P. HEN. It fhall ferve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

POINS. Go to; I ftand the pufh of your one thing that you will tell.

P. HEN. Why, I tell thee,-it is not meet that I fhould be fad, now my father is fick : albeit I could tell to thee, (as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend,) I could be fad, and fad indeed too.

POINS. Very hardly, upon such a subject.

P. HEN. By this hand, thou think'ft me as far in the devil's book, as thou, and Falstaff, for obduracy and perfiftency: Let the end try the man. But I tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly, that my father is fo fick and keeping fuch vile company as thou art, hath in reafon taken from me all oftentation of forrow."

POINS. The reason?

P. HEN. What would'ft thou think of me, if I fhould weep?

POINS. I would think thee a moft princely hypocrite.

P. HEN. It would be every man's thought: and thou art a bleffed fellow to think as every man thinks; never a man's thought in the world keeps the road-way better than thine: every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought, to think fo?

POINS. Why, because you have been fo lewd, and fo much engraffed to Falstaff.

9

all oftentation of Sorrow.] Oftentation is here not boaftful fhow, but fimply fhow. Merchant of Venice:

one well studied in a fad oftent "To please his grandame." JOHNSON.

P. HEN. And to thee.

POINS. By this light, I am well spoken of, I can hear it with my own ears: the worst that they can fay of me is, that I am a fecond brother, and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I confefs, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.

2

P. HEN. And the boy that I gave Falstaff: he had him from me chriftian; and look, if the fat villain have not transform'd him ape.

Enter BARDOLPH and Page.

BARD. 'Save your grace!

P. HEN. And yours, most noble Bardolph! BARD. Come, you virtuous afs,' [To the Page.] you bashful fool, muft you be blufhing? wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man at arms are you become? Is it fuch a matter, to get a pottlepot's maidenhead.

2

proper fellow of my hands ;] A tall or proper fellow of his hands was a ffout fighting man. JOHNSON.

In this place, however, it means a good looking, well made perfonable man. Poins might certainly have helped his being a fighting fellow. RITSON.

A handfome fellow of my fize; or of my inches, as we should now exprefs it. M. MASON.

Proper, it has been already obferved, in our author's time fignified bandfome. See Vol. IV. p. 457, n. 6; and Vol. V. p. 410, "As tall a man of his hands" has already occurred in The Merry Wives of Windfor. See Vol. III. p. 344, n. 8. MALONE.

n. 9.

3 Bard. Come, you virtuous ofs, &c.] Though all the editions give this fpeech to Poins, it feems evident, by the Page's immediate reply, that it must be placed to Bardolph: for Bardolph had called to the boy from an ale-houfe, and it is likely, made him half-drunk; and, the boy being afhamed of it, it is natural for Bardolph, a bold unbred fellow, to banter him on his aukward bafhfulnefs. THEOBALD.

PAGE. He call'd me even now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could difcern no part of his face from the window: at laft, I fpied his eyes; and, methought, he had made two holes in the alewife's new petticoat, and peep'd through.

P. HEN. Hath not the boy profited?

BARD. Away, you whorefon upright rabbit, away! PAGE. Away, you rafcally Althea's dream, away! P. HEN. Inftruct us, boy: What dream, boy? PAGE. Marry, my lord, Althea dream'd she was delivered of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream.

P. HEN. A crown's worth of good interpretation. There it is, boy. [Gives him money. · POINS. O, that this good bloffom could be kept from cankers! Well, there is fixpence to preferve thee.

BARD. An you do not make him be hang'd among you, the gallows fhall have wrong.

P. HEN. And how doth thy mafter, Bardolph? BARD. Well, my lord. He heard of your grace's coming to town; there's a letter for you.

P. HEN. Deliver'd with good respect.-And how doth the martlemas, your mafter?

through a red lattice,] i. e. from an ale-houfe window. See Vol. III. p. 375, n. 5. MALONE.

5- Althea dream'd &c.] Shakspeare is here mistaken in his mythology, and has confounded Althea's firebrand with Hecuba's. The firebrand of Althea was real: but Hecuba, when she was big with Paris, dreamed that she was delivered of a firebrand that confumed the kingdom. JOHNSON.

6 A crown's worth of good interpretation.] "A pennyworth of good interpretation," is, if I remember right, the title of fome old tract. MALONE.

7 the martlemas, your mafter?] That is, the autumn, or rather the latter spring. The old fellow with juvenile paflions.

JOHNSON.

BARD. In bodily health, fir.

POINS. Marry, the immortal part needs a phyfician: but that moves not him; though that be fick, it dies not.

P. HEN. I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog: and he holds his place; for, look you, how he writes.

POINS. [Reads.] John Falstaff, knight,

-Every man must know that, as oft as he has occafion to name himself. Even like those that are kin to the king; for they never prick their finger, but they fay, There is fome of the king's blood fpilt: How comes that? fays he, that takes upon him not to conceive: the answer is as ready as a borrower's cap; I am the king's poor cousin, fir.

In The First Part of King Henry IV. the Prince calls Falstaff "the latter fpring,-all-hallown fummer." MALONE.

Martlemas is corrupted from Martinmas, the feast of St. Martin, the eleventh of November. The corruption is general in the old plays. So, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599:

8

9

"A piece of beef hung up fince Martlemas." STEEVENS, this wen-] This fwoln excrefcence of a man. JOHNSON.

the answer is as ready as a borrower's cap;] Old copya borrow'd cap. STEEVENS.

But how is a borrow'd cap fo ready? Read, a borrower's cap, and then there is fome humour in it: for a man that goes to borrow money, is of all others the most complaifant; his cap is always at hand. WARBURTON.

Falstaff's followers, when they ftole any thing called it a purchafe. A borrowed cap in the fame dialect might be a stolen one; which is fufficiently ready, being, as Falftaff fays, " to be found on every hedge." MALONE.

Such caps as were worn by men in our author's age, were made of filk, velvet, or woollen; not of linen; and confequently would not be hung out to dry on hedges. STEEVENS.

P. HEN. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But the letter:

POINS. Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the fon of the king, nearest his father, Harry prince of Wales, greeting.-Why, this is a certificate.

POINS. I will imitate the honourable Roman in brevity:-he fure means brevity in breath; fhortwinded.-I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he mifufes thy favours fo much, that he fwears, thou art to marry his fifter Nell. Repent at idle times as thou may'ft, and fo farewell.

Thine, by yea and no, (which is as much as to fay, as thou useft him,) Jack Falftaff, with my familiars; John, with my brothers and fifters; and fir John, with all Europe.

I think Dr. Warburton's correction is right. A cap is not a thing likely to be borrowed, in the common fenfe of the word: and in the fense of stealing the fenfe fhould be a cap to be borrowed. Befides, conveying was the cant phrafe for ftealing. FARMER. Dr. Warburton's emendation is countenanced by a paffage in Timon of Athens : be not ceas'd

"With flight denial; nor then filenc'd, when
"Commend me to your mafter-and the cap

66

Plays in the right hand, thus:" STEEVENS.

2 P. Hen.] All the editors, except Sir Thomas Hanmer, have left this letter in confufion, making the Prince read part, and Poins part. I have followed his correction. JOHNSON.

3 I will imitate the honourable Roman in brevity:] The old copy reads Romans, which Dr. Warburton very properly corrected, though he is wrong when he appropriates the character to M. Brutus, who affected great brevity of ftyle. I fuppofe by the honourable Roman is intended Julius Cæfar, whofe veni, vidi, vici, feems to be alluded to in the beginning of the letter. I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. The very words of Cæfar are afterwards quoted by Falstaff. HEATH.