Dol. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself! Host. By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never meet, but you fall to some discord: you are both, in good troth, as rheumatick as two dry toasts; you cannot one bear with another's confirmities. What the good-year! one must bear, and that must be you: [to DOL.] you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the emptier vessel. Dol. Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogshead? there's a whole merchant's venture of Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk better stuffed in the hold.-Come, I'll be friends with thee, Jack: thou art going to the wars; and whether I shall ever see thee again, or no, there is nobody cares. Re-enter Drawer. Draw. Sir, ancient Pistol 's below, and would speak with you. Chambers are very small pieces of ordnance which are yet used in London on what are called rejoicing days, and were sometimes used in our author's theatre on particular occasions. See King Henry VIII, Act I, sc. iii. Malone. 8 rheumatick -] She would say splenetick. Hanmer. I believe she means what she says. So, in Ben Jonson'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 some sort handle women; but then he was rheumatick," &c. Rheumatick, in the cant language of the times, signified capricious, humoursome. In this sense it appears to be used in many other old plays. Steevens. The word scorbutico (as an ingenious friend observes to me) is used in the same manner in Italian, to signify a peevish ill-tem. pered man. Malone. Dr. Farmer observes, that Sir Thomas Elyott, in his Castell of Helth, 1572, speaking of different complexions, has the following remark: "Where cold with moisture prevaileth, that body is called fleumatick." Steevens. 7 as two dry toasts;] Which cannot meet but they grate one another. Johnson. 8 good-year!] Mrs. Quickly's blunder for goujere, i. e. morbus Gallicus. See Vol. III, p. 45, n. 9. Steevens. 9 ancient Pistol-] Is the same as ensign Pistol. Falstaff was captain, Peto lieutenant, and Pistol ensign, or ancient. Johnson. Dol. Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come hither: it is the foul mouth'dst rogue in England. Host. If he swagger, let him not come here: no, by my faith; I must live amongst my neighbours; I'll no swaggerers: I am in good name and fame with the very best: Shut the door;-there comes no swaggerers here: I have not lived all this while, to have swaggering now: -shut the door, I pray you. Fal. Dost thou hear, hostess? Host. Pray you, pacify yourself, sir John; there comes no swaggerers here.1 Fal. Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient. Host. Tilly-fally,2 sir John, never tell me; your ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before master Tisick, the deputy, the other day; and, as he said to me, it was no longer ago than Wednesday last,— Neighbour Quickly, says he;-master Dumb, our minister, was by then;-Neighbour Quickly, says he, receive those that are civil; for, saith he, you are in an ill name; -now he said so, I can tell whereupon; for, says he, you are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore take heed what guests you receive: Receive, says he, no swaggering companions.— -There comes none here;you would bless you to hear what he said:-no, I'll no swaggerers. Fal. He's no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater,3 11 there comes no swaggerers here.] A swaggerer was a roaring, bullying, blustering, fighting fellow. So, in Greene's Tu Quoque, a comedy, by Cooke, 1614: "I will game with a gamster, drinke with a drunkard, be ciuill with a citizen, fight with a swaggerer, and drabb with a whoore-master." Ritson. 2 Tilly-fally,] See Vol. III, p. 213, n. 7. Malone. 3 a tame cheater,] Gamester and cheater were, in Shakspeare's age, synonymous terms. Ben Jonson has an epigram on Captain Hazard, the cheater. A tame cheater, however, as Mr. Whalley observes to me, appears to be a cant phrase. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Fair Maid of the Inn: 66 and will be drawn into the net, "By this decoy-duck, this tame cheater." Greene, in his Mihil Mumchance, has the following passage: "They call their art by a new-found name, as cheating, themselves cheators, and the dice cheters, borrowing the term from among our lawyers, with whom, all such casuals as fall to the he; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound: he will not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.-Call him up, drawer. Host. Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater: But I do not love swaggering; by my troth, I am the worse, when one saysswagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you, I warrant you. Dol. So you do, hostess. Host. Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers. Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page. Pist. 