ACT V. SCENE I. Glostershire. A Hall in SHALLOW'S House. Enter SHALLOW, Falstaff, BARDOLPH, and Page. SHAL. By cock and pye, sir, you shall not away to-night. What, Davy, I say! ἅπαντα μέλλεις ὑποτάξαι, ἐκεῖθεν δὲ ἐις Ιερεσαλὴμ ἀπερχόμενος τῷ XPEND MEITHRYNJELç. Anna Comnena. Alexias. lib. vi. p. 162. Ed. Paris, 1658. The date of Robert's death is 1085, of our Henry IV. 1413, and Anna the historian is contemporary with Robert. Gibbon, who mentions Robert's death at Cephallenia, (vol. v. p. 625,) takes no notice of Jerusalem, which I was surprised to find, as it was a circumstance agreeable to his usual way of thinking, both as a classical and a superstitious fact. I think he can hardly have introduced it elsewhere. My Dear Sir, You have here Henry IV. in Greek. You will not wonder at Anna's making out Cephallenia to be Ithaca, when D'Anville can hardly find it out with all his learning. Yet here lived the hero of Homer in arato non inglorius. How a Jerusalem came to have been built in Cephallenia, Ishall not attempt to explain; but the holy sepulchre was visited, from devotion or pilgrimage, several centuries before 1085; and temples might consequently have been built in Cephallenia, as well as other Christian countries. A city of Jerusalem seems highly dubious. However, be the fiction what it may, it is previous to Henry IV. and corresponds in almost all its parts. Yours, very truly, Deanery, Feb. 19, 1806. W. VINCENT. 4 By COCK AND PYE,] This adjuration, which seems to have been very popular, is used in Soliman and Perseda, 1599: “By cock and pie and mousefoot." Again, in Wily Beguiled, 1606: "Now by cock and pie, you never spake a truer word in your life." Again, in The Two Angry Women of Abington, 1599: 66 Merry go sorry, cock and pie, my hearts." FAL. You must excuse me, master Robert Shallow. Cock is only a corruption of the Sacred Name, as appears from many passages in the old interludes, Gammer Gurton's Needle, &c. viz. Cocks-bones, cocks-wounds, by cock's-mother, and some others. Cock's-body, cock's passion, &c. occur in the old morality of Hycke Scorner, and in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Ophelia likewise says: By cock they are to blame." The pie is a table or rule in the old Roman offices, showing, in a technical way, how to find out the service which is to be read upon each day. Among some "Ordinances, however, made at Eltham, in the reign of King Henry VIII." we have-" Item that the Pye of coals be abridged to the one halfe that theretofore had been served." A printing letter of a particular size, called the pica, was probably denominated from the pie, as the brevier, from the breviary, and the primer from the primer. STEEVENS. What was called The Pie by the clergy before the Reformation, was called by the Greeks IIwag, or the index. Though the word Пwa signifies a plank in its original, yet in its metaphorical sense it signifies σανὶς ἐζωγραφημένη, a painted table or picture: and because indexes or tables of books were formed into square figures, resembling pictures or painters' tables, hung up in a frame, these likewise were called Ilívaxes, or, being marked only with the first letter of the word, It's or Pies. All other derivations of the word are manifestly erroneous. In the second preface Concerning the Service of the Church, prefixed to the Common Prayer, this table is mentioned as follows: "Moreover the number and hardness of the rules called the Pie, and the manifold changes," &c. RIDLEY. This oath has been supposed to refer to the sacred name, and to that service book of the Romish church which in England, before the Reformation, was denominated a pie: but it is improbable that a volume with which the common people would scarcely be acquainted, and exclusively intended for the use of the clergy, could have suggested a popular adjuration. It will, no doubt, be recollected, that in the days of ancient chivalry it was the practice to make solemn vows or engagements for the performance of some considerable enterprise. This ceremony was usually performed during some grand feast or entertainment, at which a roasted peacock or pheasant, being served up by SHAL. I will not excuse you; you shall not be excused; excuses shall not be admitted; there is ladies in a dish of gold or silver, was thus presented to each knight, who then made the particular vow which he had chosen, with great solemnity. When this custom had fallen into disuse, the peacock nevertheless continued to be a favourite dish, and was introduced on the table in a pie, the head, with gilded beak, being proudly elevated above the crust, and the splendid tail expanded. Other birds of smaller value were introduced in the