38 -the Martlemas, your master ?] That is, the autumn, or rather the latter spring. The old fellow with juvenile passions.

JOHNSON.

39-the honourable Roman in brevity.] The old copy reads Romans, which Dr. Warburton very properly corrected, though he is wrong when he appropriates the character to M. Brutus, who affected great brevity of stile. I suppose by the honourable Roman is intended Julius Cæsar, whose veni, vidi, vici seems to be alluded to in the beginning of the letter. I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. The very words of Cæsar are afterwards quoted by Falstaff.

REVISAL.

40-frank-] Frank is stye. 41-the Sneak's noise;-] Sneak was a street minstrel, and therefore the drawer goes out to listen if he can hear him in the neighbourhood. JOHNSON.

A noise of musicians anciently signified a concert or company of them. In the old play of Henry V. (not that of Shakspeare) there is this passage:

-there came the young prince, and two or "three more of his companions, and called for wine "good store, and then they sent for a noyse of musi"tians," &c.

Falstaff addresses them as a company in the tenth scene of this play.

So again in The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, a comedy, printed 1598, the count says,

"Oh that we had a noise of musicians, to play to "this antick as we go."

Again in The Merry Devil of Edmonton.

"Why, Sir George send for Spindle's noise " presently."

Again in the Comedy of All Fools, by Chapman, 1602,

-you must get us music too,

"Call in a cleanly noise, the rogues grow

"lousy."

Again in Westward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607,

-All the noise that went with him, poor fel"lows, have had their fiddle-cases pull'd over their "ears."

STEEVENS.

43-Utis:-] Utis, an old word yet in use in some countries, signifying a merry festival, from the French huit, octo, ab A. S. Gahra. Octava festi alicujus.Skinner.

ГОРЕ.

43 Your brooches, pearls, and owches:] Brooches were chains of gold that women wore formerly about their necks. Owches were bosses of gold set with diamonds.

РОРЕ.

I believe Falstaff gives these splendid names as we give that of carbuncle, to something very different from gems and ornaments: but the passage deserves not a laborious research.

JOHNSON.

44-a tame cheater,-] Gamester and cheater were, in Shakspeare's age, synonimous terms. Ben Jonson has an epigram on Captain Hazard the cheater.

STEEVENS.

45 If you play the saucy cuttle with me.] It appears

from Greene's Art of Conny-catching, that cuttle and cuttle-boung were the cant terms for the knife with which the sharpers of that age cut out the bottoms of purses, which were then worn hanging at the girdle.

STEEVENS.

46 Have we not Hiren here?] I have been told, that the words-have we not Hiren here, are taken from a very old play, entitled, Hiren, or the Fayre Greeke, and are spoken by Mahomet when his Bassas upbraided him with having lost so many provinces through an attachment to effeminate pleasures. Pistol, with some humour, is made to repeat them before Falstaff and his messmates, as he points to Doll Tearsheet, in the same manner as the Turkish monarch pointed to Hiren (Irene) before the whole assembled divan. This dramatic piece I have never seen; and it is mentioned only in that very useful and curious book The Companion to the Play-house, as the work of W. Barkstead, published in 1611. Of this play, however, I suppose there must have been some earlier edition.

In an old comedy, 1608, called Law Tricks; or, Who would have thought it? the same quotation is likewise introduced, and on a similar occasion. prince Polymetes says,

The

"What ominous news can Polymetes daunt? "Have we not Hyren here ?"

Again, in Massinger's Old Law,

"Clown. No dancing for me, we have Siren

" here.

"Cook. Syren! 'twas Hiren the fair Greek,

STEEVENS.

"man." The part of Pistol is made up, almost entirely, of scraps of old, absurd and bombastic plays. Mr. Steevens, whose industry of research was unwearied, has succeeded in discovering a number of the originals. Where, however, he was prevented by time and the moths, the stile of Pistol is sufficient evidence how much of his speeches are quotations. It must have been matter of inexpressible delight to the giant mind of Shakspeare, to amend, imperceptibly almost, the sentiments and expressions of his countrymen, by holding up to ridicule these contemptible performances.

And hollow-pamper'd jades of Asia.] These lines are in part a quotation out of an old play, entitled, Tamburlain's Conquests; or, The Scythian Shepherd.

THEOBALD.

48 -feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis:] This is a burlesque on a line in an old play called The Battel of Alcazar, &c. printed in 1594, in which Muley Mahomet enters to his wife with lyon's flesh on his sword:

"Feed then, and faint not, my fair Calypolis." And again, in the same play,

"Hold thee, Calipolis, feed, and faint no "more."

49-thy neif:] Neif is the fist.

STEEVENS.

50 Tewksbury mustard-] Tewksbury is a market town in the county of Gloucester, formerly noted

for mustard-balls made there, and sent into other parts.

GRAY.

5 Eats conger and fennel.] Conger with fennel was formerly regarded as a provocative. It is men. tioned by B. Jonson in his Bartholomew-fair,-"like "a long-lac'd conger with green fennel in the joll " of it."

52-this nave of a wheel-] Nave and knave are easily reconciled, but why nave of a wheel? I suppose from his roundness. He was called round man in contempt before.

JOHNSON.

53 -the fiery Trigon-] William Bulleyne, in his Dialogue both pleasant and pietifull, published in 1564, says," Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, are hotte, drie, bitter, and cholerike, governing hot and drie thinges, and this is called the fierie triplicitie." The prince, in the former speech, had introduced astrology by remarking (on seeing Doll kiss Falstaff) what Ficinus says never happens, "Saturn and Venus are "in conjunction." Bardolph's red face could not here be permitted to escape. Poins compares it to the Trigon, or the meeting of the planets in one of the fiery houses.

54 — candle-mine-] Thou inexhaustible magazine of tallow!

55 A watch-case, &c.] This alludes to the watchman set in garrison-towns upon some eminence attending upon an alarum-bell, which he was to ring out in case of fire, or any approaching danger. He had a case or box to shelter him from the weather,