war from Laurent towres" &c. Steevens. 7 No king of England, if not king of France.] So, in the old play before that of Shakspeare:

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"If not king of France, then of nothing must I be king." Steevens.

let me bring thee to Staines.] i. e. let me attend, or ac

company thee. So, in Measure for Measure:

66 give me leave, my lord,

"That we may bring you something on the way." Reed,.
finer end,] For final. Johnson.

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child; 'a parted even just between twelve and one, e'en

Every man that dies, makes a final end; but Mrs. Quickly means to describe Falstaff's behaviour at his exit, as uncommonly placid. "He made a fine end," is at this day a vulgar expression, when any person dies with resolution and devotion. So Ophelia says of her father: "They say, he made a good end." M. Mason. Again, in Macbeth:

"They say, he parted well, and paid his score;
"And so God be with him!”

Our author has elsewhere used the comparative for the positive. See Macbeth, Vol. VII, p. 122, n. 2. Mrs. Quickly, however, needs no justification for not adhering to the rules of gram

mar.

What seems to militate against Dr. Johnson's interpretation is, that the word final, which he supposes to have been meant, is rather too learned for the Hostess. Malone.

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—an it had been any christom child;] The old quarto has it-crisomb'd child.

"The chrysom was no more than the white cloth put on the new baptised child." See Johnson's Canons of Eccles. Law, 1720.

I have somewhere (but cannot recollect where) met with this further account of it; that the chrysom was allowed to be carried out of the church, to enwrap such children as were in too weak a condition to be borne thither; the chrysom being supposed to make every place holy. This custom would rather strengthen the allusion to the weak condition of Falstaff.

The child itself was sometimes called a chrysom, as appears from the following passage in The Fancies Chaste and Noble, 1638: "the boy surely I ever said was a very chrisome in the thing you wot." Steevens.

In the Liturgy, 2 E. VI. Form of private Baptism, is this direction: "Then the minister shall put the white vesture, commonly called the chrisome, upon the child," &c. The Glossary of Du Cange, vide Chrismale, explains this ceremony thus: " Quippe olim ut et hodie, baptizatorum, statim atque chrismate in fronte ungebantur, ne chrisma de flueret, capita panno candido obvolvebantur, qui octava demum die ab iis auferebatur." During the time' therefore of their wearing this vesture, the children were, I suppose, called chrisomes. One is registered under this description in the register of Thatcham, Berks, 1605. (Hearne's Appendix to the History of Glastonbury, p. 275.) " A younge crisome being a man child, beinge found drowned," &c. Tyrwhitt.

The chrisom is properly explained as the white garment put upon the child at its baptism. And this the child wore till the time the mother came to be churched, who was then to offer it to the minister. So that, truly speaking, a chrisom child was one that died after it had been baptized, and before its mother was churched. Erroneously, however, it was used for children that die before they are baptized; and by this denomination such children

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-at turning o' the tide :2 for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his

were entered in the bills of mortality down to the year 1726. But have I not seen, in some edition, christom child? If that reading were supported by any copy of authority, I should like it much. It agrees better with my dame's enunciation, who was not very likely to pronounce a hard word with propriety, and who just be fore had called Abraham-Arthur. Whalley.

Mr. Whalley is right in his conjecture. The first folio reads christom. Blount, in his Glossography, 1678, says, that chrisoms in the bills of mortality are such children as die within the month of birth, because during that time they use to wear the chrisomcloth. Malone.

2 turning o' the tide:] It has been a very old opinion, which Mead, de imperio solis, quotes, as if he believed it, that nobody dies but in the time of ebb: half the deaths in London confute the notion; but we find that it was common among the women of the poet's time. Johnson.

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-fumble with the sheets,] This passage is burlesqued by Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Captain:

"1. How does my master?

"2. Faith, he lies drawing on apace.

"1. That 's an ill sign.

"2. And fumbles with the pots too.

"1. Then there's no way but one with him.”

And Pliny, in his Chapter on The Signs of Death, makes mention of "a fumbling and pleiting of the bed-cloths." See P. Holland's translation, chap. li. So also, in The Ninth Booke of Notable Thinges, by Thomas Lupton, 4to. bl. 1: "If the foreheade of the sicke waxe redde-and his nose wax sharpe-if he pull strawes, or the cloathes of his bedde-these are most certain tokens of death." Steevens.

There is this expression, and not, I believe, designed as a sneer on Shakspeare, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Spanish Curate, Act IV, sc. v:

"A glimmering before death, 'tis nothing else, sir;

"Do you see how he fumbles with the sheets?" Whalley. The same indication of approaching death is enumerated by Celsus, Lommius, Hippocrates, and Galen. The testimony of the latter is sufficient to show that such a symptom is by no means imaginary: "Manus ante faciem attollere, muscas quasi venari inani operâ, floccos carpere de vestibus, vel pariete. Et in seipso hoc expertus fuit Galenus. Quum enim," &c. Van Swieten Comm. Tom. II, sect. 708. Collins.

