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fon mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never mann'd with an agate till now but I will neither fet you in gold nor filver, but in vile apparel, and fend you back again to your mafter, for a jewel; 3 the Juvenal, the prince your mafter! whofe chin is not yet fledg'd. I will fooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he fhall get one on his check; yet he will not ftick to fay, his face is a face-royal. Heaven may finish it when it will, it is not a hair amifs yet: he may keep it ftill as a face-royal, for a barber fhall never earn fixpence out of it; and yet he will be crow ing, as if he had writ man ever fince his father was a batchelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is

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mandrake,-] Mandrake is a root supposed to have the fhape of a man; it is now counterfeited with the root of briony. JOHNSON.

2 I was never mann'd-] That is, I never before had an agate for my man. JOHNSON.

I was never mann'd with an agate till now :-] Alluding to the little figures cut in agates, and other hard ftones, for feals: and therefore he fays, I will fet you neither in gold nor filver. The Oxford Editor alters this to aglet, a tag to the points then in ufe (a word indeed which our author ufes to express the fame thought): but aglets, though they were fometimes of gold or filver, were never fet in thofe metals. WARBURTON.

It appears from a paffage in B. and Fletcher's Coxcomb, that it was ufual for juftices of peace either to wear an agate in a ring, or as an appendage to their gold chain :

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-Thou wilt fpit as formally, and fhew thy agate and hatch'd chain, as well as the best of them." STEEVENS. 3 the Juvenal, &c.] This word, which has already occurred in The Midfummer Night's Dream, and Love's Labour lot, is ufed in many places by Chaucer, and always fignifies a young man. STEEVENS,

be may keep it fill as a face-royal,-] That is, a face exempt from the touch of vulgar hands. So a flag-royal is not to be hunted, a mine-royal is not to be dug. JOHNSON.

Perhaps the poet meant to quibble. A royal (or real) is a Spanish coin valued at fix-pence. The jeft intended must confift in the allufion to the fmalinefs of the piece of money.

STEEVENS.

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almoft out of mine, I can affure him.What faid mafter Dombledon about the fattin for my fhort cloak, and flops?

Page. He faid, Sir, you should procure him better affurance than Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours; he lik'd not the fecurity.

Fel. Let him be damn'd like the glutton! may his tongue be hotter! A whorfon Achitophel! a rafcally yea-forfooth-knave! 5 to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand up on fecurity !-The whorfon fmoothpates do now wear nothing but high fhoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough with them in honeft taking up, then they must stand for fecurity. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to ftop it with fecurity. I looked he fhould have fent me two-and-twenty yards of fattin, as I am a true knight, and he fends me fecurity. Well, he may fleep in fecurity; for he hath the horn of abundance, and 7 the lightness of his wife fhines through it: and yet can he not fee, though

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to bear in hand,-] Is, to keep in expectation. JOHNSON.

if a man is thorough with them in honeft taking up,-} That is, if a man by taking up goods is in their debt. To be thorough feems to be the fame with the present phrafe to be in with a tradefman. JOHNSON.

So in Every Man out of his Humour,

"I will take up, and bring myself into credit."

So again, in Northward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607, They will take up, I warrant you, where they may "be trufted." STEEVENS.

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the lightness of his wife shines through it, and yet cannot be fee, though he have his own lantborn to light him.] This joke feems evidently to have been taken from that of Plautus: Quò ambulas tu, qui Vulcanum in cornu conclufum geris. Amph. act i. fcene 1. and much improved. We need not doubt that a joke was here intended by Plautus; for the proverbial term of horns for cuckoldom, is very ancient, as appears by Artemidorus, who fays, Προειπεῖν αὐτῷ ὅτι ἡ γυνή σου πορνεύσει, καὶ τὸ λεγομενον, κέρατα αυτῶ ποιήσει, καὶ ὄντως ἀπέβη. Όνειροι. lib. 2. cap. 12. And he copied from thofe before him. WARBURTON.

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he have his own lanthorn to light him.—Where's Bardolph ?

Page. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worfhip a horse.

Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horfe in Smithfield. If I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were mann'd, hors'd, and wiv'd.

Enter Chief Justice and Servants.

Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for ftriking him about Bardolph. Fal. Wait clofe, I will not fee him. Ch. Juft. What's he that goes there? Serv. Faiftaff, an't pleafe your lordship.

Ch. Juft. He that was in queftion for the robbery? Serv. He, my lord. But he hath fince done good fervice at Shrewsbury: and, as I hear, is now going with fome charge to the lord John of Lancaster.

Ch. Juft. What, to York? call him back again.
Serv. Sir John Falstaff!.

Fal. Boy, tell him I am deaf.

I bought him in Paul's,-] At that time the refort of idle people, cheats, and knights of the poft. WARBURTON. In an old Collection of Proverbs, I find the following:

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"Who goes to Weltminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, "a knave, and a jade.”

In a pamphlet by Dr. Lodge, called Wit's Miferie, and the World's Madneffe, 1596, the devil is defcribed thus:

"In Powls hee walketh like a gallant courtier, where if he "meet fome rich chuffes worth the gulling, at every word he fpeaketh, he makes a moufe an elephant, and telleth them "of wonders done in Spaine by his ancestors," &c. &c.

I fhould not have troubled the reader with this quotation, but that it in fome measure familiarizes the character of Pistol, which (from other paffages in the fame pamphlet) appears to have been no uncommon one in the time of Shakespeare. Dr. Lodge concludes his defcription thus: "His courage is "boafing, his learning ignorance, his ability weakness, and "his end beggary." STEEVENS,

Page.

Page. You must speak louder, my mafter is deaf. Ch. Juft. I am fure, he is, to the hearing of any thing good. Go, pluck him by the elbow: I must speak with him.

Serv. Sir John!-

Fal. What! a young knave, and beg! are there not wars? is there not employment? doth not the king lack fubjects? do not the rebels need foldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any fide but one, it is worfe fhame to beg than to be on the worst fide, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

Serv. You mistake me, Sir.

Fal. Why, Sir, did I fay you were an honeft man? fetting my knighthood and my foldiership afide, I had lied in my throat if I had faid fo.

Serv. I pray you, Sir, then fet your knighthood and your foldierfhip afide; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you fay I am any other than an honeft man.

Fal. I give thee leave to tell me fo? I lay aside that, which grows to me? If thou gett'ft any leave of me, hang me; if thou tak'ft leave, thou wert better be hang'd. You 9 hunt-counter, hence! avaunt!

Serv. Sir, my lord would fpeak with you. Ch. Juft. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. Fal. My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to fee your lordship abroad: I heard fay, your lordship was fick. I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though

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bunt-counter,-] That is, blunderer. He does not, I think, allude to any relation between the judge's fervant and the counter-prifon. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnfon's explanation may be fupported by the following paffage in B. Jonfon's Tale of a Tub:

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Do you mean to make a hare

"Of me, to hunt counter thus, and make these doubles, "And you mean no fuch thing as you send about."

STEEVENS.

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not clean past your youth, hath yet fome fmack of age in you; fome relish of the faltnefs of time; and I most humbly befeech your lordship to have a reverend care of your health.

Ch. Juft. Sir John, I fent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. If it please your lordship, I hear his majefty is return'd with fome difcomfort from Wales.

Ch. Juft. I talk not of his majefty.-You would not come when I fent for you.

Fal. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this fame whorfon apoplexy.

Ch. Juft. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me fpeak with you.

Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of fleeping in the blood, a whorfon tingling.

Ch. Juft. What, tell you me of it? be it as it is. Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from ftudy and perturbation of the brain. I have read the caufe of its effects in Galen: it is a kind of deafness.

Ch. Just. I think you are fallen into the disease: for you hear not what I fay to you.

Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't pleafe you, it is the difeafe of not liftening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

Ch. Juft. To punish you by the heels, would amend

Fal. Very well, my lord, very well:-] In the quarto edition, printed in 1600, this fpeech stands thus:

Old. Very well, my lord, very well :

I had not obferved this, when I wrote my note to The First Part of Henry IV. concerning the tradition of Falttaff's character having been firft called Oldcastle. This almost amounts to a felf-evident proof of the thing being fo: and that the play being printed from the ftage manufcript, Oldcastle had been all along altered into Falstaff, except in this fingle place by an overfight; of which the printers not being aware, continued these initial traces of the original name.

THEOBALD.

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