if his weapon be out: he will foin like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.

FANG. If I can clofe with him, I care not for his thruft.

Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. FANG. An I but fift him once; an a' come but within my vice; 6—

HOST. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score:-Good mafter Fang, hold him fure;-good mafter Snare, let him not 'scape. He comes continuantly to Piecorner, (faving your manhoods,) to buy a faddle; and he's indited to dinner to the lubbar's head in Lumbert-street, to mafter Smooth's the filkman: pray ye, fince my exion is entered, and my cafe fo openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long loan

I

an a' come but within my vice;] Vice or grafp; a metaphor taken from a fmith's vice: there is another reading in the old edition, view, which I think not fo good. POPE. Vice is the reading of the folio, view of the quarto.

STEEVENS. The fift is vulgarly called the vice in the Weft of England. HENLEY, 7lubbar's head-] This is, I fuppofe, a colloquial corruption of the Libbard's head. JOHNSON.

A hundred mark is a long loan-] Old copy-long one.
STEEVENS.

A long one? a long what? It is almost needless to observe, how familiar it is with our poet to play the chimes upon words fimilar in found, and differing in fignification; and therefore I make no question but he wrote-A hundred mark is a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear: i. e. a hundred mark is a good round fum for a poor widow to venture on truft. THEOBALD.

for a poor lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a fhame to be thought on. There is no honefty in fuch dealing; unless a woman fhould be made an afs, and a beaft, to bear every knave's wrong.

Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH.

Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmfey-nofe1 knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices, mafter Fang, and mafter Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices.

FAL. How now? whofe mare's dead? what's the matter?

FANG. Sir John, I arreft you at the suit of miftrefs Quickly.

9

a poor lone woman-] A lone woman is an unmarried woman. So, in the title-page to A Collection of Records, &c. 1642: "That Queen Elizabeth being a lone woman, and having few friends, refufing to marry" &c. Again, in Maurice Kyffin's tranflation of Terence's Andria, 1588: "Moreover this Glycerie is a lone woman ;"-" tum hæc fola eft mulier." In The First Part of King Henry IV. Mrs. Quickly had a husband alive. She is now a widow.

STEEVENS. malmfey-nofe-] That is, red nofe, from the effect of malmsey wine, JOHNSON.

In the old fong of Sir Simon the King, the burthen of each stanza is this:

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Says old Sir Simon the king,

"Says old Sir Simon the king,

"With his ale-dropt hofe,

"And his malmfey-nofe,

"Sing hey ding, ding a ding." PERCY.

FAL. Away, varlets!-Draw, Bardolph; cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel.

HOST. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou wilt thou? thou baftardly rogue !-Murder, murder! O O thou honey-fuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? O thou honey-feed rogue! thou art a honey-feed; a man-queller,3 and a womanqueller.

FAL. Keep them off, Bardolph.

FANG. A refcue! a rescue!

HOST. Good people, bring a refcue or two.Thou wo't, wo't thou ?4 thou wo't, wo't thou? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-feed!

FAL. Away, you fcullion! 5 you rampallian! you fuftilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe."

2

honey-fuckle villain !-honey-feed rogue !] The landlady's corruption of homicidal and homicide. THEOBALD.

3 a man-queller,] Wicliff, in his Tranflation of the New Teftament, uses this word for carnifex. Mark, vi. 27: "Herod fent a man-queller, and commanded his head to be brought." STEEVENS.

4 Thou wo't, wo't thou? &c.] The fir folio reads, I think lefs properly, thou wilt not? thou wilt not? JOHNSON.

5 Fal. Away, you fcullion!] This fpeech is given to the Page in all the editions to the folio of 1664. It is more proper for Falftaff, but that the boy must not stand quite filent and ufelefs on the stage. JOHNSON.

·rampallian !—fuftilarian!] The first of these terms of abufe may be derived from ramper, Fr. to be low in the world. The other from fuftis, a club; i. e. a perfon whofe weapon of defence is a cudgel, not being entitled to wear a iword.

The following paffage, however, in A new Trick to cheat the

Enter the Lord Chief Juftice, attended.

CH. JUST. What's the matter? keep the peace here, ho!

HOST. Good my lord, be good to me! I befeech you, ftand to me!

CH. JUST. How now, fir John? what, are you brawling here?

Doth this become your place, your time, and bufinefs?

You should have been well on your way to York.Stand from him, fellow; Wherefore hang'ft thou on him?

HOST. O my moft worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eaftcheap, and he is arrested at my fuit.

CH. JUST. For what fum?

HOST. It is more than for fome, my lord; it is for all, all I have: he hath eaten me out of house

Devil, 1639, feems to point out another derivation of rampallian :

"And bold rampallian like, fwear and drink drunk.” It may therefore mean a ramping riotous ftrumpet. Thus, in Greene's Ghoft haunting Coneycatchers: "Here was Wiley Beguily rightly acted, and an aged rampalion put befide her fchoole-tricks.' STEEVENS.

Fuftilarian is, I believe, a made word, from fufty. Mr. Steevens's laft explanation of rampallian appears the true one. MALONE.

7-Fll tickle your catastrophe.] This expreffion occurs feveral times in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, 1608: "Bankes your ale is a Philiftine; foxe zhart there fire i'th' tail ont; you aré a rogue to charge us with mugs i'th' rereward. A plague o' this wind! O, it tickles our catastrophe." Again: feduce my blind customers; I'll tickle his catastrophe for this." STEEVENS.

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to

and home; he hath put all my fubftance into that fat belly of his :-but I will have some of it out again, or I'll ride thee o'nights, like the mare.

FAL. I think, I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground to get up.

CH. JUST. How comes this, fir John? Fye! what man of good temper would endure this tempeft of exclamation? Are you not ashamed, to enforce a poor widow to fo rough a courfe to come by her own?

FAL. What is the grofs fum that I owe thee?

HOST. Marry, if thou wert an honeft man, thyself, and the money too. Thou didft fwear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet,' fitting in my Dolphin

8 to ride the mare,] The Hoftefs had threatened to ride Falstaff like the Incubus or Night-Mare; but his allufion, (if it be not a wanton one,) is to the Gallows, which is ludicrously called the Timber, or two-legg'd Mare. So, in Like Will to like, quoth the Devil to the Collier, 1587. The Vice is talking of Tyburn:

Again:

"This piece of land whereto you inheritors are,
"Is called the land of the two-legg'd Mare.
"In this piece of ground there is a Mare indeed,
"Which is the quickeft Mare in England for fpeed."

"I will help to bridle the two-legg'd Mare
"And both you for to ride need not to spare."

STEEVENS.

MALONE.

I think the allufion is only a wanton one. 9a parcel-gilt goblet,] A parcel-gilt goblet is a goblet gilt only on fuch parts of it as are emboffed. On the books of the Stationers' Company, among their plate 1560, is the following entry: "Item, nine fpoynes of filver, whereof vii gylte and ii parcell-gylte." The fanie records contain fifty inftances to the fame purpose of these spoons the faint or other ornament on the handle was the only part gilt. Thus, in Ben Jonson's Alchemist: