a rascally* yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security!-The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough with them in honest taking up, then must they stand upon-security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him.--Where's Bardolph ? 6 * Quartos, a rascall. to BEAR-IN HAND,] Is, to keep in expectation. So, in Macbeth : 7 JOHNSON. How you were borne in hand, how cross'd." if a man is THOROUGH with them in honest taking up,] That is, if a man by taking up goods is in their debt. To be thorough seems to be the same with the present phrase,—to be in with a tradesman. JOHNSON. So, in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour : 66 "I will take up, and bring myself into credit." So again, in Northward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: 'They will take up, I warrant you, where they may be trusted." Again in the same piece: "Sattin gowns must be taken up." Again, in Love Restored, one of Ben Jonson's masques :- A pretty fine speech was taken up o' the poet too, which if he never be paid for now, 'tis no matter." STEEVENS. 8the horn of abundance,] So, in Pasquil's Night-Cap, 1612, p. 43: "But chiefly citizens, upon whose crowne STEEVENS. 9 the lightness of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him.] This joke seems evidently to have been taken from that of Plautus: PAGE. He's gone into Smithfield, to buy your worship a horse. FAL. I bought him in Paul's', and he'll buy me "Quò ambulas tu, qui Vulcanum in cornu conclusum geris? Amph. Act I. Sc. I. and much improved. We need not doubt that a joke was here intended by Plautus; for the proverbial term of horns, for cuckoldom, is very ancient, as appears by Artemidorus, who says: Προειπεῖν ἀυτῶ ὅτι ἡ γυνή σου πορνεύσει, καὶ τὸ λεγόμενον, κέρατα αυτῶ ποιήσει, και ὄντως ἀπέβη. Ονειροι. lib. ii. cap. 12. And he copied from those before him. WARBURTON. The same thought occurs in The Two Maids of Moreclacke, 1609: your wrongs "Shine through the horn, as candles in the eve, "To light out others." STEEVens. I I bought him in PAUL'S,] At that time the resort of idle people, cheats, and knights of the post. WARBurton. So, in Fearful and lamentable Effects of Two dangerous Comets, &c. no date; by Nashe, in ridicule of Gabriel Harvey: "Paule's church is in wonderfull perill thys yeare without the help of our conscionable brethren, for that day it hath not eyther broker, maisterless serving-man, or pennilesse companion, in the middle of it, the usurers of London have sworne to bestow a newe steeple upon it." In an old Collection of Proverbs, I find the following: "Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, a knave, and a jade." See also Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 631. In a pamphlet by Dr. Lodge, called Wit's Miserie, and the World's Madnesse, 1596, the devil is described thus: "In Powls hee walketh like a gallant courtier, where if he meet some rich chuffes worth the gulling, at every word he speaketh, he maketh a mouse an elephant, and telleth them of wonders, done in Spaine by his ancestors," &c. &c. I should not have troubled the reader with this quotation, but that it in some measure familiarizes the character of Pistol, which (from other passages in the same pamphlet) appears to have been no uncommon one in the time of Shakspeare. Dr. Lodge concludes his description thus: "His courage is boasting, his learning ignorance, his ability weakness, and his end beggary." Again, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: 66 get thee a gray cloak and hat, "And walk in Paul's among thy cashier'd mates, a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived. Enter the Lord Chief Justice, and an Attendant. PAGE. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph. I learn from a passage in Greene's Disputation between a He Coneycatcher and a She Coneycatcher, 1592, that St. Paul's was a privileged place, so that no debtor could be arrested within its precincts. STEEVENS. In The Choice of Change, 1598, 4to. it is said, a man must not make choyce of three things in three places. Of a wife in Westminster ; of a servant in Paule's; of a horse in Smithfield ; lest he chuse a queane, a knave, or a jade." See also Moryson's Itinerary, Part III. p. 53, 1617. REED. 66 "It was the fashion of those times," [the times of King James I.] says Osborne, in his Memoirs of that monarch, “ and did so continue till these, [the interregnum,] for the principal gentry, lords, courtiers, and men of all professions, not merely mechanicks, to meet in St. Paul's church by eleven, and walk in the middle isle till twelve, and after dinner from three to six ; during which time some discoursed of business, others of news. Now, in regard of the universal commerce there happened little that did not first or last arrive here." MALONE. Before the introduction of newspapers, the pillars of this church seem to have answered the same purposes as the columns of those daily publications. The following passage is from a volume of Harleian Manuscripts filled with scraps of letters and other concerns of Mrs. Jane Shelley (daughter of John Lynge, Esq. of Sutton in Herefordshire), who died in 1600. The writer, who appears to have been one of her servants, addressing his sister, complains of the strictness of his lady, and determines to leave her service: "It may be you will say I wer better to here of a new before I loose the ould servisse; my answer is, I cañot loose much by the bargain; for yf I take but the basest course, and sett my bill in Paules, in one or two dayes I cannot want a servisse." Harl. MSS. 2050. BLAKEWAY. 2-Lord Chief Justice,] This judge was Sir Wm. Gascoigne, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. He died December 17, 1413, and was buried in Harwood church, in Yorkshire. His effigy, in judicial robes, is on his monument. STEEVENS. His portrait, copied from the monument, may be found in The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xi. p. 516. MALONE. There is a much finer portrait of Sir Wm. Gascoigne, in Gough's Sepulchral Monuments, vol. ii. BLAKEWAY. FAL. Wait close, I will not see him. CH. JUST. What's he that goes there? ATTEN. Falstaff, an't please your lordship. CH. JUST. He that was in question for the robbery? ATTEN. He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the lord John of Lan caster. CH. JUST. What, to York? Call him back again. ATTEN. Sir John Falstaff! FAL. Boy, tell him I am deaf. PAGE. You must speak louder, my master is deaf. CH. JUST. I am sure, he is, to the hearing of any thing good.-Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him. ATTEN. Sir John,- FAL. What! a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it. ATTEN. You mistake me, sir. FAL. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so. ATTEN. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man. FAL. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter", hence! avaunt! ATTEN. Sir, my lord would speak with you. CH. JUST. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. FAL. My good lord!-God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick: I hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health. CH. JUST. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. FAL. An't please your lordship, I hear, his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. 3 -hunt-counter,] That is, blunderer. He does not, I think, allude to any relation between the judge's servant and the counter-prison. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson's explanation may be countenanced by the following passage in Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub: 66 66 Do you mean to make a hare "Of me, to hunt counter thus, and make these doubles, And you mean no such thing as you send about? " Again, in Hamlet: 66 O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs." It should not, however, be concealed, that Randle Holme, in his Academy of Armory and Blazon, book iii. ch. 3, says: "Hunt counter, when hounds hunt it by the heel." STEEVENS. Hunt counter means, base tyke, or worthless dog. There can be no reason why Falstaff should call the attendant a blunderer, but he seems very anxious to prove him a rascal. After all, it is not impossible the word may be found to signify a catchpole or bum-bailiff. He was probably the Judge's tipstaff. RITSON. Perhaps the epithet hunt-counter is applied to the officer, in reference to his having reverted to Falstaff's salvo. HENLEY. I think it much more probable that Falstaff means to allude to the counter-prison. Sir T. Overbury, in his character of A Serjeant's Yeoman, 1616, (in modern language, a bailiff's follower,) calls him " a counter-rat." MALONE. |