Which I with fword will open.- 8 Fal. Not a penny. I have been content, fir, you should lay my countenance to pawn: I have grated upon my good friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow, Nym; or elfe you had look'd through the grate, like a geminy of baboons. I am damn'd in hell, for fwearing to gentlemen my friends, you were good foldiers and tall fellows: and when mistress Bridget loft the handle of her fan,' I took't upon mine honour, thou hadst it not. Pift. mayor of Northampton opens oyfters with his dagger."-i. e. to keep them at a fufficient diftance from his nofe, that town being fourscore miles from the fea. STEEVENS. 8 This means, I will pay you again in ftolen goods. WARBURTON. I rather believe he means, that he will pay him by waiting on him for nothing. That equipage ever meant ftolen goods, I am yet to learn. STEEVENS. Dr. Warburton may be right; for I find equipage was one of the cant words of the time. In Davies' Papers Complaint, (a poem which has erroneously been afcribed to Donne) we have several of them : "Embellish, blandishment, and equipage." Which words, he tells us in the margin, overmuch favour of witlesse affectation. FARMER. Dr. Warburton's interpretation is, I think, right. Equipage indeed does not per fe fignify stolen goods, but fuch goods as Piftol promises to return, we may fairly fuppofe, would be ftolen. Equipage, which, as Dr. Farmer obferves, had been but newly introduced into our language, is defined by Bullokar in his English Expofitor, 8vo. 1616: " Furniture, or provifion for horfemanship, especially in triumphs or tournaments.” Hence the modern use of this word. MALONE. 9 i. e. he, who draws along with you; who is joined with you in all your knavery. So before, Page, fpeaking of Nym and Piftol, calls them 66 yoke of Falftaff's discarded men." MALONE. a It should be remembered, that fans, in our author's time, were more coftly than they are at prefent, as well as of a different conftruction. They confifted of oftrich feathers (or others of equal length and flexibility,) which were stuck into handles. The richer fort of these were compofed of gold, filver, or ivory of curious workmanship. In the frontispiece to a play, called Englishmen for my Money, or A pleafant Comedy of a woman will have ber Will, 1616, is a portrait of a lady with one of these fans, which, after all, may prove the best commentary on the paffage. The three other fpecimens are taken from the Habiti Antichi et Moderni di tutto il Mondo, published at Venice, 1598, from the drawings of Titian, and Cefare Vecelli, his brother. This fashion was Pift. Didit thou not share? hadft thou not fifteen pence ? Fal. Reafon, you rogue, reason: Think'ft thou, I'll endanger my foul gratis? At a word, hang no more about me, I am no gibbet for you:-go.-A fhort knife and a throng;2 -to your manor of Pickt-hatch,3 go.-You'll not bear a let ter was perhaps imported from Italy, together with many others, in the reign of King Henry VIII. if not in that of King Richard II. TEEVENS. In the Sidney papers, published by Collins, a fan is prefented to queen Elizabeth for a new year's gift, the handle of which was ftudded with diamonds. T. WARTON. 2 A fbrt knife and a throng;] Šo Lear: "When cut-purfes come not to throngs." WARBURTON. Theobald has throng instead of thong. The latter feems right. LANGTON. Greene, in his Life of Ned Browne, 1592, fays; "I had no other fence but my foort knife, and a paire of purfe-ftrings." STEEVENS. Mr. Dennis reads-thong; which has been followed, I think, improperly, by fome of the modern editors. MALONE. 3 Pickt batch was in Turnbull ftreet. The derivation of the word may perhaps ter for me, you rogue! you ftand upon your honour!Why, thou unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do, to keep the terms of my honour precife. I, I, I myself fometimes, leaving the fear of heaven on the left hand, and hiding mine honour in my neceffity, am fain to fhuffle, to hedge, and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your rags, 4 your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-latticephrafes, and your bold-beating oaths, under the fhelter of your honour! You will not do it, you? Pift. I do relent; What would'ft thou more of man? Enter ROBIN. Rob. Sir, here's a woman would speak to you. perhaps be difcovered from the following paffage in Cupid's Whirligig, 1607: Set fome picks upon your batch, and, I pray, profefs to keep a bawdy-house." Perhaps the unfeasonable and obftrepercus irruptions of the gallants of that age, might render fuch a precaution neceffary. STEEVENS. Pict-hatch was a cant-name of some part of the town noted for bawdy. houfes. Sir T. Hanmer fays, that it was a noted harbour for thieves and pickpockets," who certainly were proper companions for a man of Pistol's profeffion. But Falstaff here more immediately means to ridicule another of his friend's vices; and there is fome humour in calling Piftul's favourite brothel, his manor of P.&-batch. T. WARTON. 4 A fconce is a petty fortification. To ensconce, therefore, is to protect as with a fort. STEEVENS. 