Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant ;9

For those that could speak low, and tardily,
Would turn their own perfection to abuse,
To feem like him: So that, in fpeech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,

[ocr errors]

In military rules, humours of blood,

I

He was the mark and glass, copy and book, That fashion'd others. And him,-O wondrous him!

O miracle of men !-him did you leave, (Second to none, unfeconded by you,)

To look upon the hideous god of war

In difadvantage; to abide a field,

Where nothing but the found of Hotfpur's name Did feem defenfible: 2-fo you left him :

And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, Became the accents of the valiant;] Speaking thick is, Speaking fast, crouding one word on another. So, in Cymbeline:

[ocr errors]

fay, and fpeak thick,

[ocr errors]

"Love's counsellor fhould fill the bores of hearing-.' "Became the accents of the valiant" is, 66 came to be affected

by them," a fenfe which (as Mr. M. Mafon obferves) is confirmed by the lines immediately fucceeding:

For those that could fpeak low, and tardily,

Would turn their own perfection to abuse,

"To feem like him :-.

[ocr errors]

The oppofition defigned by the adverb tardily, alfo ferves to fupport my explanation of the epithet thick. STEEVENS.

He was the mark and glass, copy and book,

That fashion'd others.] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece,

1594:

.

For princes are the glafs, the fchool, the book, "Where fubjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look." MALONE.

2Did Jeem defenfible:] Defenfible does not in this place mean capable of defence, but bearing ftrength, furnishing the means of defence; the paffive for the active participle.

MALONE.

Never, O never, do his ghoft the wrong,
To hold your honour more precife and nice
མས
With others, than with him; let them alone;
The marshal, and the archbishop, are ftrong:
Had my
fweet Harry had but half their numbers,
To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.

NORTH.

Befhrew your heart, Fair daughter! you do draw my fpirits from me, With new lamenting ancient overfights.

But I must go, and meet with danger there;
Or it will feek me in another place,

And find me worfe provided.

LADY N.

O, fly to Scotland,

Till that the nobles, and the armed commons,

Have of their puiffance made a little taste.

LADY P. If they get ground and vantage of the king,

Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
To make ftrength ftronger; but, for all our loves,
First let them try themfelves: So did your fon;
He was fo fuffer'd; fo came I a widow;
And never fhall have length of life enough,
To rain upon remembrance3 with mine eyes,
That it may grow and fprout as high as heaven,
For recordation to my noble husband.

3. To rain upon remembrance-] Alluding to the plant rofecalled, and ufed in funerals.

Thus, in The Winter's Tale:

"For you there's rofemary and rue, thefe keep
"Seeming and favour all the winter long:

"Grace and remembrance be to you both," &c.

For as rue was called herb of grace, from its being used in exorcifms; fo rofemary was called remembrance, from its being a cephalick. WARBURTONing ed

NORTH. Come, come, go in with me: 'tis with
my mind,

As with the tide fwell'd up unto its height,
That makes a ftill-ftand, running neither way.
Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,
But many thousand reafons hold me back :-
I will refolve for Scotland; there am I,
Till time and vantage crave my company. [Exeunt

[ocr errors]

SCENE IV.

London. A Room-in the Boar's Head Tavern, in
Eaftcheap.

Enter Two Drawers.

1 DRAW. What the devil haft thou brought there? apple-Johns? thou know'ft, fir John cannot endure an apple-John.4

2 DRAW. Mafs, thou fayeft true: The prince once fet a difh of apple-Johns before him, and told him, there were five more fir Johns: and, putting off his

an apple-John.] So, in The Ball, by Chapman and Shirley, 1639:

[ocr errors]

thy man, Apple-John, that looks.

"As he had been a fennight in the straw,

"A ripening for the market.'

