ment, and equally proper. Bartholomew boar-pig is a little pig made of paste, sold at Bartholomew fair, and given to children for a fairing. JOHNSON.

Line 729. Tewksbury mustard:] Tewksbury is a market town in the county of Gloucester, formerly noted for mustard-balls made there, and sent into other parts. GREY.

Line 733.

-eats conger and fennel; &c.] Conger with fennel was formerly regarded as a provocative. It is mentioned by Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair: "-like a long-laced conger with green fennel in the joll of it." STEEVENS.

Line 734. - a flap-dragon; &c.] A flap-dragon is some small combustible body, fired at one end, and put afloat in a glass of liquor. It is an act of a toper's dexterity to toss off the glass in such a manner as to prevent the flap-dragon from doing michief. JOHNSON.

Line 745. -nave of a wheel-] Nave and knave are easily reconciled, but why nave of a wheel? I suppose from his roundness. He was called round mun, in contempt, before. JOHNSON. Line 755. the fiery Trigon, &c.] So, in A Dialogue both pleasaunt and pictifull, &c. by Wm. Bulleyne, 1564: "Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, are hotte, drie, bitter, and cholerike, governing hot and drie thinges, and this is called the fierie triplicitie."

MALONE.

Line 764. -a kirtle of?] It appears that a woman's kirtle, or rather upper-kirtle, (as distinguished from a petticoat, which was sometimes called a kirile,) was a long mantle which reached to the ground, with a head to it that entirely covered the face; and it was, perhaps, usually red. A half-kirtle was a similar garment, reaching only somewhat lower than the waist. MALONE.

Line 792. tallow.

Line 773. Ha! a bastard &c.] The improbability of this scene is scarcely balanced by the humour. JOHNSON. candle-mine,] Thou inexhaustible magazine of JOHNSON. Line 807. Not! to dispraise me;] The Prince means to say, "What! is it not abuse to dispraise me," &c. MALONE.

Line 838. and burns, poor soul!] This is Sir T. Hanmer's reading. Undoubtedly right. The other editions had-she is in hell already, and burns poor souls. The venereal disease was called, in those times, the brennynge, or burning. JOHNSON.

Line 841. What's a joint of mutton or two, in a whole Lent?] Perhaps a covert allusion is couched under these words. MALONE.

ACT III. SCENE I.

Line 19. A watch-case, &c.] This alludes to the watchmen set in garrison-towns upon some eminence, attending upon an alarumbell, which was to ring out in case of fire, or any approaching danger. He had a case or box to shelter him from the weather, but at his utmost peril he was not to sleep whilst he was upon duty. These alarum-bells are mentioned in several other places of Shakspeare. HANMER.

Line 27. That, with the hurly,] Hurly means noise, a commotion. -45. It is but as a body, yet, distemper'd;] Distemper, that is, according to the old physick, a disproportionate mixture of humours, or inequality of innate heat and radical humidity, is less than actual disease, being only the state which foreruns or produces diseases. The difference between distemper and disease seems to be much the same as between disposition and habit.

JOHNSON.

Line 70. But which of you was by, &c.] He refers to King Richard II. Act. IV. sc. ii. But whether the king's or the author's memory fails him, so it was, that Warwick was not present at that conversation. JOHNSON.

Line 77. I had no such intent;] He means, "I should have had no such intent, but that necessity." MALONE. Line 111. --that Glendower is dead.] Glendower did not die till after king Henry IV.

Shakspeare was led into this error by Holinshed, who places Owen Glendower's death in the tenth year of Henry's reign.

MALONE.

Line 117. unto the Holy Land.] This play, like the former, proceeds in one unbroken tenor through the first edition, and there is therefore no evidence that the division of the Acts was made by the author. Since, then, every editor has the same right to mark the intervals of action as the players, who made the present distribution, I should propose that this scene may be added to the foregoing act, and the remove from London to Gloucestershire be made in the intermediate time, but that it would shorten the next

Act too much, which has not, even now, its due proportion to the rest.

JOHNSON.

ACT III. SCENE II.

Line 141.swinge-bucklers-] Swinge-bucklers and swashbucklers were words implying rakes or rioters in the time of Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

Line 142.

bona-robas-] See Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: "Buona roba, as we say good stuff; a good wholesome plump-cheeked wench." MALONE. -Skogan's head-] Scogan, a jester to king Ed

Line 150.

ward IV.

Line 168. —clapped the clout-] i. e. hit the white mark. WARBURTON.

169. fourteen, and fourteen and a half,] That is, fourteen score of yards. JOHNSON. The utmost distance that the archers of ancient times reached, is supposed to have been about three hundred yards. Old Double therefore certainly drew a good bow. MALONE.

