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SLEN. By these gloves, then 'twas he.

NYм. Be advised, sir, and pass good humours: I will say, marry trap," with you, if you run the nuthook's humour on me; that is the very note of it.

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SLEN. By this hat, then he in the red face had it for though I cannot remember what I did when you made me drunk, yet I am not altogether an

ass.

FAL. What say you, Scarlet and John?"
BARD. Why, sir, for my part, I say, the

gentleman had drunk himself out of his five sentences.

EVA. It is his five senses: fie, what the ignorance is!

We often talk of giving the lie in a man's teeth, or in his throat. Pistol chooses to throw the word of denial in the lips of his adversary, and is supposed to point to them as he speaks. STEEVENS.

There are few words in the old copies more frequently misprinted than the word hear." Thy lips," however, is certainly right, as appears from the old quarto: "I do retort the lie even in thy gorge, thy gorge, thy gorge." MALONE.

marry trap,] When a man was caught in his own stratagem, I suppose the exclamation of insult was-marry, trap! JOHNSON.

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nuthook's humour-] Nuthook is the reading of the folio. The quarto reads, base humour.

If you run the nuthook's humour on me, is, in plain English, if you say I am a thief. Enough is said on the subject of hooking moveables out at windows, in a note on K. Henry IV.

STEEVENS.

7 Scarlet and John?] The names of two of Robin Hood's companions; but the humour consists in the allusion to Bardolph's red face; concerning which, see The Second Part of Henry IV. WARBURTON.

BARD. And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashier'd; and so conclusions pass'd the careires."

SLEN. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter: I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again,

And being fap,] I know not the exact meaning of this cant word, neither have I met with it in any of our old dramatic pieces, which have often proved the best comments on Shakspeare's vulgarisms.

Dr. Farmer, indeed, observes, that to fib is to beat; so that being fap may mean being beaten; and cashiered, turned out of company. STEEvens.

The word fap, is probably made from vappa, a drunken fellow, or a good-for-nothing fellow, whose virtues are all exhaled. Slender, in his answer, seems to understand that Bardolph had made use of a Latin word: "Ay, you spake in Latin then too;" as Pistol had just before. S. W.

It is not probable that any cant term is from the Latin; nor that the word in question was so derived, because Slender mistook it for Latin. The mistake, indeed, is an argument to the contrary, as it shows his ignorance in that language. Fap, however, certainly means drunk, as appears from the glossaries.

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DOUCE.

careires.] I believe this strange word is nothing but the French cariere; and the expression means, that the common bounds of good behaviour are overpassed. JOHNSON.

To pass the cariere was a military phrase, or rather perhaps a term of the manege. I find it in one of Sir John Smythe's Discourses, 1589, where, speaking of horses wounded, he says"they, after the first shrink at the entering of the bullet, doo pass their carriere, as though they had verie little hurt." Again, in Harrington's translation of Ariosto, b. xxxviii. stanza 35:

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"To stop, to start, to pass carier, to bound." STEEVENS. Bardolph means to say, " and so in the end he reel'd about with a circuitous motion, like a horse, passing a carier." To pass a carier was a technical term. So, in Nashe's Have with you to Saffron Walden, &c. 1596: her hottest fury may be resembled to the passing of a brave cariere by a Pegasus." We find the term again used in K. Henry V. in the same manner as in the passage before us: "The king is a good king, but -he passes some humours and curiers." MALONE.

but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick: if I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.

EVA. So Got 'udge me, that is a virtuous mind. FAL. You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.

Enter Mistress ANNE PAGE with wine; Mistress FORD and Mistress PAGE following.

PAGE. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within. [Exit ANNE PAGE. SLEN. O heaven! this is mistress Anne Page. PAGE. How now, mistress Ford?

FAL. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met: by your leave, good mistress. [kissing her. PAGE. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome:Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

[Exeunt all but SHAL. SLENDER and EVANS. SLEN. I had rather than forty shillings, I had my book of Songs and Sonnets here:'

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my book of Songs and Sonnets here:] It cannot be supposed that poor Slender was himself a poet. He probably means the Poems of Lord Surrey and others, which were very popular in the age of Queen Elizabeth. They were printed in 1567, with this title: " Songes and Sonnettes, written by the Right Honourable Lord Henry Howard, late Earle of Surrey, and others."

Slender laments that he has not this fashionable book about him, supposing it might have assisted him in paying his addresses to Anne Page. MALONE.

Under the title mentioned by Slender, Churchyard very evidently points out this book in an enumeration of his own pieces, prefixed to a collection of verse and prose, called Churchyard's

Enter SIMPLE.

How now, Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on myself, must I? You have not The Book of Riddles about have you? you,

SIM. Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it to Alice Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas ?3

SHAL. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with you, coz: marry, this, coz; There is, as 'twere, a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by sir Hugh here;-Do you understand me?

SLEN. Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I shall do that that is reason.

SHAL. Nay, but understand me.

Challenge, 4to. 1593: " and many things in the booke of songes and sonets printed then, were of my making." By then he means "in Queene Maries raigne;" for Surrey was first published in 1557. STEEVENS.

The Book of Riddles -] This appears to have been a popular book, and is enumerated with others in The English Courtier, and Country Gentleman, bl. I. 4to. 1586, Sign. H 4. See quotation in note to Much Ado about Nothing, Act II. sc. i. REED.

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upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas?] Sure, Simple's a little out in his reckoning. Allhallowmas is almost five weeks after Michaelmas. But may it not be urged, it is designed Simple should appear thus ignorant, to keep up the character? I think not. The simplest creatures (nay, even naturals,) generally are very precise in the knowledge of festivals, and marking how the seasons run: and therefore I have ventured to suspect our poet wrote Martlemas, as the vulgar call it: which is near a fortnight after All-Saints day, i. e. eleven days, both inclusive. THEOBALD.

This correction, thus seriously and wisely enforced, is received by Sir Thomas Hanmer; but probably Shakspeare intended to blunder. JOHNSON.

SLEN. So I do, sir.

EVA. Give ear to his motions, master Slender: I will description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.

in

SLEN. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says: I pray you, pardon me; he's a justice of peace his country, simple though I stand here.

EVA. But this is not the question; the question is concerning your marriage.

SHAL. Ay, there's the point, sir.

EVA. Marry, is it; the very point of it; to mistress Anne Page.

SLEN. Why, if it be so, I will marry her, upon any reasonable demands.

EVA. But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to know that of your mouth, or of your lips; for divers philosophers hold, that the lips is parcel of the mouth ;-Therefore, precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?

+ the lips is parcel of the mouth;] Thus the old copies. The modern editors read-" parcel of the mind."

To be parcel of any thing, is an expression that often occurs in the old plays.

So, in Decker's Satiromastix:

"And make damnation parcel of your oath."

Again, in Tamburlaine, 1590:

"To make it parcel of my empery."

This passage, however, might have been designed as a ridicule on another, in John Lyly's Midas, 1592:

"Pet. What lips hath she?

"Li. Tush! Lips are no part of the head, only made for a double-leaf door for the mouth." STEEVENS.

The word parcel, in this place, seems to be used in the same sense as it was both formerly and at present in conveyances. "Part, parcel, or member of any estate," are formal words still to be found in various deeds. REED.

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