Part 4

It was the custom, in Shakspeare's time, for physicians to be attended by their servants when visiting their patients. This appears from the _second part_ of Stubs's _Anatomie of abuses_, sign. H. 4 b., where, speaking of physicians, he says, "For now they ruffle it out in silckes and velvets, with _their men attending upon them_, whereas many a poor man (God wot) smarteth for it." Servants also carried their masters' rapiers: "Yf a man can place a dysh, fyll a boule and _carrie his maister's rapier_, what more is or can be required at his handes?"--Markham's _Health to the gentlemanly profession of a serving-man_, sign. F. 3.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 357.

MRS. FORD. ... to the tune of _Green sleeves_.

Another ballad with this title, and which has an equally good claim to be the one alluded to as those already quoted, may be seen in Mr. Ellis's elegant _Specimens of the early English poets_, vol. iii. p. 327, edit. 1801.

SCENE 1. Page 358.

MRS. PAGE. ... for sure, unless he knew some _strain_ in me that I know not myself----

The note seem to have wrested from this word its plain and obvious meaning of _turn_, _humour_, _tendency_, in which it is often used by Shakspeare.

SCENE 1. Page 359.

PIST. Hope is a _curtail dog_ in some affairs.

A curtail or curtal dog is placed by Howel in the vocabulary at the end of his _Dictionary of four languages_ among hunting-dogs, and is defined to be _a dog without a tail good for any service_. Yet we are not to suppose that the word uniformly signifies an animal with its tail cut off. It is in fact derived from _tailler court_, and applied to _any_ animals that are defective, man not excepted. Thus in Greene's _Quip for an upstart courtier_, a collier is made to say, "I am made a _curtall_: for the pillory hath eaten off both my _eares_," sign. E. 2. Nashe, in his _Prayse of the red herring_, speaks of the "_curtaild skinclipping pagans_." fo. 20. Dr. Stukeley, in a manuscript note in his copy of Robin Hood's garland, states that "the _curtal_ fryer of Fountain's abby is _Cordelier_, from the cord or rope which they wore round their wast, to whip themselves with. They were of the Franciscan order." But this is a mistake; and the opinion of Staveley much more probable, who, in chap. xxv. of his _Romish horseleech_, says, that in some countries where the Franciscan friars, conformably to the injunction of their founder, wore short habits, the order was presently contemned and derided, and men called them _curtailed friars_.

SCENE 2. Page 360.

FORD. Love my wife?

PIST. With _liver burning hot_.

It is here observed by Mr. Steevens, and elsewhere by Dr. Johnson, that the liver was anciently supposed to be the inspirer of amorous passions, and the seat of love. In conformity with this opinion, we are told in the English translation of Bartholomæus _De proprietatibus rerum_, lib. v. cap. 39, that "the lyver is the place of voluptuousnesse and lyking of the flesh;" and again, "the liver is a member, _hot_, &c." There is some reason for thinking that the idea was borrowed from the Arabian physicians, or at least adopted by them; for in the _Turkish tales_, an amorous tailor is made to address his wife by the titles of "thou _corner of my liver_, and soul of my life!" and in another place the king of Syria, who had sustained a temporary privation of his mistress, is said to have had "his liver, which had been _burnt up_ by the loss of her, cooled and refreshed at the sight of her." In _Twelfth night_, Fabian, speaking of Olivia's supposed letter to Malvolio, says, "This wins him, _liver and all_."

SCENE 2. Page 367, 368.

PAGE. I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his _rapier_.

SHAL. In these times you stand on distance, your passes stoccadoes and I know not what. I have seen the time with my long sword I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.

