and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him. Where's Bardolph ?

Page. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

Fal. I bought him in Paul's', and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter the Lord Chief Justice, and an Attendant. Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph.

Fal. Wait close; I will not see him.
Ch. Just. What's he that goes there?

Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship.

Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery? Atten. He, my lord; but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the lord John of Lancaster.

Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again.
Atten. Sir John Falstaff!

Fal. Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Page. You must speak louder, my master is deaf.

Ch. Just. I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing good.-Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

Atten. Sir John,

Fal. What! a young knave, and begging? Is there not wars? is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse

1 I bought him in PAUL'S,] The allusions in old authors to St. Paul's church, as the resort, or lounge, of the idle, dissolute, poor, and fraudulent are interminable.

2 Lord Chief Justice,] "This judge," says Steevens," was Sir Wm. Gascoigne, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. He died December 17, 1413, and was buried in Harwood church, in Yorkshire. His effigy, in judicial robes, is on his monument."

3 What! a young knave, and BEGGING ?] The quarto reads "begging," and the folio beg. Just below, the quarto has "need," and the folio want.

VOL. IV.

A a

shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

Atten. You mistake me, sir.

Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.

Atten. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.

Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that which grows to me? If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me: if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt-counter', hence! avaunt!

Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you.

Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

Fal. My good lord!-God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad; I heard say, your lordship was sick: I hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time, and I most humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverend care your health.

of

5

Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

4 You HUNT-COUNTER,] In "The Comedy of Errors," Vol. ii. p. 153, we meet with the expression "a hound that runs counter," (meaning a dog that runs the wrong way in the chase,) applied to the officer who has arrested Antipholus of Ephesus. The allusion by Falstaff, when he calls the attendant "huntcounter," Johnson supposes to be the same: he terms him "hunt-counter," probably because he is upon a wrong scent, and has made a mistake. Monck Mason imagined that Falstaff referred to the prison called the Counter, as if the attendant were an officer belonging to it, accompanying the Chief Justice; but this seems hardly probable, because Falstaff wishes to appear ignorant of the person in whose presence he stands.

Sir John, I sent FOR you-] The folio omits "for."

Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty.-You would not come when I sent for you.

Fal. And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him.-I pray you, let me speak with you.

Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.

Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain. I have read the cause of his effects in Galen: it is a kind of deaf

ness.

Ch. Just. I think you are fallen into the disease, for you hear not what I say to you.

Fal. Very well, my lord', very well: rather, an't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become your physicians.

Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient: your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself.

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.

6 - a kind of lethargy, AN'T PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP; a KIND OF sleeping in the blood,] The folio omits "an't please your lordship," and "kind of," to the evident injury of the speech, as Falstaff is putting on a constrained civility towards the Chief Justice.

7 Very well, my lord,] The prefix to this speech in the quarto is Old., in all probability for Oldcastle, the name by which Falstaff was first called by Shakespeare. This is a relic of the original MS., an instance in which the change of name was accidentally not marked, and the printer was thereby misled. In the folio, 1623, Old. is changed to Fal.

8 — if I DO BECOME your physician.] The folio merely "if I be," &c.

Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come.

Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, sir John, you live in great infamy.

Fal. He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less.

Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

Fal. I would it were otherwise: I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.

Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince. Fal. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.

Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound. Your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that

action.

Fal. My lord

Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.

Fal. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox. Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

Fal. A wassel candle, my lord; all tallow: if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel'.

9 - I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.] Alluding, doubtless, to some fat blind beggar, well known in that day, who was led about by a dog. No other mention of him has been found in any other writer of the time, dramatic or undramatic.

1

- like his ILL angel.] So the quarto, 1600, both here and in Falstaff's reply. The folio has "evil angel in the first place, and "ill angel" in the second. The mistake seems obvious: "ill angel" answers the purpose both of Falstaff and the Chief Justice.

Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light, but, I hope, he that looks upon me will take me without weighing and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these coster-monger times2, that true valour is turned bearherd. Pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls; and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity, and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, sir John!

Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon", with a white head, and something a round belly. For my voice,-I have lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth farther, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box o' the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince,

2 in these coster-monger TIMES,] The folio omits "times."

3 as the malice of this age shapes THEM,] The quarto reads, "shapes the one," which obvious error the folio corrects.

YOUR CHIN DOUBLE, your wit single,] The folio loses the antithesis by omitting "your chin double."

5

- about three of the clock in the afternoon,] These words the folio, 1623, excludes arbitrarily. Throughout this part of the play, the printer of the folio seems, for some reason, to have compressed the text into as small a compass as possible, and some of these omissions may have arisen from that circumstance.