the attention of your ears; and I care not if I do become your phyfician. Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord; but not fo patient. Your lordship may minifter the potion of imprisonment to me, in refpect of poverty; but how I Thould be your patient to follow your prefcriptions, the wife may make fome drachm of a fcruple, or, indeed, a fcruple itself. Ch. Juft. I fent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come fpeak with me. Fal. As I was then advis'd by my counfel learned in the laws of this land-fervice, I did not come. Ch. Juft. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy. Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in lefs. Ch. Juft. Your means are very flender, and your wafte is great. Fal. I would it were otherwife; I would my means were greater, and my waist flenderer. Ch. Juft. You have mif-led the youthful prince. Fal. The young prince hath mif-led me. I am the fellow with the great belly, and 2 he my dog. Ch. Juft. Well, I am loth to gall a new-heal'd wound: your day's fervice at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill. You may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-pofting that action. Fal. My lord! Ch. Juft. But fince all is well, keep it so: wake not a fleeping wolf. Fal. To wake a wolf is as bad as to fmell a fox. Ch. Juft. What? you are as a candle, the better part burnt out. be my dog.] I do not understand this joke. Dogs lead the blind, but why does a dog lead the fat? JOHNSON. VOL. V. Bb Fal, Fal. 3 A waffel candle, my lord; all tallow: but if I did fay of wax, my growth would approve the truth. Ch. Juft. There is not a white hair on your face, but fhould have his effect of gravity. Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. Ch. Juft. 4 You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel. Fal. Not fo, my lord; your ill angel is light; but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me without weighing and yet, in fome refpects, I grant, I cannot go. 5 I cannot tell: virtue is of fo little regard in these cofter-monger times, that true valour is turned bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapfter, and hath his quick wit wafted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this 3 Awaffel candle, &c.] A waffel candle is a large candle lighted up at a feaft. There is a poor quibble upon the word vax, which fignifies increase as well as the matter of the honey-comb. JOHNSON. 4 You follow the young prince up and down like his ill angel.] What a precious collator has Mr. Pope approved himself in this paffage! Befides, if this were the true reading, Falftaff could not have made the witty and humorous evafion he has done in his reply. I have reftored the reading of the oldeft quarto. The Lord Chief Justice calls Falftaff the prince's ill angel or genius: which Falítaff turns off by faying, an ill angel (meaning the coin called an angel) is light; but, furely, it cannot be faid that he wants weight: ergo-the inference is obvious. Now money may be called ill, or bad; but it is never called evil, with regard to its being under weight. This Mr. Pope will facetioufly call reftoring loft puns: but if the author wrote a pun, and it happens to be loft in an editor's indolence, I fhall, in fpite of his grimace, venture at bringing it back to light. THEOBALD. "As light as a clipt angel," is a comparison frequently used in the old comedies. STEEVENS. 5 I cannot tell :-] I cannot be taken in a reckoning; Ico not pafs current. JOHNSON. 6 in theje cofter-monger times,-] In thefe times when the prevalence of trade has produced that meanness that rates the merit of every thing by money. JOHNSON. age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, confider not the capacities of us that are young: you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confefs, are wags too. Ch. Juft. Do you fet down your name in the fcrow! of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreafing leg? an increafing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind fhort? your chin double? 7 your wit fingle? and part about you blafted with antiquity? and will you yet call yourfelf young? fie, fie, fie, Sir John! every Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and fomething a round belly. For my voice, I have loft it with hallowing and finging of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not. The truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box o' the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a fenfible lord. I have check'd him for it; and the young lion repents: marry, not in afhes and fack-cloth, but in new filk and old fack. Ch. Juft. Well, heaven fend the prince a better Companion! 7 your wit fingle ?-] We call a man fingle-witted, who attains but one fpecies of knowledge. This fenfe I know not how to apply to Falftaff, and rather think that the Chief Juftice hints at a calamity always incident to a grey-hair'd wit, whofe misfortune is, that his merriment is unfashionable. His allufions are to forgotten facts; his illuftrations are drawn from notions obfcured by time; his wit is therefore fingle, fuch as none has any part in but himself. JOHNSON. I believe all that Shakespeare meant was, that he had more fat than wit; and that though his body was bloated by intemperance to twice its original fize, yet his wit was not increased in proportion to it. STEEVENS. Bb 2 Fal. Fal. Heaven fend the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him. Ch. Juft. Well, the king hath fever'd you and prince Harry. I hear you are going with lord John of Lancafter, against the archbishop and the earl of Northumberland. 8 Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty fweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kifs my lady Peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day: for, by the lord, I take but two fhirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, if I brandish any thing but my bottle, 3 would I might never fpit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot laft for ever-9 But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you will needs fay, I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name were not fo terrible to the enemy as it is! I were better to be eaten to death with a ruft, than to be fcour'd to nothing with perpetual motion. Ch. Juft. Well, be honest, be honest; and heaven blefs your expedition! Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth? Ch. Juft. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient would I might never spit white again.] i. e. May I never have my ftomach heated again with liquor; for, to pit white is the confequence of inward heat. So in Mother Bombie, a comedy, 1594, 66 They have fod their livers in fack these forty years; that "makes them pit white broth as they do." STEEVENS. But it was always, &c.] This fpeech in the folio concludes at I cannot left for ever. All the reft is reftored from the quarto's. A clear proof of the fuperior value of those editions, when compared with the publication of the players. STEEVENS. you are too impatient to bear croffes.] I believe a quibble was here intended. Falftaff has just asked his lordship to impatient to bear croffes. Fare you well. Commend me to my coufin Weftmorland. [Exit. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.A man can no more feparate age and covetoufness, than he can part young limbs and letchery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other, and To both the degrees prevent my curfes. Boy!Page. Sir! Fal. What money is in my purse? Page. Seven groats and two-pence. Fal. I can get no remedy against this confumption of the purfe. Borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the difeafe is incurable. Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancafter; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmorland; and this to old Mrs. Urfula, whom I have weekly fworn to marry fince I perceived the first white hair on my chin. About it; you know where to find me. A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reafonable. A good wit will make use of any thing: I will turn difeafes to commodity. [Exeunt. to lend him a thousand pound, and he tells him in return, that he is not to be entrusted with money. A cross is coin fo called, because ftamped with a crofs. So in Love's Labour loft, act i. scene 3. So in As you like it, croffes love him not." "If I should bear you, I should bear no cross." And in Heywood's Epigrams upon Proverbs, 1562. "Of makyng a Croffe. men. "I wyll make a croffe upon this gate, ye croffe on POPE. a three-man beetle,-] A beetle wielded by three |