such alligant terms; and in such wine and sugar of the best, and the fairest, that would have won any woman's heart; and, I warrant you, they could never get an eye-wink of her.-I had myself twenty angels given me this morning: but I defy all angels, (in any such sort, as they say,) but in the way of honesty :—and, I warrant you, they could never get her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of them all and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more, pensioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her.

FAL. But what says she to me? be brief, my good she Mercury.

QUICK. Marry, she hath received your letter; for the which she thanks you a thousand times: and she gives you to notify, that her husband will be absence from his house between ten and eleven.

9

earls, nay, which is more, PENSIONERS;] This may be illustrated by a passage in Gervase Holles's Life of the First Earl of Clare, Biog. Brit. Art. Holles: "I have heard the Earl of Clare say, that when he was pensioner to the queen, he did not know a worse man of the whole band than himself; and that all the world knew he had then an inheritance of 4000l. a year."

TYRWHITT.

Barrett, in his Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580, says that a pensioner was "a gentleman about his prince, alwaie redie, with his speare." STEEVENS.

Pensioners were Gentlemen of the band of Pensioners.-" In the month of December," [1539] says Stowe, Annals, p. 973, edit. 1605, 66 were appointed to waite on the king's person fifty Gentlemen, called Pensioners, or Speares, like as they were in the first yeare of the king; unto whom was assigned the summe of fiftie pounds, yerely, for the maintenance of themselves, and everie man two horses, or one horse and a gelding of service." Their dress was remarkably splendid, and therefore likely to attract the notice of Mrs. Quickly. Hence, [as both Mr. Steevens and Mr. T. Warton have observed,] in A Midsummer Night's Dream, our author has selected from all the tribes of flowers the golden-coated cowslips to be pensioners to the Fairy Queen :

"The cowslips tall her pensioners be,

"In their gold coats spots you see;" &c. MALONE.

FAL. Ten and eleven ?

QUICK. Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see the picture, she says, that you wot of1;master Ford, her husband, will be from home. Alas! the sweet woman leads an ill life with him ; he's a very jealousy man; she leads a very frampold 2 life with him, good heart.

FAL. Ten and eleven: Woman, commend me to her; I will not fail her.

QUICK. Why, you say well: But I have another messenger to your worship: Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations to you too ;-and let me tell you in your ear, she's as fartuous a civil modest wife, and one (I tell you) that will not miss you morning nor evening prayer, as any is in Windsor, whoe'er be the other: and she bade me tell your worship, that her husband is seldom from home;

2

--

I you wor of;] To wot is to know. Obsolete. So, in King Henry VIII.: “ • wot what I found?" STEEVENS. you frampold-] This word I have never seen elsewhere, except in Dr. Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, where a frampul man signifies a peevish troublesome fellow. JOHNSON. In The Roaring Girl, a comedy, 1611, I meet with a word, which, though differently spelt, appears to be the same: "Lax. Coachman.

"Coach. Anon, sir!

"Lax. Are we fitted with good phrampell jades?"

Ray, among his South and East country words, observes, that frampald, or frampard, signifies fretful, peevish, cross, froward. As froward (he adds) comes from from; so may frampard.

Nash, in his Praise of the Red Herring, 1599, speaking of Leander, says: "the churlish frampold waves gave him his belly full of fish-broth."

Again, in The Inner Temple Masque, by Middleton, 1619: 'tis so frampole, the puritans will never yield to it." Again, in The Blind Beggar of Bethnal-Green, by John Day: "I think the fellow's frampell," &c. And, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit at Several Weapons:

"Is Pompey grown so malapert, so frampel?" STEEVENS. Thus, in The Isle of Gulls-"What a goodyer aile you, mother? are you frampull? know you not your own daughter?"

HENLEY.

but, she hopes, there will come a time. I never knew a woman so dote upon a man; surely, I think you have charms, la; yes, in truth.

FAL. Not I, I assure thee; setting the attraction of my good parts aside, I have no other charms. QUICK. Blessing on your heart for't!

FAL. But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife, and Page's wife, acquainted each other how they love me?

QUICK. That were a jest, indeed!- they have not so little grace, I hope:-that were a trick, indeed! But mistress Page would desire you to send her your little page, of all loves; her husband has a marvellous infection to the little page: and, truly, master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in Windsor leads a better life than she does: do what she will, say what she will, take all, pay all, go to bed when she list, rise when she list, all is as she will; and, truly, she deserves it: for if there be a kind woman in Windsor, she is one. You must send her your page; no remedy.

FAL. Why, I will.

QUICK. Nay, but do so then: and, look you, he may come and go between you both; and, in any

3 to send her your little page, OF ALL LOVES ;] Of all loves, is an adjuration only, and signifies no more than if she had said, 'desires you to send him by all means.'

