1 Bead. The constables have delivered her over to me; and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her: There hath been a man or two lately killed about her.

Dol. Nut-hook, nut-hook2, you lie.. Come on; I'll tell thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged rascal; an the child I now go with do miscarry, thou hadst better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-faced villain.

Host. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry!

3

1 Bead. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again; you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead, that you and Pistol beat among you.

Doll. I'll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer*! I will have you as soundly swinged for this, you blue-bottle rogue 5! you filthy famished cor

2 It has already been observed (Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i. Sc. 1) that nut-hook was a term of reproach for a bailiff or constable. Cleveland says of a committee-man-He is the devil's nut-hook, the sign with him is always in the clutches.'

3 That is to stuff her out, that she might counterfeit pregnancy. In Greene's Dispute between a He Conycatcher, &c. 1592 to wear a cushion under her own kirtle, and to faine herself with child.'

4 Doll humorously compares the beadle's spare figure to the embossed figures in the middle of the pierced convex lid of a censer made of thin metal. The sluttery of rush strewed chambers rendered censers or fire pans in which coarse perfumes were burnt most necessary utensils. In Much Ado About Nothing, Borachio says that he had been entertained for a perfumer to smoke a musty room at Leonato's. The uncleanly habits of our ancestors made a constant change of habitation necessary for the preservation of health. Instances may be found in Lodge's Illustrations of English History, vol. i. p. 141; Seward's Anecdotes, vol. iv. p. 305, ed. 1796; and in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p. 225, ed. 1825.

5 Beadles usually wore a

blue livery,

rectioner! if you be not swinged, I'll forswear halfkirtles 6.

1 Bead. Come, come, you she knight-errant, come. Host. O, that right should thus overcome might! Well; of sufferance comes ease.

Dol. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a jus

tice.

Host. Ay; come, you starved blood-hound.
Dol. Goodman death! goodman bones!
Host. Thou atomy thou!

Dol. Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal! 1 Bead. Very well.

SCENE V.

[Exeunt.

A public Place near Westminster Abbey.

Enter Two Grooms, strewing Rushes.

1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes.

2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. 1 Groom. It will be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation: Despatch, despatch.

[Exeunt Grooms.

Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and the Page.

Fal. Stand here by me, master Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me.

Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight.

Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me.-0, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would

6 A half kirtle was a kind of apron or fore part of the dress of a woman. It could not be a cloak, as Malone supposed; nor a short bedgown, as Steevens imagined. Vide Act ii. Sc. iv. p. 305,

note 38.

7 The hostess's corruption of anatomy.

have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. [To SHALLOW.] But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this doth infer the zeal I had to see him.

Shal. It doth so.

Fal. It shows my earnestness of affection.

Shal. It doth so.

Fal. My devotion.

Shal. It doth, it doth, it doth.

Fal. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me.

Shal. It is most certain.

Fal. But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with desire to see him: thinking of nothing else; putting all affairs else in oblivion; as if there were nothing else to be done, but to see him.

Pist. "Tis semper idem, for absque hoc nihil est: "Tis all in every part1.

Shal. 'Tis so, indeed.

Pist. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver, And make thee rage.

Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
Is in base durance, and contagious prison;
Haul'd thither

-

By most mechanical and dirty hand:

1 Warburton thought that we should read:'Tis all in all and all in every part.'

In Sir John Davis's Nosce Te ipsum, 1599, speaking of the soul :

'Some say she's all in all and all in every part.'

And in Drayton's Mortimercados, 1596:

And as his soul possessed every part,

She's all in all, and all in every part.'

In The Phoenix Nest, 1593, we find 'Tota in toto, et tota in qualibet parte.'

Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's

snake,

For Doll is in; Pistol speaks nought but truth.
Fal. I will deliver her.

[Shouts within, and the Trumpets sound. Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

Enter the King and his Train, the Chief Justice among them.

Fal. God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal Hal2!

Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp3 of fame!

Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy!

King. My lord chief justice, speak to that vain man. Ch. Just. Have you your wits? know you what 'tis you speak?

Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

King. I know thee not, old man: Fall to thy

prayers;

How ill white hairs become a fool, and jester!

I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane*;

2 A similar scene occurs in the anonymous old play of King Henry V. Falstaff and his companions address the king in the same manner, and are dismissed as in this play.

3 Child, offspring.

4 Profane (says Johnson) in our author often signifies love of talk! and he cites :

Is he not a profane and liberal counsellor,' from Othello, as a proof. What necessity was there for perverting this word from its old legitimate meaning of ungodly, wicked, unholy? I find from the dictionaries of the time that it also signified unchaste, and unlucky, or mischievous. Had it not been for Johnson's mistake, I should have thought this epithet intelligible without a note.

But, being awake, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence 5, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know, the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men:-
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest;
Presume not, that I am the thing I was:

For heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me; and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots :
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,—
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,-
Not to come near our person by ten mile,
For competence of life, I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strength, and quali-
ties,-

Give you advancement.-Beft your charge, my lord, To see perform'd the tenor of our word.

Set on.

[Exeunt King, and his Train. Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. Shal. Ay, marry, Sir John; which I beseech

to let me have home with me.

you

Fal. That can hardly be, master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private

5 Henceforward.

6 This circumstance Shakspeare may have derived from the old play of King Henry V. But Hall, Holinshed, and Stowe give nearly the same account of the dismissal of Henry's loose companions. Every reader regrets to see Falstaff so hardly used, and Johnson's vindication of the king does not diminish that feeling. Poins, Johnson thinks ought to have figured in the conclusion of the play, but I do not believe that any one had ever been sensible of the poet's neglect of him until Johnson pointed it out. VOL. V.

L L