beats as extraordinarily as heart would defire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rofe: But, i'faith, you have drunk too much canaries; and that's a marvellous fearching wine, and it perfumes the blood9 ere one can fay,-What's this? How do you now?

HOST. Why, that's well faid; a good heart's worth gold. Look, here comes fir John.

Billig ind Enter FALSTAFF, finging.

FAL. When Arthur firft in court-Empty the jordan.-And was a worthy king: [Exit Drawer.] How now, miftrefs Doll?

HOST. Sick of a calm : 2 yea, good footh.

your pulfidge beats &c.] One would almoft regard this fpeech as a burlefque on the following paffage in the interlude called The Repentance of Mary Magdalene, 1567. Infidelity fays to Mary:

"Let me fele your poulfes, miftreffe Mary, be you ficke?
"By my troth in as good tempre as any woman can be :
"Your vaines are as full of blood, lufty and quicke,
"In better taking truly I did yon never fee.'

STEEVENS.

9 a marvellous fearching wine, and it perfumes the blood-] The fame phrafeology is feriously used by Arthur Hall, in his tranflation of the firft Iliad, 4°. 1581:

"The aulter throughly doth perfume:-" STEEVENS. When Arthur first in court-] The entire ballad is pub lifhed in the firft volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of ancient English Poetry. STEEVENS.

The words in the ballad are

When Arthur first in court began,

"And was approved king." MALONE.

Sick of a calm:] fuppofe the means to fay of a qualm.

STEEVENS.

FAL. So is all her fect;3 an they be once in a calm, they are fick.

Dor. You muddy rafcal, is that all the comfort you give me?

FAL. You make fat rafcals, miftrefs Doll.

3 So is all her fect;] I know not why fect is printed in all the copies; I believe fer is meant. JOHNSON.

Sect is, I believe, right. Falftaff may mean all of her profeffion. In Mother Bombie, a comedy, 1594, the word is frequently used:

"Sil. I am none of that fect.

"Can. Thy loving fect is an ancient fect, and an honourable," &c.

Since the foregoing quotation was given, I have found fect fo often printed for fer in the old plays, that I fuppofe thefe words were anciently fynonymous. Thus, in Marfton's Infatiate

Countess, 1613 : 1 to 100 hún bing

"Deceives our fect of fame and chastity."

Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentinian

Modefty was made

"When the was firft intended: when the blushes.
"It is the holieft thing to look upon,

"The pureft temple of her fect, that ever

"Made nature a bleft founder."

Again, in Whetstone's Arbour of Vertue, 1576:

"Who, for that thefe barons fo wrought a flaunder to de her fect,

"Their foolish, rafh, and judgment falfe, fhe sharplie did detect." STEEVENS,

In Middleton's Mad World my Mafters, 1608, (as Dr, Farmer has elsewhere obferved,) a courtezan fays, "it is the eafieft art and cunning for our fect to counterfeit fick, that are always full of fits, when we are well," I have therefore no doubt that fect was licentioufly used by our author, and his contemporaries, for fer. MALONE.

I believe fect is here used in its ufual fenfe, and not for fex. Falftaff means to fay, that all courtesans, when their trade is at a ftand, are apt to be fick. DOUCE.

4 You make fat rafcals,] Falftaff alludes to a phrafe of the foreft. Lean deer are called rafcal deer. He tells her the calls him wrong, being fat he cannot be a rascal. JOHNSON.

DOL. I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I make them not.

FAL. If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the difeafes, Doll: we catch of you, Doll, we catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue, grant that.

DoL. Ay, marry; our chains, and our jewels.

FAL. Your brooches, pearls, and owches; 5-for

So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Peftle: "The heavy hart, the blowing buck, the rafcal, and the pricket."

Again, in The Two angry Women of Abington, 1599: *

"What take you-Deer.-You'll ne'er ftrike rascal ?" Again, in Quarles's Virgin Widow, 1656:

and have known a rascal from a fat deer." Rafcall, (fays Puttenham, p. 150,) is properly the hunting terme given to young deere, leane and out of season, and not to people." STEEVENS.

To grow fat and bloated is one of the confequences of the venereal disease, and to that Falstaff probably alludes. There are other allufions, in the following fpeeches, to the fame diforder. M. MASON.

5 Your brooches, pearls, and owches ;] Brooches were chains of gold that women wore formerly about their necks. Owches were boffes of gold fet with diamonds. POPE.

