Foretelling this fame time's condition, War. There is a history in all mens' lives, Such things become the hatch and brood of time; K. Henry. Are these things then neceffities? War. It cannot be, my lord: Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo, A certain inftance that Glendower is dead. 5 And, by the necessary form of this,] I think we might better read, The necessary form of things. The word this has no very evident antecedent. JOHNSON, Then let us meet them like neceffities :-] I am inclined to read, Then let us meet them like neceffity. That is, with the refiftlefs violence of neceflity; then comes more aptly the following line: And that fame word even now cries out on us. That is, the word necefity. JOHNSON. Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill; And thefe unfeafon'd hours, perforce, must add K. Henry. I will take your counsel : And were thefe inward wars once out of hand, SCENE II. Changes to justice Shallow's feat in Gloucestershire. Enter Shallow and Silence, juftices; with Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble, and Bull-calf, Servants, &c. 8 Shal. Come on, come on, come on; give me your hand, Sir: an early ftirrer, by the rood. And how doth my good coufin Silence? Sil. Good morrow, good coufin Shallow. Shal. And how doth my coufin, your bed-fellow? and your faireft daughter, and mine, my god-daughter Ellen? Sil. Alas, a black ouzel, coufin Shallow. Shal. By yea and nay, Sir, I dare fay, my coufin William is become a good fcholar. He is at Oxford ftill, is he not? Sil. Indeed, Sir; to my coft. Shal. He must then to the inns of court fhortly. I was once of Clement's Inn; where, I think, they will talk of mad Shallow yet. 7 unto the Holy Land.] This play, like the former, proceeds in one unbroken tenor through the first edition, and there is therefore no evidence that the divifion of the acts was made by the author. Since, then, every editor has the fame right to mark the intervals of action as the players, who made the prefent diftribution, I fhould propofe that this fcene may be added to the foregoing act, and the remove from London to Gloucestershire be made in the intermediate time, but that it would fhorten the next act too much, which has not even now its due proportion to the reft. JOHNSON. Sil. You were call'd' lufty Shallow then, coufin. Shal. I was call'd any thing; and I would have done any thing, indeed, too, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black 9 George Bare, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotswold man, you had not four fuch 2fwinge-bucklers in all the inns of court again: and, I may fay to you, we knew where the Bona-roba's were; and had the beft of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk. Sil. This Sir John, coufin, that comes hither anon about foldiers? Shal. The fame Sir John, the very fame. I faw him break Skogan's head at the court-gate, when he was a crack, not thus high: and the very fame day I did fight with one Sampfon Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's-Inn. O the mad days that I have spent! and to see how many of mine old acquaintance are dead? Sil. We fhall all follow, coufin. Shal. Certain, 'tis certain; very fure, very fure. Death (as the Pfalmift faith) is certain to all, all fhall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair? 9 George Bare,-] The quarto reads George Barnes. STEEVENS. Will Squele a Cotswold man, -] The games at Cotfwold were, in the time of our author, very famous. Of these I have seen accounts in feveral old pamphlets; and Shallow, by diftinguishing Will Squele as a Cotfwold man, meant to have him underfood to be one who was well verfed in thofe exercises, and confequently of a daring fpirit, and an athletic conftitution. STEEVENS. 2 -fwinge-bucklers-] Savinge-bucklers and fwaf-bucklers were words implying rakes or rioters in the time of Shakespeare. Nash, addreffing himself to his old opponent Gabriel Harvey, 1598, fays, "Turpe fenex miles, 'tis time for fuch an olde "foole to leave playing the Swab-buckler." -when So in The Devil's Charter, 1607, Caraffa fays, "I was a scholar in Padua, faith, then I could have swing`d a fword and buckler," &c. STEEVENS. Sil. Truly, coufin, I was not there. Shal. Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet? Sil. Dead, Sir. Shal. Dead!-fee, fee!-he drew a good bow:and dead! he shot a fine fhoot. John of Gaunt lov'd him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead! he would have 3 clapp'd in the clout at twelve fcore, and carried you a fore-hand fhaft a 4 fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a 'man's heart good to fee.How a fcore of ewes now? Sil. Thereafter as they be. A fcore of good ewes may be worth ten pounds. Shal. And is old Double dead? Enter Bardolph and Page. Sil. Here come two of Sir John Falstaff's men, as I think. Bard. 5 Good morrow, honeft gentlemen: I beseech you, which is juftice Shallow? Shal. I am Robert Shallow, Sir; a poor efquire of this county, and one of the king's juftices of the peace. What is your good pleasure with me? Bard. My captain, Sir, commends him to you; my captain Sir John Falstaff: a tall gentleman, by heaven! and a most gallant leader. Shal. He greets me well, Sir: I knew him a good back-fword man. How doth the good knight? may I afk how my lady his wife doth? clapp'd in the clout-] i. e. Hit the white mark. WARBURTON. fourteen and fourteen and a half,-] That is, four teen fcore of yards. JOHNSON. $ Good morrow, &c.] The quarto gives this as well as the following line to Bardolph. The folio divides them between Shallow nd Bardolph. I have followed the quarto. STEEVENS. r Bard. Bard. Sir, pardon; a foldier is better accommodated than with a wife. Shal. It is well faid, Sir; and it is well faid indeed too. Better accommodated!—it is good; yea, indeed, is it: good phrases, furely, are, and ever were, very commendable. Accommodated!it comes of accommodo: 6 very good, a good phrafe. Bard. Pardon me, Sir; I have heard the word. Phrase, call you it? By this day, I know not the phrafe but I will maintain the word with my fword, to be a foldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good command. Accommodated; that is, when a man is, as they fay, accommodated: or, when a man is, being whereby he may be thought to be accommodated, which is an excellent thing. Enter Falstaff. Shal. It is very juft.-Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me your good hand, give me your worfhip's good hand. By my troth, you look well, and bear your years very well. Welcome, good Sir John. Fal. I am glad to see you well, good master Robert Shallow.-Mafter Sure-card, as I think Shal. No, Sir John; it is my coufin Silence, in commiffion with me. very good, a good phrafe.] Accommodate was a modish term of that time, as Ben Jonfon informs us: "You are not to caft or wring for the perfumed terms of the time, as ac"commodation, complement, fpirit, &c. but ufe them properly "in their places as others." Difcoveries. Hence Bardolph calls it a word of exceeding good command. His definition of it is admirable, and highly fatirical: nothing being more common than for inaccurate fpeakers or writers, when they should define, to put their hearers off with a fynonimous term; or, for want of that, even with the fame term differently accommodated; as in the inftance before us. WARBURTON. The fame word occurs in Jonfon's Every Man in his Humour, "Hoftefs, accommodate us with another bed-staff: "The woman does not understand the words of action." |