Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig," when wilt thou leave fighting o' days, and foining o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

Enter behind, Prince HENRY and POINs, disguised like Drawers.

Fal. Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's head; do not bid me remember mine end.

8

7 little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,] For tidy, Sir T. Hanmer reads tiny; but they are both words of endearment, and equally proper. Bartholomew boar-pig is a little pig made of paste, sold at Bartholomew fair, and given to children for a fairing.

Johnson. Tidy has two significations, timely and neat. In the first of these senses, I believe, it is used in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584:

"I myself have given good, tidie lambs." Steevens. From Ben Jonson's play of Bartholomew Fair, we learn, that it was the custom formerly to have booths in Bartholomew Fair, in which pigs were dressed and sold, and to these it is probable the allusion is here, and not to the pigs of paste mentioned by Dr. Johnson.

The practice of roasting pigs at Bartholomew Fair continued until the beginning of the last century, if not later. It is mentioned in Ned Ward's London Spy, 1697. When about the year 1708 some attempts were made to limit the duration of the fair to three days, a poem was published entitled The Pigs' Petition against Bartholomew Fair, &c. See Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, 1780, Vol. XII, p. 419.

Tidy, I apprehend, means only fat, and in that sense it was certainly sometimes used. See an old translation of Galateo of Manners and Behaviour, bl. 1. 1578, p. 77: "- and it is more proper and peculiar speache to say, the shivering of an ague, than to call it the colde; and flesh that is tidie, to terme it rather fat than fulsome." Reed.

8 like a death's head;] It appears from the following passage in Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1605, that it was the custom for the bawds of that age to wear a death's head in a ring, very probably with the common motto, memento mori. Cocledemoy, speaking of some of these, says: "as for their death, how can it be bad, since their wickedness is always before their eyes, and a death's head most commonly on their middle finger."

Again, in Massinger's Old Law: sell some of my cloaths to buy thee a death's head, and put it upon thy middle finger: your least considering bawds do so much."

Again, in Northward Hoe, 1607: "— as if I were a bawd, no ring pleases me but a death's head."

On the Stationers' books, Feb. 21, 1582, is entered a ballad intitled Remember thy End. Steevens.

Dol. Sirrah, what humour is the prince of?

Fal. A good shallow young fellow: he would have made a good pantler, he would have chipped bread well. Dol. They say, Poins has a good wit.

9

Fal. He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit is as thick as Tewksbury mustard; there is no more conceit in him, than is in a mallet.1

Dol. Why does the prince love him so then?

Fal. because their legs are both of a bigness: and he plays at quoits well; and eats conger and fennel; and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons; 2 and rides the wild mare with the boys;3 and jumps upon joint-stools;

Falstaff's allusion, I should have supposed, was to the death's head, and motto on hatchments, grave-stones, and the like.Such a ring, however, as Mr. Steevens describes, but without any inscription, being only brass, is in my possession. Ritson.

—6

Tewksbury mustard;] Tewksbury is a market town in the county of Gloucester, formerly noted for mustard-balls made there, and sent into other parts. Grey.

in a mallet.] So, in Milton's Prose Works, 1738, Vol. I, p. 300: "Though the fancy of this doubt be as obtuse and sad as any mallet." Tollet.

2 eats conger and fennel; and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons;] Conger with fennel was formerly regarded as a provocative. It is mentioned by Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair:"- like a long-laced conger with green fennel in the joll of it." And in Philaster, one of the ladies advises the wanton Spanish prince to abstain from this article of luxury.

Greene likewise, in his Quip for an upstart Courtier, calls fennel "woman's weeds,"-"fit generally, for that sex, sith while they are maidens they wish wantonly."

The qualification that follows, viz. that of swallowing candles' ends by way of flap-dragons, seems to indicate no more than that the Prince loved him, because he was always ready to do any thing for his amusement, however absurd or unnatural.

Ben Jonson, in his News from the Moon, &c. a masque, speaks of those who eat candles' ends, as an act of love and gallantry; and Beaumont and Fletcher, in Monsieur Thomas: "- carouse her health in cans, and candles' ends."

Again, in The Christian turn'd Turk, 1612: "as familiarly as pikes do gudgeons, and with as much facility as Dutchmen swallow flapdragons." Steevens.

A flap-dragon is some small combustible body, fired at one end, and put afloat in a glass of liquor. It is an act of a toper's dexterity to toss off the glass in such a manner as to prevent the flap-dragon from doing mischief, Johnson.

1

and swears with a good grace; and wears his boot very smooth, like unto the sign of the leg; and breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories: and such other gambol faculties he hath, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admits him: for the prince himself is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois.

P. Hen. Would not this nave of a wheels have his ears cut off?

Poins. Let's beat him before his whore.

P. Hen. Look, if the withered elder hath not his poll clawed like a parrot.

Poins. Is it not strange, that desire should so many years outlive performance?

3 and rides the wild mare with the boys;] He probably means the two legged mare mentioned by Mr. Steevens in p. 41, n. 8.

Malone. If Poins had ever ridden the mare alluded to by Mr. Steevens, she would have given him such a fall as would effectually prevent him from mounting her a second time. We must therefore suppose it was a less dangerous beast, that would not have disabled him from afterwards jumping upon joint stools, &c. Douce.

4

discreet stories:] We should read-indiscreet. Warburton. I suppose by discreet stories is meant what suspicious masters and mistresses of families would call prudential information; i. e. what ought to be known, and yet is disgraceful to the teller. Among the virtues of John Rugby, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Mrs. Quickly adds, that "he is no tell-tale, no breed-bate."

Steevens.

