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KING HENRY IV.
PART I.

ACT I.

Scene 1. Page 357.

This antiquated word, signifying shores, seems to have been entitled to some notice by the editors, as it cannot be familiar to every reader. We have now, perhaps accidentally, restored the original Saxon ꞅꞇꞃanꝺ.

Scene 1. Page 357.

The original reads entrance, which is supported by Mr. Malone and also by Mr. Ritson, to whose authorities might be added the line in Spenser's Shepherds calendar;

The present reading was ingeniously suggested by Mr. Mason, and has been adopted by Mr. Steevens, who, vigorously maintaining its propriety, throws the gauntlet of defiance to all adversaries: but let us not be appalled!

To the assertion that a just and striking personification is all that is wanted on this emergency, the answer is, that we have it already. Soil is personified; they are her lips, and her children that are alluded to. With respect to Erinnys, notwithstanding the examples of typographical errors that are adduced, it is highly improbable that it should have been mistaken for entrance, a word which has three letters that are wanting in the other. Again, are the instances common, or rather do they exist at all, where the capital letter of a proper name has been lost in a corruption? And, lastly, to turn in part Mr. Steevens's own words against himself, it is not probable that Shakspeare would have "opened his play with a speech, the fifth line of which is obscure enough to demand a series of comments thrice as long as the dialogue to which it is appended;" or, it may be added, which contained a name of such unfrequent occurrence, and certainly unintelligible to the greatest part of the audience.

It is often expected, though perhaps rather unreasonably, that where an opinion is controverted, a better should be substituted; yet it does seem just that something at least, in value equal or nearly so, should be produced, and on this ground the following new reading is very diffidently offered:

In Titus Andronicus we have the expression, "the ragged entrails of this pit." And in the Third part of King Henry VI.,

Nothing that has been here advanced is calculated to maintain that the name of Erinnys must have been obscure to Shakspeare. One or two quotations have been already given from authorities that might have supplied him, to which the following shall now be added:

Scene 2. Page 367.

Falstaff, with great propriety, according to vulgar astronomy, calls the sun a wandering knight, and by this expression evidently alludes to some hero of romance. Now though the knight of the sun mentioned by Mr. Steevens, was doubtless a great wanderer, he was not more so than others of his profession; and therefore it is possible that Falstaff may refer to another person particularly known by the name of the wandering knight, and the hero of a spiritual romance translated in Shakspeare's time from the French by William Goodyeare, under the last-named title. It may be worth mentioning that in all probability John Bunyan used this work in the composition of his Pilgrim's progress.

Scene 2. Page 376.

Captain Grose in his Dictionary of the vulgar tongue informs us that a gib cat is so called from Gilbert, the northern name for a he cat; and this is corroborated by the manner in which Chaucer has used the word in question;

The original French has "dam Thibert le chas," which proves that Gib was a proper name in Chaucer's time, whatever change it may have since undergone in its feline application. We see too the reason why a gib is a male cat. The melancholy of this animal has been sufficiently explained. Another quality belonging to him is thus ironically mentioned in the anonymous play of The politick whore, 1680; "as modest as a gib-cat at midnight."

Scene 2. Page 381.

In aid of Mr. Malone's conjecture that sack was so called as being a dry wine, vin sec, it may be remarked that the old orthography was secke and not sack. Dr. Boorde in his Regimente of health, 1562, 12mo, calls it so. In Hollyband's French schoolemaister, 1619, 12mo, we have "secke, du vin sec." Again, "Some of you chaplaines, get my lorde a cup of secke, to comfort his spirites." Ponet's Treatise of politike power, 1556, 12mo; and Cotgrave in his Dictionary, makes sack to be vin sec. This plausible etymology might have been wholly relied on, if an ingenious female traveller in speaking of the Tatar koumis, a preparation of mare's milk, had not informed us that she could not choose to partake of it out of the goatskin sacks in which it is carried "as the Spaniards," says she, "do their wine; which, by the by, is a practice so common in Spain, as to give the name of sack to a species of sweet wine once highly prized in Great Britain."—Guthrie's Tour through the Crimea, 1802, 4to, page 229. More stress is to be laid on this matter from a remarkable coincidence mentioned by Isidore of Seville, in his Etymologies, book iii. ch. 4, where he states saccatum to be a liquor made from water and the dregs of wine passed through a sack. See also Ducange Gloss. v. Saccatum, and Carpentier's supplement, v. Saquatum.

