ALL. Have with you, to fee this monster.

SCENE III.

A Room in Ford's Houfe.

Enter Mrs. FORD and Mrs. PAGE.

[Exeunt.

MRS. FORD. What, John! what, Robert!

MRS. PAGE. Quickly, quickly: Is the buck

basket

MRS. FORD. I warrant :-What, Robin, I fay.

Enter Servants with a Basket.

MRS. PAGE. Come, come, come.

MRS. FORD. Here, fet it down.

MRS. PAGE. Give your men thecharge; we must be brief.

MRS. FORD. Marry, as I told you before, John, and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brewhouse; and when I fuddenly call you, come forth,

The phrafe," to drink in pipe-wine"-always feemed to me a very ftrange one, till I met with the following paffage in King James's first fpeech to his parliament, in 1604; by which it appears that " to drink in" was the phrafeology of the time: either, being old, have retained their first drunken-in liquor," &c. MALONE.

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who

I have feen the phrase often in books of Shakspeare's time, but neglected to mark the paffages. The following, however, though of fomewhat later authority, will confirm Mr. Malone's obfervation. "A player acting upon a stage a man killed; but being troubled with an extream cold, as he was lying upon the ftage fell a coughing; the people laughing, he rushed up, ran off the stage, saying, thus it is for a man to drink in porridg, for then he will be fure to cough in his grave," Jocabella, or a Cabinet of Conceits, by Robert Chamberlaine, 1640, N° 84. REED.

and (without any paufe, or staggering,) take this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all hafte, and carry it among the whitfters* in Datchet mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch, close by the Thames' fide.

MRS. PAGE. You will do it?

MRS. FORD. I have told them over and over; they lack no direction: Be gone, and come when you are called. [Exeunt Servants. MRS. PAGE. Here comes little Robin.

Enter ROBIN.

MRS. FORD. How now, my eyas-musket?' what news with you?

-the whitfiers-] i. e. the blanchers of linen. DouCE. 3 How now, my eyas-mufket?] Eyas is a young unfledg'd hawk; I fuppofe from the Italian Niafo, which originally fignified any young bird taken from the neft unfledg'd, afterwards a young hawk. The French, from hence, took their niais, and used it in both thofe fignifications; to which they added a third, metaphorically, a filly fellow; un garçon fort niais, un niais. Musket fignifies a parrow hawk, or the fmalleft fpecies of hawks. This too is from the Italian Mufchetto, a fmall hawk, as appears from the original fignification of the word, namely, a troublesome ftinging fly. So that the humour of calling the little page an eyas-mufket is very intelligible. WARBURTON.

So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608: " no hawk fo haggard but will ftoop to the lure: no nieffe fo ramage but will be reclaimed to the lunes." Eyas-musket is the fame as infant Lilliputian. Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. I. c. xi, ft. 34:

-youthful gay,

"Like eyas-bauke, up mounts unto the skies,
"His newly budded pinions to effay."

In The Booke of Haukyng, &c. commonly called The Book of St. Albans, bl. 1. no date, is the following derivation of the word; but whether true or erroneous, is not for me to determine: " An hauk is called an eyeffe from her eyen. For an hauke that is brought up under a buffarde or puttock, as many ben, have watry eyen,” &c.

STEEVENT.

ROB. My mafter fir John is come in at your backdoor, mistress Ford; and requests your company. MRS. PAGE. You little Jack-a-lent, have you been true to us?

ROB. Ay, I'll be fworn: My mafter knows not of your being here; and hath threaten'd to put me into everlasting liberty, if I tell you of it; for, he fwears, he'll turn me away.

MRS. PAGE. Thou'rt a good boy; this fecrecy of thine fhall be a tailor to thee, and fhall make thee a new doublet and hofe.-I'll go hide me.

MRS. FORD. Do fo:-Go tell thy mafter, I am alone. Miftrefs Page, remember you your cue. [Exit ROBIN.

MRS. PAGE. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hifs me. [Exit Mrs. PAGE. MRS. FORD. Go to then; we'll ufe this unwholfome humidity, this grofs watry pumpion;-we'll teach him to know turtles from jays."

Enter FALSTAFF.

FAL. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel?" Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough;'

-Jack-a-lent,] A Jack o' lent was a puppet thrown at in Lent, like throve-cocks. So, in The Weakeft goes to the Wall, 1600: "A mere anatomy, a Jack of Lent."

Again, in The Four Prentices of London, 1615:

"Now you old Jack of Lent, fix weeks and upwards."

Again, in Greene's Tu Quoque:

for if a boy, that is

throwing at his Jack o' Lent, chance to hit me on the fhins," &c. See a note on the last scene of this comedy. STEEVENS.

