cleere aqua vitæ five or sixe spoonefulls of the best malassoes you can get: Spanish cute if you can get it, is thought better than malassoes; then put this into another vessell, and after three or foure dayes (the more the better) when the liquor hath fined itselfe, you maie use the same: some adde dates and raisins of the sun to this receipt; those grounds which remaine you maie redistill and make more aqua composita of them, and of that aqua composita you maie make more usque-bath." Plat's Delightes for ladies, 1611, 24to. It is to be observed that aqua composita is wine of any kind distilled with spices and sweet herbs. Brandy, or burnt wine, seems first to occur in Skinner's Etymologicon, 1671, under the name of Brandewin, from the Dutch or German, and soon after in its present form; yet aqua vitæ was continued a long while afterwards.

Sc. 3. p. 395,

HOST. Cry'd game, said I well?

The evidence, and indeed the sense, in favour of the phrase to cry aim, preponderates so greatly, that one cannot hesitate in discarding the nonsen sical expression of cry'd game, which derives not the least support from any of Mr. Steevens's quo

tations. The probability is very great that there was an error of the press, and that the words should have been printed according to the orthography of the time, "Cry'd I ayme, said I well ?” A g might easily have crept in instead of a y.

ACT III.

Scene 1. Page 398.

SIM. Marry, sir, the city-ward

"The old editions read pittie-ward, the modern editors pitty-wary," says Mr. Steevens, who in this edition has abandoned the best part of a former note where he had proposed to read pettyward, which is the right word, and of the same import as the old one. That such a word formerly existed is demonstrable from its still remaining as a proper name; and near Wimbledon is a wood so called, probably from the owner. Mr. Steevens mistakes in supposing ward to mean towards in this instance, where it is put for the division of a city; nor does his quotation from William of Worcester assist him. The via de Petty and the Pyttey gate might be named after

the hundred of Pyttey in Somersetshire. In Lyne's Map of Cambridge, 1574, we find the petticurie.

Sc. 1. p. 399.

EVANS. I will knog his urinals about his knave's costard

This utensil was the usual concomitant of physicians in former times, as appears from most of the frontispieces to old medical books and other ancient prints.

Sc. 2. p. 410.

HOST. he smells April and May.

The same as if he had said, he smells of youth and courtship, symbolized by these months, the former of which in old calendars is described in these lines:

"The next vi yere maketh foure and twenty,
And fygured is to joly Apryll;

That tyme of pleasures man hath moost plenty
Fresshe and lovyng his lustes to fulfyll—”

and the latter in the following:

"As in the month of Maye all thyng is in myght,
So at xxx yeres man is in chyef lykyng;
Pleasaunt and lusty, to every mannes syght,
In beaute and strength to women pleasyng."

Sc. 2. p. 412.

HOST. I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him.

FORD. I think I shall drink in pipe-wine first with him;

It

may

I'll make him dance.

be doubted whether the exact meaning of this cluster of puns has already been given. Mr. Tyrwhitt says he cannot understand the phrase to drink in pipe wine, and suggests that Shakspeare might have written horn-pipe wine. Now Ford terms canary pipe-wine, both because canary dance is performed to a tabor and pipe, and because the canary bird is said to pipe Ford is speaking of Falstaff, not of Page, as Mr. Tyrwhitt's note implies when it refers to horns. He says he will make him pipe

the

his tunes.

and dance too.

Sc. 3. p. 414.

MRS. FORD. How now, my eyas-musket?

There was no reason for disturbing the etymology of this word given by Dr. Warburton, by substituting that of Dame Juliana Bernes, which for ingenuity and veracity may be well classed with many of those in Isidore of Seville,

or The golden legend. Take an example from the latter. "Felix is sayd of fero fers, that is to saye, to bere, and of this word lis, litis, whiche is as moche to say as stryfe, for he bare stryfe for the fayth of our lorde." Turberville tells us that "the first name and terme that they bestowe on a falcon is an eyesse, and this name doth laste as long as she is in the eyrie and for that she is taken from the eyrie." This is almost as bad as the lady abbess's account. Eyrie is simply the nest or eggery, and has no connexion with the name of the bird. Eyas or nias is a term borrowed from the French niais, which means any young bird in the nest, avis in nido. It is the first of five several names by which a falcon is called during its first year. The best account of this bird is in La fauconnerie de Charles d'Arcussa de Capre, seigneur d'Esparron, 1643, 4to. A musket is a sparrow hawk, and is derived from the French mouchet, and the latter probably from musca, on account of its diminutive form. The humour therefore lies in comparing the page to a young male sparrow hawk, an emblem of his tender years and activity.