Whatever has been said in the course of the scattered notes concerning Falstaff's sack is so confused and contradictory, that it will be the duty of a future editor, either to concentrate them for the purpose of enabling the reader to deduce his own inference; or, rejecting them altogether in their present form, to extract from the materials they supply, the best opinion he may be able to form. There are two principal questions on the subject: 1. Whether sack was known in this country in the time of Henry the Fourth? 2. Whether it was a dry or a sweet wine when this play was written? The first is very easily solved; for there appears to be no mention of it till the 23rd year of Henry the Eighth, when a regulation was made that no malmseys, romineis, sackes nor other sweet wines, should be sold for more than three-pence a quart. The other question is full of difficulties, and the evidence relating to it very contradictory. We see it was a sweet wine before Shakspeare's time, a circumstance that may be noticed as adverse to the etymology of sec. But if it was sweet, whence the use of sugar, which we do not find to have been added to other sweet wines? The testimony of Dr. Venner proves that sack was drunk either with or without sugar, according to the palate. The quality of this wine, originally sweet and luscious, might have undergone a change, or else some other Spanish wine less saccharine in its nature might have obtained the name of sack.

Scene 2. Page 385.

Mr. Malone has in this and some other places maintained that sirrah was not used as a term of disrespect in Shakspeare's time; but the learned commentator would probably have revised his opinion had he recollected the quarrel between Vernon and Basset in the first part of Henry the Sixth, where, in the most opprobrious manner, sirrah is answered by villain. It seems to have been used much in the same way as at present, sometimes expressing anger and contempt, yet more frequently in a milder way when addressed to children and servants. It was even applied to women.

Scene 3. Page 399.

This line would be highly relished by an audience accustomed in Shakspeare's time to "Satan's chaunt," on some of the minor stages. On the theatrical roaring of the Devil, see the notes of Messrs. Steevens and Malone in King Henry V. Act IV.

Scene 3. Page 403.

He seems to allude to the practice of making a bridge by means of a sword or a spear sometimes adopted by the heroes of ancient chivalry. See Lancelot of the lake, and other similar romances. Such an incident is represented on an ivory chest engraved in the first volume of Mr. Carter's Specimens of ancient sculpture and painting.

Scene 3. Page 407.

To convey to the reader a complete idea of a sword-and-buckler man of Shakspeare's time, the following print of a young Englishman is exhibited. It is taken from the collection of dresses designed by Titian, and said to have been engraved on wood by his brother Cesar Vecelli, the editor of which remarks that the English youths then made great use of the sword and buckler. A similar figure occurs in the frontispiece to Cranmer's Bible, designed by Holbein, which has been most unfaithfully copied in Lewis's History of the translations of the bible. Mr. Strutt has given more correct copies of the man with the buckler in his Manners and customs of the inhabitants of England, vol. iii. pl. xii. and in his Dress and habits of the people of England, pl. cxxxviii.

The subject receives much illustration from a passage in Stowe's chronicle, p. 869, edit. 1634: "Untill about the twelfe or thirteenth yeere of Queene Elizabeth the auncient English fight of sword and buckler was onely had in use: the bucklers then being but a foote broad, with a pike of foure or five inches long. Then they began to make them full halfe ell broad with sharpe pikes ten or twelve inches long wherewith they meant either to breake the swords of their enemies, if it hit upon the pike, or els suddenly to run within them and stabbe, and thrust their buckler with the pike, into the face, arme or body of their adversary; but this continued not long. Every haberdasher then sold bucklers." The above historian had, no doubt, good authority for what he says respecting the length of the pike; but it is certain that in the eighth year of Elizabeth a proclamation was issued by which no person was permitted to wear any sword or rapier that should exceed the length of one yard and half a quarter in the blade, nor any dagger above the length of twelve inches in the blade, nor any buckler with a point or pike exceeding the length of two inches. The mode of wearing the buckler at the back may be seen in the cut p. 209.

