And take thou this! O thoughts of men accurst! Past, and to come, seem best; things present, worst. Mow B. Shall we go draw our numbers, and set

on ?

HAST. We are time's subjects, and time bids be

gone.

[Exeunt.

ACT II. SCENE I.

London. A Street.

Enter HOSTESS; FANG, and his Boy, with her; and SNARE following.

HOST. Master Fang, have you entered the action? FANG. It is entered.

HOST. Where is your yeoman? Is it a lusty yeoman? will a' stand to't?

FANG. Sirrah, where's Snare?

HOST. O lord, ay: good master Snare.

SNARE. Here, here.

FANG. Snare, we must arrest sir John Falstaff. HOST. Yea, good master Snare; I have entered him and all.

SNARE. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

HOST. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly in good faith, a' cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon be out: he will foin like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child. FANG. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.

5 Where is your YEOMAN?] A bailiff's follower was, in our author's time, called a serjeant's yeoman. MALONE.

HOST. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. FANG. An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice "

HOST. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score:-Good master Fang, hold him sure;-good master Snare, let him not 'scape. He comes continuantly to Piecorner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the lubbar's head" in Lumbert-street, to master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and have been fubbed off,

6

8

an a' come but within my VICE;] Vice or grasp; a metaphor taken from a smith's vice: there is another reading in the old edition, view, which I think not so good. POPE.

Vice is the reading of the folio, view of the quarto. STEEVENS. The fist is vulgarly called the vice in the West of England. HENLEY. 7 — lubbar's head-] This is, I suppose, a colloquial corrup tion of the Libbard's head. JOHNSON.

8 A hundred mark is a long LOAN-] Old copy-long one. STEEVENS.

A long one? a long what? It is almost needless to observe, how familiar it is with our poet to play the chimes upon words similar in sound, and differing in signification; and therefore I make no question but he wrote- "A hundred mark is a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear : " i. e. a hundred mark is a good round sum for a poor widow to venture on trust. THEOBALD.

The alteration on the suggestion of Theobald, has been very unnecessarily and improperly made. The hostess means to say that a hundred mark is a long mark, that is, score, reckoning, for her to bear. The use of mark in the singular number in familiar language, admits very well of this equivoque. DOUCE.

9

a poor lone woman-] A lone woman is an unmarried woman. So, in the title-page to A Collection of Records, &c. 1642: "That Queen Elizabeth being a lone woman, and having few friends, refusing to marry," &c. Again, in Maurice Kyffin's translation of Terence's Andria, 1588: Moreover this Glycerie is a lone woman; "-" tum hæc sola est mulier." In The First

and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass, and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong.

Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, PAGE, and BARDOLph.

1

Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices, master Fang and master Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices.

FAL. How now? whose mare's dead? what's the matter?

FANG. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of mistress Quickly.

FAL. Away, varlets!-Draw, Bardolph; cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel.

HOST. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue -Murder, murder! O thou honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? O thou honey-seed rogue?! thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller, and a womanqueller.

Part of King Henry IV. Mrs. Quickly had a husband alive. She is now a widow. STEEVENS.

- malmsey-nose-] That is, red nose, from the effect of malmsey wine. JOHNSON.

In the old song of Sir Simon the King, the burthen of each stanza is this:

2

"Says old Sir Simon the king,

Says old Sir Simon the king,

"With his ale-dropt hose,

"And his malmsey-nose,

"Sing hey ding, ding a ding."

honey-suckle villain!-honey-seed rogue!] The land

PERCY.

THEOBALD.

3

a man-queller,] Wicliff, in his Translation of the New

lady's corruption of homicidal and homicide.

FAL. Keep them off, Bardolph.

FANG. A rescue! a rescue!

HOST. Good people, bring a rescue or two.Thou wo't, wo't thou? thou wo't, wo't thou? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!

FAL. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe'.

Enter the Lord Chief Justice, attended.

you

CH. JUST. What's the matter? keep the peace here, ho!

HOST. Good my lord, be good to me! I beseech you, stand to me!

Testament, uses this word for carnifex. Mark, vi. 27: "Herod sent a man-queller, and commanded his head to be brought."

STEEVENS.

4 Thou wo't, wo't thou? &c.] The first folio reads, I think less properly, "Thou wilt not? thou wilt not?" JOHNSON.

5 Fal. Away, you scullion !] This speech is given to the Page in all the editions to the folio of 1664. It is more proper for Falstaff, but that the boy must not stand quite silent and useless on the stage. JOHNSON.

6

- rampallian!-fustilarian!] The first of these terms of abuse may be derived from ramper, Fr. to be low in the world. The other from fustis, a club; i. e. a person whose weapon of defence is a cudgel, not being entitled to wear a sword.

The following passage, however, in A New Trick to cheat the Devil, 1639, seems to point out another derivation of rampallian : "And bold rampallian like, swear and drink drunk.”

It may therefore mean a ramping riotous strumpet. Thus, in Greene's Ghost haunting Coneycatchers: "Here was Wiley Beguily rightly acted, and an aged rampalion put beside her schoole-tricks." STEEVENS.

Fustilarian is, I believe, a made word, from fusty. Mr. Steevens's last explanation of rampallian appears the true one.

MALONE.

"Bankes

7 I'll tickle your catastrophe.] This expression occurs several times in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, 1608 : your ale is a Philistine; foxe zhart there fire i' th' tail ont; you are a rogue to charge us with mugs i' th' rereward. A plague o' this wind! O, it tickles our catastrophe." Again: to seduce my blind customers; I'll tickle his catastrophe for this."

66

STEEVENS.

CH. JUST. How now, sir John? what, are you brawling here?

Doth this become your place, your time, and business ?

You should have been well on your way to York.Stand from him, fellow; Wherefore hang'st thou on him?

HOST. O my most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

CH. JUST. For what sum ?

HOST. It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, all I have: he hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his :-but I will have some of it out again, or I'll ride thee o' nights, like the mare.

FAL. I think, I am as like to ride the mare I have any vantage of ground to get up.

8

,

if

CH. JUST. How comes this, Sir John? Fye! what man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed, to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own?

FAL. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? HOST. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and the money too. Thou didst swear to me

8

to ride the MARE,] The Hostess had threatened to ride Falstaff like the Incubus or Night-Mare; but his allusion, (if it be not a wanton one,) is to the Gallows, which is ludicrously called the Timber, or two-legg'd Mare. So, in Like Will to Like, quoth the Devil to the Collier, 1587. The Vice is talking of Tyburn :

"This piece of land whereto you
inheritors are,
"Is called the land of the two-legg'd Mare.
"In this piece of ground there is a Mare indeed,
"Which is the quickest Mare in England for speed."

Again:

"I will help to bridle the two-legg'd Mare

"And both you for to ride need not to spare." STEEVENS.