SIL. Indeed, sir; to my cost. SHAL. He must then to the inns of court shortly: I was once of Clement's-inn; where, I think, they will talk of mad Shallow yet. SIL. You were called-lusty Shallow, then, cousin. SHAL. By the mass, I was called any thing; and I would have done any thing, indeed, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Bare, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotswold man,3-you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the inns of court 3 Will Squele a Cotswold man,] The games at Cotswold were, in the time of our author, very famous. Of these I have seen accounts in several old pamphlets; and Shallow, by distinguishing Will Squele, as a Cotswold man, meant to have him understood as one who was well versed in manly exercises, and consequently of a daring spirit, and an athletic constitution. STEEVENS. The games of Cotswold, I believe, did not commence till the reign of James I. I have never seen any pamphlet that mentions them as having existed in the time of Elizabeth. Randolph speaks of their revival in the time of Charles I.; and from Dover's book they appear to have been revived in 1636. But this does not prove that they were exhibited in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. They certainly were in that of King James, and were probably discontinued after his death. However, Cotswold might have been long famous for meetings of tumultuous swinge-bucklers. See Vol. V. p. 16, n. 6. MALONE. swinge-bucklers-] Swinge-bucklers and swash-bucklers were words implying rakes or rioters in the time of Shak speare. Nash, addressing himself to his old opponent Gabriel Harvey, 1598, says: "Turpe senex miles, 'tis time for such an olde foole to leave playing the swash-buckler." "when Again, in The Devil's Charter, 1607, Caraffa says, I was a scholar in Padua, faith, then I could have swinged a sword and buckler," &c. STEEVens. "West Smithfield (says the Continuator of Stowe's Annals, again: and, I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas5 were; and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now sir John, a boy; and page to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk.6 1631,) was for many years called Ruffians' Hall, by reason it was the usual place of frayes and common fighting, during the time that sword and buckler were in use; when every servingman, from the base to the best, carried a buckler at his backe, which hung by the hilt or pummel of his sword which hung before him.-Untill the 20th year of Queen Elizabeth, it was usual to have frayes, fights, and quarrels upon the sundayes and holydayes, sometimes, twenty, thirty, and forty swords and bucklers, halfe against halfe, as well by quarrels of appointment as by chance. And in the winter season all the high streets were much annoyed and troubled with hourly frayes, and sword and buckler men, who took pleasure in that bragging fight; and although they made great shew of much furie, and fought often, yet seldome any man was hurt, for thrusting was not then in use, neither would any one of twenty strike beneath the waste, by reason they held it cowardly and beastly." MALone. bona-robas- i. e. ladies of pleasure. Bona Roba, Ital. So, in the The Bride, by Nabbes, 1640: "Some bona-roba they have been sporting with." STEEVENS. See Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: "Buona roba, as we say good stuff; a good wholesome plump-cheeked wench." MALONE. 6 Then was Jack Falstaff, now sir John, a boy; and page to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk.] The following circumstances, tending to prove that Shakspeare altered the name of Oldcastle to that of Falstaff, have hitherto been overlooked. In a poem by J. Weever, entitled The Mirror of Martyrs, or the Life and Death of that thrice valiant Capitaine and most godly Martyre Sir John Oldcastle, Knight, Lord Cobham, 18mo. 1601. Oldcastle, relating the events of his life, says: "Within the spring-time of my flow'ring youth, Again, in a pamphlet, entitled, The Wandering Jew telling Fortunes to Englishmen, 4to. (the date torn off, but apparently SIL. This sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers? a republication about the middle of the last century) [1640] is the following passage in the Glutton's speech: "I do not live by the sweat of my brows, but am almost dead with sweating. I eate much, but can talk little. Sir John Oldcastle was my great grandfather's father's uncle. I come of a huge kindred." REED. Different conclusions are sometimes drawn from the same premises. Because Shakspeare borrowed a single circumstance from the life of the real Oldcastle, and imparted it to the fictitious Falstaff, does it follow that the name of the former was ever employed as a cover to the vices of the latter? Is it not more likely, because Falstaff was known to possess one feature in common with Oldcastle, that the vulgar were led to imagine that Falstaff was only Oldcastle in disguise? Hence too might have arisen the story that our author was compelled to change the name of the one for that of the other; a story sufficiently specious to have imposed on the writer of The Wandering Jew, as well as on the credulity of Field, Fuller, and others, whose coincidence has been brought in support of an opinion contrary to my own. STEEVENS. Having given my opinion very fully on this point in a former note, (see Vol. XI. p. 194, & seq. n. 3.) I shall here only add, that I entirely concur with Mr. Steevens. There is no doubt that the Sir John Oldcastle of the anonymous King Henry V. suggested the character of Falstaff to Shakspeare; and hence he