Scene 3. Page 407.

Mr. Steevens suggests that this speech has reference to the prince of Wales's pot companions, and Dr. Grey to the manner of King John's death. It will indeed suit either of those circumstances. But this remark has been principally made for the purpose of correcting an error of long standing with respect to what has been generally called Caxton's chronicle. Dr. Grey, relying perhaps on Bale or Nicolson, has inaccurately cited Caxton's Fructus temporum for the account of King John's death; yet this work was never printed by Caxton under that title. It was professedly compiled by a schoolmaster of Saint Alban's, and originally printed in that city in 1483. In this form it is properly called The Saint Alban's chronicle, and is in fact a republication of one attributed to Caxton, with some additions at the beginning and end. The original often occurs in manuscript both in French and English; and, from the evidence of an ancient note in one copy preserved among the Harleian manuscripts, appears to have been composed by a monk of Glastonbury, named Douglas, who in the early part of it has copied Geoffrey of Monmouth. This work has been commonly ascribed to Caxton, and is often cited, even by old writers, under the name of his chronicle, though he only made a trifling addition by a continuation to his own time. It is likewise supposed to have been originally printed by him, but this is in all probability a mistake; for there is an edition undoubtedly printed by William Machlinia without date, which had escaped the observation of the correct and industrious Herbert. The type is the same as that used in the Speculum Christiani. This is presumed to be the prior edition which is spoken of in the prologue to that which Caxton printed in 1480, and there is no proof whatever that he printed any edition before that year.

ACT II.

Scene 3. Page 436.

In the note we are only told that "a basilisk is a cannon of a particular kind." It is well known that there was a serpent so called, perhaps an imaginary one; and this animal with others of a like nature being sculptured on the ancient pieces of artillery, supplied them with the various appellations of serpentines, culverines, (from the French couleuvre,) flying dragons, &c. Of these the basilisk was the largest. It was sometimes called a double culverine, and was much used about the middle of the sixteenth century, especially by the Turks. It must have been of a prodigious size, as it carried a ball of near two hundred pounds weight. Coryat mentions that he saw in the citadel of Milan "an exceeding huge basiliske which was so great that it would easily contayne the body of a very corpulent man."—Crudities, p. 104, quarto edition. Father Maffei, in his History of the Indies, relates that Badur, king of Cambay, had at the siege of Chitor four basilisks of so large a size that each was drawn by a hundred yoke of oxen, so that the ground trembled beneath them.

Scene 3. Page 438.

This "token of amorous dalliance" is more particularly exemplified in an ancient song, entitled Beware my lyttyl fynger, reprinted by Mr. Ritson from Sir John Hawkins's History of music.

As the learned historian has not stated whence he procured this piece, it may be worth adding that it occurs in a small oblong quarto volume of songs with music, printed, according to appearance, by Wynkyn de Worde, in 1530; but as it varies in some instances from the reading in Sir John's work it is possible that he might have used some other authority.

Scene 4. Page 442.

The celebrity of Lais, the Corinthian courtezan, is said to have occasioned the proverb cited in Mr. Steevens's note, because from the extravagance of the lady's demands every one could not afford to go to Corinth, which, says Taverner, in his Proverbs or adagies of Erasmus, 1569, 12mo, is of like sense with our English proverb, Every man may not be a lord. We are told by Strabo that the temple of Venus at Corinth was furnished with a thousand young girls who performed the rites of the goddess. In short, that city appears to have been so notorious for its luxury, that ancient writers are full of allusions on this subject. See particularly Aristophanes's Plutus, Act I. Scene 2, and Saint Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, ch. v. verse 1. This may serve to explain why wenchers were called Corinthians.

Scene 4. Page 444.

This was the coming, sir, of the waiters in Shakspeare's time. In Summer's last will and testament, Harvest says, "Why, friend, I am no tapster to say, anon, anon, sir."

Scene 4. Page 461.

Although it certainly stands thus in the old copy, the word should be changed without scruple to nott-pated, i. e. polled or cropped. The prince had a little before bestowed the same epithet on the drawer. In this place it may refer to the practice of nicking or cropping naturals.