It is used in Decker's Honest Whore, P. I. 1635 :-" conjuring his wife, of all lovers, to prepare cheer fitting," &c. Again, in Holinshed's Chronicle, p. 1064: "Mrs. Arden desired him, of all loves, to come backe againe." Again, in Othello, Act III. : the general so likes your musick, that he desires you, of all loves, to make no more noise with it.”

66

66

A similar phrase occurs in a Letter from Gilbert Talbot to the Earl of Shrewsbury. See Lodge's Illustrations, &c. vol. ii. 101: "I earnestly desyred him, of all friendshipp, to tell me whether he had harde any thing to y contrary." ́Again, ibid.: "He charged me, of all love, that I should kepe this secrete."

STEEVENS.

case, have a nay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and the boy never need to understand any thing; for 'tis not good that children should know any wickedness; old folks, you know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world.

FAL. Fare thee well: commend me to them both: there's my purse; I am yet thy debtor.— Boy, go along with this woman.-This news distracts me! [Exeunt QUICKLY and ROBIN.

PIST. This punk is one of Cupid's carriers 5: Clap on more sails; pursue, up with your fights';

4-a nay-word,] i. e. a watch-word. So, in a subsequent "We have a nay-word to know one another," &c.

Scene:

STEEVENS.

5 This PUNK is one of Cupid's carriers :-] Punk is a plausible reading, yet absurd on examination. For are not all punks Cupid's carriers? Shakspeare certainly wrote:

"This pink is one of Cupid's carriers :"

And then the sense is proper, and the metaphor, which is all the way taken from the marine, entire. A pink is a vessel of the small craft, employed as a carrier (and so called) for merchants. Fletcher uses the word in his Tamer Tamed:

"This pink, this painted foist, this cockle-boat."

WARBURTON.

So, in The Ladies' Privilege, 1640: "These gentlemen know better to cut a caper than a cable, or board a pink in the bordells, than a pinnace at sea." A small salmon is called a salmonpink.

Dr. Farmer, however, observes, that the word punk has been unnecessarily altered to pink. In Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, Justice Overdo says of the pig-woman: "She hath been before me, punk, pinnace, and bawd, any time these two-andtwenty years." STEEVENS.

6

up with your FIGHTS;] So again, in Fletcher's Tamer Tamed:

"To hang her fights out, and defy me, friends!

"A well-known man of war."

As to the word fights, both in the text and in the quotation, it was then, and, for aught I know, may be now, a common sea-term. Sir Richard Hawkins, in his Voyages, p. 66, says: "For once we cleared her deck; and had we been able to have spared but a dozen men, doubtless we had done with her what we would; for she had no close fights," i. e. if I understand it right, no small

Give fire; she is my prize, or ocean whelm them

all!

[Exit PISTOL. FAL. Say'st thou so, old Jack? go thy ways; I'll make more of thy old body than I have done. Will they yet look after thee? Wilt thou, after the expence of so much money, be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee: Let them say, 'tis grossly done; so it be fairly done, no matter.

arms. So that by fights is meant any manner of defence, either small arms or cannon. So, Dryden, in his tragedy of Amboyna : Up with your FIGHTS,

66

"And your nettings prepare," &c. WARBURTON. The quotation from Dryden might at least have raised a suspicion that fights were neither small arms, nor cannon. Fights and nettings are properly joined. Fights, I find, are clothes hung round the ship to conceal the men from the enemy; and close-fights are bulk-heads, or any other shelter that the fabrick of a ship affords. JOHNSON.

So, in Heywood and Rowley's comedy, called Fortune by Land and Sea: "display'd their ensigns, up with all their feights, their matches in their cocks," &c. Again, in The Christian turned Turk, 1612: "Lace the netting, and let down the fights, make ready the shot," &c. Again, in The Fair Maid of the West, 1615: "Then now up with your fights, and let your ensigns, "Blest with St. George's cross, play with the winds.” Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentinian :

66

while I were able to endure a tempest,

"And bear my fights out bravely, till my tackle

"Whistled i' th' wind—.”

This passage may receive an additional and perhaps a somewhat different illustration from John Smith's Sea-Grammar, 4to. 1627. In p. 58 he says: "But if you see your chase strip himself into fighting sailes, that is, to put out his colours in the poope, his flag in the maine top, his streamers or pendants at the end of his yards' arms, &c. provide yourself to fight." Again, p. 60: "Thus they use to strip themselves into their short sailes, or fighting sailes, which is only the fore sail, the maine and fore top sailes, because the rest should not be fired or spoiled; besides they would be troublesome to handle, hinder our sights and the using of our armes: he makes ready his close fights fore and aft." In a former passage, p. 58, he has said that "a ship's close fights are small ledges of wood laid crosse one another, like the grates of iron in a prison's window, betwixt the maine mast and the fore mast, and are called gratings or nettings," &c. STEEVENS.