then fay, it was in fight? What trick, what device, what ftarting hole, canft thou now find out, to hide thee from this open and apparent shame? Poins. Come, let's hear, Jack; what trick haft thou now? Fal. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear ye, my mafters: Was it for me to kill the heir apparent? Should I turn upon the true prince ? Why, thou know'ft, I am as valiant as Hercules: but beware inftinct; the lion will not touch the true prince 2. Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. I fhall think the better of myself, and thee, during my life; I, for a valiant lion, and thou, for a true prince. But, by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money.— Hoftefs, clap to the doors; watch to-night, pray to-morrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, All the titles of good fellowship come to you! What, shall we be merry? shall we have a play extempore? P. Hen. Content;-and the argument fhall be, thy running away. Fal. Ah! no more of that, Hal, an thou loveft me. Enter Hoftefs. Hoft. My lord the prince, P. Hen. How now, my lady the hostess? what say'st thou to me? Hoft. Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door, would fpeak with you: he fays, he comes from your father. P. Hen. Give him as much as will make him a royal man 3, and fend him back again to my mother. Fal. 2- the lion will not touch the true prince.] So in the Mad Lover, by B. and Fletcher: "Fetch the Numidian lion 1 brought over; "If the be fprung from royal blood, the lion "Will do ber reverence, elfe he'll tear her," &c. STEEVENS. 3 there is a nobleman—Give him as much as will make him a royal man,] I believe here is a kind of jeft intended. He that received a noble was, in cant language, called a nobleman; in this fenfe the prince VOL. V. N catches Fal. What manner of man is he? Hoft. An old man. Fal. What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him his anfwer? P. Hen. Pr'ythee, do, Jack. Fal. 'Faith, and I'll fend him packing. [Exit. P. Hen. Now, firs; by'r-lady, you fought fair;-fo did you, Peto;-fo did you, Bardolph: you are lions too, you ran away upon inftinct, you will not touch the true prince; no,-fie! Bard. 'Faith, I ran when I faw others run. P. Hen. Tell me now in earnest, How came Falstaff's fword fo hack'd? Peto. Why, he hack'd it with his dagger; and faid, he would swear truth out of England, but he would make you believe it was done in fight; and perfuaded us to do the like. Bard. Yea, and to tickle our nofes with fpear-grafs to make them bleed; and then to beflubber our garments with it, and fwear it was the blood of true mens. I did that I did not this feven year before, I blufh'd to hear his monstrous devices. P. Hen. O villain, thou ftoleft a cup of fack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever fince catches the word, and bids the landlady give him as much as will make bim a royal man, that is, a real or royal man, and fend him away JOHNS. The royal went for 10s.-the noble only for 6s. and 8d. TYRWHITT This feems to allude to a jeft of queen Elizabeth. Mr. John Blower in a fermon before her majefty, firft faid, "My royal queen," and a little after, "My noble queen." Upon which fays the queen, "What, am I ten groats worfe than I was ?" This is to be found in Hearne's Difcourfe of fome Antiquities between Windfor and Oxford; and it confirms the remark of the very learned and ingenious Mr. Tyrwhitt. TOLLET. 4 — to tickle our noses with spear-grafs, &c.] So, in the old anonymous play of The Victories of Henry the Fifth: "Every day when I went into the field, I would take a fraw, and thruft it into my nose, and make my note bleed," &c. STEEVENS. 5- the blood of true men.] That is, of the men with whom they fought, of boneft men, oppofed to thieves. JOHNSON. 6 taken with the manner,] See Vol. II. p. 316, n. 8. MALONE. thou thou haft blush'd extempore: Thou hadst fire and sword? on thy fide, and yet thou ran'st away; What inftinét hadst thou for it? Bard. My lord, do you fee these meteors? do you behold thefe exhalations? P. Hen. I do. Bard. What think you they portend? Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone. Now now, my fweet creature of bombaft? How long is't ago, Jack, fince thou faw'ft thine own knee? Fal. My own knee? when I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman's thumb-ring: A plague of fighing and grief! it blows a man up like a bladder. There's 7- Thou badfi fire and fword &c.] The fire was in his face. A red face is termed a fiery face. JOHNSON. Hot livers, and cold purfes.] That is, drunkenness and poverty. To drink was, in the language of those times, to beat the liver. JoHNS. 9 Choler, my lord, if rightly taken. No, if rightly taken, halter.] The reader who would enter into the fpirit of this repartee, muft recollect the fimilarity of found between collar and choler. STEEVENS. 