Scene 4. Page 461.

As the strappado has been elsewhere improperly defined "a chastisement by blows," under an idea that a strap was used on the occasion, it may be necessary to take further notice of it on this occasion. It was a military punishment, by which the unfortunate sufferer was most inhumanly tortured in the following manner:—a rope being fastened under his arms, he was drawn up by a pulley to the top of a high beam, and then suddenly let down with a jerk. The consequence usually was a dislocation of the shoulder blade. Representations of this nefarious process may be seen in Breughel's print of The punishments of the law; in one of Gerini's fine Views of Florence, and in Callot's Miseries of war. The term is evidently taken from the Italian strappare, to pull or draw with violence. At Paris there was a spot called l'estrapade in the fauxbourg St. Jaques, where soldiers received this punishment. The machine, whence the place took its name, remained fixed like a perpetual gallows.

Scene 4. Page 468.

Amaimon, king of the East, was one of the principal devils who might be bound or restrained from doing hurt from the third hour till noon, and from the ninth hour till evening. See Scot's Discovery of witchcraft, B. xv. ch. 3.

ACT III.

Scene 1. Page 487.

A cresset light was the same as a beacon light, but occasionally portable. It consisted of a wreathed rope smeared with pitch and placed in a cage of iron like a trivet, which was suspended on pivots in a kind of fork. The light sometimes issued from a hollow pan filled with combustibles. The term is not, as Hanmer and others have stated, from the French croissette, a little cross, but rather from croiset, a cruet or earthen pot; yet as the French language furnishes no similar word for the cresset itself, we might prefer a different etymology. Our Saxon glossaries afford no equivalent term, but it may perhaps exhibit a Teutonic origin in the German kerze, a light or candle, or even in the French cierge, from cereus, because the original materials were of wax. Stowe the historian has left us some account of the marching watches that formerly paraded many of the streets of London, in which he says that "the whole way ordered for this watch extended to two thousand three hundred taylors yards of assize, for the furniture wherof with lights there were appointed seven hundred cressets, five hundred of them being found by the companies, the other two hundred by the chamber of London. Besides the which lights every constable in London, in number more than two hundred and forty, had his cresset, the charge of every cresset was in light two shillings fourepence, and every cresset had two men, one to beare or hold it, another to beare a bagge with light, and to serve it: so that the poore men pertaining to the cressets, taking wages, besides that every one had a strawne hat, with a badge painted, and his breakfast in the morning, amounted in number to almost two thousand."—Survay of London, 1618, 4to, p. 160. The following representations of ancient cressets have been collected from various prints and drawings.

Scene 1. Page 492.

The word in its strict sense, signifies a small piece of any thing, but here a portion or parcel. The French have chanteau and chantel, from the Latin quantulum.

Scene 1. Page 494.

"Glendower means," says Mr. Ritson, "that he graced his own tongue with the art of singing." This is surely wrong. The meaning is, that, by setting the English ditties to Welsh music, he had embellished the language in a manner that Hotspur had never done, the roughness of his speech affording neither poetry nor music. Tongue was rightly explained by Dr. Johnson, the English language.

Scene 1. Page 499.

According to Mr. Steevens, swelling heavens are prominent lips. Are they not eyes swollen with tears? Glendower had just said that his daughter wept; and Mortimer tells his wife that he would answer the melting language of her eyes, if it were not for shame.

Scene 2. Page 508.

A pick-thank is one who gathers or collects favour, thanks, or applause, by means of flattery. "Cave ne falsam gratiam studes inire." Terence; which is thus Englished by Udall in his Floures for Latine spekynge, 1533, 12mo, fo. 137:—"Beware that thou desire not to pyke or to have a thanke of me undeserved."

Scene 3. Page 522.

Falstaff's wit at the expense of poor Bardolph's ruby face is inexhaustible. The same subject is treated with considerable humour in the following passage in Melton's Astrologaster, 1620, 4to: "But that which most grieves me, is, most of the varlets belonging to the citie colledges (I meane both the prodigious compters) have fierie red faces, that they cannot put a cup of Nippitato to their snowts, but with the extreme heat that doth glow from them, they make it cry hisse again, as if there were a gadd of burning steele flung into the pot," &c.

