Page. No, nor no where else but in your brain. Ford. Help to search my house this one time: if I find not what I feek, shew no colour for my extremity, let me for ever be your table-sport; let them fay of me, As jealous as Ford, that search'd a hollow wall-nut for his wife's leman2. Satisfy me once more, once more fearch with me. Mrs. Ford. What hoa, mistress Page! come you, and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber. Ford. Old woman! what old woman's that? Mrs. Ford. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford. Ford. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are fimple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the profeffion of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the figure, and fuch daubery + as this is: beyond our element: we know nothing. - Come down, you witch; you hag you, come down, I fay. Mrs. Ford. Nay, good, sweet husband; -good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman. Enter Falstaff in women's cloaths, led by Mrs. Pagt. Mrs. Page. Come, mother Prat, come, give me your hand. Ford. I'll prat her:-Out of my doors, you witch! [Beats him.] you hag, you baggage, you poulcat, 2 -his wife's leman.) Leman, i. e. lover, is derived from leef, Dutch, beloved, and man. STEEVENS. 3 She works by charms, &c.] Concerning some old woman of Brentford, there are several ballads; among the rest, Julian of Brentford's last Will and Testament, 1599. STEEVENS. 4-fuch daubery-] Dauberies are disguises. So, in K. Lear, Edgar fays: "I cannot daub is further." STEEVENS. you you 'ronyon! out! out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you. [Exit Fal. Mrs. Page. Are you not asham'd? I think, you have kill'd the poor woman. Mrs. Ford. Nay, he will do it :-'Tis a goodly credit for you. Ford. Hang her, witch! Eva. By yea and no, I think, the 'oman is a witch indeed: I like not when a 'omans has a great peard'; ? I spy a great peard under his muffler. 7 Ford. Will you follow, gentlemen ? I beseech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again. 5-ronyon!-) Ronyon, applied to a woman, means, as far as can be traced, much the fame with fcall or fcab spoken of a man. JOHNSON. So, in Macbeth: "Aroint thee witch, the rump-fed ronyon cries." From Rogneux, Fr. So again: "The roynish clown," in As yo like it. STEEVENS. 6 -a great peard; --] One of the marks of a supposed witch, was a beard. So in Macbeth: 66 -you should be women, "And yet your beards forbid me to interpret "That you are so." Again, in the Duke's Mistress, 1638: 66 -a chin, without all controverfy, good "To go a fishing with; a witches beard on't." STEEVENS. 11 Spy a great peard under his muffler.] As the second stratagem, by which Falstaff escapes, is much the groffer of the two, I wish it had been practised first. It is very unlikely that Ford, having been so deceived before, and knowing that he had been deceived, would fuffer him to escape in so flight a disguise. 8 JOHNSON. - cry out thus upon no trail, -) The expreffion is taken from the hunters. Trail is the scent left by the paffage of the game. To cry out, is to open or bark. JOHNSON. So, in Hamlet: "How chearfully on the false trail they cry: STEEVENS. Page. Page. Let's obey his humour a little further: Come, [Exeunt. gentlemen. Mrs. Page. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully. Mrs. Ford. Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought. Mrs. Page. I'll have the cudgel hallow'd, and hung o'er the altar; it hath done meritorious service. Mrs. Ford. What think you? may we, with the warrant of woman-hood, and the witness of a good confcience, pursue him with any further revenge? Mrs. Page. The spirit of wantonness is, fure, scar'd out of him; if the devil have him not in fee-fimple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again 9. Mrs. Ford. Shall we tell our husbands how we have ferved him? Mrs. Page. Yea, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their hearts, the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will be still the ministers. Mrs. Ford. I'll warrant, they'll have him publickly sham'd: and, methinks, there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publickly sham'd. Mrs. Page. Come, to the forge with it then, shape it: I would not have things cool. [Exeunt. 9-in the way of waste, attempt us again.] i. e. he will not make further attempts to ruin us, by corrupting our virtue, and destroying our reputation STEEVENS. I - no period) Shakespeare seems, by no period, to mean, no proper catastrophe. Of this Hanmer was so well perfuaded, that he thinks it necessary to read-no right period. STEEVENS. VOL. I. Z SCENE Bard. Sir, the Germans defire to have three of your horfes: the duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and they are going to meet him. Hoft. What duke should that be, comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court: let me speak with the gentlemen; they speak English ? Bard. Sir, I'll call them to you. Hoft. They shall have my horses; but I'll make them pay, I'll fauce them: they have had my houses a week at command; I have turn'd away my other guests: * they must come off; I'll fauce them; come. [Exeunt. SCENE 2 they must COME off; -) This never can be our poet's or his host's meaning. To come off being, in other terms, to go fcotfree. We must read, COMPT off, i. e. clear their reckoning. WARBURTON. To come off, fignifies, in our author, sometimes, to be uttered with Spirit and volubility. In this place it seems to mean what is in our time expressed by to come down, to pay liberally and readily. These accidental and colloquial senses are the disgrace of language, and the plague of commentators. JOHNSON. To come off, is, to pay. In this sense it is used by Maffinger, in The Unnatural Combat, act IV. fc. ii. where a wench, demanding ey of the father to keep his bastard, fays: "Will you come off, fir?" Again, in Decker's If this be not a good Play the Devil is in it, 1612: money "Do not your gallants come off roundly then?" Again, in Heywood's If you know not me you know Nobody, 1633, " and then if he will not come off, carry him to the p. 2: compter." Again, in A Trick to catch the Old One, 1616: "Hark in thine ear: -will he come off think'st thou, and pay my debts?" Again, in the Return from Parnassus, 1606: " It is his meaning I should come off" Enter Page, Ford, Mrs. Page, Mrs. Ford, and Sir Hugh Evans. Eva. 'Tis one of the best discretions of a 'omans as ever I did look upon. Page. And did he send you both these letters at an instant? Mrs. Page. Within a quarter of an hour. wilt; 3 I rather will suspect the fun with cold, Than Again, in The Widow, by B. Jonson, Fletcher, and Middleton, 1652: " I am forty dollars better for that: an 'twould come off quicker 'twere nere a whit the worse for me." Again, in A merye Fest of a Man called Howleglas, bl. 1. no date : "Therefore come off lightly, and geve me my mony." STEEVENS. "They must come off, says mine host; I'll fauce them." This passage has exercised the critics. It is altered by Dr. Warburton; but there is no corruption, and Mr. Steevens has rightly interpreted it. The quotation however from Maffinger, which is referred to likewife by Mr. Edwards in his Canons of Criticism, scarcely fatisfied Mr. Heath, and still less the last editor, who gives us, "They must not come off." It is strange that any one conversant in old language, should hefitate at this phrafe. Take another quotation or two, that the difficulty may be effectually removed for the fuIn John Heywood's play of the Four P's, the pedlar says: ture. "If you be willing to buy, " Lay down money, come of quickly." In The Widow, by Jonson, Fletcher, and Middleton, - " if he will come off roundly, he'll set him free too." And, again, in Fennor's Comptor's Commonwealth: -" except I would come off roundly, I should be bar'd of that priviledge," &c. FARMER. The phrafe is used by Chaucer, Friar's Tale, 338. edit. Urry: "Come off, and let me riden hastily, "Give me twelve pence; I may no longer tarie." TYRWHITT. 3 I rather will fufpect the fun with cold,] Thus the modern editions. The old ones read-with gold, which may mean, I rather 22 |