The notes on these speeches are at variance on a supposed anachronism committed by Shakspeare in introducing the _rapier_ in the time of Henry the Fourth. The same weapon is likewise found in _Richard II._ Act IV. Scene 1, where the controversy is renewed; and therefore it will be proper in considering this question to state the evidence and arguments in both places. It is maintained on one side that the _rapier_ was not used in England before the reign of Elizabeth; and in support of this opinion a passage from Carleton's _Thankful remembrance of God's mercy_ is offered; which, being only a second-hand and inaccurate statement from Darcie's _Annals of Elizabeth_, is not deserving of further notice. Darcie himself informs us that one Rowland York (who appears to have betrayed Deventer to the Spaniards in 1587) was the _first_ that brought into England "that wicked and pernicious fashion to fight in the fields in duels with _a rapier called a tucke_ onely for the thrust, &c." On this passage it may be remarked, that the _rapier_ is not _generally_ spoken of, but only a particular sort, the _tucke for the thrust_. On the same side Stowe is next cited, who mentions that the mode of fighting with the sword and buckler was frequent with all men till that of _the rapier and dagger_ took place, when _suddenly the general quarrel of fighting abated_, which began about the 20th of Elizabeth (1578). Now here the date seems rather applicable to the cessation of the very popular combats with sword and buckler, and the substitution only, and, as it will presently appear, the revival of the rapier and dagger, as a more limited manner of fighting, from its superior danger. There is another passage in Stowe, p. 869, which not being already cited, and throwing some light on the nature of the rapier, may deserve notice. The historian relates that "Shortly after (referring to the 12th or 13th year of Elizabeth) began _long tucks_ and _long rapiers_, and he was held the greatest gallant that had the deepest ruffe and longest rapier: the offence to the eye of the one, and the hurt unto the life of the subject that came by the other, caused her majesty to make proclamation against them both, and to place selected grave citizens at every gate to cut the ruffes, and breake the rapiers points of all passengers that exceeded a yeard in length of their rapiers, and a nayle of a yeard in depth of their ruffes." But this is likewise no evidence in favour of the _general_ introduction of the _rapier_ in the reign of Elizabeth, as Stowe merely refers to the _long foining or thrusting rapier_. The last quotation on this side of the question is from Bulleine's _Dialogue between soarnesse and chirurgi_, 1579, where the _long foining rapier_ is also mentioned as "a _new_ kind of instrument to let blood withall."

On the opposite side, Mr. Ritson produces a quotation from Nashe's _Life of Jacke Wilton_, who lived in the reign of Henry the Eighth, to show that _rapiers_ were used at that period. This sort of evidence might appear, on a first view, inadmissible, on the ground that Nashe had committed an error, very common with Shakspeare, in ascribing a custom of his own time to a preceding one, if it were not supported by the manuscript cited by Mr. Steevens in vol. iii. p. 327, in which, but not in the quotation from it, it appears that the _rapier_ actually was in use in the time of Henry the Eighth; and therefore it is impossible to decide that this weapon, which, with its name, we received from the French, might not have been known as early as the reign of Henry the Fourth, or even of Richard the Second. Shallow's ridicule of _passes and stoccadoes_ seems more objectionable, and may possibly deserve the appellation of anachronism. It is not a little remarkable that the _rapier_ was an article of exportation from this country in Cromwell's time. See _Oliverian acts_, A.D. 1657.

SCENE 1. Page 369.

FORD. Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on _his_ wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off _my_ opinion so easily: she was in his company, &c.

This speech is surely not so obscure as the notes seem to consider it. Ford says that _Page_ makes a firm stand with respect to, or on the question of, _his_ wife's frailty. What follows better deserves explanation, because the grammatical construction of the last sentence is, that _Page's_ wife was in Falstaff's company; whereas Ford means to say, "I cannot put off _my_ opinion, i. e. of _my own wife_, so easily; as _she_ was in Falstaff's company," &c. The emphasis should be laid on the words _his_ and _my_, and then the whole will be far more intelligible.

SCENE 2. Page 375.

FAL. Your _cat-a-mountain_ looks.

A term borrowed from the Spaniards, who call the wild cat _gato-montes_.

SCENE 2. Page 375.

FAL. Your _red lattice_ phrases.

Mr. Steevens, speaking of this external mark of an alehouse, says, "Hence the present chequers." But in reality the _lattice_ is the younger of the two, as the reference in the note to the Pompeii plate in _Archæologia_ demonstrates. Although the Romans were not acquainted with the game of chess, they certainly were with such a one as required a board with squares; and in all probability this sign of a house of entertainment where table games were played, has been handed down to us from the ancients. The resemblance of _lattice_ work, or _laths_ crossing each other, to a chess or backgammon board, might induce some ignorant painters to exhibit the former; but the _chequers_ have once more reassumed their station. Nor was _red_ always the colour; for, in the cant language of jolly fellows, a red or _blue_ lattice was termed _a free school for all comers_. See Heywood's _Philocothonista_, 1635, 4to.

SCENE 2. Page 376.

QUICK. There is one mistress Ford, sir:--I pray come a little nearer this ways:--I myself dwell with master Doctor Caius.