Scene 3. Page 528.

The quotation from Olaus Magnus does not support Mr. Steevens's assertion that the fox when drawn out of his hole was supposed to counterfeit death; for it is stated by that writer, and indeed by others, that he uses this device when hungry, to attract the birds, who mistake him for carrion. The following passage from Turbervile's Noble arte of venery or hunting is offered, but with no great confidence, as a possible illustration of the phrase in question: "Foxes which have been beaten have this subtletie, to drawe unto the largest part of the burrow where three or foure angles meete together, and there to stand at baye with the terriers, to the ende they may afterwardes shift and goe to which chamber they list."

Scene 3. Page 535.

The first seven lines of this speech are undoubtedly prose, and should be so printed, like the preceding speeches of the Prince. No correct ear will ever receive them as blank verse, notwithstanding the efforts that have been or shall be made to convert them into metre.

ACT IV.

Scene 1. Page 543.

The evident corruption or mutilation in these lines, has rendered any attempt to explain them a task of great difficulty. It will be necessary in the first place to ascertain the exact sense of the word estridge; and although it is admitted that the ostrich was occasionally so denominated by our old writers, it is by no means certain that this bird is meant in the present instance. It may seem a very obvious comparison between the feathers of a crested helmet and those of the ostrich; and had the expression plum'd like estridges stood singly, no doubt whatever could have arisen. It is what follows that occasions the difficulty.

The old copies read, with the wind: now if the ostrich had been here alluded to, the conjectural substitution of wing would have been absolutely requisite; but the line which follows cannot by any possible construction be made to apply to that bird. It relates altogether to falconry, a sport to which Shakspeare is perpetually referring. Throughout the many observations on these difficult lines, it has been quite overlooked that estridge signifies a goshawk. In this sense the word is used in Antony and Cleopatra, Act III. Scene 2:

There is likewise a similar passage in the third part of King Henry VI., which may serve as a commentary on the above line:

It would be absurd to talk of a dove pecking an ostrich; the allusion is to the practice of flying falcons at pigeons. Thus Golding in his translation of Ovid's metamorphoses, fo. 9:

The manor of Radeclyve in Nottinghamshire was held by the service of "mewing a goshawk;" in the original charter, "mutandi unum estricium" In the romance of Guy earl of Warwick we have,

Falconers are often called ostregers and ostringers in the old books of falconry, and elsewhere. Estridge for ostrich or ostridge is a corrupt spelling that crept into the language at the commencement of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and it appears that after that period the two words were very often confounded together, and used one for the other.

The explanation of to bate, as cited from Minsheu in one of the notes, cannot apply to ostriches, though it does, very properly, to a bird of prey like the falcon.

After all, there is certainly a line lost, as Mr. Malone has very justly and ingeniously conjectured; but the place should rather seem to have been after the word bath'd, than before. The sense of the old copies, as to what remains, will then be tolerably perspicuous:

"All plum'd like estridges, that with the wind
Bated, like eagles having lately bath'd
* * * * * * *"

i. e. plumed like falcons, which, their feathers being ruffled with the wind, like eagles that have recently bathed, make a violent fluttering noise; the words in Italics being here conjecturally offered as something like the sense of the omitted line.

Scene 1. Page 546.

There are two other passages in Shakspeare's plays that relate to the beaver, which it will be best to insert here for the purpose of avoiding confusion, and to afford likewise the means of assembling together the various and discordant opinions of the commentators. These are, 1. in King Henry IV. Part II. Act IV. Scene 1, "their beavers down;" and 2. in Hamlet, Act I. Scene 2, "he wore his beaver up."

In the first of these passages Dr. Warburton would read with his beaver up; and he remarks that "the beaver is only the visiere of the helmet, which, let down, covers the face. When the soldier was not upon action, he wore it up, so that his face might be seen, but when upon [in] action, it was let down to cover and secure the face." All this is correct, except that the beaver is certainly not the visor.