Line 260.- we have a number of shadows to fill up the musterbook.] That is, we have in the muster-book many names for which we receive pay, though we have not the men. JOHNSON.

Line 375. - -I have three pound-] Here seems to be a wrong computation. He had forty shillings for each. Perhaps he meant to conceal part of the profit. JOHNSON.

Line 390. the thewes,] i. e. brawny strength. -395. -swifter than he that gibbets-on the brewer's bucket.] Swifter than he that carries beer from the vat to the barrel, in buckets hung upon a gibbet or beam crossing his shoulders.

JOHNSON.
JOHNSON.

Line 403. caliver-] A hand-gun.

- -411. Mile-end green,] From Stowe's Chronicle, p. 789, edit. 1631, it appears that "thirty thousand citizens-shewed on the 27th of August 1599, on the Mile's-end, where they trained all that day, and other dayes, under their captaines, (also citizens,) until the 4th of September." MALONE.

Line 412. I was then sir Dagonet in Arthur's show,] The story of Sir Dagonet is to be found in La Morte d'Arthure, an old

romance much celebrated in our author's time, or a little before it. "When papistry (says Ascham, in his Schoolmaster,) as a standing pool, overflowed all England, few books were read in our tongue, saving certaine books of chivalry, as they said, for pastime. and pleasure; which books, as some say, were made in monasteries by idle monks. As one for example La Morte d'Arthure." In this romance Sir Dagonet is King Arthur's fool. Shakspeare would not have shown his justice capable of representing any higher

character.

JOHNSON.

-a little quiver fellow,] Quiver means active,

Line 413.

nimble.

Line 438.

-about Turnbull-street;] Nash, in Pierce Pennieless his Supplication, commends the sisters of Turnbull-street to the patronage of the Devil. STEEVENS. -over-scutched-] That is, whipt, carted. POPE. fancies, or his good-nights.] Fancies and Goodnights were the titles of little poems. One of Gascoigne's Goodnights is published among his Flowers. STEEVENS.

Line 449. 451.

Line 452. And now is this Vice's dagger-] By Vice here the poet means that droll character in the old plays equipped with asses ears and a wooden dagger. It was very satirical in Falstaff to compare Shallow's activity and impertinence to such a machine as a wooden dagger in the hands and management of a buffoon.

THEOBALD.

Line 458. -beat his own name :] That is, beat gaunt, a fellow so slender, that his name might have been gaunt.

Line 463.

JOHNSON. philosophers two stones-] i. e. "I will make him MALONE.

-

of twice the value of the philosopher's stone." Line 464. -If the young dace-] That is, if the pike may prey upon the dace, if it be the law of nature that the stronger may seize upon the weaker, Falstaff may, with great propriety, devour Shallow. JOHNSON.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

Line 42. Led on by bloody youth,] Bloody youth is only sanguine youth, or youth full of blood, and of those passions which blood is supposed to incite or nourish. JOHNSON.

Line 103. -commotion's bitter edge?] i. e. the edge of bitter strife and commotion; the sword of rebellion. MALONE. Line 104. My brother general, &c.

I make my quarrel in particular.] Perhaps the meaning is My brother general, who is joined here with me in command, makes the commonwealth his quarrel, i. e. has taken up arms on account of publick grievances; a particular injury done to my own brother is my ground of quarrel." MALONE.

Line 119. Either from the king, &c.] Whether the faults of government be imputed to the time or the king, it appears not that you have, for your part, been injured either by the king or the time. JOHNSON.

Line 183. That is intended in the general's name:] That is, this power is included in the name or office of a general. We wonder that you can ask a question so trifling. JOHNSON. Line 191. substantial form ;] That is, by a pardon of due form and legal validity. JOHNSON. Line 194. We come within our awful banks again,] Awful banks are the proper limits of reverence. JOHNSON. Line 209. consist upon,] Perhaps the meaning is, as our conditions shall stand upon, shall make the foundation of the treaty. A Latin sense. MALONE. Line 224. -wipe his tables clean;] Alluding to a table-book of slate, ivory, &c. WARBURTON.

ACT IV. SCENE II.

Line 283. You have taken up,] To take up is to levy, to raise JOHNSON.

in arms.

Line 291. —in common sense,] I believe Shakspeare wrote common fence, i. e. drove by self-defence. WARBURTON.

Line 307. And so, success of mischief-] Success for succession. WARBURTON.

-351. Therefore be merry, coz;] That is-Therefore, notwithstanding this sudden impulse to heaviness, be merry, for such sudden dejections forebode good. JOHNSON. Line 366. -let our trains &c.] That is, our army on each part, that we may both see those that were to have opposed us.

JOHNSON.