MRS. FORD. I have told them over and over; they lack no direction: Be gone, and come when you are called. [Exeunt Servants.

MRS. PAGE. Here comes little Robin.

Enter ROBIN.

MRS. FORD. How now, my eyas-musket? what news with you?

ROB. My master sir John is come in at your back-door, mistress Ford; and requests your company.

MRS. PAGE. You little Jack-a-lent', have you been true to us?

9 How now, my EYAS-MUSKET?] Eyas is a young unfledg'd hawk; I suppose from the Italian Niaso, which originally signified any young bird taken from the nest unfledg'd, afterwards a young hawk. The French, from hence, took their niais, and used it in both those significations; to which they added a third, metaphorically, a silly fellow; un garçon fort niais, un niais. Musket signifies a sparrow hawk, or the smallest species of hawks. This too is from the Italian Muschetto, a small hawk, as appears from the original signification of the word, namely, a troublesome stinging fly. So that the humour of calling the little page an eyas-musket is very intelligible. WARBURTON.

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So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608: no hawk so haggard but will stoop to the lure: no niesse so ramage but will be reclaimed to the lunes." Eyas-musket is the same as infant Lilliputian. Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. i. c. xi. st. 34:

youthful gay,

"Like eyas-hauke, up mounts unto the skies,

"His newly budded pinions to essay."

"An

In The Booke of Haukyng, &c. commonly called The Book of St. Albans, bl. 1. no date, is the following derivation of the word; but whether true or erroneous is not for me to determine : hauk is called an eyesse from her eyen. For an hauke that is brought up under a bussarde or puttock, as many ben, have watry eyen," &c. STEEVENS.

I

Jack-a-lent,] A Jack o' lent was a puppet thrown at in Lent, like shrove-cocks. So, in The Weakest goes to the Wall, 1600:

"A mere anatomy, a Jack of Lent."

Again, in The Four Prentices of London, 1615:

66 Now you old Jack of Lent, six weeks and upwards."

ROB. Ay, I'll be sworn: My master knows not of your being here; and hath threatened to put me into everlasting liberty, if I tell you of it; for, he swears, he'll turn me away.

MRS. PAGE. Thou'rt a good boy; this secrecy of thine shall be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and hose.-I'll go hide me.

MRS. FORD. Do so:-Go tell thy master, I am alone. Mistress Page, remember you your cue.

Exit ROBIN. MRS. PAGE. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me. [Exit Mrs. PAGE. MRS. FORD. Go to then; we'll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watry pumpion ;-we'll teach him to know turtles from jays 2.

Enter FALSTAFF.

FAL. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel3 ? Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough; this is the period of my ambition: O this blessed hour!

MRS. FORD. O sweet sir John!

FAL. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I

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Again, in Greene's Tu Quoque : for if a boy, that is throwing at his Jack o' Lent, chance to hit me on the shins," See a note on the last scene of this comedy. STEEVENS.

&c.

2- from JAYS.] So, in Cymbeline :

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some jay of Italy,

"Whose mother was her painting," &c. STEEVENS.

3 Have I caught my heavenly jewel?] This is the first line of the second song in Sidney's Astrophel and Stella. TOLLET.

4

- Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough :] This sentiment, which is of sacred origin, is here indecently introduced. It appears again, with somewhat less of profaneness, in The Winter's Tale, Act IV. and in Othello, Act II. STEEVENS.

In answer to this charge of profaneness, it will be sufficient to say that in a note on the very passage in Othello alluded to, Mr. Malone has quoted precisely the same sentiment from Terence.

BOSWELL.

would thy husband were dead: I'll speak it before the best lord, I would make thee my lady.

MRS. FORD. I your lady, sir John! alas, I should be a pitiful lady.

5

FAL. Let the court of France show me such another; I see how thine eye would emulate the diamond: Thou hast the right arched bent of the brow, that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance".

5

arched BENT -] Thus the quartos 1602, and 1619. The folio reads-arched beauty. STEEVENS.

The reading of the quarto is supported by a passage in Antony and Cleopatra:

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Eternity was in our lips and eyes,

"Bliss in our brows-bent." MALONE. that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-VALIANT,

or any tire

of VENETIAN ADMITTANCE.] Instead of-Venetian admittance, the old quarto reads-" or any Venetian attire." STEEVENS.

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The old quarto reads-"tire vellet," and the old folio readsor any tire of Venetian admittance." So that the true reading of the whole is this, "that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance." The speaker tells his mistress, she had a face that would become all the head dresses in fashion. The ship-tire was an open head dress, with a kind of scarf depending from behind. Its name of ship-tire was, I presume, from its giving the wearer some resemblance of a ship (as Shakspeare says) in all her trim: with all her pendants out, and flags and streamers flying.

This was an image familiar with the poets of that time. Thus Beaumont and Fletcher, in their play of Wit without Money: "She spreads sattens as the king's ships do canvas every where; she may space her misen," &c. This will direct us to reform the following word of tire-valiant, which I suspect to be corrupt, valiant being a very incongruous epithet for a woman's head dress: I suppose Shakspeare wrote tire-vailant. As the ship-tire was an open head dress, so the tire-vailant was a close one, in which the head and breast were covered as with a veil. And these were, in fact, the two different head dresses then in fashion, as we may see by the pictures of that time. One of which was so open, that the whole neck, breasts, and shoulders, were opened to view the other, so securely inclosed in kerchiefs, &c. that nothing could be seen above the eyes, or below the chin.