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-from jays.] So, in Cymbeline:

fome jay of Italy,

"Whose mother was her painting," &c. STEEVENS.

6 Have I caught my heavenly jewel?] This is the first line of the second song in Sidney's Aftrophel and Stella. TOLLET.

Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough ;] This

this is the period of my ambition: O this blessed hour!

MRS. FORD. O sweet fir John!

FAL. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, mistress Ford. Now fhall I fin in my wifh: I would thy husband were dead; I'll speak it before the best lord, I would make thee my lady.

MRS. FORD. I your lady, fir John! alas, I should be a pitiful lady.

FAL. Let the court of France fhow me fuch another; I fee how thine eye would emulate the diamond: Thou haft the right arched bent of the brow, that becomes the fhip-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance."

fentiment, which is of facred origin, is here indecently introduced. It appears again, with fomewhat lefs of profanenefs, in The Winter's Tale, A&t IV. and in Othello, A&t II. STEEVENS.

8

-arched bent-] Thus the quartos 1602, and 1619. The folio reads-arched beauty. STEEVENS.

The reading of the quarto is fupported by a paffage in Antony and Cleopatra:

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Eternity was in our lips and eyes,

"Bliss in our brows-bent." MALONE.

that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.] Inftead of-Venetian admittance, the old quarto reads" or any Venetian attire." STEEVENS.

The old quarto reads-tire-vellet, and the old folio readsor any tire of Venetian admittance. So that the true reading of the whole is this, that becomes the hip-tire, the tire-VALIANT, or any tire of Venetian admittance. The speaker tells his mistress, she had a face that would become all the head dreffes in fashion. The hiptire was an open head dress, with a kind of scarf depending from behind. Its name of hip-tire was, I prefume, from its giving the wearer fome resemblance of a ship (as Shakspeare fays) in all ker trim: with all her pennants out, and flags and ftreamers flying.

This was an image familiar with the poets of that time. Thus Beaumont and Fletcher, in their play of Wit without Money:"She fpreads fattens as the king's fhips do canvas every where; the

MRS. FORD. A plain kerchief, fir John: my brows become nothing else; nor that well neither.

may space her mifen," &c. This will direct us to reform the following word of tire-valiant, which I fufpect to be corrupt, valiant being a very incongruous epithet for a woman's head-dress: I fuppofe Shakspeare wrote tire-vailant. As the hip-tire was an open headdrefs, fo the tire-vailant was a clofe one, in which the head and breaft were covered as with a veil. And these were, in fact, the two different head-dreffes then in fashion, as we may fee by the pictures of that time. One of which was fo open, that the whole neck, breafts, and fhoulders, were opened to view the other, fo fecurely inclosed in kerchiefs, &c. that nothing could be seen above the eyes, or below the chin. WARBURTON.

In the fifth act, Fenton mentions that his mistress is to meet him, "With ribbons pendant flaring 'bout her head."

This, probably, was what is here called the hip-tire, MALONE.

the tire valiant,] I would read-tire volant. Stubbes, who defcribes most minutely every article of female drefs, has mentioned none of these terms, but fpeaks of vails depending from the top of the head, and flying behind in loofe folds. The word volant was in ufe before the age of Shakspeare. I find it in Wilfride Holme's Fall and evil Succeffe of Rebellion, 1537:

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high volant in any thing divine."

Tire vellet, which is the reading of the old quarto, may be printed, as Mr. Tollet obferves, by mistake, for tire-velvet. We know that velvet-hoods were worn in the age of Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

Among the prefents fent by the Queen of Spain to the Queen of England, in April 1606, was a velvet cap with gold buttons. Catharine's cap, in The Taming of the Shrew, is likewife of velvet.

Tire-volant, however, I believe with Mr. Steevens, was the poet's word. "Their heads (fays Nafhe in 1594) with their top and top-gallant lawne baby caps, and fnow-refembled filver curlings, they make a plain puppet-stage of. Their breafts they embuske up on hie, and their round rofeate buds they immodeftly lay forth, to thew, at their hands there is fruit to be hoped." Chrift's Tears over Jerufalem, 4to. 1594. MALONE.

of Venetian admittance.] i. e. of a fashion received or admitted from Venice. So, in Weftward Hoe, 1606, by Decker and Webster:-" now she's in that Italian head-tire you fent her." Dr. Farmer propofes to read-" of Venetian remittance." STLEVENS.

In how much request the Venetian tyre formerly was held, appears from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1624:"let her have the Spanish gate, [gair] the Venetian tire, Italian complements and endowments." MALONE,