SCENE III.

The Street in Windsor.

Enter Mrs PAGE, Mrs. FORD, and Dr. CAIUS.

MRS. PAGE. Master Doctor, my daughter is in green: when you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly: Go before into the park; we two must go together.

CAIUS. I know vat I have to do; Adieu.

MRS. PAGE. Fare you well, sir. [Exit CAIUS.] My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff, as he will chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter: but 'tis no matter; better a little chiding, than a great deal of heart-break.

MRS. FORD. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies? and the Welch devil, Hugh '?

says: "God's a good man." Again, in an Epitaph, part of which has been borrowed as an absurd one, by Mr. Pope and his associates, who were not very well acquainted with ancient phraseology:

"Do all we can,
"Death is a man

"That never spareth none." Again, in Jeronimo, or The First Part of the Spanish Tragedy, 1605:

"You're the last man I thought on, save the devil.” STEEVENS. Page indirectly alludes to Falstaff, who was to be disguised like Herne the hunter, with horns upon his head. MALONE.

5-and the Welch devil, HUGH?] The former impressions read-the Welch Devil, Herne? But Falstaff was to represent Herne, and he was no Welchman. Where was the attention or sagacity of our editors, not to observe that Mrs. Ford is enquiring for [Sir Hugh] Evans by the name of the Welch devil? Dr. Thirlby likewise discovered the blunder of this passage.

THEOBALD. I suppose only the letter H. was set down in the MS. and

MRS. PAGE. They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights; which, at the very instant of Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the night.

MRS. FORD. That cannot choose but amaze him. MRS. PAGE. If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked.

MRS. FORD. We'll betray him finely.

MRS. PAGE. Against such lewdsters, and their lechery,

Those that betray them do no treachery.

MRS. FORD. The hour draws on; To the oak, to the oak! [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

Windsor Park.

Enter Sir HUGH EVANS, and Fairies.

EVA. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts: be pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I give the watch-'ords, do as I pid you; Come, come; trib, trib. [Exeunt.

therefore, instead of Hugh, (which seems to be the true reading,) the editors substituted Herne. STEEVENS.

So, afterwards: "Well said, fairy Hugh." MALONE. 6 in a PIT hard by HERNE'S OAK,] An oak, which be may that alluded to by Shakspeare, is still standing close to a pit in Windsor forest. It is yet shown as the oak of Herne. STEEVENS.

SCENE V.

Another Part of the Park.

Enter FALSTAFF disguised, with a Buck's Head on. FAL. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on : Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me:-Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns.-O powerful love! that, in some respects, makes a beast a man; in some other, a man a beast.-You were also, Jupiter, a swan, for the love of Leda ;-O, omnipotent love! how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose-A fault done first in the form of a beast;-O Jove, a beastly fault! and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think on't, Jove; a foul fault.-When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do'? For me, I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the forest: Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow ? Who comes here? my doe?

7

8

When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do?] Shakspeare had perhaps in his thoughts the argument which Cherea employed in a similar situation. Ter. Eun. Act III. Sc. V. : Quia consimilem luserat

66

"Jam olim ille ludum, impendio magis animus gaudebat mihi "Deum sese in hominem convertisse, atque per alienas tegulas "Venisse clanculum per impluvium, fucum factum mulieri. "At quem deum? qui templa cœli summa sonitu concutit.

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Ego homuncio hoc non facerem? Ego vero illud ita feci, ac lubens."

A translation of Terence was published in 1598.

The same thought is found in Lyly's Euphues, 1580:—“I think in those days love was well ratified on earth, when lust was so full authorized by the gods in heaven." MALONE.

8 - Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to PISS MY TALLOW?] This, I find, is technical. In Turberville's Booke of Hunting, 1575: "During the time of their rut, the

Enter Mrs. FORD and Mrs. PAGE.

MRS. FORD. Sir John? art thou there, my deer? my male deer?

FAL. My doe with the black scut ?-Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves; hail kissing-comfits, and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here. [Embracing her.

harts live with small sustenance.-The red mushroome helpeth well to make them pysse their greace, they are then in so vehement heate," &c. FARMER.