Dr. Johnson says, "there is no need of all this note; for beaver may be a helmet." This too is very just; the beaver, a part only of the helmet strictly speaking, is frequently used to express a helmet generally. Thus, in the first scene of the third part of King Henry VI., "I cleft his beaver with a downright blow." The latter part of the doctor's note was unnecessary, and its inference apparently wrong.

Mr. Malone remarks that "Dr. Warburton seems not to have observed, that Vernon only says, he saw young Harry, not that he saw his face." But surely, Dr Warburton having contended for the reading beaver up, could not have misconceived Vernon's meaning as above.

Dr. Lort contents himself with distinguishing and explaining the beaver and visor. He is however wrong in stating that the beaver was let down to enable the wearer to drink.

Mr. Malone's second note relating to Hamlet, will be considered in the third passage.

In the second passage, Mr. Malone remarks that the beaver "is confounded both here and in Hamlet with visor, or used for helmet in general," but that "Shakspeare is not answerable for any confusion on this subject, as he used beaver in the same sense in which it was used by all his contemporaries." The latter part of this note applies very justly to the first passage, beaver on, where it is used generally for a helmet, but not to the present; beavers down being perfectly accurate. It is submitted that the former part of the note, which relates to a supposed confusion both here and in Hamlet between beaver and visor, is not quite accurate, as may hereafter appear.

In the third passage Mr. Malone says, "though beaver properly signified that part of the helmet which was let down, to enable the wearer to drink, Shakspeare always uses the word as denoting that part of the helmet which, when raised up, exposed the face of the wearer; and such was the popular signification of the word in his time. In Bullokar's English expositor, 8vo, 1616, beaver is defined thus:—'In armour it signifies that part of the helmet which may be lifted up to take the breath more freely.'" On this passage Mr. Malone had also before remarked that Shakspeare confounded the beaver and visor; for in Hamlet Horatio says that he saw the old king's face, because he wore his beaver up; and yet the learned commentator inadvertently quotes Bullokar's definition, which is adverse to his own opinion. Another observation that suggests itself on Mr. Malone's note on Hamlet is, that Shakspeare does not always use beaver to denote that part of the helmet which, when raised up, exposed the face of the wearer; because we have just seen that he sometimes, as other writers do, applies it to the whole of the helmet.

And lastly, as to preceding notes; the present writer had, in defending Shakspeare's accuracy, expressed himself in most faulty and inaccurate terms, when he said that "the beaver was as often made to lift up as to let down." A great deal of confusion has arisen from the want of due attention to these words.

There is a chance that the reader, unless he have paid more attention to what has already been stated than it perhaps deserves, may have got into a labyrinth; from which it shall be the endeavour of the rest of this note to extricate him.

In the first place, no want of accuracy whatever is imputable to Shakspeare.

The beaver of a helmet is frequently used by writers, improperly enough, to express the helmet itself. It is in reality the lower part of it, adapted to the purpose of giving the wearer an opportunity of taking breath when oppressed with heat, or, without putting off the helmet, of taking his repast. As it was raised up for this purpose, it could of course be let down again; but it could not be let down on either of the before-mentioned occasions. The visiere or visor was another moveable part in the front of a helmet, and placed above the beaver in order to protect the upper part of the face; and being perforated with many holes, afforded the wearer an opportunity of discerning objects: and thence its name. It was made also to lift up when the party either wanted more air, or was desirous of seeing more distinctly. It was perhaps never down but in actual combat; whilst the beaver would be thrown up or kept down at the wearer's discretion, without much difference, except that in battle it would be closed, and at meals, or for additional coolness, thrown up. In short, the visor or beaver could only be let down after they had been already lifted up; and when a writer speaks of their being down, it is generally meant that the helmet is closed.

To exemplify the above remarks, correct representations of a real helmet and its parts are here given. See likewise Grose's Treatise on ancient armour, plates 10, 26, 30.

Fig. 1. The helmet closed.

Fig. 2. The visor thrown up, the beaver down.

Fig. 3. The visor and beaver thrown up.

Fig. 4. The visor detached.

Fig. 5. The beaver detached.

ACT V.

Scene 1. Page 567.

The itching of the elbow, according to popular belief, denoted an approaching change of some kind or other.

