ACT V. SCENE I. Glofterfhire. A Hall in Shallow's Houfe. Enter SHALLOW, FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, and Page. SHAL. By cock and pye,4 fir, you fhall not away to-night.- What, Davy, I fay! 4 By cock and pye,] This adjuration, which feems to have been very popular, is used in Soliman and Perfeda, 1599: "By cock and pie and moufefoot." Again, in Wily Beguiled, 1606: "Now by cock and pie, you never fpake a truer word in your life." Again, in The Two angry Women of Abington, 1599: "Merry go forry, cock and pie, my hearts." Cock is only a corruption of the Sacred Name, as appears from many paffages in the old interludes, Gammer Gurton's Needle, &c. viz. Cocks-bones, cocks-wounds, by cock's-mother, and fome others. Cock's body, cock's paffion, &c. occur in the old morality of Hycke Scorner, and in The Merry Wives of Windfor. Ophelia likewife fays: r By cock they are to blame." The pie is a table or rule in the old Roman offices, showing, in a technical way, how to find out the fervice which is to be read upon each day. Among fome "Ordinances, however, made at Eltham, in, the reign of King Henry VIII." we have-" Item that the Pye, of coals be abridged to the one halfe that theretofore had been ferved." A printing letter of a particular fize, called the pica, was probably denominated from the pie, as the brevier, from the bree viary, and the primer from the primer. STEEVENS. What was called The Pie by the clergy before the Reformation, was called by the Greeks IIa, or the index. Though the word wat fignifies a plank in its original, yet in its metaphorical fenfe it fignifies ravis etwypapnuévn, a painted table FAL. You must excufe me, mafter Robert Shallow. SHAL. I will not excufe you; 5 you fhall not be excused; excufes fhall not be admitted; there is no excufe fhall ferve; you fhall not be excufed.Why, Davy! DAVY. Here, fir. Enter DAVY, SHAL. Davy, Davy, Davy, let me fee, Davy; let me fee :-yea, marry, William cook, bid him come hither.Sir John, you fhall not be excufed. or picture and because indexes or tables of books were formed into fquare figures, resembling pictures or painters' tables, hung up in a frame, thefe likewife were called IIivanes, or, being marked only with the first letter of the word, Ili's or Pies. All other derivations of the word are manifeftly erroneous. In the fecond preface Concerning the Service of the Church, prefixed to the Common Prayer, this table is mentioned as follows: "Moreover the number and hardnefs of the rules called the Pie, and the manifold changes," &c. RIDLey. 5 I will not excufe you; &c.] The fterility of Justice Shallow's wit is admirably defcribed, in thus making him, by one of the finest strokes of nature, fo often vary his phrafe, to exprefs one and the fame thing, and that the commoneft. WARBURTON. -William cook, bid him come hither.] It appears from this inftance, as well as many others, that anciently the lower orders of people had no furnames, or, if they had, were only called by the titles of their feveral profeffions. The cook of William Canynge, the royal merchant of Bristol, lies buried there under a flat ftone, near the monument of his mafter, in the beautiful church of St, Mary Redcliffe. On this ftone are reprefented the enfigas of his trade, a fkimmer and a knife. His epitaph is as follows: "Hic jacet WILLM COKE quondam ferviens WILLM CANYNGES mercatoris ville Briftoll; cujus anime propitietur Deus.' Lazarillo, in The Woman-Hater of Beaumont and Fletcher, expreffes a wish to have his tomb ornamented in a like manner: DAVE. Marry, fir, thus ;-thofe precepts cannot be ferved: and, again, fir,-Shall we fow the headland with wheat? SHAL. With red wheat, Davy. But for William cook; Are there no young pigeons? DAVY. Yes, fir. Here is now the fmith's note, for fhoeing, and plough-irons. 