I believe Falftaff gives thefe fplendid names as we give that of carbuncle, to fomething very different from gems and ornaments but the paffage deserves not a laborious research.

JOHNSON.

Brooches were, literally, clafps, or buckles, ornamented with gems. See Vol. VII. p. 189, n. 5, and also note on Antony and Cleopatra, A&t IV. sc. xiii.

66

Mr. Pope has rightly interpreted owches in their original sense. So, in Nash's Lenten Stuff, &c. 1599: three fcarfs, bracelets, chains, and ouches." It appears likewise from a paffage in the ancient fatire called Cocke Lorelles Bote, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, that the makers of these ornaments were called owchers:

"Owchers, fkynners, and cutlers."

Dugdale, p. 234, in his Account of the Will of T. de Beauchunp, Earl of Warwick, in the time of Edward III. fays:

to ferve bravely, is to come halting off, you know: To come off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to furgery bravely; to venture upon the charged chambers bravely

"His jewels be thus difpofed to his daughter Stafford, an ouche called the eagle, which the prince gave him; to his daughter Alice, his next beft ouche."

With brooches, rings, and owches, is, however, a line in the ancient ballad of The Boy and the Mantle. See Percy's Reliques, &c. 4th edit. Vol. III. p. 341. Dr. Johnson's conjecture may be supported by a paffage in The Widow's Tears, a comedy, by Chapman, 1612:

As many aches in his bones, as there are ouches in his fkin."

Again, in The Duke's Mistress, by Shirley, 1638, Valerio, fpeaking of a lady's nofe, fays:

"It has a comely length, and is well ftudded

"With gems of price; the goldsmith would give money for't." STEEVENS.

It appears from Stubbes's Anatomie of Abuses, 1595, that owches were worn by women in their hair in Shakspeare's time. Dr. Johnson's conjecture, however, may be fupported by the following paffage in Maroccus Exftaticus, 1595: "Let him pafs for a churle, and wear his mistress's favours, viz. rubies and precious ftones, on his nofe, &c. and this et cetera fhall, if you will, be the perfecteft p that ever grew in Shoreditch or Southwarke." MALONE.

6 the charged chambers-] To understand this quibble, it is neceffary to fay, that a chamber fignifies not only an apartment, but a piece of ordnance.

So, in The Fleire, a comedy, 1610: "-he has taught my ladies to make fireworks; they can deal in chambers already, as well as all the gunners that make them fly off with a train at Lambeth, when the mayor and aldermen land at Westminster."

Again, in The Puritan, 1605: " only your chambers are licensed to play upon you, and drabs enow to give fire to them.' A chamber is likewife that part in a mine where the powder is lodged. STEEVENS.

Chambers are very fmall pieces of ordnance which are yet ufed in London on what are called rejoicing days, and were fometimes used in our author's theatre on particular occafions. See King Henry VIII. A& I. fc. iii. MALONE,

DOL. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!

8

HOST. By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never meet, but you fall to fome difcord: you are both, in good troth, as rheumatick as two dry toafts; you cannot one bear with another's confirmities. What the good-year !9 one must bear, and that must be you: [To DOLL.] you are the weaker veffel, as they fay, the emptier veffel.

DOL. Can a weak empty veffel bear fuch a huge full hogfhead? there's a whole merchant's venture of Bourdeaux ftuff in him; you have not seen a hulk better ftuffed in the hold.-Come, I'll be friends with thee, Jack: thou art going to the wars; and whether I fhall ever fee thee again, or no, there is nobody cares.

7 rheumatick-] She would say fplenetick. HANMER. I believe the means what she says. So, in Ben Jonfon's Every Man in his Humour:

"Cob. Why I have my rewme, and can be angry." Again, in our author's King Henry V:" He did in fome fort handle women; but then he was rheumatick," &c.

Rheumatick, in the cant language of the times, fignified capricious, humourfome. In this fenfe it appears to be used in many other old plays. STEEVENS.

The word fcorbutico (as an ingenious friend obferves to me) is used in the fame manner in Italian, to fignify a peevish illtempered man. MALONE.

Dr. Farmer obferves, that Sir Thomas Elyott, in his Caftell of Helth, 1572, fpeaking of different complexions, has the following remark: "Where cold with, moisture prevaileth, that body is called fleumatick." STEEVENS.

as two dry toafts;] Which cannot meet but they grate one another. JOHNSON.

9 good-year !] Mrs. Quickly's blunder for goujere, i. e. morbus Gallicus. See Vol. V. p. 55, n. 2. STEEVENS.