P. JOHN. A famous rebel art thou, Colevile. FAL. And a famous true fubject took him. COLE. I am, my lord, but as my betters are, That led me hither: had they been rul'd by me, You should have won them dearer than you have.

FAL. I know not how they fold themselves: but thou, like a kind fellow, gaveft thyfelf away; and I thank thee for thee.

Re-enter WESTMORELAND.

P. JOHN. Now, have you left pursuit? WEST. Retreat is made, and execution stay'd. P. JOHN. Send Colevile, with his confederates, To York, to present execution:

Blunt, lead him hence; and fee you guard him sure. [Exeunt fome with COLEVILE. And now despatch we toward the court, my lords; I hear, the king my father is fore fick:

Our news fhall go before us to his majesty,Which, coufin, you shall bear,-to comfort him; And we with fober speed will follow you.

FAL. My lord, I befeech you, give me leave to go through Gloftershire: and, when you come to court, ftand my good lord, 'pray, in your good report.'

↑ — ftand my good lord, 'pray, in your good report.] We muft either read, pray let me ftand, or, by a conftruction fomewhat harsh, understand it thus: Give me leave to go-and-fland—. To ftand in a report, referred to the reporter, is to perfift; and Falftaff did not ask the prince to perfift in his prefent opinion.

JOHNSON. Stand my good lord, I believe, means only ftand my good friend, (an expreffion ftill in common use) in your favourable report of me. So, in The Taming of a Shrew:

"I pray you, ftand good father to me now." STEEVENS.

P. JOHN. Fare you well, Falstaff: I, in my con

dition,

Shall better speak of you than you deserve."

[Exit. FAL. I would, you had but the wit; 'twere better

Mr. Steevens is certainly right. In a former fcene of this play, the hoftefs fays to the chief juftice, good my lord, be good unto me; I beseech you, ftand to me." Though an equivoque may have been there intended, yet one of the fenfes conveyed by this expreffion in that place is the fame as here. So, in Cymbeline:

"Be my good lady."

Again, more appofitely in Coriolanus:

his gracious nature

66

"Would think upon you for
"Standing your friendly lord."

Again, in The Spanish Tragedy:

your voices,

What would he with us?

"He writes us here.

"Toftand good lord, and help him in diftrefs."

MALONE.

Stand is here the imperative word, as give is before. Stand my good lord, i. e. be my good patron and benefactor. Be my good lord was the old court phrafe ufed by a person who asked a favour of a man of high rank. So in a letter to the Earl of Northumber land, (printed in the appendix to The Northumberland Houfbold Book,) he defires that Cardinal Wolfey would fo far " be his good lord," as to empower him to imprison a person who had defrauded him. PERCY.

8

1, in my condition,

Shall better fpeak of you than you deserve.] I know not well the meaning of the word condition in this place; I believe it is the fame with temper of mind: I fhall, in my good nature, speak better of you than you merit. JOHNSON.

I believe it means, I, in my condition, i. e. in my place as commanding officer, who ought to reprefent things merely as they you deferve. are, fhall speak of you better than So, in The Tempeft, Ferdinand fays:

66

-I am, in my condition,

"A prince, Miranda

Dr. Johnfon's explanation, however, feems to be countenanced by Gower's addrefs to Pistol, in King Henry V. A& V. fc. i: let a Welsh correction teach you a good English condition.

STEEVENS.

than your dukedom."-Good faith, this fame young fober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh;—but that's no marvel, he drinks no wine. There's never any of these demure boys come to any proof:3 for thin drink doth fo over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male greenfickness; and then, when they marry, they get wenches: they are generally fools and cowards;which fome of us fhould be too, but for inflammation. A good fherris-fack hath a twofold ope

9

- your dukedom.] He had no dukedom. See Vol. VIII. P. 356. RITSON.

2

this fame young fober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh;] Falstaff here fpeaks like a veteran in life. The young prince did not love him, and he despaired to gain his affection, for he could not make him laugh. Men only become friends by community of pleafures. He who cannot be foftened into gaiety, cannot eafily be melted into kindness.

JOHNSON.

3 -to any proof:] i. e. any confirmed ftate of manhood. The allufion is to armour hardened till it abides a certain trial. So, in King Richard II:

"Add proof unto my armour with thy prayers." STEEVENS.

-fberris-fack—] This liquor is mentioned in The Captain, by Beaumont and Fletcher, STEEVENS.

