discarded men; very rogues, now they be out of service".

FORD. Were they his men ?

PAGE. Marry, were they.

FORD. I like it never the better for that.-Does

he lie at the Garter ?

PAGE. Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage towards towards my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head.

FORD. I do not misdoubt my wife, but I would be loath to turn them together: A man may be too confident: I would have nothing lie on my head 7: I cannot be thus satisfied.

PAGE. Look, where my ranting host of the Garter comes: there is either liquor in his pate, or money in his purse, when he looks so merrily.-How now, mine host?

Enter Host, and SHALLOW.

HOST. How now, bully-rook? thou'rt a gentleman cavalero-justice, I say.

SHAL. I follow, mine host, I follow.-Good even, and twenty, good master Page! Master Page, will you go with us? we have sport in hand.

HOST. Tell him, cavalero-justice; tell him, bully-rook.

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-very ROGUES, now they be out of service.] A rogue is a wanderer or vagabond, and, in its consequential signification, a cheat. JOHNSON.

7 – I would have nothing lie on my head :] Here seems to be an allusion to Shakspeare's favourite topick, the cuckold's horns. MALONE. CAVALERO-justice,] This cant term occurs in The Stately Moral of Three Ladies of London, 1590:

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"Then know, Castilian cavaleros, this."

There is also a book printed in 1599, called, A Countercuffe given to Martin Junior; by the venturous, hardie, and renowned Pasquil of Englande, Cavaliero. STEEVENS.

SHAL. Sir, there is a fray to be fought, between sir Hugh the Welch priest, and Caius the French doctor.

FORD. Good mine host o' the Garter, a word with you.

HOST. What say 'st thou, bully-rook?

[They go aside. SHAL. Will you [to PAGE] go with us to behold it? My merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons; and, I think, he hath appointed them contrary places: for, believe me, I hear, the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be.

HOST. Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest-cavalier?

FORD. None, I protest: but I'll give you a pottle of burnt sack to give me recourse to him, and tell him, my name is Brook'; only for a jest.

HOST. My hand, bully: thou shalt have egress and regress; said I well? and thy name shall be Brook: It is a merry knight.-Will you go, Anheires1?

9 and tell him, my name is BROOK ;] Thus both the old quartos: and thus most certainly the poet wrote. We need no better evidence than the pun that Falstaff anon makes on the name, when Brook sends him some burnt sack: Such Brooks are welcome to me, that overflow such liquor. The players, in their edition, altered the name to Broom. THEOBALD.

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will you go on, HEARTS ?] For this substitution of an intelligible for an unintelligible word, I am answerable.-The old reading is-an-heires. See the following notes. STEEVENS.

We should read, "Will you go on, heris?" i. e. Will you go on, master? Heris, an old Scotch word for master. WARBURTON. The merry Host has already saluted them separately by titles of distinction; he therefore probably now addresses them collectively by a general one-"Will you go on, heroes?" or, as probably,Will you go on, hearts?" He calls Dr. Caius Heart of Elder; and adds, in a subsequent scene of this play, Farewell, my hearts. Again, in The Midsummer Night's Dream, Bottom says, "Where are these hearts?" My brave hearts, or my bold hearts, is a common word of encouragement. A heart of gold expresses the more

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SHAL. Have with you, mine host.

PAGE. I have heard, the Frenchman hath good skill in his rapier 2.

SHAL. Tut, sir, I could have told you more: In these times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not what: 'tis the heart, master Page; 'tis here, 'tis here. I have seen the time, with my long sword3, I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.

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soft and amiable qualities, the mores aurei of Horace; and a heart of oak is a frequent encomium of rugged honesty. Sir T. Hanmer reads-Mynheers. STEEVENS.

There can be no doubt that this passage is corrupt. Perhaps we should read-" Will you go and hear us?" So, in the next page-" I had rather hear them scold than fight." MALONE. The old copy 1623 exhibits the word thus: An- heires. I conceive it to be a misprint for... Caualeires-for such is the orthography of that title in the folio. I support my conjecture by the following remarks. Mine Host is a person as much addicted to a kind of slang in his conversation, as either Pistol or Nym. He has the present term most strongly in his mind. In this very scene he styles Shallow Cavaleiro-Justice, twice, in following speeches. He calls Falstaff too his Guest-Cavaleire. Slender, on another occasion, he also honours with the style of Cavaleiro Slender. What then is more likely, or characteristic, than that he should say to Shallow and Page, "Will you go, Cavaleires?" Mr. Malone, to whom I communicated this emendation, considered it the best that had been proposed. BoADEN. in his rapier.] In the old quarto here follow these words : "Shal. I tell you what, master Page; I believe the doctor is no jester; he'll lay it one [on]; for though we be justices and doctors and churchmen, yet we are the sons of women, master Page.

