431 here! On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves? young men must live: You are grand-jurors are ye? We'll jure ye, i'faith. [Exeunt FALSTAFF, &c. driving the Travellers out. Re-enter Prince HENRY and POINS. 8 P. HEN. The thieves have bound the true men: Now could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jeft for ever. POINS. Stand close, I hear them coming. And Sir Epicure Mammon, in The Alchemift, being asked who had robb'd him, anfwers, "a kind of choughs, fir." STEEVENS. The name of the Cornish bird is pronounced by the natives chow. Chuff is the fame word with cuff, both fignifying a clown, and being in all probability derived from a Saxon word of the latter found. RITSON. 8 the true men:] In the old plays a true man is always fet in oppofition to a thief. So, in the ancient Morality called Hycke Scorner, bl. 1. no date: "And when me lift to hang a true man- Again, in The Four Prentices of London, 1615: Again: "Now, true man, try if thou can'ft rob a thief." "Sweet wench, embrace a true man, scorn a thief.” See Vol. IV. p. 325, n. 5. STEEVENS. 9 argument for a week,] Argument is fubject matter for converfation or a drama. So, in the Second Part of this play: "For all my part has been but as a scene "Acting that argument." Mr. M. Mafon adopts the former of these meanings, and adds, in fupport of his opinion, a paffage from Much ado about Nothing, where Don Pedro fays to Benedick, [Vol. IV. P. 412.] 66 if ever thou doft fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument." STEEVENS. Re-enter Thieves. FAL. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horfe before day. An the prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there's no equity stirring : there's no more valour in that Poins, than in a wild duck. P. HEN. Your money. [Rufhing out upon them. [As they are sharing, the Prince and POINs fet upon them. FALSTAFF, after a blow or two, and the reft, run away, leaving their booty behind them. P. HEN. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horfe: The thieves are scatter'd, and poffefs'd with fear Away, good Ned. Falstaff fweats to death, [Exeunt. 8 Each takes his fellow for an officer.] The fame thought, a little varied, occurs again in K. Henry VI. Part III: "The thief doth fear each bufh an officer." STEEVENS. 9 And lards the lean earth-] So, in K. Henry V: "In which array, brave foldier, doth he lie SCENE III. Warkworth. A Room in the Caftle. Enter HOTSPUR, reading a letter." ·But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your boufe. He could be contented,-Why is he not then? In refpect of the love he bears our houfe:-he fhows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our houfe. Let me fee fome more. The purpose you undertake, is dangerous;— Why, that's certain; 'tis dangerous to take a cold, to fleep, to drink: but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, fafety. The purpose you undertake, is dangerous; the friends you have named, uncertain; the time itself unforted; and your whole plot too light, for the counterpoife of So great an oppofition.-Say you fo, fay you fo? I fay unto you again, you are a fhallow cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this? By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and conftant: a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation: an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frofty-spirited rogue is this? Why, my lord of York' commends the plot, and the general courfe of the action. 2 Enter Hotfpur, reading a letter.] This letter was from George Dunbar, Earl of March, in Scotland. Mr. EDWARDS's MS. Notes. 3 — my lord of York-] Richard Scroop, Archbishop of York. STEEVENS. 'Zounds, an I were now by this rafcal, I could brain him with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and myfelf? lord Edmund Mortimer, my lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is there not, befides, the Douglas? Have I not all their letters, to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month? and are they not, fome of them, fet forward already? What a pagan rascal is this? an infidel? Ha! you fhall fee now, in very fincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the king, and lay open all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving fuch a difh of fkimm'd milk with fo honourable an action! Hang him! let him tell the king: We are prepared: I will fet forward to-night. -I could brain him with his lady's fan.] Mr. Edwards obferves in his Canons of Criticism, "that the ladies in our author's time wore fans made of feathers." See Ben Jonfon's Every Man out of his Humour, A& II. fc. ii: This feather grew in her fweet fan fometimes, tho' now it be my poor fortune to wear it." So again, in Cynthia's Revels, Act III. fc. iv: for a garter, "Or the leaft feather in her bounteous fan." Again, as Mr. Whalley obferves to me, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit at feveral Weapons, A& V: Wer't not better "Your head were broke with the handle of a fan?" See the wooden cut in a note on a paffage in The Merry Wives of Windfor, Act II. fc. ii. and the figure of Marguerite de France, Ducheffe de Savoie, in the fifth vol. of Montfaucon's Monarchie de France. Plate XI. STEEVENS. This paffage ought to be a memento to all commentators, not to be too pofitive about the customs of former ages. Mr. Edwards has laughed unmercifully at Dr. Warburton for fuppofing that Hotspur meant to brain the Earl of March with the handle of his lady's fan, inftead of the feathers of it. The lines quoted by Mr. Whalley fhew that the fuppofition was not fo wild a one as Mr. Edwards fuppofed. MALONE. Enter Lady PERCY. How now, Kate? I must leave you within these two hours. LADY. O my good lord, why are you thus alone? For what offence have I, this fortnight, been A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed? Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee Thy ftomach, pleasure, and thy golden fleep?" Why doft thou bend thine eyes upon the earth; And start so often when thou fit'ft alone? Why haft thou loft the fresh blood in thy cheeks; 5 How now, Kate?] Shakspeare either miftook the name of Hotfpur's wife, (which was not Katharine, but Elizabeth,) or elfe defignedly changed it, out of the remarkable fondness he seems to have had for the familiar appellation of Kate, which he is never weary of repeating, when he has once introduced it; as in this fcene, the fcene of Katharine and Petruchio, and the courtship between King Henry V. and the French Princefs. The wife of Hotfpur was the Lady Elizabeth Mortimer, fifter to Roger Earl of March, and aunt to Edmund Earl of March, who is introduced in this play by the name of Lord Mortimer. STEEVENS. The fifter of Roger Earl of March, according to Hall, was called Eleanor: "This Edmonde was fonne to Erle Roger,-which Edmonde at King Richarde's going into Ireland was proclaimed heire apparent to the realme; whofe aunt, called Eliner, this lord Henry Percy had married." Chron. fol. 20. So alfo Holinfhed. But both thefe hiftorians were mistaken, for her chriftian name undoubtedly was Elizabeth. MALONE. 6 -golden fleep?] So, in Hall's Chronicle, Richard III: he needed now no more once for that caufe eyther to wake, or breake hys golden fleepe." HENDERSON. The various epithets, borrowed from the qualities of metals, which have been bestowed on fleep, may ferve to fhow how vaguely words are applied in poetry. In the line before us, fleep is called golden, and in K. Richard III. we have "leaden flumber." But in Virgil it is "ferreus fomnus;" while Homer terms fleep brazen, or more frictly copper, χαλκεος υπνος. HOLT WHITE. |