very naturally adopted this circumstance in the life of the real Oldcastle, and made his Falstaff page to Mowbray Duke of Norfolk. The author of The Wandering Jew seems to have been misunderstood. He describes the Glutton as related to some Sir John Oldcastle, and therefore as a man of huge kindred; but he means a fat man, not a man nobly allied. From a pamphlet already quoted, entitled, The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie, it appears that the Oldcastle of the old King Henry V. was represented as a very fat man; (see also the prologue to a play entitled Sir John Oldcastle, 1600, in which the Oldcastle of the old King Henry V. is described as " a pampered glutton,") but we have no authority for supposing that Lord Cobham was fatter than other men. Is it not evident then that the Oldcastle of the play of King Henry V. was the person in the contemplation of the author of The Wandering Jew? and how does the proof that Shakspeare changed the name of his character advance SHAL. The same sir John, the very same. I saw him break Skogan's head' at the court gate, when by this means one step?-In addition to what I have suggested in a former note on this subject, I may add, that it appears from Camden's Remaines, 1614, p. 146, that celebrated actors were sometimes distinguished by the names of the persons they represented on the stage:" that I may say nothing of such as for well acting on the stage have carried away the names of the personage which they have acted, and lost their names among the people."-If actors, then, were sometimes called by the names of the persons they represented, what is more probable than that Falstaff should have been called by the multitude, and by the players, Oldcastle; not only because there had been a popular character of that name in a former piece, whose immediate successor Falstaff was, and to whose clothes and fictitious belly he succeeded; but because, as Shakspeare himself intimates in his Epilogue to this play, a false idea had gone abroad, that his jolly knight was, like his predecessor, the theatrical representative of Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham?-See the note to the Epilogue at the end of this play. MALONE. 7-Skogan's head-] Who Skogan was, may be understood from the following passage in The Fortunate Isles, a masque, by Ben Jonson, 1626: Methinks you should enquire now after Skelton, "And master Scogan. Scogan? what was he? "Oh, a fine gentleman, and a master of arts Among the works of Chaucer is a poem called " unto the Lordes and Gentilmen of the Kinge's House." Scogan STEEVENS. In the written copy, (says the editor of Chaucer's Works, 1598,) the title hereof is thus: "Here followethe a morall ballade to the Prince, now Prince Henry, the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Gloucester, the kinges sons, by Henry Scogan, at a supper among the merchants in the vintrey at London, in the house of Lewis John." The purport of the ballad is to dissuade them from spending their youth "folily." John Skogan, who is said to have taken the degree of master of arts at Oxford, "being (says Mr. Warton) an excellent 8 he was a crack, not thus high: and the very same mimick, and of great pleasantry in conversation, became the favourite buffoon of the court of King Edward IV." Bale and Tanner have confounded him with Henry Skogan, if indeed they were distinct persons, which I doubt. The compositions which Bale has attributed to the writer whom he supposes to have lived in the time of Edward IV. were written by the poet of the reign of Henry IV. which induces me to think that there was no poet or master of arts of this name, in the time of Edward. There might then have been a jester of the same name. Scogin's JESTS were published by Andrew Borde, a physician in the reign of Henry VIII. Shakspeare had probably met with this book; and as he was very little scrupulous about anachronisms, this person, and not Henry Scogan, the poet of the time of Henry IV. may have been in his thoughts: I say may, for it is by no means certain, though the author of Remarks on the last edition of Shakspeare, &c. has asserted it with that confidence which distinguishes his observations. Since this note was written, I have observed that Mr. Tyrwhitt agrees with me in thinking that there was no poet of the name of Scogan in the time of King Edward IV. nor any ancient poet of that name but Henry Scogan, Master of Arts, who lived in the time of King Henry IV. and he urges the same argument that I have done, namely, that the compositions which Bale ascribes to the supposed John Scogan, were written by Henry. Bale and Tanner were, I believe, Mr. Warton's only authority. As to the two circumstances (says Mr. Tyrwhitt,) of his being a master of arts of Oxford, and jester to the king, I can find no older authority for it than Dr. Borde's book. That he was contemporary with Chaucer, but so as to survive him several years, perhaps till the reign of Henry V. is sufficiently clear from this poem [the poem mentioned in the former part of my note.] "Shakspeare seems to have followed the jest-book, in considering Scogan as a mere buffoon, when he mentions as one of Falstaff's boyish exploits that he broke Scogan's head at the court-gate." Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, Vol. V. Pref. "Among a number of people of all sorts who had letters of protection to attend Richard II. upon his expedition into Ireland in 1399, is Henricus Scogan, Armiger." Ibidem, p. xv. MALONE. This was John Scogan, jester to King Edward IV. and not Henry, the poet, who lived long before, but is frequently con |