2

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Page. True, master Shallow.

Shal. It will be found so, master Page.

Page. Master Shallow, you yourself have been a great fighter, though now a man of peace."

Part of this dialogue is found afterwards in the third scene of the present act; but it seems more proper here, to introduce what Shallow says of the prowess of his youth. Malone.

3- my long sword,] Before the introduction of rapiers, the swords in use were of an enormous length, and sometimes raised with both hands. Shallow, with an old man's vanity, censures the

HOST. Here, boys, here, here! shall we wag? PAGE. Have with you :-I had rather hear them scold than fight. [Exeunt Host, SHALLOW, and PAGE.

innovation by which lighter weapons were introduced, tells what he could once have done with his long sword, and ridicules the terms and rules of the rapier. JOHNSON.

The two-handed sword is mentioned in the ancient Interlude of Nature, bl. 1. no date :

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Somtyme he serveth me at borde,

Somtyme he bereth my two-hand sword."

See a note to The First Part of K. Henry IV. Act II. STEEVENS. Dr. Johnson's explanation of the long sword is certainly right; for the early quarto reads-" my two-hand sword; so that they appear to have been synonymous.

Carleton, in his Thankful Remembrance of God's Mercy, 1625, speaking of the treachery of one Rowland York, in betraying the towne of Deventer to the Spaniards in 1587, says: "he was a Londoner, famous among the cutters in his time, for bringing in a new kind of fight-to run the point of the rapier into a man's body. This manner of fight he brought first into England, with great admiration of his audaciousness: when in England before that time, the use was, with little bucklers, and with broad swords, to strike, and not to thrust; and it was accounted unmanly to strike under the girdle."

The Continuator of Stowe's Annals, p. 1024, edit. 1631, supposes the rapier to have been introduced somewhat sooner, viz. about the 20th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth [1578], at which time, he says, sword and bucklers began to be disused. Shakspeare has here been guilty of a great anachronism in making Shallow ridicule the terms of the rapier in the time of Henry IV. an hundred and seventy years before it was used in England.

MALONE.

It should seem from a passage in Nash's Life of Jacke Wilton, 1594, that rapiers were used in the reign of Henry VIII.: "At that time I was no common squire, &c.—my rapier pendant like a round stick fastned in the tacklings, for skippers the better to climbe by." Sig. C 4. RITSON.

The introduction of the rapier instead of the long sword is thus alluded to in The Maid of the Mill, by Fletcher and Rowley, Act IV. Sc. II.:

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Bustopha.-But all this is nothing: now I come to the point.

"Julio.-Aye the point, that's deadly; the ancient blow "Over the buckler ne'er went half so deep." BOSWELL.

FORD. Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on his wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion so easily: She was in his company at Page's house; and, what they made there, I know not. Well, I will look further into't: and I have a disguise to sound Falstaff: If I find her honest, I

4 TALL fellows-] A tall fellow, in the time of our author, meant a stout, bold, or courageous person. In A Discourse on Usury, by Dr. Wilson, 1584, he says, "Here in England, he that can rob a man on the high-way, is called a tall fellow." Lord Bacon says, "that Bishop Fox caused his castle of Norham to be fortified, and manned it likewise with a very great number of tall soldiers."

The elder quarto reads-tall fencers. STEEVENS.

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STANDS SO firmly on his wife's frailty,] Thus all the copies. But Mr. Theobald has no conception how any man could "stand firmly on his wife's frailty." And why? Because he had no conception how he could stand upon it, without knowing what it was. But if I tell a stranger, that the bridge he is about to cross is rotten, and he believes it not, but will go on, may I not say, when I see him upon it, that he stands firmly on a rotten plank? Yet he has changed frailty for fealty, and the Oxford editor has followed him. But they took the phrase, to stand firmly on, to signify to insist upon; whereas it signifies to rest upon, which the character of a secure fool, given to him, shews. So that the common reading has an elegance that would be lost in the alteration. WARBURTON.

To stand on any thing, does signify to insist on it. So, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630: "All captains, and stand upon the honesty of your wives." Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, book vi. chap. 30:

"For stoutly on their honesties doe wylie harlots stand." The jealous Ford is the speaker, and all chastity in women appears to him as frailty. He supposes Page therefore to insist on that virtue as steady, which he himself suspects to be without foundation, STEEVENS.

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and stands so firmly on his wife's frailty," i. e. has such perfect confidence in his unchaste wife. His wife's frailty is the same as-his frail wife. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, we meet with death and honour, for an honourable death. MALONE.

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-and, what they MADE there,] An obsolete phrase signifying-what they did there. MALONE.

So, in As You Like It, Act I. Sc. I. :

"Now, sir, what make you here?"

STEEVENS.