This apple will keep two years, but becomes very wrinkled and fhrivelled. It is called by the French,-Deux-ans. Thus, Cogan, in his Haven of Health, 1595: "The best apples that we have in England are pepins, deufants, coftards, darlings, and fuch other." Again, among inftructions given in the year 1580 to fome of our navigators, "for banketting on fhipboard perfons of credite," we meet with "the apple John that dureth two yeares, to make fhew of our fruits." See Hackluyt, Vol. I. p. 441. STEEVENS.

hat, faid, I will now take my leave of thefe fix dry, round, old, withered knights. It angered him to the heart; but he hath forgot that.

1 DRAW. Why then, cover, and fet them down: And fee if thou canft find out Sneak's noife; 5 miftrefs Tear-fheet would fain hear fome mufick. Despatch: 6-The room where they fupped, is too. hot; they'll come in ftraight.

2 DRAW. Sirrah, here will be the prince, and master Poins anon: and they will put on two of our

S Sneak's noife;] Sneak was a street minstrel, and✨ therefore the drawer goes out to liften if he can hear him in the neighbourhood. JOHNSON.

66

A noife of musicians anciently fignified a concert or company of them. In the old play of Henry V. (not that of Shakspeare) there is this paffage : -there came the young prince, and two or three more of his companions, and called for wine good store, and then they fent for a noyfe of mufitians," &c.

Falstaff addreffes them as a company in another scene of this play. So again, in Weftward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: All the noife that went with him, poor fellows, have had their fiddle-cafes pulled over their ears."

[ocr errors]

Again, in The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, a comedy,. printed 1598, the Count fays: "O that we had a noife of muficians, to play to this antick as we go."

Heywood, in his Iron Age, 1632, has taken two expreffions from thefe plays of Henry IV. and put them into the mouth of Therfites addreffing himself to Achilles:

"Where's this great sword and buckler man of Greece?
"We fhall have him in one of Sneak's noife,

"And come peaking into the tents of the Greeks,
"With,--will you have any mufick, gentlemen?"

Among Ben Jonfon's Leges convivales is

[ocr errors]

Fidicen, nifi accerfitus, non venito." STEEVens.

6 Despatch: &c.] This period is from the first edition.

POPE.

Thefe words, which are not in the folio, are in the quarto given to the fecond drawer. Mr. Pope rightly attributed them to the firft. MALONE.

jerkins, and aprons; and fir John must not know of it: Bardolph hath brought word. word. I twolno brez · © 1 DRAW. By the mafs, here will be old utis:7 It will be an excellent ftratagem. olevia salted) has 4 sirf Lafted sad as boold st 2 DRAW. I'll fee, if I can find out Sneak. [Exit.

[ocr errors]

dich Enter Hoftefs and DoLL TEAR-SHEET. 1 do vit esmoo stail Food

HOST. I'faith, fweet heart, methinks now you are in an excellent good temperality: your pulfidge

7 here will be old utis:] Utis, an old word yet in ufe in fome counties, fignifying a merry festival, from the French huit, octo, ab. A. S. Eahra, Octava fefti alicujus.-Skinner.

[ocr errors]

РОРЕ.

Skinner's explanation of utis (or utas) may be confirmed by the following paffage from T. M.'s Life of Sir Thomas More: -to-morrow is St. Thomas of Canterbury's eeve, and the utas of St. Peter-." The eve of Thomas à Becket, according to the new ftile, happens on the 6th of July, and St. Peter's day on the 29th of June.

Again, in A Contention between Liberality and Prodigality, a comedy, 1602:

Then if you pleafe, with fome royfting harmony, "Let us begin the utas of our iollitie." HENLEY. Old, in this place, does not mean ancient, but was formerly common augmentative in colloquial language. Old Utis fignifies feftivity in a great degree.

So, in Lingua, 1607:

[ocr errors]

there's s old moving among them.

Again, in Decker's comedy, called, If this be not a good Play the Devil is in it, 1612:

"We fhall have old breaking of necks then."

Again, in Soliman and Perfeda, 1599:

" I shall have old laughing.'

Again, in Arden of Feverfham, 1592:

"Here will be old filching, when the prefs comes out of Paul's." STEEVENS.

See Vol. IX. p. 104, n. 4. MALONE.

« PreviousContinue »