K. JOHN. Why, what a madcap hath Heaven lent us here! The accent of his tongue affecteth him : And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak, With that half-face would he have all my land: To treat of high affairs touching that time: Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him: a Trick, here and elsewhere in Shakspere, means peculiarity. Gloster remembers the "trick" of Lear's voice;-Helen thinking of Bertram, speaks "Of every line and trick of his sweet favour; "— Falstaff notes the "villainous trick" of the prince's eye. In all these cases trick seems to imply habitual manner. Wordsworth has the Shaksperean use of "trick" in 'The Excursion' (book i.):"Her infant babe Had from its mother caught the trick of grief, And sigh'd among its playthings." That half-face is a correction by Theobald, which appears just, the first folio giving "half that face." For an explanation of half-face, see Illustrations. That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother, Lest men should say, Look, where three-farthings goes I would give it every foot to have this face; : It would not be sir Nobd in any case. I am a soldier, and now bound to France. BAST. Brother, take you my land, I 'll take my chance: * Presence may here mean "priority of place," préséance. As the son of Cœur-de-Lion, Faulconbridge would take rank without his land. Warburton judged it meant "master of thyself." If this interpretation be correct, the passage may have suggested the lines in Sir Henry Wotton's song on a 'Happy Life,'— "Lord of himself, though not of lands, And, having nothing, yet hath all." We are inclined to receive it in the sense of the man's whole carriage and appearance-" a goodly presence." * Sir Robert his. This is the old form of the genitive, such as all who have looked into a legal instrument know. Faulconbridge says, "If I had his shape-sir Robert's shape-as he has." To his shape-in addition to his shape. We have given the text of the folio-"It would not be sir Nob,"-not "I would not be.". "This face," he says, "would not be sir Nob." Nob is now, and was in Shakspere's time, a cant word for the head. Your face hath got five hundred pound a-year; ELI. Nay, I would have you go before me thither. BAST. Philip, my liege; so is my name begun; Philip, good old sir Robert's wife's eldest son. K. JOHN. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bearest: Arise sir Richard, and Plantagenet". BAST. Brother, by the mother's side, give me your hand; My father gave me honour, yours gave land: ELI. The very spirit of Plantagenet! I am thy grandame, Richard; call me so. BAST. Madam, by chance, but not by truth; What though? In at the window, or else o'er the hatch; And have is have, however men do catch; Near or far off, well won is still well shot; K. JOHN. Go, Faulconbridge; now hast thou thy desire, For thou wast got i' the way of honesty. Good den, sir Richard,-God-a-mercy, fellow; For your conversion. Now your traveller, [Exeunt all but the Bastard. a In at the window, &c. These were proverbial expressions, which, by analogy with irregular modes of entering a house, had reference to cases such as that of Faulconbridge's, which he gently terms "a little from the right." Good den-good evening-good e'en. Conversion. This is the reading of the folio, but was altered, by Pope, to conversing. The Bastard, whose "new-made honour" is a conversion,-a change of condition,-would say that to remember men's names (opposed, by implication, to forget) is too respective (punctilious, discriminating) and too sociable for one of his newly-attained rank. He and his toothpick at my worship's mess, I shall beseech you-That is question now; And talking of the Alps and Apennines, It draws toward supper in conclusion so. And fits the mounting spirit like myself: For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.- Enter Lady FAULCONBRIDGE and JAMES GURNEY. O me! it is my mother:-How now, good lady? LADY F. Where is that slave, thy brother? where is he? That holds in chase mine honour up and down? BAST. My brother Robert? old sir Robert's son? Colbrand the giant', that same mighty man? Is it sir Robert's son that you seek so? ■ Picked man of countries. "The travelled fool," "the pert, conceited, talking spark," of the modern fable, is the old "picked man of countries." "To pick" is the same as "to trim." Steevens says it is a metaphor derived from the action of birds in picking their feathers. picked, too spruce, too affected," occurs in 'Love's Labour 's Lost,' Act V. "He is too b Absey-book, the common name for the first or A, B, C, book. The Catechism was generally included in these books; and thus the reference in the text to "question" and “answer.” Smack. The original has smoke. LADY F. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy, BAST. Philip?-sparrow a!—James, Sir Robert never holp to make this leg. That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour? Then, good my mother, let me know my father; LADY F. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father: To make room for him in my husband's bed. Which was so strongly urg'd, past my defence. [Exit GURN. a Philip?—sparrow! The sparrow was called Philip,—perhaps from his note, out of which Catullus, in his elegy on Lesbia's sparrow, formed a verb, pipilabat. When Gurney calls the bastard "good Philip," the new "Sir Richard" tosses off the name with contempt-" sparrow!" He then puts aside James, with "anon I'll tell thee more." Basilisco-like. Basilisco is a character in a play of Shakspere's time, 'Soliman and Perseda,' from which Tyrwhitt quotes a passage which may have suggested the words of the Bastard. The oaths of Basilisco became proverbial. Basilisco is mentioned by Nash, in 1596. c Heaven, &c. We have restored the reading of the old copy, which appears to us more in Shakspere's manner than the customary text "Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge, Thou art the issue of my dear offence," &c. Lady Faulconbridge is not invoking Heaven to pardon her transgression; but she says to her son, -for Heaven's sake, lay not (thou) my transgression to my charge that art the issue of it. The reply of Faulconbridge immediately deprecates any intention of upbraiding his mother. |