FAL. Well, on: mistress Ford, you say----

Is it not more natural that Falstaff should, in this first instance, repeat the dame's own words, and say, "Well, one mistress Ford, you say."

SCENE 2. Page 389.

FORD. ... an Irishman with my _aqua vitæ_ bottle----

_Irish aqua vitæ_ was certainly _usquebaugh_, and not _brandy_, as Mr. Malone has observed; but Ford is here speaking of _English aqua vitæ_, which was very different from the other so called from the Irish words _uisge_, aqua, and _beatha_, vita. That the curious reader may judge for himself, and at the same time be furnished with the means of indulging any wish that he may have for tasting the respective sorts in their genuine form, the following receipts for making them are subjoined:--The first is from a manuscript monkish common-place book, written about the reign of Henry the Sixth. "For to make water of lyff, that ys clepyd aqua vitæ. Take and fylle thy violle fulle of lyes of stronge vine, and put therto these powdrys. First powder of canel, powder of clowes, powdyr of gyngevir, powdyr of notemugys, powder of galyngale and powdyr of quibibis, poudyr of greyn de parys, poudyr of longe pepyr, powdyr of blacke pepir, carewey, cirmowitteyn, comyn, fenyl, smallache, persile, sawge, myntys, rewe, calamente, origaun, one ounce or more or lesse as ye lykyth; stampe hem a lytill for it will be bettyr, and put hem to these powdrys, than set thy glas on the fyre set on the hovel and kepe it wel that the eyre come not owte and set ther undyr a viole and kepe the watyr." The next is from _Cogan's Haven of health_, 1612, 4to, chap. 222. "To make aqua vitæ. Take of strong ale, or strong wine, or the lees of strong wine and ale together, a gallon or two as you please, and take half a pound or more of good liquorice, and as much annise seedes; scrape off the bark from the liquorice, and cut it into thin slices, and punne the annise grosse, and steepe altogether close covered twelve houres, then distill it with a limbecke or serpentine. And of every gallon of the liquor you may draw a quart of reasonable good _aqua vitæ_, that is of two galons two quarts. But see that your fire be temperate, and that the heade of your limbecke bee kept colde continually with fresh water, and that the bottome of your limbecke bee fast luted with rye dough, that no ayre issue out. The best ale to make _aqua vitæ_ of, is to be made of wheate malte, and the next of cleane barley malte, and the best wine for that purpose is sacke." The last is a receipt for making "Usquebath, or Irish aqua vitæ. To every gallon of good aqua composita, put two ounces of chosen liquorice bruised and cut into small peeces, but first cleansed from all his filth, and two ounces of annis seedes that are cleane and bruised; let them macerate five or six days in a wodden vessell, stopping the same close, and then draw off as much as will runne cleere, dissolving in that cleere aqua vitæ five or sixe spoonefulls of the best malassoes you can get: Spanish cute if you can get it, is thought better than malassoes: then put this into another vessell, and after three or foure dayes (the more the better) when the liquor hath fined itselfe, you maie use the same: some adde dates and raisins of the sun to this receipt; those grounds which remaine you maie redistill and make more aqua composita of them, and of that aqua composita you maie make more _usquebath_."--Plat's _Delightes for ladies_, 1611, 24to. It is to be observed, that _aqua composita_ is wine of any kind distilled with spices and sweet herbs. _Brandy_, or _burnt_ wine, seems first to occur in Skinner's _Etymologicon_, 1671, under the name of _Brandewin_, from the Dutch or German, and soon after in its present form; yet _aqua vitæ_ was continued a long while afterwards.

SCENE 3. Page 395.

HOST. _Cry'd game_, said I well?

The evidence, and indeed the sense, in favour of the phrase to _cry aim_, preponderates so greatly, that one cannot hesitate in discarding the nonsensical expression of _cry'd game_, which derives not the least support from any of Mr. Steevens's quotations. The probability is very great that there was an error of the press, and that the words should have been printed according to the orthography of the time, "Cry'd I _ayme_, said I well?" A _g_ might easily have crept in instead of a _y_.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 398.