1-bombaft?] is the ftuffing of cloaths. JOHNSON. Stubbs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1595, obferves, that in his time "the doublettes were fo hard quilted, itufted, bombasted, and fewed, as they could neither worke, nor yet well play in them." And again, in the fame chapter, he adds, that they were "stuffed with foure, five, or fixe pounde of bombaft at least." Bombaft is cotton. Gerard calls the cotton plant "the bombaft tree." 2 I could have crept into any alderman's has the fame thought: STEEVENS. thumb-ring:] Ariftophanes Διὰ δα κλυλία μὲν ἦν ἐμέ γ' ἂν διελκύσαις. Plutus, v. 1037. An Alderman's thumb-ring is mentioned by Broom in the Antipodes, 1636, and in Wit in a Conftable, 1640. The custom of wearing a ring on the thumb is very ancient. In Chaucer's Squier's Tale, it is faid of the rider of the brazen horfe who advanced into the hall of Cambufcan, that "-upon his thombe he had of gold a ring." STEEVENS. N 2 villainous villainous news abroad: here was fir John Bracy from your father; you must to the court in the morning. That fame mad fellow of the north, Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the baftinado, and made Lucifer cuckold, and fwore the devil his true liegeman upon the crofs of a Welsh hook 3,-What, a plague call you him?Poins. O, Glendower. Fal. Owen, Owen; the fame ;-and his fon-in-law, Mortimer; and old Northumberland; and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs o' horfe-back up a hill perpendicular: P. Hen. He that rides at high speed, and with his piftol kills a fparrow flying. 4 Fal. You have hit it. P. Hen. So did he never the fparrow. Fal. Well, that rafcal hath good mettle in him; he will not run. P. Hen. Why, what a rafcal art thou then, to praise him fo for running? Fal. O'horfeback, ye cuckoo! but, afoot, he will not budge a foot. P. Hen. Yes, Jack, upon instinct. 3 Well, he is there too, -upon the cross of a Welsh book,] I believe the Welsh book and the brown bill are no more than varieties of the fecuris falcata, or probably a weapon of the fame kind with the Lochabar axe, which was ufed in the late rebellion. Colonel Gardner was attacked with fuch a one at the battle of Prestonpans. STEEVENS. Minsheu in his Dict. 1617, explains a Welsh book thus: « Armorum genus eft are in falcis modum incurvato, pertica longiffimæ præfixo.” Cotgrave calls it a long hedging-bill, about the length of a partizan." See in Vol. II. p. 258, feveral ancient bills. Either the fecond or the fourth, there represented, fufficiently corresponds with Minfheu's defcription. MALONE. 4 — pistol—] Shakspeare never has any care to preserve the man ners of the time. Piftols were not known in the age of Henry. Pif tols were, I believe, about our author's time, eminently used by the Scots. Sir Henry Wotton fomewhere makes mention of a Scottish pifsol. JOHNSON. B. and Fletcher are still more inexcufable. In the Humourous Lieutenant, they have equipped one of the immediate fucceffors of Alexander the Great, with the fame weapon. STEEVENS. And and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps S more: Worcester is ftolen away to-night; thy father's beard is turn'd white with the news; you may buy land now as cheap as ftinking mackarel7. P. Hen. Why then, 'tis like, if there come a hot June, and this civil buffetting hold, we fhall buy maiden-heads as they buy hob-nails, by the hundreds. Fal. By the mass, lad, thou fay'ft true; it is like, we fhall have good trading that way. But, tell me, Hal, art thou not horribly afeard? thou being heir apparent, could the world pick thee out three fuch enemies again, as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly afraid? doth not thy blood thrill at it? P. Hen. Not a whit, i'faith; I lack fome of thy inftinct. Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow, when thou comeft to thy father: if thou love me, practise an answer. P. Hen. Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life. 5 blue caps-] A name of ridicule given to the Scots from their blue bonnets. JOHNSON. There is an old ballad called Blew cap for me; or "A Scottish lafs her refolute choosing, "She'll have bonny blew cap, all other refufing." STEEVENS. ♦ — thy father's beard is turn'd white with the news ;] I think Montaigne mentions a person condemned to death, whose hair turned grey in one night. TOLLET. Nafhe, in his Have with you to Saffron Walden &c. 1596, fays: "look and you fhall find a grey baire for everie line I have writ against him; and you shall have all bis beard white too, by the time he hath read over this booke." The reader may find more examples of this phænomenon in Grimeftone's tranflation of Goulart's Memorable Hiftories. STEEVENS. 7-you may buy land &c.] In former times the profperity of the nation was known by the value of land, as now by the price of stocks. Before Henry the Seventh made it safe to ferve the king regnant, it was the practice at every revolution, for the conqueror to confifcate the eftates of those that oppofed, and perhaps of those who did not affift him. Thofe, therefore, that forefaw a change of government, and thought their eftates in danger, were defirous to fell them in hafte for Lomething that might be carried away. JOHNSON. N 3 Fal. |