FORD. I am bleft in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford, fir? FAL. Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him not-yet I wrong him, to call him poor; they fay, the jealous wittolly knave hath maffes of money; for the which his wife feems to me wellfavour'd. I will ufe her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue's coffer; and there's my harvest-home. FORD. I would you knew Ford, fir; that you might avoid him, if you faw him. FAL. Hang him, mechanical falt-butter rogue! I will ftare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my cudgel: it fhall hang like a meteor o'er the cuckold's horns: mafter Brook, thou fhalt know, I will predominate over the peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife.-Come to me foon at night :Ford's a knave, and I will aggravate his ftile; thou, master Brook, fhalt know him for knave and cuckold:-come to me foon at night. [Exit. FORD. What a damn'd Epicurean rascal is this! -My heart is ready to crack with impatience.Who fays, this is improvident jealoufy? My wife hath fent to him, the hour is fixed, the match is made. Would any man have thought this?-See the hell of having a falfe woman! my bed fhall be abused, my coffers ransacked, my reputation gnawn at; and I fhall not only receive this villainous wrong, but stand under the adoption of abominable 2 and I will aggravate his ftile;] Stile is a phrafe from the Herald's office. Falftaff means, that he will add more titles to thofe he already enjoys. So, in Heywood's Golden Age, 1611: I will create lords of a greater ftyle." Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. V. c. 2: "As to abandon that which doth contain "Your honour's file, that is, your warlike fhield." STEEVENS. terms, and by him that does me this wrong. Terms! names!Amaimon founds well; Lucifer, well; Barbafon,' well; yet they are devils' additions, the names of fiends: but cuckold! wittol-cuckold! + the devil himself hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure afs; he will truft his wife, he will not be jealous: I will rather truft a Fleming with my butter, parfon Hugh the Welchman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitæ bottle,' or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself: then fhe plots, then the ruminates, then she devises: and what they think in their hearts they may effect, they will break their hearts but they will effect. Heaven be praised for my jealoufy!-Eleven o'clock the hour;-I will prevent 3 - Amaimon — Barbafon,] The reader who is curious to know any particulars concerning thefe dæmons, may find them in Reginald Scott's Inventarie of the Names, Shapes, Powers, Governement, and Effects of Devils and Spirits, of their feveral Segnories and Degrees: a ftrange Difcourfe woorth the reading, p. 377, &c. From hence it appears that Amaimon was king of the Eaft, and Barbatos a great countie or earle. STEEVENS. —wittol-cuckold!] One who knows his wife's falsehood, and is contented with it;-from wittan, Sax. to know. MALONE. 5 ——— an Irishman with my aqua-vitæ bottle,] Heywood, in his Challenge for Beauty, 1636, mentions the love of aqua-vite as characteristick of the Irish: "The Briton he metheglin quaffs, "The Irish aqua-vitæ." The Irish aqua-vite, I believe, was not brandy, but ufquebaugh, for which Ireland has been long celebrated. MALONE. Dericke, in The Image of Irelande, 1581, Sign. F 2, mentions Uskebeaghe, and in a note explains it to mean aqua vite. REED. 6 —— Eleven o'clock-] Ford fhould rather have said ten o'clock: the time was between ten and eleven; and his impatient suspicion was not likely to ftay beyond the time. JOHNSON. It was neceffary for the plot that he should mistake the hour, and come too late. M. MASON. It is neceffary for the business of the piece that Falstaff should be at Ford's houfe before his return. Hence our author made him name this, detect my wife, be revenged on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it; better three hours. too foon, than a minute too late. Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold! SCENE III. Windfor Park. [Exit. Enter CAIUS and RUGBY. CAIUS. Jack Rugby! RUG. Sir. CAIUS. Vat is de clock, Jack? RUG. 