he; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound: he will not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.-Call him up, drawer.

Host. Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater: But I do not love swaggering; by my troth, I am the worse, when one saysswagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you, I warrant you.

Dol. So you do, hostess.

Host. Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers.

Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page.

Pist. 'Save you, sir John!

Fal. Welcome, ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with a cup of sack: do you discharge upon mine hostess.

Pist. I will discharge upon her, sir John, with two bullets.

lord at the holding of his leets, as waifes, straies, and such like, be called chetes, and are accustomably said to be escheted to the lord's use." So, likewise in Lord Coke's Charge at Norwich, 1607: "But if you will be content to let the escheator alone, and not looke into his actions, he will be contented by deceiving you to change his name, taking unto himselfe the two last syllables only, with the es left out, and so turn cheater." Hence perhaps the derivation of the verb-to cheat, which I do not recollect to have met with among our most ancient writers. In The Bell-man of London, by T. Decker, 5th edit. 1640, the same derivation of the word is given: "Of all which lawes, the highest in place is the cheating law, or the art of winning money by false dyce. Those that practice this study call themselves cheaters, the dyce cheators, and the money which they purchase cheate; borrowing the terme from our common lawyers, with whom all such casuals as fall to the lord at the holding of his leetes, as waifes, straies, and such like, are said to be escheated to the lordes use, and are called cheates" This account of the word is likewise given in A manifest Detection of Dice-play, printed by Vele, in the reign of Henry VIII. Steevens.

4 I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater:] The humour of this consists in the woman's mistaking the title of cheater, (which our ancestors gave to him whom we now, with better manners, call a gamester,) for that officer of the exchequer called an escheator, well known to the common people of that time; and named, either corruptly or satirically, a cheater. Warburton.

Fal. She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend

her.

Host. Come, I'll drink no proofs, nor no bullets: I'll drink no more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, 1.5

Pist. Then to you, mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.

Dol. Charge me? I scorn you, scurvy companion. What! you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for your master.

Pist. I know you, mistress Dorothy.

Dol. Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung," away! by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me.7 Away,

5 I'll drink no more -for no man's pleasure, I.] This should not be printed as a broken sentence. The duplication of the pronoun was very common: in The London Prodigal we have, "I scorn service, I."-"I am an ass, I," says the stage-keeper in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair; and Kendal thus translates a well-known epigram of Martial :

"I love thee not, Sabidius,

"I cannot tell thee why:

"I can saie naught but this alone,

"I do not love thee, I."

In Kendal's Collection there are many translations from Claudian, Ausonius, the Anthologia, &c. Farmer.

So, in King Richard III, Act III, sc. ii:

"I do not like these separate councils, 1." Steevens.

Again, in Romeo and Juliet:

"I will not budge, for no man's pleasure, I."

Again, in King Edward II, by Marlowe, 1598:

"I am none of those common peasants, I.”

The French still use this idiom:-Je suis Parisien, moi. Malone. 6 - filthy bung,] In the cant of thievery, to nip a bung was to cut a purse; and among an explanation of many of these terms in Martin Mark-all's Apologie to the Bel-man of London, 1610, it is said that "Bung is now used for a pocket, heretofore for a purse."

Steevens.

7 an you play the saucy cuttle with me.] It appears from Greene's Art of Coneycatching, that cuttle and cuttle-boung were the cant terms for the knife used by the sharpers of that age to cut the bottoms of purses, which were then worn hanging at the gir dle. Or the allusion may be to the foul language thrown out by Pistol, which she means to compare with such filth as the cuttlefish ejects. Steevens.

you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale juggter, you! -Since when, I pray you, sir?—What, with two points on your shoulder? much!?

Pist. I will murder your ruff for this.

Fal. No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here: discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.

Host. No, good captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain. Dol. Captain! thou abominable damned cheater,2 art thou not ashamed to be called-captain? If captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a captain, you slave! for what? for tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house?-He a captain! Hang him, rogue! He lives upon mouldy stewed prunes, and dried cakes.3 A captain! these villains will make

9

with two points-] As a mark of his commission.

Johnson

much!] Much was a common expression of disdain at that time, of the same sense with that more modern one, Marry come up. The Oxford editor, not apprehending this, alters it to march. Warburton.

Dr. Warburton is right. Much! is used thus in Ben Jonson's Volpone:

66 But you shall eat it. Much!" Again, in Every Man in his Humour:

"Much, wench! or much, son!"

Again, in Every Man out of his Humour:

"To charge me bring my grain unto the markets:
"Ay, much! when I have neither barn nor garner."

Steevens.

1 No more, Pistol; &c.] This is from the oldest edition of 1600.

Pope.

2 Captain, thou abominable damned cheater, &c.] Pistol's character seems to have been a common one on the stage in the time of Shakspeare. In A Woman's a Weathercock, by N. Field, 1612, there is a personage of the same stamp, who is thus described: "Thou unspeakable rascal, thou a soldier! "That with thy slops and cat-a-mountain face, "Thy blather chaps, and thy robustious words, "Fright'st the poor whore, and terribly dost exact "A weekly subsidy, twelve pence a piece, "Whereon thou livest; and on my conscience, "Thou snap'st besides with cheats and cut-purses."

