time therefore of their wearing this vesture, the children were, I suppose, called chrisomes. One is registered under this description in the register of Thatcham, Berks, 1605. (Hearne's Appendix to the History of Glastonbury, p. 275.) "A younge crisome being a man child, beinge found drowned," &C. TYRWHITT.

The chrisom is properly explained as the white garment but upon the child at its baptism. And this the child wore till the time the mother came to be churched, who was then to offer it to the minister. So that, truly speaking, a chrisom child was one that died after it had been baptized, and before its mother was churched. Erroneously, however, it was used for children that die before they are baptized; and by this denomination such children were entered in the bills of mortality down to the year 1726. But have I not seen, in some edition, christom child? If that reading were supported by any copy of authority, I sould like it much. It agrees better with my dame's enuntiation, who was not very likely fo pronounce a hard word with propriety, and who just before had called Abraham - Arthur. WHALLEY,

Mr. Whalley is right in his conjecture. The first folio reads christom. Blount, in his GLOSSOGRAPHY, 1678, says, that chrisoms in the bills of mortality are such children as die within the month of birth, because during that time they use to wear the chrisom-cloth. MALONE.

P. 32, 1. 18-20. 'a parted even just between twelve and one, een at turning o' the tide :) It has been a very old opinion, on, which Mead, de imperio solis, quotes, as if he believed it, that nobody dies but in the time of bb: half the deaths in London confute the notion; but we find that it was common among the women of the poet's time. JOHNSON.

P. 32, 1.20-22. I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends] The same indication of approaching death is enumerated by Celsus, Lommius, Hippocrates and Galen. GOLLINS.

P. 32, 1. 22. I knew there was but one way;} I believe this phrase is proverbial. STEEVENS. P. 32, 1. 23. 24. - for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and'a babbled of green fields.) The old copy [i. e. the first folio, reads for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a table of green fields. STEEVENS.

These words, and a table of green fields, are not to be found in the old editions of 1600 and 1608. This nonsense got into all the following editions by a pleasant mistake of the stage editors, who printed from the common piece - meal written parts in the play-house. A table was here directed to be brought in, (it being a scene in a tavern where they drink at parting), and this direction crept into the text from the margin. Greenfield was the name of the property-man in that time, who furnished implements, &c. for the actors, A table of Greenfield's. POPE.

So reasonable an account of this blunder, M Theobald could not acquiesce in. He thought a table of Greenfield's, part of the text, only corrupted, and that it should be read, he bab'bled of green-fields, because men do so in the ravings of a calenture. But he did not consider how ill this agrees with the nature of the knight's illness, who was now in no babbling humour, and so far from wanting cooling in green fields,

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that his feet were very cold, and he just expiring. WARBURTON.

Upon this passage Mr. Theobald has a note that fills a page, which I omit in pity to my readers, since he only endeavours to prove, what I think every reader perceives to be true, that at this time no table could be wanted. Mr. Pope, in an appendix to his own edition in 12m0. seems to admit Theobald's emendation, which we would have allowed to be uncommonly happy, had we not been prejudiced against it by Mr. Pope's first note, with which, as it excites merriment, we are loath to part. JOHNSON.

Had the former editors been apprized, that table, in our author, signifies a pocket book, I believe they would have retained it with the following alteration: - for his nose was as sharp as a pen upon a table of green fells On table books, silver or steel pens, very sharp pointed, were formerly and still are fixed to the backs or covers. Mother Quickly compares Falstaff's nose (which in dying persos grows thin and sharp) to one of those pens, very properly, and she meant probably to have said, on a tablebook with a shagreen cover or shagreen table; hut, in her usual blundering way, she calls it a table of green fells, or a table covered with green-skin; which the blundering transcriber turned into green-fields; and our editors have turned the prettiest blunder in Shakspeare, quite out of doors. SMITH.

Dr. Warburton objects to Theobald's emendation, on the ground of the nature of Falstaff's illness; "who was so far from babbling, or wanting cooling in green fields, that his feet were cold, and he was just expiring. " But his

disorder had been a "burning quotidian tertian." It is, I think, a much stronger objection, that the word Table, with a capital letter, (for so it appears in the old copy,) is very unlikely to have been printed instead of babbled. This reading, is, however, preferable to any that has been yet proposed.

On this difficult passage I had once a conjecture. It was, that the word table is right, and that the corrupted word is and, which may have been misprinted for in; a mistake that has happened elsewhere in these plays: and thus the passage will run - and his nose was as sharp as a pen in a table of green fields. - A per may have been used for a pinfold, and a table for a picture.

The pointed stakes of which pinfolds are sometimes formed, were perhaps in the poet's thoughts. MALONE.

It was been observed (particularly by the superstition of women,) of people near death, when they are delirious by a fever, that they talk of removing; as it has of those in a calenture, that they have their heads run on green fields.

THEOBALD.

P. 52, last 1. and all was as cold as any stone.] Such is the end of Falstaff, from whom Shakspeare had promised us in his epilogue to K. Henry IV. that we should receive more entertainment. It happened to Shakspeare,

as

to other writers, to have his imagination crowded with a tumultuary confusion of images, which, while they were yet unsorted and un examined, seemed sufficient to furnish a long train of incidents, and a new variety of merriment; but which, when he was to produce

:

them to view, shrunk suddenly from him, er could not be accommodated to his general desigu. That he once designed to have brought Falstaff on the scene again, we know from himself; but whether he could contrive no train of adventures suitable to his 'character, or could match him with no companions likely to quicken his humour, or could open no new vein of pleasantry, and was afraid to continue the same strain lest it should not find the same reception, he has here, for ever discarded him, and made haste to despatch him, perhaps for the same reason for which Addison killed Sir Roger, that no other hand might attempt to exhibit him.

Let meaner authors learn from this example, that it is dangerous to sell the bear which is yet not hunted; to promise to the publick what they have not written.

This disappointment probably inclined Queen Elizabeth to command the poet to produce him once again, and to show him in love or courtship. This was, indeed, a new source of humour, and produced a new play from the former characters. JOHNSON.

P. 33, 1. 7. Quick. 'A could never abide carnation; &c.] Mrs. Quickly blunders, mistaking the word incarnate for a colour.

HENDERSON P. 33, 1. 25. Let senses rule; I think this is wrong; but how to reform it I do not see. Perhaps we may read:

Let sense us rule;

Pistol is taking leave of his wife, and giving her advice as he kisses her; he sees her rather weeping than attending, and, supposing that in

her