'Save you, sir John! Fal. Welcome, ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with a cup of sack: do you discharge upon mine hostess. Pist. I will discharge upon her, sir John, with two bullets. lord at the holding of his leets, as waifes, straies, and such like, be called chetes, and are accustomably said to be escheted to the lord's use." So, likewise in Lord Coke's Charge at Norwich, 1607: "But if you will be content to let the escheator alone, and not looke into his actions, he will be contented by deceiving you to change his name, taking unto himselfe the two last syllables only, with the es left out, and so turn cheater." Hence perhaps the derivation of the verb-to cheat, which I do not recollect to have met with among our most ancient writers. In The Bell-man of London, by T. Decker, 5th edit. 1640, the same derivation of the word is given: "Of all which lawes, the highest in place is the cheating law, or the art of winning money by false dyce. Those that practice this study call themselves cheaters, the dyce cheators, and the money which they purchase cheate; borrowing the terme from our common lawyers, with whom all such casuals as fall to the lord at the holding of his leetes, as waifes, straies, and such like, are said to be escheated to the lordes use, and are called cheates." This account of the word is likewise given in manifest Detection of Dice-play, printed by Vele, in the reign of Henry VIII. Steevens. 4 I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater:] The humour of this consists in the woman's mistaking the title of cheater, (which our ancestors gave to him whom we now, with better manners, call a gamester,) for that officer of the exchequer called an escheator, well known to the common people of that time; and named, either corruptly or satirically, a cheater. Warburton. Fal. She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend her. Host. Come, I'll drink no proofs, nor no bullets: I'll drink no more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, I.5 Pist. Then to you, mistress Dorothy; I will charge you. Dol. Charge me? I scorn you, scurvy companion. What! you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for your master. Pist. I know you, mistress Dorothy. 6 Dol. Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away! by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me." Away, 5 I'll drink no more -for no man's pleasure, I.] This should not be printed as a broken sentence. The duplication of the pronoun was very common: in The London Prodigal we have, "I scorn service, I."-"I am an ass, I," says the stage-keeper in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair; and Kendal thus translates a well-known epigram of Martial : "I love thee not, Sabidius, "I cannot tell thee why: "I can saie naught but this alone, "I do not love thee, I." In Kendal's Collection there are many translations from Claudian, Ausonius, the Anthologia, &c. Farmer. So, in King Richard III, Act III, sc. ii: "I do not like these separate councils, I." Steevens. Again, in Romeo and Juliet: "I will not budge, for no man's pleasure, I." Again, in King Edward II, by Marlowe, 1598: "I am none of those common peasants, I." The French still use this idiom:-Je suis Parisien, moi. Malone. 6 - filthy bung,] In the cant of thievery, to nip a bung was to cut a purse; and among an explanation of many of these terms in Martin Mark-all's Apologie to the Bel-man of London, 1610, it is said that "Bung is now used for a pocket, heretofore for a purse." Steevens. 7an you play the saucy cuttle with me.] It appears from Greene's Art of Coneycatching, that cuttle and cuttle-boung were the cant terms for the knife used by the sharpers of that age to cut the bottoms of purses, which were then worn hanging at the gir dle. Or the allusion may be to the foul language thrown out by Pistol, which she means to compare with such filth as the cuttlefish ejects. Steevens. you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale juggler, you! -Since when, I pray you, sir?—What, with two points on your shoulder? much!9 Pist. I will murder your ruff for this. Fal. No more, Pistol;1 I would not have you go off here: discharge yourself of our company, Pistol. Host. No, good captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain. Dol. Captain! thou abominable damned cheater,2 art thou not ashamed to be called-captain? If captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a captain, you slave! for what? for tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house?—He a captain! Hang him, rogue! He lives upon mouldy stewed prunes, and dried cakes.3 A captain! these villains will make with two points-] As a mark of his commission. Johnson. 9 much!] Much was a common expression of disdain at that time, of the same sense with that more modern one, Marry come up. The Oxford editor, not apprehending this, alters it to march. Warburton. Dr. Warburton is right. Much! is used thus in Ben Jonson's Volpone: But you shall eat it. Much."" Again, in Every Man in his Humour: Again, in Every Man out of his Humour: "To charge me bring my grain unto the markets: Steevens. 1 No more, Pistol; &c.] This is from the oldest edition of 1600. Pope. 2 Captain, thou abominable damned cheater, &c.] Pistol's character seems to have been a common one on the stage in the time of Shakspeare. In A Woman's a Weathercock, by N. Field, 1612, there is a personage of the same stamp, who is thus described: "Thou unspeakable rascal, thou a soldier! "That with thy slops and cat-a-mountain face, "Thy blather chaps, and thy robustious words, 66 Fright'st the poor whore, and terribly dost exact Malone. 3 He lives upon mouldy stewed prunes, and dried cakes.] That is, he lives on the refuse provisions of bawdy-houses and pastrycooks' shops. Stewed prunes, when mouldy, were perhaps for |