4 I knew there was but one way;] I believe this phrase is proverbial. I meet with it again in If you know not me, you know Nobody, 1613:

"I heard the doctors whisper it in secret,
"There is no way but one." Steevens.

nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields.5

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- and 'a babbled of green fields.] The old copy [i. e. the first folio] reads for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a table of green fields. Steevens.

These words, and a table of green fields, are not to be found in the old editions of 1600 and 1608. This nonsense got into all the following editions by a pleasant mistake of the stage editors, who printed from the common piece-meal written parts in the playhouse. A table was here directed to be brought in, (it being a scene in a tavern where they drink at parting) and this direction crept into the text from the margin. Greenfield was the name of the property-man in that time, who furnished implements, &c. for the actors, A table of Greenfield's. Pope.

So reasonable an account of this blunder, Mr. Theobald could not acquiesce in. He thought a table of Greenfield's, part of the text, only corrupted, and that it should be read, he babbled of green fields, because men do so in the ravings of a calenture. But he did not consider how ill this agrees with the nature of the knight's illness, who was now in no babbling humour; and so far from wanting cooling in green fields, that his feet were very cold, and he just expiring. Warburton.

Upon this passage Mr. Theobald has a note that fills a page, which I omit in pity to my readers, since he only endeavours to prove, what I think every reader perceives to be true, that at this time no table could be wanted. Mr. Pope, in his appendix to his own edition in 12mo. seems to admit Theobald's emendation, which we would have allowed to be uncommonly happy, had we not been prejudiced against it by Mr. Pope's first note, with which, as it excites merriment, we are loth to part. Johnson.

Had the former editors been apprized, that table, in our author, signifies a pocket-book, I believe they would have retained it with the following alteration:-for his nose was as sharp as a pen upon a table of green fells.On table books, silver or steel pens, very sharp-pointed, were formerly and still are fixed to the backs or covers. Mother Quickly compares Falstaff''s nose (which in dying persons grows thin and sharp) to one of those pens, very properly, and she meant probably to have said, on a table-book with a shagreen cover or shagreen table; but, in her usual blundering way, she calls it a table of green fells, or a table covered with green skin; which the blundering transcriber turned into green-fields; and our editors have turned the prettiest blunder in Shakspeare, quite out of doors. Smith.

Dr. Warburton objects to Theobald's emendation, on the ground of the nature of Falstaff's illness; "who was so far from babbling, or wanting cooling in green fields, that his feet were cold, and he was just expiring." But his disorder had been a "burning quotidian tertian." It is, I think, a much stronger objection, that the word Table, with a capital letter, (for so it appears in the old copy) is very unlikely to have been printed instead of babbled. This reading is, however, preferable to any that has been yet proposed.

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How now, sir John? quoth I: what, man! be of good cheer. So 'a cried out—God, God, God! three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him, 'a should not think of God;† I hoped, there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet: So, 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upwards, and upwards, and all was as cold as any stone."

On this difficult passage I had once a conjecture. It was, that the word table is right, and that the corrupted word is and, which may have been misprinted for in; a mistake that has happened elsewhere in these plays: and thus the passage will run-and his nose was as sharp as a pen in a table of green fields. A pen may have been used for a pinfold, and a table for a picture. See Vol. V, p. 162, n. 7.

The pointed stakes of which pinfolds are sometimes formed, were perhaps in the poet's thoughts. Malone.

It has been observed (particularly by the superstition of women) of people near death, when they are delirious by a fever, that they talk of removing; as it has of those in a calenture, that they have their heads run on green fields. Theobald.

6 now I, to comfort him, bid him, 'a should not think of God;] Perhaps Shakspeare was indebted to the following story in Wits, Fits, and Fancies, &c. 1595, for this very characteristick exhortation: "A gentlewoman fearing to be drowned, said, now Jesu receive our soules! Soft, mistress, answered the waterman; I trow, we are not come to that passe yet." Malone.

Our author might as probably have been indebted to a passage in the Continuation of Harding's Chronicle, 1543, relative to the death of Lord Hastings: "This Sir Thomas [Howard] while the Lord Hastings stayed a while commonyng with a priest whom he met in the Tower strete, brake the lordes tale, saying to him merily, what my lorde, I pray you come on; wherefore talke you so long with the priest? You have no nede of a priest yet.”

Steevens.

† Our author, probably, was neither indebted to the one or the other for this passage: It is not so wonderful, nor is the exhortation so uncommon. I am satisfied that it did not originate with him, as every old woman would in all probability make use of nearly the same expression, in the same situation; but it is well enough to know that Mr. Malone had read a book printed in 1595, called Wits, Fits, &c. and that Mr. Steevens was conversant with Harding's Chronicle, printed in 1543. I entertain a great respect for the talents of those gentlemen, but their remarks are not always valuable, nor their comments always illustrative. Am. Ed. cold as any stone.] Such is the end of Falstaff, from whom Shakspeare had promised us, in his epilogue to King Henry IV,

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