8 SHAL. Let it be caft, and paid :-fir John, you fhall not be excufed. DAVY. Now, fir, a new link to the bucket muft needs be had-And, fir, do you mean to ftop any of William's wages, about the fack he loft the other day at Hinckley fair?9 Some pigeons, SHAL. He shall answer it:Davy; a couple of fhort-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William cook. DAVY. Doth the man of war ftay all night, fir? SHAL. Yes, Davy. I will ufe him well; A friend i'the court is better than a penny in purfe. Ufe for others' glorious thieve "Give me a voider; and my my hearse, naked knife ftuck up." STEEVENS. thofe precepts cannot be ferved:] Precept is a juftice's warrant. To the offices which Falstaff gives Davy in the fol lowing scene, may be added that of juftice's clerk. Davy has almoft as many employments as Scrub in The Stratagem. JOHNSON. Let it be caft,] That is, caft up, computed. M. MASON. 9 Hinckley fair?] Hinckley is a town in Leicestershire. STEEVENS. A friend i'the court &c.] So, in Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rofe, v. 5540: Friendship is more than cattell "For frende in courte aie better is, "Than peny is in purse, 'certis.' STEEVENS, his men well, Davy; for they are arrant knaves, and will backbite. DAVY. No worse than they are back-bitten, fir; for they have marvellous foul linen. SHAL. Well conceited, Davy. About thy bufinefs, Davy. DAVY. I beseech you, fir, to countenance William Vifor of Wincot against Clement Perkes of the hill. SHAL. There are many complaints, Davy, against that Vifor; that Vifor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge. DAVY. I grant your worship, that he is a knave, fir: but yet, God forbid, fir, but a knave should have fome countenance at his friend's requeft. An honest man, fir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not. I have ferved your worship truly, fir, this eight years; and if I cannot once or twice in a quarter bear out a knave against an honeft man, I have but a very little credit with your worship. The knave is mine honest friend, fir; therefore, I beseech your worship, let him be countenanced. SHAL. Go to; I fay, he fhall have no wrong. Look about, Davy. [Exit DAVY.] Where are you, fir John? Come, off with your boots.-Give me your hand, master Bardolph. BARD, I am glad to see your worship. SHAL. I thank thee with all my heart, kind mafter "A friend in court is worth a penny in purfe," is one of Camden's proverbial fentences. See his Remaines, 4to. 1605. MALONE. 2 Bardolph-and welcome, my tall fellow. [To the Page.] Come, fir John. [Exit SHALLOW. FAL. I'll follow you, good mafter Robert Shallow. Bardolph, look to our horfes. [Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page.] If I were fawed into quantities, I fhould make four dozen of fuch bearded hermit's-ftaves 3 as mafter Shallow.4 It is a wonderful thing, to fee the femblable coherence of his men's fpirits and his : They, by obferving him, do bear themfelves like foolish juftices; he, by converfing with them, is turned into a juftice-like ferving-man; their spirits are fo married in conjunction with the participation of fociety, that they flock together in confent,5 like my tall fellow.] Whether the epithet tall, in the prefent inftance, is ufed with reference to the diminutive fize of the page, or has the ancient fignification-gallant, let the reader determine. Thus, in Chapman's verfion of the eleventh Iliad: as little fuffer I 3 "In this fame tall exploit of thine." STEEVENS. bearded hermit's-ftaves-] He had before called him the starved juftice. His want of flesh is a standing jeft. JOHNSON. mafter Shallow.] Shallow's folly feems to have been almoft proverbial. So, in Decker's Satiromaftix, 1602: “ -We muft have falfe fires to amaze these fpangle babies, these true heirs of mafter Juftice Shallow." STEEVENS. 5 they flock together in confent,] i. e. in concentu, or in one mind, one party. So, Macbeth: "If you fhall cleave to my confent." See Vol. X. p. 96, n. 3, and note on King Henry VI. Part I. A&t I. fc. i. line 5, Vol. XIII. The word, however, may be derived from confentio, confenfus, Lat. STEEVENS, in concent,] i. e. in union, in accord. In our author's time the word in this fenfe was written confent, (as it here is in the old copy,) and that fpelling continued to Cowley's time. See Davideis, Book III: "Learning confent and concord from his lyre." MALONE. |