2 garters ! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison : When a jeft is fo forward, and afoot too, - I hate it. GADS. Stand. Enter GADSHILL. FAL. So I do, against my will. POINS. O, 'tis our setter: I know his voice. Enter BARDOLPH. BARD. What news? 4 GADS. Cafe ye, case ye; on with your visors; there's money of the king's coming down the hill; 'tis going to the king's exchequer. FAL. You lie, you rogue; 'tis going to the king's tavern. 2 - heir-apparent garters!] own garters is a proverb in Ray's Collection. STEEVENS. "He may hang himself in his 3 An I have not ballads made on you all, and fung to filthy tunes, let a cup of fack be my poison: So, in The Rape of Lucrece : " Shall have thy trespass cited up in rhymes, " And fung by children in succeeding times. " Again, in Antony and Cleopatra : 66 saucy lictors " Will catch at us like strumpets, and Scald rhimers 19 "Ballad us out of tune. MALONE. -4 Bard. What news?) In all the copies that I have seen, Poins is made to speak upon the entrance of Gadshill thus: O, 'tis our fetter; I know his voice. - Bardolph, what news? This is abfurd; he knows Gadshill to be the fetter, and afks Bardolph what news. To countenance this impropriety, the latter editions have made Gadshill and Bardolph enter together, but the old copies bring in Gadshill alone, and we find that Falstaff, who knew their stations, calls to Bardolph among others for his horfe, but not to Gadshill, who was posted at a diftance. We should therefore read: Poins. O, 'tis our fetter, &c. GADS. There's enough to make us all. P. HEN. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned Poins, and I will walk lower: if they 'scape from your encounter, then they light on us. PETO. How many be there of them? GADS. Some eight, or ten. FAL. Zounds! will they not rob us? grandfather; but yet no coward, Hal. P. HEN. Well, we leave that to the proof. Poins. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge; when thou need'st him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand faft. FAL. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hang'd. P. HEN. Ned, where are our disguises? [Exeunt P. HENRY and POINS. FAL. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business. 5 dole, The portion of alms distributed at Lambeth palace gate is at this day called the dole. In Jonson's Alchemist, Subtle charges Face with perverting his master's charitable intentions, by selling the dole beer to aqua-vitæ men. SIR J. HAWKINS. So, in The Coftly Whore, 1633 : we came thinking 66 - " We should have fome dole at the bishop's funeral." Again: "Go to the back gate, and you shall have dole. " STEEVENS Enter Travellers. 1 TRAV. Come, neighbour; the boy shall lead our horses down the hill: we'll walk a-foot a while, and ease our legs. THIEVES. Stand. TRAV. Jesu bless us! FAL. Strike; down with them; cut the villains' throats: Ah! whorson caterpillars! bacon - fed knaves! they hate us youth: down with them; fleece them. 1 TRAV. O, we are undone, both we and ours, for ever. FAL. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves; Are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs ; ' I would, your store were 6 --gorbellied-] i. e. fat and corpulent. See the Gloffary to Kennet's Parochial Antiquities. This word is likewife used by Sir Thomas North in his Tranflation of Plutarch. 1 Nashe, in his Have with you to Saffron - Walden, 1596, says: " O 'tis an unconscionable gorbellied volume, bigger bulk'd than a Dutch hơy, and far more boisterous and cumbersome than a payre of Swiffers omnipotent galeaze breeches." Again, in The Weakest goes to the Wall, 1600: "What are these thick-skinn'd, heavypurs'd, gorbellied churles mad?" STEEVENS. 7 --ye fat chuffs;) This term of contempt is always applied to rich and avaricious people. So, in The Muse's Looking Glass, 1638: "the chuff's crowns, " Imprison'd in his rufty cheft, " &c. The derivation of the word is faid to be uncertain. Perhaps it is a corruption of chough, a thievish bird that collects his prey on the fea-shore. So, in Chaucer's Assemble of Foules: "The thief the chough, and eke the chatt'ring pie. Sir W. D'Avenant, in his Just Italian, 1630, has the fame term: " They're rich choughs, they've store " Of villages and plough'd earth." here! On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves? young men must live: You are grand-jurors are ye? We'll jure ye, i'faith. [Exeunt FALSTAFF, &c. driving the Travellers out. Re-enter Prince HENRY and Poins. P. HEN. The thieves have bound the true men: Now could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever. POINS. Stand close, I hear them coming. And Sir Epicure Mammon, in The Alchemist, being asked who had robb'd him, answers, " a kind of choughs, fir. " STEEVENS. The name of the Cornish bird is pronounced by the natives chow. Chuff is the fame word with cuff, both fignifying a clown, and being in all probability derived from a Saxon word of the latter found. Ritson. - the true men:] In the old plays a true man is always fet in oppofition to a thief. So, in the ancient Morality called Hycke Scorner, bl. 1. no date: " And when me lift to hang a true man " Theves I can help out of pryson. " Again, in The Four Prentices of London, 1615 : Again: "Now, true man, try if thou can'ft rob a thief. " " Sweet wench, embrace a true man, scorn a thief." See Vol. VI. p. 151, n. 5. STEEVENS. 9 argument for a week, Argument is fubje& matter for conversation or a drama. So, in the Second Part of this play : " For all my part has been but as a scene " Acting that argument. " Mr. M. Mason adopts the former of these meanings, and adds, in fupport of his opinion, a passage from Much ado about Nothing, where Don Pedro says to Benedick, [Vol. VI. p. 238.] if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument." STEEVENS. Re-enter Thieves. FAL. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day. An the prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there's no equity stirring: there's no more valour in that Poins, than in a wild duck. P. HEN. Your money. [Rushing out upon them. [As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins fet P. HEN. Got with much ease. Now merrily to * The thieves are scatter'd, and possess'd with fear [Exeunt, * Each takes his fellow for an officer.) The same thought, a little varied, occurs again in K. Henry VI. Part III: " "The thief doth fear each bush an officer. STEEVENS. And lards the lean earth -] So, in King Henry V: " STEEVENS. |