In Ray's Collection of Proverbs, the phrase is yet further explained: "He has piss'd his tallow. This is spoken of bucks who grow lean after rutting-time, and may be applied to men."

The phrase, however, is of French extraction. Jacques de Fouilloux in his quarto volume entitled La Venerie, also tells us that stags in rutting time live chiefly on large red mushrooms, qui aident fort à leur faire pisser le suif." STEEVENS.

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Let the sky rain POTATOES ;-hail KISSING-COMFITS, and snow ERINGOES; let there come a TEMPEST of provocation,] Potatoes, when they were first introduced in England, were supposed to be strong provocatives. See Mr. Collins's note on a passage

in Troilus and Cressida. Act V. Sc. II.

Kissing-comfils were sugar-plums, perfumed to make the breath sweet.

Monsieur Le Grand D'Aussi, in his Histoire de la Vie privée des Français, vol. ii. p. 273, observes-" Il y avait aussi de petits drageoirs qu'on portait en poche pour avoir, dans le jour, de quoi se parfumer la bouche."

So also in Webster's Duchess of Malfy, 1623:

Sure your pistol holds

"Nothing but perfumes or kissing comfits."

In Swetnan Arraign'd, 1620, these confections are called"kissing-causes."-" Their very breath is sophisticated with amber-pellets, and kissing-causes.'

Again, in A Very Woman, by Massinger:

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Comfits of ambergris to help our kisses."

For eating these, Queen Mab may be said, in Romeo and Juliet, to plague their lips with blisters.

Eringoes, like potatoes, were esteemed to be stimulatives. So, (says the late Mr. Henderson,) in Drayton's Polyolbion :

"Whose root th' eringo is, the reines that doth inflame,
"So strongly to performe the Cytherean game."

MRS. FORD. Mistress Page is come with me,

sweetheart.

FAL. Divide me like a bribe-buck', each a haunch I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk 2, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman 3 ? ha!

But Shakspeare. very probably, had the following artificial tempest in his thoughts, when he put the words on which this note is founded into the mouth of Falstaff.

Holinshed informs us, that in the year 1583, for the entertainment of Prince Alasco, was performed "a verie statelie tragedie named Dido, wherein the queen's banket (with Æneas' narration of the destruction of Troie) was lively described in a marchpaine patterne, the tempest wherein it hailed small confects, rained rose-water, and snew an artificial kind of snow, all strange, marvellous and abundant."

Brantome also, describing an earlier feast given by the Vidam of Chartres, says—“ Au dessert, il y eut un orage artificiel qui, pendant une demie heure entiere, fit tomber une pluie d'eaux odorantes, et un grêle de dragées." STEEVENS.

1 Divide me like a BRIBE-BUCK,] i. e. (as Mr. Theobald observes,) a buck sent for a bribe. He adds, that the old copies, mistakingly, read-brib'd-buck. STEEVENS.

Cartwright, in his Love's Convert, has an expression somewhat similar:

2

"Put off your mercer with your fee-buck for that season."
M. MASON.

- my SHOULDERS for the FELLOW of this WALK,] Who the fellow is, or why he keeps his shoulders for him, I do not understand. JOHNSON.

A walk is that district in a forest, to which the jurisdiction of a particular keeper extends. So, in Lodge's Rosalynde, 1592: "Tell me, forester, under whom maintainest thou thy walke?"

MALONE.

To the keeper the shoulders and humbles belong as a perquisite.

So, in Friar Bacon, and Friar Bungay, 1599:

GREY.

"Butter and cheese, and humbles of a deer, "Such as poor keepers have within their lodge." Again, in Holinshed, 1586, vol. i. p. 204: "The keeper, by a -hath the skin, head, umbles, chine and shoulders."

custom

STEEVENS.

3 a woodman?] A woodman (says Mr. Reed, in a note on Measure for Measure, Act IV. Sc. III.) was an attendant on the officer, called Forrester. See Manwood on the Forest Laws, 4to.