Fear we broadsides? no, let the fiend give fire:

Give me some sack;-and, sweetheart, lie thou there.
[Laying down his sword.
Come we to full points here;7 and are et cetera's nothing?
Fal. Pistol, I would be quiet.

8

Pist. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif: What! we have seen the seven stars.

Dol. Thrust him down stairs; I cannot endure such a fustian rascal.

Pist. Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags?9

Fal. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling: nay, if he do nothing but speak nothing, he shall be nothing here.

Pistol is only a copy of Hannibal Gonsaga, who vaunted on yielding himself a prisoner, as you may read in an old collection of tales, called Wits, Fits, and Fancies:

"Si fortuna me tormenta,

"Il speranza me contenta."

And Sir Richard Hawkins, in his Voyage to the South-Sea, 1593, throws out the same gingling distich on the loss of his pinnace.

Farmer.

7 Come we to full points here; &c.] That is, shall we stop here, shall we have no further entertainment? Johnson.

8 Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif:] i. e. kiss thy fist. Mr. Pope will have it, that neif here is from nativa; i. e. a woman-slave that is born in one's house; and that Pistol would kiss Falstaff's domestick mistress, Doll Tear-sheet. Theobald.

Nief, neif, and naif, are certainly law-terms for a woman-slave. So, in Thoroton's Antiquities of Nottinghamshire: "Every naif or she-villain, that took a husband or committed fornication, paid marchet for redemption of her blood 5s. and 4d.

Again, in Stanyhurst's Virgil, 1582:

Me FAMULAM famuloque Heleno transmisit habendam.

"Me his nyefe to his servaunt Helenus full firmelye betroathed."

But I believe neif is used by Shakspeare for fist. It is still employed in that sense in the northern counties, and by Ben Jonson, in his Poetaster:

"Reach me thy neif."

Again, in The Witch of Edmonton, by Rowley, &c. 1658:

"Oh, sweet ningie, thy neif once again." Steevens.

So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Give me thy neif, Monsieur Mustard-Seed." Malone.

9

1

Galloway nags?] That is, common hacknies. Johnson.

like a shove-groat shilling:] This expression occurs in

Bard. Come, get you down stairs.

brue?.

Pist. What! shall we have incision? shall we im[Snatching up his sword. Then death rock me asleep,2 abridge my doleful days! Why then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds Untwine the sisters three! Come, Atropos, I say!3 Host. Here's goodly stuff toward!

Fal, Give me my rapier, boy.

Dol. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.
Fal. Get you down stairs.

[Drawing, and driving PIST. out. Host. Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights. So; murder, I warrant now. -Alas, alas! put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.

[Exeunt PIST. and BARD.

Every Man in his Humour: "6. made it run as smooth off the tongue as a shove-groat shilling.”

Again, in Humours Ordinary, by Samuel Rowlands, Satire iv: "At shove-groat, venter-point, or crosse and pile."

I

suppose it to have been a piece of polished metal made use of in the play of shovel-board. Steevens.

Slide-thrift, or shove-groat, is one of the games prohibited by statute 33 Henry VIII, c. 9. Blackstone.

2 Then death rock me asleep,] This is a fragment of an ancient song supposed to have been written by Anne Boleyn:

"O death rock me on slepe,

་ Bring me on quiet rest," &c.

Steevens.

In Arnold Cosbie's Ultimum Vale to the vaine World, an elegie written by himselfe in the Marshalsea, after his condemnation, for murthering Lord Brooke, 4to. 1591, are these lines:

"O death, rock me asleepe! Father of heaven,

"That hast sole power to pardon sinnes of men,

66

'Forgive the faults and follies of my youth." Reed.

3 Come, Atropos, I say!] Perhaps Pistol alludes to a poem printed in A gorgious Gallery of gallant Inuentions, &c. 4to. 1578:"The Louer complayneth of his Ladie's Inconstancy," to the tune of I lothe that I did loue:

"I hate this lothsome life,

"O Atropos draw nie,

"Untwist ye thred of mortall strife,

"Send death, and let mee die." Steevens.

Come, Atropos,] It has been suggested that this is a name which Pistol gives to his sword; but surely he means nothing, more than to call on one of the sisters three to aid him in the fray. Malone.

VOL. IX.

G

Dol. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal is gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you.

Host. Are you not hurt i' the groin?4 methought, he made a shrewd thrust at your belly.

Re-enter BARDOLPH.

Fal. Have you turned him out of doors?

Bard. Yes, sir. The rascal's drunk: you have hurt him, sir, in the shoulder.

Fal. A rascal! to brave me!

Dol. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat'st! Come, let me wipe thy face;-come on, you whoreson chops:-Ah, rogue! i' faith, I love thee. Thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the nine worthies. Ah, villain!5

Fal. A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.

Dol. Do, if thou darest for thy heart: if thou dost, I'll canvas thee between a pair of sheets."

Enter Musick.

Page. The musick is come, sir.

Fal. Let them play;-Play, sirs.-Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me like quicksilver.

Dol. I' faith, and thou followedst him like a church.

4 Are you not hurt i' the groin?] Falstaff had promised to marry Mrs. Quickly, who, on this occasion, appears to have had the widow Wadman's solicitudes about her. Steevens.