Scene 4. Page 587.

Mr. Steevens could not very easily have supported his opinion, that the allusion here is to the fool in the ancient farces, or in the representations called the Dance of death; a character which has been altogether misconceived in the course of the annotations on Shakspeare. Dr. Johnson's interpretation is much more natural and intelligible, and the allusion is certainly to the common or domestic fool, who was retained for the express purpose of affording sport to his still more foolish employers. In this sense our author uses death's fool, fortune's fool, and fate's fool.

Scene 5. Page 589.

P. Hen. Embowel'd will I see thee by and by.

An ingenious commentator on Mr. Mason's supplement to Dr. Johnson's dictionary, (see the Monthly magazine, vol. xii. p. 299,) has disputed the usual sense of embowel'd in this speech, on the ground that the prince would not be guilty of such brutality as to see Falstaff eviscerated; and he therefore contends that the meaning is, put into the bowels of the earth. But surely the prince designs no more than that Falstaff's body shall be embalmed in the usual manner. When the knight rises, he exclaims, "if thou embowel me to day, I'll give you leave to powder me, and eat me to-morrow," evidently alluding to the practice of evisceration and subsequent treatment of a dead body by strewing aromatics over it for preservation. If the body were to be put into the bowels of the earth, as the commentator contends, Falstaff's "eat me to-morrow" would manifestly be an absurd expression. That the present writer may not be suspected of plagiarism on this occasion, he feels himself obliged to lay claim to the above opinion in answer to the commentator, as it appeared in the before-mentioned periodical publication.

But the following curious extract from the arraignment of Hugh Le Despenser, the favourite of Edward II., will set the question at rest for ever: "Hugh contraytour este trove, par quoy vous agardent touz lez bonez gentz de realme, meyndrez et greyndres, ryches et povrez par comun assent, que vous come larone estes trove, par quey vous serrez pendue. Et contreytour estez trove, par quey vous serrez treynez[15] et quarterecez, et envoye parmy le realme. Et pur ceo que vous fuistez utlage par nostre seignour le roy et par commune assent, et estez revenue en courte sanz garrant, vous serrez decollez. Et pur ceo que vous abbestatez et procurastez discorde entre nostre seignour le roy et la royne et lez altrez del realme, si serret enbouelleez, et puis ils serront ars. Retrayez vous traytour, tyrant reneyee, si alez vostre juyse prendre. Traytour malveys et attaynte." In English. "Hugh Le Despencer, you have been found an arch-traitor, for which cause all good people of the realm, great and small, rich and poor, by common consent, award you a convicted felon; therefore you shall be hanged. And forasmuch as you have been found a traitor, you shall be drawn and quartered, and [your limbs] dispersed throughout the kingdom. And having been outlawed by our lord the king, and by common assent, you have unwarrantably returned into court; and therefore you shall be beheaded. And because you have procured and abetted discord between our lord the king, and the queen, and others of the realm, you shall be embowelled, and [your bowels] afterwards burnt. Begone traitorous renegade tyrant, and await the execution of your sentence. Wicked and attainted traitor!"—Knighton, inter Historiæ Anglicanæ decem scriptores, col. 2549.

The author of Aulicus coquinariæ, 1650, speaking of the opening of King James the First's body, has these words: "The next day was solemnly appointed for imbowelling the corps, in the presence of some of the counsell, all the physicians, chirurgions, apothecaries, and the Palsgrave's physician."

We got this word from the old French eboeler, the orthography of which at once declares its meaning. With us it might perhaps be more properly written ebowel, if the ear were not likely to be offended by the change.

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Foote has borrowed some hints from Falstaff's speeches, in his admirably drawn character of Mother Cole. Among others take the following:—"Now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over." He immediately changes his praying into pursetaking. See particularly the beginning of the third scene in the third act. Our English Aristophanes seems to have been likewise indebted to a story related in Lord Bacon's Apophthegms, of an old bawd who on her death-bed was interrogated by a customer whether a wench whom she had provided for him was in all respects as she had promised; to which she answered, that she was; and further left it to him to judge with what comfort and confidence she could expect to meet her Saviour, if she should leave the world with a lie in her mouth.