SIM. Marry, sir, the _city-ward_----

"The old editions read _pittie-ward_, the modern editors _pitty-wary_," says Mr. Steevens, who in this edition has abandoned the best part of a former note where he had proposed to read _petty-ward_, which is the right word, and of the same import as the old one. That such a word formerly existed is demonstrable from its still remaining as a proper name, and near Wimbledon is a wood so called, probably from the owner. Mr. Steevens mistakes in supposing _ward_ to mean _towards_ in this instance, where it is put for the division of a city; nor does his quotation from William of Worcester assist him. The _via de Petty_ and the _Pyttey gate_ might be named after the hundred of Pyttey in Somersetshire. In Lyne's Map of Cambridge, 1574, we find the _petticurie_.

SCENE 1. Page 399.

EVANS. I will knog his _urinals_ about his knave's costard----

This utensil was the usual concomitant of physicians in former times, as appears from most of the frontispieces to old medical books and other ancient prints.

SCENE 2. Page 410.

HOST. ... he smells April and May.

The same as if he had said he smells of _youth and courtship_, symbolized by these months, the former of which in old calendars is described in these lines:

"The next vi yere maketh foure and twenty, And fygured is to joly Apryll; That tyme of pleasures man hath moost plenty Fresshe and lovyng his lustes to fulfyll----"

and the latter in the following:

"As in the month of Maye all thyng is in myght, So at xxx yeres man is in chyef lykyng; Pleasaunt and lusty, to every mannes syght, In beaute and strength to women pleasyng."

SCENE 2. Page 412.

HOST. I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink _canary_ with him.

FORD. I think I shall drink-in _pipe-wine_ first with him; I'll make him dance.

It may be doubted whether the exact meaning of this cluster of puns has already been given. Mr. Tyrwhitt says he cannot understand the phrase _to drink in pipe-wine_, and suggests that Shakspeare might have written _horn-pipe wine_. Now Ford terms canary _pipe-wine_, both because the _canary_ dance is performed to a tabor and _pipe_, and because the canary _bird_ is said to _pipe_ his tunes. Ford is speaking of Falstaff, not of Page, as Mr. Tyrwhitt's note implies when it refers to horns. He says he will make him pipe and dance too.

SCENE 3. Page 414.

MRS. FORD. How now, my _eyas-musket_?

There was no reason for disturbing the etymology of this word given by Dr. Warburton, by substituting that of Dame Juliana Bernes, which for ingenuity and veracity may be well classed with many of those in _Isidore of Seville_, or _The golden legend_. Take an example from the latter. "Felix is sayd of _fero fers_, that is to saye, to bere, and of this word _lis_, _litis_, whiche is as moche to say as stryfe, for he bare stryfe for the fayth of our lorde." Turberville tells us that "the first name and terme that they bestowe on a falcon is an _eyesse_, and this name doth laste as long as she is in the eyrie and for that she is taken from the _eyrie_." This is almost as bad as the lady abbess's account. _Eyrie_ is simply the nest or _eggery_, and has no connexion with the name of the bird. _Eyas_ or _nias_, is a term borrowed from the French _niais_, which means any young bird in the nest, _avis in nido_. It is the first of five several names by which a falcon is called during its first year. The best account of this bird is in _La fauconnerie de Charles d'Arcussa de Capre, seigneur d'Esparron_, 1643, 4to. A _musket_ is a sparrow-hawk, and is derived from the French _mouchet_, and the latter probably from _musca_, on account of its diminutive form. The humour therefore lies in comparing the page to a young male sparrow-hawk, an emblem of his tender years and activity.

ACT IV.

SCENE 2. Page 448.

MRS. FORD. ... and her _muffler_ too.

It would oppress the reader by citing authorities to prove that the muffler was a contrivance of various kinds to conceal a part of the face, and that even a _mask_ was occasionally so denominated. From an examination of several ancient prints and paintings, it appears that when the muffler was made of linen, it only covered the lower part of the face; such it was in the present instance, for the old woman of Brentford would not want to conceal her eyes. It is otherwise in _King Henry V._ Act III. Scene 1, where Fortune's _blindness_ is described, and there a linen bandage would be meant, but perhaps not very correctly called a muffler. The term is connected with the old French _musser_ or _muçer_, to hide, or with _amuseler_, to cover the _museau_ or _mufle_, a word which has been indiscriminately used for the mouth, nose, and even the whole of the face; hence our _muzzle_. It was enacted by a Scotish statute in 1457, that "na woman cum to kirk, nor mercat, with her face _mussaled_ or covered that scho may not be kend." Notwithstanding this interposition of the legislature, says Mr. Warton, the ladies of Scotland continued _muzzled_ during three reigns; and he cites Sir David Lyndsay's poem _In contemptioun of syde taillis_, in which the author advises the king to issue a proclamation that the women should show their faces as they did in France. _Hist. of Eng. poetry_, ii. 324.