5

Ah, villain!] Thus the folio: the quarto reads-a villain; which may be right. She may mean Pistol.

Since this note was written, I have observed that a is frequently printed in the quarto copies for ah: the reading of the folio is therefore certainly right. Malone.

6- I'll canvas thee between a pair of sheets.] This phrase occurs in the 12th Mery Ieste of the Widow Edyth, 1573:

"Hore, hore, by coks blood euen here,
"Sayd Cotes, and it were not for shame,

"I should canvas thee, and make thee lame." Steevens. Doll's meaning here is sufficiently clear. There is however an allusion which might easily escape notice, to the material of which coarse sheets were formerly made. So, in the MS. Account-book of Mr. Philip Henslow, which has been already quoted: "7 Maye, 1594. Lent goody Nalle upon a payre of canas sheates, for vs." Malone.

Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig," when wilt thou leave fighting o' days, and foining o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

Enter behind, Prince HENRY and Poins, disguised like Drawers.

Fal. Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's head; do not bid me remember mine end.

7—

· little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,] For tidy, Sir T. Hanmer reads tiny; but they are both words of endearment, and equally proper. Bartholomew boar-pig is a little pig made of paste, sold at Bartholomew fair, and given to children for a fairing.

Johnson. Tidy has two significations, timely and neat. In the first of these senses, I believe, it is used in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584:

"I myself have given good, tidie lambs." Steevens. From Ben Jonson's play of Bartholomew Fair, we learn, that it was the custom formerly to have booths in Bartholomew Fair, in which pigs were dressed and sold, and to these it is probable the allusion is here, and not to the pigs of paste mentioned by Dr. Johnson.

The practice of roasting pigs at Bartholomew Fair continued until the beginning of the last century, if not later. It is mentioned in Ned Ward's London Spy, 1697. When about the year 1708 some attempts were made to limit the duration of the fair to three days, a poem was published entitled The Pigs' Petition against Bartholomew Fair, &c. See Dodsley's Collection of Qld Plays, 1780, Vol. XII, p. 419.

Tidy, I apprehend, means only fat, and in that sense it was certainly sometimes used. See an old transiation of Galateo of Manners and Behaviour, bl. 1. 1578, p. 77: "— and it is more proper and peculiar speache to say, the shivering of an ague, than to call it the colde; and flesh that is tidie, to terme it rather fat than fulsome." Reed.

8 like a death's head;] It appears from the following passage in Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1605, that it was the custom for the bawds of that age to wear a death's head in a ring, very probably with the common motto, memento mori. Cocledemoy, speaking of some of these, says: -as for their death, how can it be bad, since their wickedness is always before their eyes, and a death's head most commonly on their middle finger."

Again, in Massinger's Old Law: ". -sell some of my cloaths to buy thee a death's head, and put it upon thy middle finger: your least considering bawds do so much."

Again, in Northward Hoe, 1607: " as if I were a bawd, no ring pleases me but a death's head.”

On the Stationers' books, Feb. 21, 1582, is entered a ballad intitled Remember thy End. Steevens.

Dol. Sirrah, what humour is the prince of?

Fal. A good shallow young fellow: he would have made a good pantler, he would have chipped bread well. Dol. They say, Poins has a good wit.

Fal. He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit is as thick as Tewksbury mustard; there is no more conceit in him, than is in a mallet.1

Dol. Why does the prince love him so then?

Fal. because their legs are both of a bigness: and he plays at quoits well; and eats conger and fennel; and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons; 2 and rides the wild mare with the boys;3 and jumps upon joint-stools;

Falstaff's allusion, I should have supposed, was to the death's head, and motto on hatchments, grave-stones, and the like.-. Such a ring, however, as Mr. Steevens describes, but without any inscription, being only brass, is in my possession. Ritson.

9

Tewksbury mustard;] Tewksbury is a market town in the county of Gloucester, formerly noted for mustard-balls made there, and sent into other parts. Grey.

1

in a mallet.] So, in Milton's Prose Works, 1738, Vol. I, p. 300: "Though the fancy of this doubt be as obtuse and sad as any mallet." Tollet.

2

eats conger and fennel; and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons;] Conger with fennel was formerly regarded as a provocative. It is mentioned by Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair: "- like a long-laced conger with green fennel in the joll of it." And in Philaster, one of the ladies advises the wanton Spanish prince to abstain from this article of luxury.

Greene likewise, in his Quip for an upstart Courtier, calls fennel "woman's weeds,"-"fit generally, for that sex, sith while they are maidens they wish wantonly."

The qualification that follows, viz. that of swallowing candles' ends by way of flap-dragons, seems to indicate no more than that the Prince loved him, because he was always ready to do any thing for his amusement, however absurd or unnatural.

Ben Jonson, in his News from the Moon, &c. a masque, speaks of those who eat candles' ends, as an act of love and gallantry; and Beaumont and Fletcher, in Monsieur Thomas: ". her health in cans, and candles' ends.”

-carouse

Again, in The Christian turn'd Turk, 1612: "—as familiarly as pikes do gudgeons, and with as much facility as Dutchmen swallow flapdragons." Steevens.

A flap-dragon is some small combustible body, fired at one end, and put afloat in a glass of liquor. It is an act of a toper's dex. terity to toss off the glass in such a manner as to prevent the flap-dragon from doing mischief. Johnson.