See

The epithet berry or herris, when added to fack, merely denoted the particular part of Spain from whence it came. Minfheu's Spanish Dict. 1617: Xêres, or Xerès, oppidum Bæticæ, i. e. Andalufiæ, prope Cadiz, unde nomen vini de Xeres. A. [Anglice] Xeres facke." Sherris-Sack was therefore what we now denominate Sherry. The fack to which this epithet was not annexed, came chiefly from Malaga. Cole, who in 1679 renders fack, vinum Hifpanicum, renders Sherry-Sack, by Vinum Eferitanum; and Ainfworth, by Vinum Andalufianum. See a former note, Vol. VIII. p. 381. MALONE.

What is ludicrously advanced by Falstaff, was the serious doctrine of the School of Salernum: "Heere obferve that the witte of a man that hath a ftrong braine, is clarified and fharpened more, if hee drinke good wine, then if he dranke none, as Auicen fayth. And the caufe why, is by reafon that of good wine (more than of any

ration in it. It afcends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish, and dull, and crudy vapours which environ it: makes it apprehensive,' quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable fhapes; which deliver'd o'er to the voice, (the tongue,) which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The fecond property of your excellent fherris is, the warming of the blood; which, before cold and fettled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pufillanimity and cowardice: but the fherris warms it, and makes it courfe from the inwards to the parts extreme. It illumineth the face; which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the

other drinkes) are engendered and multiplyed fubtile fpirits, cleane and pure. And this is the caufe alfo why the divines, that imagine and ftudy upon high and fubtile matters, love to drinke good wines and after the opinion of Auicen, Thefe wines are good for men of cold and flegmaticke complexion; for fuch wines redreffe and amend the coldneffe of complexion, and they open the opilations and ftoppings that are wont to be ingend red in fuch perfons, and they digeft phlegme, and they help nature to convert and turne them into blood, they lightly digeft, and convert quickly, they increase and greatly quicken the fpirits." The School of Salernes' Regiment of Health, p. 33, 1634. HOLT WHITE.

Of this work there were feveral earlier tranflations, &c. one of thefe was printed by Berthelet, in 1541. STEEVENS.

4 It afcends me into the brain; dries me there all the crudy vapours-] This ufe of the pronoun is a familiar redundancy among our old writers. So Latimer, p. 91: "Here cometh me now these holy fathers from their counfels."-" There was one wifer than the reft, and he comes me to the bishop." Edit. 1575, BOWLE.

P. 75.

5

apprehenfive,] i. e. quick to understand. So, in The Revenger's Tragedy, 1608:

"Thou'rt a mad apprehensive knave."

Again, in Every Man out of his Humour: "You are too quick, too apprehenfive." In this fenfe it is now almost disused.

STEEVENS.

-forgetive,] Forgetive from forge; inventive, imaginative.

JOHNSON.

rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm: and then the vital commoners, and inland petty spirits, muster me all to their captain, the heart; who, great, and puff'd up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour comes of fherris: So that skill in the weapon is nothing, without fack; for that fets it a-work and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil; till fack commences it, and fets it in act and ufe. Hereof comes it, that prince Harry is valiant: for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, fteril, and bare land, manured, husbanded, and tilled, with excellent endeavour of drinking good, and good store of fertile fherris; that he is become

7

kept by a devil;] It was anciently fuppofed that all the mines of gold, &c. were guarded by evil fpirits. So, in Certaine Secrete Wonders of Nature, &c. bl. 1. by Edward Fenton, 1569: "There appeare at this day many strange vifions and wicked spirites in the metal-mines of the Greate Turke-." "In the mine at Anneburg was a mettal sprite which killed twelve workemen; the fame caufing the reft to forfake the myne, albeit it was very riche." P. 91. STEEVENS.

8- till fack commences it,] I believe, till fack gives it a beginning, brings it into action. Mr. Heath would read commerces it. STEEVENS.

It feems probable to me, that Shakspeare in these words alludes to the Cambridge Commencement; and in what follows to the Oxford Act: for by thofe different names our two universities have long diftinguished the feafon, at which each of them gives to her refpective students a complete authority to use those boards of learning which have entitled them to their feveral degrees in arts, law, phyfick, and divinity. TYRWHITT,

So, in The Roaring Girl, 1611:

"Then he is held a freshman and a fot,
"And never fhall commence."

Again, in Pafquil's Jefts, or Mother Bunch's Merriments, 1604: "A doctor that was newly commenft at Cambridge," &c.

Again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, 1596: "Commence, commence, I admonish thee; thy merits are ripe for it, and there have been doctors of thy facultie." STEEVENS.