same manner, and the recollection of the old peacock vows might occasion the less serious, or even burlesque, imitation of swearing not only by the bird itself but also by the pie; and hence probably the oath by cock and pie, for the use of which no very old authority can be found. The vow to the peacock had even got into the mouths of such as had no pretensions to knighthood. Thus, in The Merchant's Second Tale, or the History of Beryn, the host is made to say, "I make a vowe to the pecock there shal wake a foul mist." There is an alehouse sign of the cock and magpie, which seems a corruption of the peacock pie. Although the latter still preserved. its genuine appellation of the cock and pie, the magic art of modern painters would not fail to produce a metamorphosis like that which we have witnessed on many other occasions. Douce. By cock and pie." Perhaps this is only a ludicrous oath, by the common sign of an alehouse. Here is a sketch from an old one at Bewdley : 66 "By cock and pie and mousefoot," quoted by Mr. Steevens, looks as if the oath had not so solemn and sacred an origin as he assigns it; but was rather of the nature of those adjurations no excuse shall serve; you shall not be excused.Why, Davy! DAVY. Here, sir. Enter DAVY. SHAL. Davy, Davy, Davy,-let me see, Davy; let me see :-yea, marry, William cook, bid him come hither.-Sir John, you shall not be excused. DAVY. Marry, sir, thus; those precepts cannot be served': and, again, sir.-Shall we sow the headland with wheat? cited by him, from Decker, in a note in the third Scene of this Act: "By these comfits and carraways," &c. BLAKEWAY. The following passage in A Catechisme, containing the Summe of Religion, &c. by George Giffard, 1583, will show that this word was not considered as a corruption of the Sacred Name: "Men suppose that they do not offende when they do not sweare falsly; and because they will not take the name of God to abuse it, they sware by small thinges, as by cocke and pye, by the mouse foote, and many other suche like." Boswell. 5 I will not excuse you; &c.] The sterility of Justice Shallow's wit is admirably described, in thus making him, by one of the finest strokes of nature, so often vary his phrase, to express one and the same thing, and that the commonest. WARBURTON. 6- WILLIAM COOK, bid him come hither.] It appears from this instance, as well as many others, that anciently the lower orders of people had no surnames, or, if they had, were only called by the titles of their several professions. The cook of William Canynge, the royal Merchant of Bristol, lies buried there under a flat stone, near the monument of his master, in the beautiful church of St. Mary Redcliffe. On this stone are represented the ensigns of his trade, a skimmer and a knife. His epitaph is as follows: "Hic jacet Willm' Coke quondam serviens Willm' Canynges mercatoris villæ Bristoll; cujus animæ propitietur Deus." Lazarillo, in The Woman-Hater of Beaumont and Fletcher, expresses a wish to have his tomb ornamented in a like manner: 7 "Give me a voider; and above my hearse, those PRECEPTS cannot be served:] Precept is a justice's warrant. To the offices which Falstaff gives Davy in the follow SHAL. With red wheat, Davy. But for William cook ;--Are there no young pigeons? DAVY. Yes, sir.--Here is now the smith's note, for shoeing, and plough irons. SHAL. Let it be cast, and paid :-sir John, you shall not be excused. DAVY. Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must needs be had:-And, sir, do you mean to stop any of William's wages, about the sack he lost the other day at Hinckley fair'? SHAL. He shall answer it:--Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William cook. DAVY. Doth the man of war stay all night, sir? SHAL. Yes, Davy. I will use him well; A friend i' the court is better than a penny in purse'. Use his men well, Davy: for they are arrant knaves, and will backbite. DAVY. No worse than they are back-bitten, sir; for they have marvellous foul linen. SHAL. Well conceited, Davy. About thy business, Davy. DAVY. I beseech you, sir, to countenance William Visor of Wincot against Clement Perkes of the hill. ing scene, may be added that of justice's clerk. Davy has almost as many employments as Scrub in The Stratagem. JOHNSON. 8 Let it be cast,] That is, cast up, computed. M. MASON. HINCKLEY fair?] Hinckley is a town in Leicester. STEEVENS. 9 A friend i' the court, &c.] So, in Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose, v. 5540: "For frende in courte aie better is, "Than peny is in purse, certis." GREY. "A friend in court is worth a penny in purse," is one of Camden's proverbial sentences. See his Remaines, 4to. 1605. MALONE. |