5 nave of a wheel -] Nave and knave are easily reconciled, but why nave of a wheel? I suppose from his roundness. He was called round man, in contempt, before. Johnson. So, in the play represented before the king and queen in

Hamlet:

"Break all the spokes and fellies of her wheel,
"And bowl the round nave down the steep of heaven."

Steevens.

his poll clawed like a parrot.] This custom, we may suppose, was not peculiar to Falstaff, especially as it occurred among the French, to whom we were indebted for most of our artificial gratifications. So, in La Venerie, &c. by Jaques de Fouilloux, &c. Paris, 4to. 1585: "Le seigneur doit auoir sa petite charette, là où il sera dedans, auec sa fillette, aagée de seize a dix sept ans, la quelle lui frottera la teste par les chemins." A wooden cut annexed, represents this operation on an old man, who lies along in his carriage, with a girl sitting at his head. Steevens.

Fal. Kiss me, Doll.

P. Hen. Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction!" what says the almanack to that?

Poins. And, look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping to his master's old tables; his note-book, his counsel-keeper.

7 Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction!] This was, indeed,' a prodigy. The astrologers, says Ficinus, remark, that Saturn and Venus are never conjoined. Johnson.

8

the fiery Trigon, &c.] Trigonum igneum is the astronomical term when the upper planets meet in a fiery sign. The fiery Trigon, I think, consists of Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius. So, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. VI, chap. xxxi:

"Even at the fierie Trigon shall your chief ascendant be." Again, in Pierce's Supererogation, or a new Praise of the old Asse, -&c. by Gabriel Harvey, 1593: ". -now the warring planet was expected in person, and the fiery Trigon seemed to give the alarm." Steevens.

So, in A Dialogue both pleasaunt and pietifull, &c. by Wm. Bulleyne, 1564: " Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, are hotte, drie, bitter, and cholerike, governing hot and drie thinges, and this is called the fierie triplicitie." Malone.

9 lisping to his master's old tables;] We should readclasping too his master's old tables; &c. i. e. embracing his mas.. ter's cast off whore, and now his bawd [his note-book, his counselkeeper.] We have the same phrase again in Cymbeline:

"You clasp young Cupid's tables." Warburton.

I believe the old reading to be the true one. Bardolph was very probably drunk, and might lisp a little in his courtship: or might assume an affected softness of speech, like Chaucer's Frere: Tyrwhitt's edit. Prol. v. 266:

"Somewhat he lisped for his wantonnesse,

"To make his English swete upon his tonge." Or, like the Page, in The Mad Lover of Beaumont and Fletcher, who

"Lisps when he list to catch a chambermaid." Again, in Love's Labour's Lost :

He can carve too and lisp." Steevens.

Certainly the word clasping better preserves the integrity of the metaphor; or, perhaps, as the expression is old tables, we might read licking: Bardolph was kissing the Hostess; and old ivory books were commonly cleaned by licking them. Farmer.

The old table-book was a counsel-keeper, or a register of secrets; and so also was Dame Quickly. I have therefore not the least suspicion of any corruption in the text. Lisping is, in our author's dialect, making love, or, in modern language, saying soft things. So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff apologises to Mrs. Ford for his concise address to her, by saying, "I can

Fal. Thou dost give me flattering busses.

Dol. Nay, truly; I kiss thee with a most constant heart.

Fal. I am old, I am old.

Dol. I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young boy of them all.

Fal. What stuff wilt have a kirtle of?1 I shall receive

not cog, and say this and that, like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like Buckler's-bury in simple-time; I cannot; but I love thee;" &c. Malone.

1 -a kirtle of?] I know not exactly what a kirtle is. The following passages may serve to shew that it was something different from a gown: "How unkindly she takes the matter, and cannot be reconciled with less than a gown or a kirtle of silk.” Greene's Art of Legerdemain, &c. 1612.

Bale, in his Actes of English Votaries, says, that Roger earl of Shrewsbury sent "to Clunyake in France, for the kyrtle of holy Hugh the abbot." Perhaps kirtle, in its common acceptation, means a petticoat. "Half a dozen taffata gowns or satin kirtles." Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonson. Steevens.

A kirtle, I believe, meant a long cloak. Minshieu describes it as an upper or exterior garment, worn over another; what in French is called a garde-robe. See his Dict. 1617. The latter word is explained by Cotgrave thus: "A cloth or cloak worn or cast over a garment to keep it from dust, rain," &c. That writer, however, supposes kirtle and petticoat to be synonymous; for he renders the word vasquine thus: " A kirtle or petticoat," and surcot he calls "an upper kirtle, or a garment worn over a kirtle.”

When, therefore, a kirtle is mentioned simply, perhaps a petticoat is meant; when an upper kirtle is spoken of, a long cloak or mantle is probably intended; and I imagine a half-kirtle, which occurs in a subsequent scene in this play, meant a short cloak, half the length of the upper kirtle. The term half-kirtle seems inconsistent with Dr. Farmer's idea; as does Milton's use of the word in his Masque, "the flowery-kirtled Naiades."

My interpretation of kirtle is confirmed by Barret's Alvearie, 1580, who renders kirtle, by subminia, cyclas, palla, pallula, Xhaiva, surcot.-Subminia Cole interprets in his Latin Dictionary, 1697, "A kirtle, a light red coat." Cyclas, "a kirtle, a cimarr." -Palla, "a woman's long gown; a veil that covers the head."Pallula, "a short kirtle."-Lana, "an Irish rugge, a freeze cassock, a rough hairy gaberdine."

From hence it appears, that a woman's kirtle, or rather upperkirtle, (as distinguished from a petticoat, which was sometimes called a kirtle,) was a long mantle which reached to the ground, with a head to it that entirely covered the face; and it was, perhaps, usually red. A half-kirtle was a similar garment, reaching