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under the adoption of abominable terms, and by him that does me this wrong. Terms! names!-Amaimon founds well; Lucifer, well; Barbafon,3 well; yet they are devils' additions, the names of fiends: but cuckold! wittol-cuckold! ♦ the devil himself hath not fuch a name. Page is an afs, a fecure afs; he will truft his wife, he will not be jealous: I will rather truft a Fleming with my butter, parfon Hugh the Welchman with my cheele, an Irishman with my aqua-vitæ bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself: then the plots, then the ruminates, then the devifes and what they think in their hearts they may effect, they will break their hearts but they will effect. Heaven be praised for my jealoufy!-Eleven o'clock the hour;-[ will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it; better three hours too foon, than a minute too late. Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold! [Exit.

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3 The reader who is curious to know any particulars concerning the f→ demons, may find them in Reginald Scott's Inventarie of the Names, Shapes, Powers, Governement, and Effects of Devils and Spirits, of their fireral Segnories and Degrees: a ftrange Difcourf worth the reading, p. 377, &.. From hence it appears that Amaimon was king of the Eaft, and Barbatis a great countie or earle. STEEVENS.

4 One who knows his wife's falfehood, and is contented with it;-from wittan, Saxon, to know. MALONE.

5 Heywood, in his Challenge for Beauty, 1636, mentions the love of aqua-vite as characteristick or the Ir:

"The Bri on he metheglin quaffs,
"The Irish aqua vitæ.”

The Irish aqua-vita, Î believe, was not brandy, but usquebaugh, fər which Ireland has been long celebrated.

MALONE.

Dericke, in The Image of Irelande, 1581, Sign. F 2, mentions Uskebeagbe, and in a note explains it to mean aqua vita.

REED.

Ford should rather have faid ten o'clock: the time was between ten and eleven; and his impatient fufpicion was not likely to ftay beyond the time. JOHNSON.

It was neceffary for the plot that he should mistake the hour, and come too late. M. MASON.

It is neceflary for the business of the piece that Falstaff should be at Ford's houfe before his return. Hence our author made him name the later hour. See A&t III. fc. ii:- The clock gives me my cue ;— there I fhall find Falstaff." When he fays above, I fhall prevent this," he means, not the meeting, but his wife's effecting her purpose.

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SCENE

III.

Windfor Park.

Enter CAIUS and RUGBY.

Caius. Jack Rugby!

Rug. Sir.

Caius. Vat is de clock, Jack?

Rug. 'Tis paft the hour, fir, that fir Hugh promifed to

meet.

Caius. By gar, he has fave his foul, dat he is no come; he has pray his Pible vell, dat he is no come: by gar, Jack Rugby, he is dead already, if he be come.

Rug. He is wife, fir; he knew, your worship would kill him, if he came.

Caius. By gar, de herring is no dead, fo as I vill kill him Take your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him. Rug. Alas, fir, I cannot fence.

Caius. Villainy, take your rapier.

Rug. Forbear; here's company.

Enter HosT, SHALLOW, SLENDER and PAGE.

Hoft. 'Blefs thec, bully doctor.

Shal. 'Save you, master doctor Caius.

Page. Now, good mafter doctor!

Slen. Give you good-morrow, fir.

Caius. Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for? Hoft. To fee thee fight, to fee thee foin, to fee thee traverfe, to fee thee here, to fee thee there; to fee thee pass thy punto, thy ftock, thy reverfe, thy distance, thy montánt. Is he dead, my Ethiopian is he dead, my Francifco ?9 ha, bully! What fays my Efculapius? my Galen? my heart of elder? ha! is he dead, bully Stale? 3 is he dead?"

Caius

7 To foin, I believe, was the ancient term for making a thrust in fercing, or tilting. STEEVENS.

Stock is a corruption of flocata, Ital. from which language the technical terms that follow are likewife adopted. STEEVENS.

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my Francifco?] He means, my Frenchman. MALONE.

It should be remembered, to make this joke relish, that the elder tree has no beart. I fuppofe this expreffion was made use of in oppofition to the common one, beart of oak. STEEVENS.

3 The reafon why Caius is called bully Stale, and afterwards Urinal,

muft

Caiur. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of the world; he is not fhow is face.

Hoft. Thou art a Caftilian 4 king, Urinal! Hector of Greece, my boy!

Caius. I pray you, bear vitnefs that me have ftay fix or feven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come.

Shal. He is the wiser man, master doctor: he is a curer of fouls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight, you go againit the hair of your profeffions; is it not true, mater Page?

Page. Mafter Shallow, you have yourfelf been a great fighter, though now a man of peace.

Shal. Bodykins, mafter Page, though I now be old, and of the peace, if I fee a fword out, my finger itches to make one: though we are justices, and doctors, and churchmen, mafter

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must be sufficiently obvious to every reader, and especially to those whose credulity and weakness have enrolled them among the patients of the prefeat German empiric, who calls himself Doctor Alexander Mayersbach.

STEEVENS.