5 Your ale-house converfation. JoHNSON. Red lattice at the doors and windows, were formerly the external denotements of an ale-houfe. Hence the prefent chequers. Perhaps the reader will exprefs fome furprize, when he is told that shops, with the fign of the chequers, were common among the Romans. See a view of the left-hand ftreet of Pompeii, (No. 9.) prefented by Sir William Hamilton, (together with feveral others, equally curious,) to the Antiquary Society. STEEVENS. In King Henry IV. P. II. Falstaff's page, fpeaking of Bardolph, fays, he called me even now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could fee no part of his face from the window." MALONE. This defignation of an ale-houfe is not altogether loft, though the original meaning of the word is, the fign being converted into a green lettuce; of which an inftance occurs in Brownlow Street, Holborn DOUCE Enter Enter Miftrefs QUICKLY. Quick. Give your worship good-morrow. Quick. Not fo, an't please your worship. Fal. Good maid, then. Quick. I'll be fworn; as my mother was, the first hour I was born. Fal. I do believe the fwearer: What with me? Quick. Shall I vouchfafe your worship a word or two? Fal. Two thousand, fair woman; and I'll vouchfafe thee the hearing. Quick. There is one miftrefs Ford, fir;-I pray, come a little nearer this ways:-I myself dwell with mafter doctor Caius. Fal. Well, on: Miftrefs Ford, you fay, Quick. Your worship fays very true: I pray your worship, come a little nearer this ways. Fal. I warrant thee, nobody hears ;-mine own people, mine own people. Quick. Are they fo? Heaven blefs them, and make them his fervants! Fal. Well: miftrefs Ford ;-what of her? Quick. Why, fir, fhe's a good creature. Lord, lord! your worship's a wanton: Well, heaven forgive you, and all I pray! of us, Fal. Miftrefs Ford;-come, mistress Ford,— Quick. Marry, this is the fhort and the long of it; you have brought her into fuch a canaries," as 'tis wonderful. The best courtier of them all, when the court lay at Windsor,7 could never have brought her to fuch a canary. Yet there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen, with their coaches; I warrant you, coach after coach, letter after letter, gift after gift; smelling fo fweetly, (all musk,) and fo rufhling, I warrant you, in filk and gold; and in fuch alligant terms; and in fuch wine and fugar of the best, and the faireft, that would have won any woman's heart; and, I warrant 6 This is the name of a brisk light dance, and is therefore properly enough used in low language for any hurry or perturbation. JOHNSON. ? i. e. refided there. MALONE. warrant you, they could never get an eye-wink of her.--I had myself twenty angels given me this morning: but I defy all angels, (in any fuch fort, as they fay,) but in the way of honefty-and, 1 warrant you, they could never get her fo much as fip on a cup with the proudest of them all: and yet there has been earls; nay, which is more, penfioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her. 8 Fal. But what fays fhe to me? be brief, my good she Mercury. Quick. Marry, fhe hath receiv'd your letter; for the which The thanks you a thousand times: and the gives you to notify, that her husband will be abfence from his houfe between ten and eleven. Fal. Ten and eleven? Quick. Ay, forfooth; and then you may come and fee the picture, the fays, that you wot of; 9-mafter Ford, her husband, will be from home. Alas! the sweet woman leads an ill life with him; he's a very jealousy man; she leads a very frampold life with him, good heart. 2 Fal 8 This may be illuftrated by a paffage in Gervafe Holles's Life of the Firft Earl of Clare. Bieg. Brit. Art. HOLLES: "I have heard the Earl of Clare fay, that when he was penfioner to the queen, he did not know a worse man of the whole band than himself; and that all the world knew he had then an inheritance of 4000l. a year.” TYRWHITT. Penfioners were Gentlemen of the band of Pensioners." In the month of December," [1539] fays Stowe, Annals, p. 973, edit. 1605, "were appointed to waite on the king's perfon fifty Gentlemen called Penfioners, or Speares, like as they were in the first yeare of the king; unto whom was affigned the fumme of fiftie pounds, yerely, for the maintenance of themselves, and everie man two horfes, or one horfe and a gelding of fervice." Their drefs was remarkably splendid, and therefore likely to attract the notice of Mrs. Quickly. Hence, [as both Mr. Steevens and Mr. T. Warton have obferved] in A Midfummer Night's Dream, our author has felected from all the tribes of flowers the golden-coated cowlips to be penfioners to the Fairy Queen: "The cowflips tall her penfioners be, "In their gold coats fpots you fee;" &c. MALONE. 9 To wot is to know. Obfolete. STEEVENS. 2 This word I have never feen elsewhere, except in Dr. Hacker's Life of Archbifbop Williams, where a frampul man fignifies a peevish troublefome fellow. JOHNSON. Ray, among his South and Eaft country words, obferves, that frampald, or frampard, fignifies fretful, peevish, cross, froward. As froward (he adds) comes from from; fo may frampard. STEEVENS. |