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Corrupt the tender honour of a maid:

But she is arm'd for him, and keeps her guard

In honestest defence.

Enter with drum and colours, a party of the Florentine army, BERTRAM, and PAROLLES.

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Dia.

He;

That with the plume: 'tis a most gallant fellow;
I would, he lov'd his wife: if he were honester,
He were much goodlier:-Is 't not a handsome gentle-
man?

Hel. I like him well.

Dia. 'Tis pity, he is not honest: Yond's that same

knave,

That leads him to these places;7 were I his lady,

I'd poison that vile rascal.

Hel.

Which is he?

Dia. That Jack-an-apes with scarfs: Why is he melancholy?

Hel. Perchance he 's hurt i' the battle.

Par. Lose our drum! well.

Mar. He's shrewdly vexed at something: Look, he

has spied us.

Wid. Marry, hang you!

6 brokes] Deals as a broker. Johnson.

To broke is to deal with panders. A broker, in our author's time, meant a bawd or pimp.

sc. iii.

7

Malone.

Yond's that same knave,

See a note on Hamlet, Act I,

That leads him to these places;] What places? Have they been talking of brothels; or, indeed, of any particular locality? I make no question but our author wrote:

That leads him to these paces.

i. e. such irregular steps, to courses of debauchery, to not loving his wife. Theobald.

The places are, apparently, where he

66 brokes with all, that can in such a suit

Corrupt the tender honour of a maid." Steevens.

Mur. And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier!

[Exeunt BER. PAR. Officers, and Soldiers. Wid. The troop is past: Come, pilgrim, I will bring

you

Where you shall host: of enjoin'd penitents

There's four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound,
Already at my house.

Hel.
I humbly thank you:
Please it this matron, and this gentle maid,

To eat with us to-night? the charge, and thanking,
Shall be for me; and, to requite you further,
I will bestow some precepts on this virgin,
Worthy the note.

Both.

We'll take your offer kindly. [Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

Camp before Florence.

Enter BERTRAM, and the two French Lords.

1 Lord. Nay, good my lord, put him to 't; let him have his way.

2 Lord. If your lordship find him not a hilding,' hold me no more in your respect.

1 Lord. On my life, my lord, a bubble.

Ber. Do you think, I am so far deceived in him?

1 Lord. Believe it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge, without any malice, but to speak of him as my kinsman, he's a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your lordship's entertain

ment.

2 Lord. It were fit you knew him; lest, reposing too far in his virtue, which he hath not, he might, at some great and trusty business, in a main danger, fail you.

8 on this] Old copy-of this. Corrected in the second

folio. Malone.

9 — a hilding,] A hilding is a paltry, cowardly fellow. So, in King Henry V:

Steevens.

"To purge the field from such a hilding foe." See note on The Second Part of K. Henry IV, Act I, sc. i.

Reed.

Ber. I would, I knew in what particular action to try him.

2 Lord. None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which you hear him so confidently undertake to do.

1 Lord. I, with a troop of Florentines, will suddenly surprize him; such I will have, whom, I am sure, he knows not from the enemy: we will bind and hood-wink him so, that he shall suppose no other but that he is carried into the leaguer of the adversaries,1 when we bring him to our tents: Be but your lordship present at his examination; if he do not, for the promise of his life, and in the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to betray you, and deliver all the intelligence in his power against you, and that with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath, never trust my judgment in any thing.

2 Lord. O for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he says, he has a stratagem for 't: when your lordship sees the bottom of his success in 't, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of ore3 will be melted, if you give him not John Drum's entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed. Here he comes.

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he's carried into the leaguer of the adversaries,] i. e. camp. They will not vouchsafe in their speeches or writings to use our ancient termes belonging to matters of warre, but doo call a campe by the Dutch name of Legar; nor will not affoord to say, that such a towne or such a fort is besieged, but that it is belegard." Sir John Smythe's Discourses, &c. 1590, fo. 2. Douce. 2 of his] Old copy-of this. Corrected by Mr. Rowe.

Malone.

Malone.

3 of ore-] Old copy-of ours. Lump of ours has been the reading of all the editions. Ore, according to my emendation, bears a consonancy with the other terms accompanying, (viz. metal, lump, and melted) and helps the propriety of the poet's thought: for so one metaphor is kept up, and all the words are proper and suitable to it. Theobald.

4 if you give him not John Drum's entertainment,] But, what is the meaning of John Drum's entertainment? Lafeu several times afterwards calls Parolles, Tom Drum. But the difference of the Christian name will make none in the explanation. There is an old motley interlude, (printed in 1601) called Fack Drum's Entertainment; or, The Comedy of Pasquil and Catharine. In this, Jack Drum is a servant of intrigue, who is ever aiming at projects, and always foiled, and given the drop. And there is another old piece, (published in 1627) called, Apollo shroving, in which I find these expressions:

Enter PARolles.

1 Lord. O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the humour of his design; let him fetch off his drum in any hand.

Ber. How now, monsieur? this drum sticks sorely in your disposition.

2 Lord. A pox on 't, let it go; 'tis but a drum.

"Thuriger. Thou lozel, hath slug infected you? "Why do you give such kind entertainment to that cobweb? Scopas. It shall have Tom Drum's entertainment: a flap with a fox-tail."

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Both these pieces are, perhaps, too late in time, to come to the assistance of our author: so we must look a little higher. What is said here to Bertram is to this effect: My lord, as you have taken this fellow [Parolles] into so near a confidence, if, upon his being found a counterfeit, you don't cashier him from your favour, then your attachment is not to be removed. will now subjoin a quotation from Holinshed, (of whose books Shakspeare was a most diligent reader) which will pretty well ascertain Drum's history. This chronologer, in his description of Ireland, speaking of Patrick Sarsefield, (mayor of Dublin in the year 1551) and of his extravagant hospitality, subjoins, that no guest had ever a cold or forbidding look from any part of his family: so that his porter, or any other officer, durst not, for both his eares, give the simplest man that resorted to his house, Tom Drum his entertaynement, which is, to hale a man in by the heade, and thrust him out by both the shoulders. Theobald.

A contemporary writer has used this expression in the same manner that our author has done; so that there is no reason to suspect the word John in the text to be a misprint: "In faith good gentlemen, I think we shall be forced to give you right John Drum's entertainment, [i. e. to treat you very ill] for he that composed the book we should present, hath snatched it from us at the very instant of entrance." Introduction to Jack Drum's Entertainment, a comedy, 1601. Malone.

Again, in Taylor's Laugh and be fat, 78:

"And whither now is Monsr Odcome come

"Who on his owne backe-side receiv'd his pay?

"Not like the Entertainmt of Jacke Drum,

"Who was best welcome when he went away."

Again, in Manners and Customs of all Nations, by Ed. Aston, 1611, 4to. p. 280: "some others on the contrarie part, give them John Drum's intertainmt reviling and beating them away from their houses," &c. Reed.

5 in any hand.] The usual phrase is at any hand, but in any hand will do. It is used in Holland's Pliny, p. 456: "he must be a free citizen of Rome in any hand." Again, p. 508, 553, 546. Steevens.

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