WARBURTON.

MRS. FORD. A plain kerchief, sir John: my brows become nothing else; nor that well neither.

In the fifth act, Fenton mentions that his mistress is to meet him

"With ribbons pendant flaring 'bout her head." This, probably, was what is here called the ship-tire. MALONE. the tire-valiant." I would read-tire volant. Stubbes, who describes most minutely every article of female dress, has mentioned none of these terms, but speaks of vails depending from the top of the head, and flying behind in loose folds. The word volant was in use before the age of Shakspeare. I find it in Wilfride Holme's Fall and evil Successe of Rebellion, 1537 : high volant in any thing divine."

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Tire vellet, which is the reading of the old quarto, may be printed, as Mr. Tollet observes, by mistake, for tire-velvet. We know that velvet-hoods were worn in the age of Shakspeare.

STEEVENS.

Among the presents sent by the Queen of Spain to the Queen of England, in April 1606, was a velvet cap with gold buttons. Catharine's cap, in The Taming of the Shrew, is likewise of velvet.

Tire-volant, however, I believe with Mr. Steevens, was the poet's word. "Their heads (says Nashe in 1594) with their top and top-gallant lawne baby caps, and snow-resembled silver curlings, they make a plain puppet-stage of. Their breasts they embuske up on hie, and their round roseate buds they immodestly lay forth, to shew, at their hands there is fruit to be hoped." Christ's Tears over Jerusalem, 4to. 1594. MALONE.

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of Venetian admittance." i. e. of a fashion received or admitted from Venice. So, in Westward Hoe, 1606, by Decker and Webster:-" now she's in that Italian head-tire you sent her." Dr. Farmer proposes to read-" of Venetian remittance." STEEVENS.

In how much request the Venetian tyre formerly was held, appears from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1624:-" let her have the Spanish gate [gait] the Venetian tire, Italian complements and endowments," MALONE.

May not the tire-valiant be so called from the air of boldness and confidence which it might give the wearer? A certain court divine (who can hardly be called a courtly one) in a sermon preached before King James the First, thus speaks of the ladies' head dresses: "Oh what a wonder it is to see a ship under saile with her tacklings and her masts, and her tops and top gallants, with her upper decks and her nether decks, and so bedeckt with her streames, flags and ensigns, and I know not what; yea but a world of wonders it is to see a woman created in God's image,

FAL. By the Lord, thou art a traitor' to say so : thou would'st make an absolute courtier; and the firm fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait, in a semi-circled farthingale. I see what thou wert, if fortune thy foe were

so miscreate oft times and deformed with her French, her Spanish and her foolish fashions, that he that made her, when he looks upon her, shall hardly know her, with her plumes, her fans, and a silken vizard, with a ruffe, like a saile; yea, a ruffe like a rainbow, with a feather in her cap, like a flag in her top, to tell (I thinke) which way the wind will blow." The Merchant Royall, a sermon preached at Whitehall before the King's Majestie, at the nuptialls of Lord Hay and his Lady, Twelfth-day, 1607, 4to. 1615. Again, "it is proverbially said, that far fetcht and deare bought is fittest for ladies; as now-a-daies what groweth at home is base and homely; and what every one eates is meate for dogs; and wee must have bread from one countrie, and drinke from another; and wee must have meate from Spaine, and sauce out of Italy; and if wee weare any thing, it must be pure Venetian, Roman, or barbarian; but the fashion of all must be French." Ibid. REED.

7

8

a TRAITOR -] i. e. to thy own merit. STEEVENS. The folio omits" By the Lord," and reads-Thou art a tyrant, &c. but the reading of the quarto appears to me far better. MALOne. fortune thy foe-] "Was the beginning of an old ballad, in which were enumerated all the misfortunes that fall upon mankind, through the caprice of fortune." See note on The Custom of the Country, Act I. Sc. I. by Mr. Theobald; who observes, that this ballad is mentioned again in a comedy by John Tatham, printed in 1660, called The Rump, or Mirror of the Times, wherein a Frenchman is introduced at the bonfire made for the burning of the rumps, and, catching hold of Priscilla, will oblige her to dance, and orders the musick to play Fortune my Foe. See also, Lingua, vol. v. Dodsley's Collection, p. 188; and Tom Essence, 1677, p. 37. Mr. Ritson observes, that "the tune is the identical air now known by the song of Death and the Lady, to which the metrical lamentations of extraordinary criminals have been usually chanted for upwards of these two hundred years." REED.

The first stanza of this popular ballad was as follows:

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Fortune, my foe, why dost thou frown on me?

"And will my fortune never better be?

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Wilt thou, I say, for ever breed my pain, "And wilt thou not restore my joys again?

MALONE.

This ballad is also mentioned by Burton, in his Anatomy of