4 Caftilian and Ethiopian, like Cataian, appear in our author's time to have been cant terms. STEEVENS.

I believe this was a popular flur upon the Spaniards, who were held in great contempt after the bufinefs of the Armada. Thus we have a Treatife Paranetical, wherein is fhewed the right way to refifl the Caftilian king a and a fonnet, prefixed to Lea's Answer to the Untruths published in Spain, in glorie of their fuppofed Victory atchieved against our English Navie, begins:

"Thou fond Caftilian king!"—and fo in other places.

FARMER

Dr. Farmer's obfervation is juft. Don Philip the Second affected the title of King of Spain; but the realms of Spain would not agree to it, and only ftyled him King of Caftile and Leon, &c. and fo he wrote himself. His cruelty and ambitious views upon other ftates, rendered him univer fally detefted. The Caftilians, being defcended chiefly from Jews and Moors, were deemed to be of a malign and perverfe difpofition; and hence, perhaps, the term Caftilian became opprobrious. I have extracted this note from an old pamphlet, called The Spanish Pilgrime, which I have reason to fuppofe is the fame difcourfe with the Treatife Parænetical, mentioned by Dr. Farmer. TOLLET.

Dr. Farmer, I believe, is right. The hoft, who, availing himself of the poor Doctor's ignorance of English phrafeology, applies to him all kind of opprobrious terms, here means to call him a coward. MALONE.

This phrafe is proverbial, and is taken from stroking the hair of animals a contrary way to that in which it grows. STEVENS.

mafter Page, we have fome falt of our youth in us: we are the fons of women, mafter Page.

Page. 'Tis true, master Shallow.

Shal. It will be found fo, mafter Page. Mafter doctor Caius, I am come to fetch you home. I am fworn of the peace you have fhowed yourself a wife phyfician, and fir Hugh hath fhown himself a wife and patient churchman : you must go with me, mafter doctor.

Hoft. Pardon, gueft juftice :-A word, monfieur Muckwater.6

Caius. Muck-vater! vat is dat?

Hoft. Muck-water, in our English tongue, is valour, bully. Caius. By gar, then I have as much muck-vater as de Englifhman: Scurvy jack-dog-prieft! by gar, me vil cut his

ears.

Hoft. He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.

Caius. Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat ?

Hoft. That is, he will make thee amends.

Caius. By gar, me do look, he fhall clapper-de-cław me; for, by gar, me vil have it.

Heft. And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag.
Caius. Me tark you for dat.

Heft. And moreover, bully,-Eut first, mafter gueft, and mafter Page, and eke cavalero Slender, go you through the town to Frogmore.

Page, Sir Hugh is there, is he?

[Afide to them.

Hoft. He is there: fee what humour he is in; and I will bring the doctor about by the fields: will it do well?

Shal. We will do it.

Page. Shal, and Slen. Adieu, good mafter doctor.

[Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW and SLENDER.

Caius.

The hoft means, I believe, to reflect on the infpection of urine, which made a confiderable part of practical phyfick in that time; yet I do not well fee the meaning of mock-water. JoHNSON.

Dr. Farmer judiciously propofes to read-muck-water, i. e. the drain of a dunghill.

STEEVENS.

I have inferted Dr. Farmer's emendation in my text. Where is the humour or propriety of calling a Phyfician—Make-water ? It is furely a term of general application. STEEVENS.

Muck-water, as explained by Dr. Farmer, is mentioned in Evelyn's Philofopbical Difcourse on Earth, 1676, p. 160. REED.

Caius. By gar, me vill kill de prieft; for he fpeak for a jack-an-ape to Anne Page.

Hoft. Let him die: but, firft, fheath thy impatience; throw cold water on thy choler: go about the fields with me through Frogmore; I will bring thee where mistress Anne Page is, at a farm-house a feasting; and thou shall woo her: Cry'd game, faid I well? 7

Caius. By gar, me tank you for dat: by gar, I love you; and I fhall procure-a you de good gueft, de earl, de knight, de lords, de gentlemen, my patients.

Hoft. For the which, I will be thine adverfary toward Anne Page; faid I well?

Caius. By gar, 'tis good; vell faid.

Hoft. Let us wag then.

Caius. Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.

[Exeunt

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Eva. I pray you now, good mafter Slender's ferving-man, and friend Simple by your name, which way have you looked for mafter Caius, that calls himfelf Doctor of Phyfick?

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Sim

7 Mr. Theobald alters this nonfenfe to try'd game; that is, to nonfenfe of a worse complexion. Shakspeare wrote and pointed thus, CRY AIM, faid I well? i. e. confent to it, approve of it. Have not I made a good propofal for to cry aim fignifies to confent to, or approve of any thing.. So, again in this play: And to thefe violent proceedings all my neighbours fhall CRY AIM, i. e. approve then. The phrafe was taken, originally, from archery. When any one had challenged another to fhoot at the butts (the perpetual diverfion, as well as exercife, of that time,) the standers-by used to fay one to the other, Cry aim, i. e. accept the challenge. But the Oxford editor transforms it to Cock o' the Game; and his improvements of Shakspeare's language abound with thefe modern elegances of fpeech, fuch as mynbeers, bull-baitings, &c. WARBURTON.

Dr. Warburton is right in his explanation of cry aim, and in fuppofirg that the phrafe was taken from archery; but is certainly wrong in the particular practice which he affigns for the original of it. It feems to

have

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