---

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

ACT I.

Scene 1. Page 309.

It may be doubted whether the real humour of this speech has been pointed out. Does it not consist in Slender's characterizing Ann Page by a property belonging to himself, and which renders him ridiculous? The audience would naturally smile at hearing him deliver the speech in an effeminate tone of voice.

Scene 1. Page 314.

This has the appearance of a fragment of some old ballad.

Scene 1. Page 317.

If, according to Mr. Henderson, Sir Hugh be justified in his censure of this phrase as a pleonasm, we must also censure the parson in his turn for having forgot that the common prayer would have furnished an example of Pistol's language. See also Jerem. xxvi. 11.

Scene 1. Page 317.

These sixpences were coined in 1561, and are the first milled money used in this kingdom. The invention is due to the French, and was introduced here by a native of France, who misapplied his talents by private coining, and suffered the penalty of the law. That seven groats could be lost in sixpences must be placed to the account of Master Slender's simplicity of wit.

With respect to the Edward shovel-boards:—Mr. Malone's inference from the reading in the old quarto that "Slender means the broad shilling of one of our kings," is sufficiently maintained by the other notes; but that it was the shilling of Edward the Sixth there is no doubt, no other Edward having coined such a piece of money. It still remains to explain how these shillings could have cost Master Slender two and twopence apiece; because, if Dr. Farmer's quotation from Folkes had gone far enough, it would have appeared that the thick shillings mentioned by that writer were pattern-pieces, even originally of great rarity, and never in circulation. Folkes could have seen very few of such pieces, and it would be extremely difficult at present to find a single one; whereas the common shillings of Edward the Sixth remain in great numbers. We must suppose then that the shillings purchased of the miller had been hoarded by him, and were in high preservation, and heavier than those which had been worn in circulation. These would consequently be of greater importance to a nice player at the game of shovel-board, and induce him, especially if an opulent man, to procure them at a price far beyond their original value.

Scene 1. Page 321.

We are told that this is a technical term in the manege; but no explanation is given. It was the same as running a career, or galloping a horse violently backwards and forwards, stopping him suddenly at the end of the career; "which career the more seldom it be used and with the lesse fury, the better mouth shall your horse have," says Master Blundeville in his Arte of ryding, b. l. 4to, where there is a whole chapter on the subject, as well as in "The art of riding," translated by Thomas Bedingfield from the Italian of Claudio Corte, 1584, 4to.

Scene 1. Page 325.

This is no more than a perversion of the common proverb, Familiarity breeds contempt. Slender's school learning had furnished him on the occasion. The phrase is still used in copy-books for children.

Scene 1. Page 327.

"Master of defence, on the present occasion, does not simply mean a professor of the art of fencing, but a person who had taken his master's degree in it," says Mr. Steevens, whose readers are under great obligations to him for pointing out one of the greatest curiosities extant on the ancient science of defence, in support of his position. Yet it may be doubted whether the expression master of defence does not very often, and even on the present occasion, signify merely a professor of the art. Numerous authorities might be adduced on this side of the question, but perhaps a single one that is apposite may suffice. In Eden's History of travayle, 1577, 4to, speaking of Calecut in the East Indies, he says, "they have in the citie certayne maisters of fence that teach them how to use the swoord, &c." The original Latin from which Eden translates has lanista. Now it is not to be presumed that the last-mentioned maisters of fence had taken any degree. It must be owned that the evidence of the manuscript cited by Mr. Steevens goes very far to show that none were allowed to practise as professors who had not taken a degree in some fencing school; an honour once conferred by king Edward the Sixth, and generally granted, though not till after many years' experience, by one who was himself a master. Yet a person who had only a provost's degree might be allowed to teach, and he would be termed a master of defence.

Scene 3. Page 330.

Messrs. Steevens and Whalley maintain that the above term (a cant one) derives its origin from the rook in the game of chess; but it is very improbable that that noble game, never the amusement of gamblers, should have been ransacked on this occasion. It means a hectoring, cheating sharper, as appears from A new dictionary of the terms of the canting crew, no date, 12mo, and from the lines prefixed to The compleat gamester, 1680, 12mo, in both which places it is spelt bully-rock. Nor is Mr. Whalley correct in stating that rock and not rook is the true name of the chess piece, if he mean that it is equivalent to the Latin rupes.

Scene 3. Page 333.

It is already shown that this is the same as Hungarian. It simply means a gipsy. The parts of Europe in which it is supposed that the gipsies originally appeared were Hungary and Bohemia. In Act IV. Scene 5, of this play, the host in the like cant language calls Simple a Bohemian Tartar; and Munster in his Cosmography informs us that the Germans denominated the gipsies Tartars.

Scene 3. Page 333.

There is a great deal of humour in this appellation. Falstaff alludes to Pistol's rubicund nose, which, like the above utensil, carried fire in it.

Scene 3. Page 333.

Either Shakspeare or the adage, if it be one, has borrowed from scripture. See Psalm cxlvii. 9. or Job xxxviii. 41.

Scene 3. Page 337. Note 4.

To the instances adduced by Mr. Steevens in this note, of particular phrases in old theatrical characters, may be added that of Murley in Sir John Oldcastle, who is continually prefacing his speeches with "fye paltry, paltry, in and out, to and fro upon occasion." This practice has been revived in our modern comedies.

Scene 4. Page 347.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A term borrowed from the Spaniards, who call the wild cat gato-montes.

Scene 2. Page 375.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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:

and the latter in the following:

Scene 2. Page 412.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The tree in Windsor forest referred to in Mr. Steevens's note, was said, on newspaper authority in 1795, to have been cut down by his majesty's order, on account of its being totally decayed.

Scene 5. Page 490.

Old copy vild, which Mr. Malone shows to have been the old pronunciation. It may be added that it is likewise the modern in some of the provinces.

Scene 5. Page 492.

In the old collection of songs already cited in p. 7, there is one entitled "The fayries daunce," which bearing some resemblance to that by Shakspeare, may be entitled to the reader's notice:

Scene 5. Page 500.

This is either a proverbial saying now lost, or borrowed from one of the following, "What cannot be altered must be borne not blamed;" "What cannot be cured must be endured."