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to have a reference to Oldcastle. Besides, if this had not been the fact, why, in the epilogue to The Second Part of Henry IV. where our author promises to continue his story with Sir John in it, should he say, "Where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of

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a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is "not the man." This looks like declining a point that had been made an objection to him. I'll give a farther matter in proof, which seems almost to fix the charge. I have read an old play, called, The famous victories of Henry the Fifth, containing the honourable battle of Agincourt. The action of this piece commences about the 14th year of K. Henry the Fourth's reign, and ends with Henry the Fifth's marrying princess Catharine of France. The scene opens with prince Henry's robberies. Sir John Oldcastle is one of the gang, and called Jockie; and Ned and Gadshill are two other comrades.- -From this old imperfect sketch, I have a suspicion, Shakspeare might form his two parts of Henry the Fourth, and his history of Henry the Fifth; and consequently it is not improbable, that he might continue the mention of Sir John Oldcastle, till some descendants of that family moved queen Elizabeth to command him to change the name.

THEOBALD.

my old lad of the castle;] This alludes to the name Shakspeare first gave to this buffoon character, which was Sir John Oldcastle; and when he changed the name he forgot to strike out this expres

sion that alluded to it. The reason of the change was this; one Sir John Oldcastle having suffered in the time of Henry the Fifth for the opinions of Wickliffe, it gave offence, and therefore the poet altered it to Falstaff, and endeavours to remove the scandal in the epilogue to The Second Part of Henry IV. Fuller takes notice of this matter in his Church History" Stage-poets have themselves been very "bold with, and others very merry at, the memory "of Sir John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a "boon companion, a jovial royster, and a coward to "boot. The best is, Sir John Falstaff hath relieved "the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of late is "substituted buffoon in his place." Book 4. p. 168. But, to be candid, I believe there was no malice in the matter. Shakspeare wanted a droll name to his character, and never considered whom it belonged to: we have a little instance in The Merry Wives of Windsor, where he calls his French quack, Caius, a name at that time very respectable, as belonging to an eminent and learned physician, one of the founders of Caius College in Cambridge. WARBURTON.

The propriety of this note the reader will find contested at the beginning of Henry V. Sir John Oldcastle was not a character ever introduced by Shakspeare, nor did he ever occupy the place of Falstaff. The play in which Oldcastle's name occurs was not the work of our poet.

STEEVENS.

$—a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?] To understand the propriety of the prince's answer,

it must be remarked that the sheriff's officers were formerly clad in buff. So that when Falstaff asks, whether his hostess is not a sweet wench, the prince asks in return, whether it will not be a sweet thing to go to prison by running in debt to this sweet wench.

JOHNSON.

9 For obtaining suits?] Suit, spoken of one that attends at court, means a petition; used with respect to the hangman, means the clothes of the offender.

10

JOHNSON.

—gib cat,] Gib cat is he cat. As melancholy as a gib cat, is a proverb in Ray's collection.

"-damnable iteration-] For iteration Sir T. Hanmer and Dr. Warburton read attraction, of which the meaning is certainly more apparent; but an editor is not always to change what he does not understand. In the last speech a text is very indecently and abusively applied, to which Falstaff answers, thou hast damnable iteration, or, a wicked trick of repeating and applying holy texts. This I think is the meaning.

12 In former editions:

JOHNSON.

Fal. Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal; 'tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation..

Enter Poins.

Poins. Now shall we know, if Gadshill have set a match.] Mr. Pope has given us one signal observation in his preface to our author's works. "Throughout "his plays," says he, "had all the speeches been

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"printed without the very names of the persons, I "believe one might have applied them with cer

tainty to every speaker." But how fallible the most sufficient critic may be, the passage in controversy is a main instance. As signal a blunder has escaped all the editions here, as any through the whole set of plays. Will any one persuade me, Shakspeare could be guilty of such an inconsistency, as to make Poins at his first entrance want news of Gadshill, and immediately after to be able to give a full account of him?-No; Falstaff, seeing Poins at hand, turns the stream of his discourse from the prince, and says, "Now shall we know, whether Gadshill has "set a match for us;" and then immediately falls into railing and invectives against Poins. How admirably is this in character for Falstaff! And Poins, who knew well his abusive manner, seems in part to overhear him: and so soon as he has returned the prince's salutation, cries, by way of answer, "What says Monsieur Remorse? What says Sir Jack Sack"and-Sugar?"

THEOBALD.

Mr. Theobald has fastened on an observation made by Mr. Pope, hyperbolical enough, but not contradicted by the erroneous reading in this place, the speech, like a thousand others, not being so characteristic as to be infallibly applied to the speaker. Theobald's triumph over the other editors might have been abated by a confession, that the first edition gave him at least a glimpse of the emendation.

JOHNSON.

13 -for the nonce,] That is, as I conceive, for the occasion. This phrase, which was very frequently, though not always very precisely, used by our old writers, I suppose to have been originally a corruption of corrupt Latin. From pro-nunc, I suppose, came for the nunc, and so for the nonce; just as from ad-nunc came a-non. The Spanish entonces has been formed in the same manner from in-tunc. TYRRWHITT.

14 This speech is very artfully introduced to keep the prince from appearing vile in the opinion of the audience; it prepares them for his future reformation; and, what is yet more valuable, exhibits a natural picture of a great mind offering excuses to itself, and palliating those follies which it can neither justify nor forsake.

JOHNSON.

15 I will from henceforth rather be myself,

Mighty, and to be fear'd, than my condition;] i.e. I will from henceforth rather put on the character that becomes me, and exert the resentment of an injured king, than still continue in the inactivity and mildness of my natural disposition.

16-Frontier-] was anciently used for forehead. So Stubbs, in his Anatomy of Abuses, 1595. "Then "on the edges of their bolster'd hair, which standeth "crested round their frontiers, and hanging over "their faces," &c.

STEEVENS.

17-pouncet-box-] A small box for musk or other perfumes then in fashion: the lid of which, being cut

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