Malone.

3 He lives upon mouldy stewed prunes, and dried cakes.] That is, he lives on the refuse provisions of bawdy-houses and pastryrooks' shops. Stewed prunes, when mouldy, were perhaps for.

the word captain as odious as the word occupy ;* which was an excellent good word before it was ill sorted: therefore captains had need look to it.

Bard. Pray thee go down, good ancient.

Fal. Hark thee hither, mistress Doll.

Pist. Not I: I tell thee what, corporal Bardolph ;-I could tear her: I'll be revenged on her.

Page. Pray thee, go down.

Pist. I'll see her damned first;-to Pluto's damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also.5 Hold hook and line, say I. Down! down, dogs! down faitors!7 Have we not Hiren here ?8

merly sold at a cheap rate, as stale pies and cakes are at present. The allusion to stewed prunes, and all that is necessary to be known on this subject, has been already explained in the First Part of this historical play, p. 285, n. 3. Steevens.

4 as odious as the word occupy;] So Ben Jonson, in his Discoveries: "Many, out of their own obscene apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words; as, occupy, nature," &c. Steevens.

This word is used with different senses in the following jest, from Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614: "One threw stones at an yllfauor'd old womans Owle, and olde woman said: Faith (sir knaue) you are well occupy'd, to throw stones at my poore Owle, that doth you no harme. Yea marie (answered the wag) so would you be better occupy'd too (I wisse) if you were young againe, and had a better face." Ritson.

Occupant was formerly a term for a woman of the town, as occupier was for a wencher. Malone.

Again, in Promos and Cassandra, bl. 1. 1578: "Mistresse, you must shut up your shop, and leave your occupying.” This is said to a bawd. Henderson.

5 I'll see her damned first;- -to Pluto's damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also.] These words, I believe, were intended to allude to the following passage in an old play called The Battel of Alcazar, 1594, from which Pistol afterwards quotes a line (see p. 71, n. 5):

"You dastards of the night and Erebus,

Fiends, fairies, hags, that fight in beds of steel, "Range through this army with your iron whips;

"Descend and take to thy tormenting hell

"The mangled body of that traitor king.-
"Then let the earth discover to his ghost
"Such tortures as usurpers feel below.-

"Damn'd let him be, damn'd and condemn'd to bear
"All torments, tortures, pains and plagues of hell."

Malone.

6 Hold hook and line,] These words are introduced in ridicule,

Host. Good captain Peesel, be quiet; it is very late; i' faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.

by Ben Jonson, in The Case is alter'd, 1609. Of absurd and fustian passages from many plays, in which Shakspeare had been a performer, I have always supposed no small part of Pistol's character to be composed: and the pieces themselves being now irretrievably lost, the humour of his allusion is not a little obscured.

Let me add, however, that in the frontispiece to an ancient bl. 1. ballad, entitled The Royal Recreation of Joviall Anglers, one of the figures has the following couplet proceeding from his mouth: "Hold hooke and line,

In Tusser's Husbandry, bl. I. 1580, it is said:

"At noone if it bloweth, at night if it shine,

"Out trudgeth Hew Makeshift, with hook and with line."

Henderson.

7 Down! down, dogs! down faitors!] A burlesque on a play already quoted; The Battle of Alcazar:

"Ye proud malicious dogs of Italy,

"Strike on, strike down, this body to the earth." Malone. Faitours, says Minshieu's Dictionary, is a corruption of the French word faiseurs, i. e. factores, doers; and it is used in the statute 7 Rich. II, c. 5, for evil doers, or rather for idle livers; from the French, faitard, which in Cotgrave's Dictionary signifies slothful, idle, &c. Tollet.

down faitors!] i. e. traitors, rascals. So, Spenser:
"Into new woes, unweeting, was I cast

By this false faitour."

The word often occurs in The Chester Mysteries. Steevens.

8

Have we not Hiren here?] In an old comedy, 1608, called Law Tricks; or, Who would have thought it? the same quotation is likewise introduced, and on a similar occasion. The Prince Polymetes says:

"What ominous news can Polymetes daunt?
"Have we not Hiren here?"

Again, in Massinger's Old Law:

"Clown. No dancing for me, we have Siren here.

"Cook. Syren! 'twas Hiren the fair Greek, man."

Again, in Decker's Satiromastix: "therefore whilst we have Hiren here, speak my little dish-washers."

Again, in Love's Mistress, a masque, by T. Heywood, 1636:

says she is a foul beast in your eyes, yet she is my Hyren." Mr. Tollet observes, that in Adams's Spiritual Navigator, &c. 1615, there is the following passage: "There be sirens in the sea of the world. Syrens? Hirens, as they are now called. What a number of these sirens, Hirens, cockatrices, courteghians,-in plain English, harlots,-swimme amongst us?"Pistol may therefore mean,-Have we not a strumpet here? and why am I thus used by her? Steevens.