-Sure your pistol holds "Nothing but perfumes or kissing-comfits." In Sweetman Arraign'd, 1620, these confections are called kissing-causes." "Their very breath is sophisticated with amberpellets, and kissing-causes.” Again, in The Siege, or Love's Convert, by Cartwright: "kept musk-plumbs continually in my mouth," &c. Again in A Very Woman, by Massinger: "Comfits of ambergris to help our kisses.” For eating these, queen Mab may be said, in Romeo and Juliet, to plague their lips with blisters. STEEVENS. 94eringoes.] So, in Drayton's Polyolbion, "Whose root th' Eringo is, the reines that doth inflame, "So strongly to performe the Cytherean game." HENDERSON. 100. fellow of this walk,] Who the fellow is, or why he keeps his shoulders for him, I do not understand. JOHNSON. To the keeper the shoulders and humbles belong as a perquisite. So, in Friar Pacon and Friar Bungay, 1599, GREY. "Butter and cheese, and humbles of a deer, "Such as poor keepers have within their lodge." So, in Holinshed, 1586, vol. I. p. 204: "The keeper, by a custom- -hath the skin, head, umbles, chine and shoulders." Holinshed informs us, that in the year 1583, for the entertainment of prince Alasco, was performed " a verie statelie tragedie named Dido, wherein the queen's banquet (with Eneas narration of the destruction of Troie) was livelie described in a marchpaine patterne, -the tempest wherein it hailed small confects, rained rosewater, and snew an artificial kind of snow, all strange, marvellous and abundant." On this circumstance very probably Shakspere was thinking, when he put the words quoted above into the mouth of Falstaff. STEEVENS. A walk, is that district in a forest, to which the jurisdiction of a particular keeper extends. So, in Lodge's Rosalynd: "Tell me, forester, under whom maintainest thou thy walks ?" Again, ibid." Thus, for two or three days he walked up and down with his brother, to shew him all the commodities that belonged to his walke." MALONE. 104. You ORPHAN heirs of fix'd destiny,] But why orphan heirs? Destiny, whom they succeeded, was yet in being. Doubtless the poet wrote: You OUPHEN heirs of fix'd destiny, i. e. you elves, who minister, and succeed in some of the works of destiny. They are called, in this play, both before and afterwards, ouphes; here ouphen; en being the plural termination of Saxon nouns. For the word is from the Saxon Alrenne, lamia, dæmones. Or it may be understood to be an adjective, as wooden, woollen, golden, &c. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton corrects orphan to ouphen; and not without A& V. without plausibility, as the word ouphes occurs both before and afterwards. But I fancy, in acquiescence to the vulgar doctrine, the address in this line is to a part of the troop, as mortals by birth, but adopted by the fairies: orphans in respect of their real parents, and now only dependant on destiny herself. A few lines from Spenser will sufficiently illustrate this passage: "The man whom heavens have ordaynd to bee FARMER. The old orthography of elf is thus, elphe and phayrie. See Middleton's Family of Love, 1602. read elphen? Might we not 116. Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes. Eva. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.] These two lines were certainly intended to rhime together, as the preceding and subsequent couplets do; and accordingly, in the old editions, the final words of each line are printed, oyes and toyes. This, therefore, is a striking instance of the inconvenience which has arisen from modernizing the orthography of Shakspere. TYRWHITT. 117. Elves list your names, &c.] The mo fern editors, without any authority, have given these lines to Sir Hugh. But in the only authenthick antient copy, the first folio, they are attributed to Pistol; and ought to be restored to him. Neither he, indeed, nor Mrs. Quickly, seem to have been introduced with much propriety here; nor are they named by Ford in a former scene, where the intended plot against Falstaff is mentioned. It is highly probable, as the modern editor has observed, that the same performers, who had represented Pistol and Quickly, were afterwards from necessity employed as fairies. Their names thus crept into the copies. MALONE. 120. -as bilberry.] The bilberry is the whortleberry. Fairies were always supposed to have a strong aversion to sluttery. Thus, in the old song of Robin Good Fellow. See Dr. Percy's Reliques, "When house or hearth doth sluttish lye, "I pinch'd the maidens black and blue," &c. STEEVENS. 126. REIN up the organs of her fantasy;] i. e. curb them, that she be no more disturbed by irregular imaginations, than children in their sleep. For he adds immediately: Sleep she as sound as careless infancy. So, in The Tempest: "Give not dalliance too much the REIN." And, in Measure for Measure: "I give my sensual race the REIN." To To give the rein, being just the contrary to rein up. "Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that na ture "Gives way to in repose.” WARBURTON. This is highly plausible; and yet, Raise up the organs of her fantasy, may mean, elevate her ideas above sensuality, exalt them to the noblest contemplation. STEEVENS. Bede is enjoined, wherever he finds a maid, though she, after having prayed to the deity, should sleep in consequence of her innocence, as soundly as an infant, to elevate her fancy, and amuse her mind with some delightful vision.-A comma should, I think, be placed after fantasy, and a semicolon after infancy. Sleep she -has the force of-though she sleep. MALONE, 134. In state as wholesome, -] The Oxford editor, not knowing the meaning of wholesome, has altered it to, In site as wholesom, and so has made the wish a most absurd one. For the site or situation must needs be what it is, till the general destruction. But wholsom here signifies integer. He wishes the castle may stand in its present state of perfection, which the following words plainly shew; -as in state 'tis fit. WARBURTON. 136. The several chairs of order, look you scour with juice of balm, &c.] It was an article of our ancient luxury, to rub tables, &c. with aromatick herbs. |