'Tis paft the hour, fir, that fir Hugh promised to meet. CAIUS. By gar, he has fave his foul, dat he is no come; he has he has pray his Pible vell, dat he is no come: by gar, Jack Rugby, he is dead already, if he be come. RUG. He is wife, fir; he knew, your worship would kill him, if he came. CAIUS. By gar, de herring is no dead, so as I vill kill him. Take your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him. RUG. Alas, fir, I cannot fence. CAIUS. Villainy, take your rapier. the later hour. See Act III. fc. ii:-" The clock gives me my cue;-there I shall find Falstaff." When he fays above," I shall prevent this," he means, not the meeting, but his wife's effecting her purpofe. MALONE. Enter HOST, SHALLOW, SLENDER and PAGE. HOST. 'Blefs thee, bully doctor. SHAL. 'Save you, master doctor Caius. PAGE. Now, good mafter doctor! SLEN. Give you good-morrow, fir. CAIUS. Vat be all you, onc, two, tree, four, come for? Host. To fee thee fight, to see thee foin,' to fee thee traverse, to see thee here, to see thee there; to fee thee pass thy punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy diftance, thy montánt. Is he dead, my Ethiopian? is he dead, my Francifco?" ha, bully! What says my Æfculapius? my Galen? my heart of elder? 2 ha! is he dead, bully Stale?' is he dead? to fee thee foin,] To foin, I believe, was the ancient term for making a thruft in fencing, or tilting. So, in The Wife Woman of Hogfdon, 1638: "I had my wards, and foins, and quarter-blows." Again, in The Devil's Charter, 1607: 66 fuppofe my duellift "Should falfify the foine upon me thus, "Here will I take him." Spenfer, in his Faery Queen, often uses the word foin. So, in B. II. c. 8: "And ftrook and foyn'd, and lafh'd outrageously." Again, in Holinfhed: p. 833: "First fix foines with handfpeares," &c. STEEVENS. 8thy ftock,] Stock is a corruption of ftocata, Ital. from which language the technical terms that follow are likewise adopted. 9 STEEVENS. my Francifco?] He means, my Frenchman. The quarto reads-my Francoyes. MALONE. 2 my heart of elder?] It fhould be remembered, to make this joke relish, that the elder tree has no heart. I fuppofe this expreffion was made use of in oppofition to the common one, heart of oak. STEEVENS. 3 bully Stale?] The reason why Caius is called bully Stale, CAIUS. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of the vorld; he is not fhow his face. Host. Thou art a Caftilian king, Urinal! Hector of Greece, my boy! and afterwards Urinal, muft be fufficiently obvious to every reader, and especially to thofe whofe credulity and weakness have enrolled them among the patients of the prefent German empiric, who calls himself Doctor Alexander Mayerfbach. STEEVENS. 4 Caftilian] Sir T. Hanmer reads-Cardalian, as used corruptedly for Cœur de lion, JOHNSON. Caftilian and Ethiopian, like Cataian, appear in our author's time to have been cant terms. I have met with them in more than one of the old comedies. So, in a defcription of the Armada introduced in the Stately Moral of the Three Lords of London, 1590: "To carry, as it were, a careless regard of these Caftilians, and their accuftom'd bravado." Again: "To parley with the proud Caftilians." I fuppofe Caftilian was the cant term for Spaniard in general. STEEVENS. I believe this was a popular flur upon the Spaniards, who were held in great contempt after the bufinefs of the Armada. Thus we have a Treatife Paranetical, wherein is fhewed the right way to refift the Caftilian king: and a fonnet, prefixed to Lea's Answer to the Untruths published in Spain, in glorie of their fuppofed Victory atchieved against our English Navie, begins: "Thou fond Caftilian king!"--and fo in other places. FARMER. Dr. Farmer's obfervation is juft. Don Philip the Second affected the title of King of Spain; but the realms of Spain would not agree to it, and only styled him King of Caftile and Leon, &c. and fo he wrote himself. His cruelty and ambitious views upon other ftates, rendered him univerfally detefted. The Caftilians, being defcended chiefly from Jews and Moors, were deemed to be of a malign and perverfe difpofition; and hence, perhaps, the term Caftilian became opprobrious. I have extracted this note from an old pamphlet, called The Spanish Pilgrime, which I have reason to fuppofe is the fame difcourfe with the Treatife Parænetical, mentioned by Dr. Farmer. ToLLET. Dr. Farmer, I believe, is right. The hoft, who, availing himfelf of the poor Doctor's ignorance of English phrafeology, applies to him all kind of opprobrious terms, here means to call him a corward. So, in The Three Lords of London, 1590: |