The annexed cuts exhibit different sorts of mufflers. The first and third figures are copied from Jost Amman's _Theatrum mulierum_, Francof. 1586, 4to; the second, from Speed's Map of England, is the _costume_ of an English countrywoman in the reign of James I.; the fourth is from an old German print; and the others from Weigel's _Habitus præcipuorum populorum_, Nuremb. 1577, folio; a work which, for the beauty of the wood-cuts, has never been surpassed.

In the reign of Charles I. the ladies wore masks which covered the eye-brows and nose, holes being left for the eyes. Sometimes, but not always, the mouth was covered, and the chin guarded with a sort of muffler then called a _chin-cloth_; these were chiefly used to keep off the sun. See Hollar's print of _Winter_. The velvet masks probably came from France, as they are mentioned in the _Book of values of merchandize imported_, under the administration of Oliver Cromwell. There was another sort called _visard masks_, that covered all the face, having holes only for the eyes, a case for the nose, and a slit for the mouth. They were easily disengaged, being held in the teeth by means of a round bead fastened in the inside. These masks were usually made of leather, covered with black velvet. Randle Holme, from whose _Academy of armory_, book iii. c. 5, their description is extracted, adds, that the devil invented them, and that none about court except w----s, bawds, and the devil's imps, used them, being ashamed to show their faces.

SCENE 2. Page 450.

PAGE. Why this _passes_!----

The word had been already explained by Warburton in p. 329. Page, astonished at Ford's conduct, says it _exceeds every thing_. Such is the sense in the New Testament, "the love of Christ, which _passeth_ knowledge," _Ephes._ iii. 19. The French often use _passer_ in the same manner; and in _Hamlet_ we have this expression, "I have that within which _passeth_ show."

SCENE 2. Page 452.

FORD. ... his wife's _leman_.

Mr. Steevens derives it from the Dutch, a language whence we have borrowed few, if any words. The term is of Saxon origin, and _leveman_ can be traced to an Anglo-Norman period. This was afterwards contracted into _leman_. The etymology is perhaps from leoꝼe, amabilis, and man, homo. The latter in Saxon denoted both man and woman; so that _leman_ was formerly applied to both sexes as a _person beloved_.

SCENE 2. Page 455.

MRS. PAGE. ... in the way of _waste_----

This expression is from the same _law_ manufactory referred to by Mr. Ritson in the preceding note. The incident in the present scene, of Falstaff's threshing in the habit of a woman, might have been suggested by the story of the beaten and contented cuckold in Boccaccio's _Decameron_, day 7. ver. 7.

SCENE 5. Page 466.

SIMP. Pray you, sir, was't not the _wise woman of Brentford_?

Mr. Steevens cites _Judges_ v. 29, on this occasion: but the _wise ladies_ there were of a very different character from the old woman of Brentford, even according to the Hebrew text: see the Vulgate and Septuagint versions, where the expression is still more remote. The subject of these wise women will be resumed in a note on _Twelfth night_, Act III. Scene 4.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 475.

FAL. Hold up your head, and _mince_.

The word is properly explained by Mr. Steevens. Thus in _Isaiah_ iii. 16, "walking and _mincing_ as they go." Wicliffe has "with their feet in curious goyng;" and Tindale, "tryppyng so nicely with their feet." _To mince_ is likewise to walk in a stately, or, as Littelton expresses it, _Junonian_ step.

SCENE 2. Page 477.

SLEN. I come to her in white, and cry _mum_, she cries, _budget_.

The word _mumbudget_, here divided, is used by Nashe in his _Have with you to Saffron Walden_, where, speaking of Gabriel Harvey, he says, "no villaine, no atheist, no murderer, but hee hath likened me too, for no other reason in the earth, but because I would not let him go beyond me, or _be won to put my finger in my mouth and crie mumbudget_ when he had baffuld mee in print throughout England." To _play mumbudget_, is rendered _demeurer court, ne sonner mot_, in Sherwood's _English and French dictionary_, 1632, folio. _Mumchance_ is silence; and a _mummery_ was a silent masquerade. _Mumbudget_ may be _silence in a budget_, a something _closed_ or stopped up, Fr. _bouché_.

SCENE 4. Page 479.

MRS. PAGE.... hard by _Herne's oak_----