Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

Eli. Nay, I would have you go before me thither. Phil. Our country manners give our betters way. K. John. What is thy name?

Phil. Philip, my liege; fo is my name begun;
Philip, good old fir Robert's wife's eldest fon.
K. John. From henceforth bear his name whofe
form thou bear'ft:

Kneel thou down Philip, but arife more great;
Arife fir Richard, and Plantagenet.

Phil. Brother by the mother's fide, give me your hand;

My father gave me honour, yours gave land :—
Now bleffed be the hour, by night or day,
When I was got, fir Robert was away.

Eli. The very fpirit of Plantagenet !

I am thy grandame, Richard; call me fo.

6

Phil. Madam, by chance, but not by truth: What though?

Something about, a little from the right,

7 In at the window, or elfe o'er the hatch:

Who

5 Madam, by chance, but not by truth: what though?] I am your grandfon, madam, by chance, but not by honefly-what then? JOHNSON.

• Something about, a little from the right, &c.] This fpeech, compofed of allufive and proverbial fentences, is obfcure. I am, fays the fpritely knight, your grandfon, a little irregularly, but every man cannot get what he wishes the legal way. He that dares not go about his defigns by day, muft make his motions in the night; he, to whom the door is fhut, muft climb the window, or leap the hatch. This, however, fhall not deprefs me; for the world never enquires how any man got what he is known to poffefs, but allows that to have is to have however it was caught, and that he who wins, hot well, whatever was his fkill, whether the arrow fell near the mark, or far off it. JOHNSON.

7

In at the window, &c.] Thefe expreífions mean, to be born out of wedlock. So, in The Family of Love, 1608:

"Woe worth the time that ever I gave fuck to a child that came in at the window!"

So, in Northward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607:

66

-kindred that comes in o'er the batch, and failing to Westminster, &c."

Such

Who dares not ftir by day, muft walk by night;

And have is have, however men do catch : Near or far off, well won is ftill well fhot; And I am I, howe'er I was begot.

K. John. Go, Faulconbridge; now haft thou thy defire,

A landless knight makes thee a landed 'fquire.-Come, madam, and come, Richard; we muft fpeed For France, for France; for it is more than need. Phil. Brother, adieu; Good fortune come to thee, For thou waft got i' the way of honesty!

[Exeunt all but Philip. 8 A foot of honour better than I was;

But many a many foot of land the worfe.
Well, now can I make any Joan a lady :-
Good den, fir Richard,-God-a-mercy, fellow;
And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter:
For new-made honour doth forget men's names;
'Tis too refpective, and too fociable,

For

"I

Such another phrafe occurs in Any Thing for a quiet Life: - then you keep children in the name of your own, which the fufpects came not in at the right door." Again, in The Witches. of Lancashire, by Heywood and Broome, 1634: "It appears then by your difcourfe that you came in at the window." would not have you think I fcorn my grannam's cat to leap over the hatch." Again : 66 to escape the dogs hath leap'd in at a window." 66 'Tis thought you came into the world that way. Because you are a baftard." STEEVENS.

A foot of honour] A ftep, un pas. JOHNSON. 9fir Richard,] Thus the old copy, and rightly. In aft IV. Salisbury calls him fir Richard, and the king has juft knighted him by that name. The modern editors arbitrarily read, fir Robert. Faulconbridge is now entertaining himself with ideas of greatnefs, fuggefted by his recent knighthood.Good den, fir Richard, he fuppofes to be the falutation of a vaffal, God-amercy, fellow, his own fupercilious reply to it. STEEVENS.

'Tis too refpective, &c.] i. e. refpectful. So, in the old comedy called Michaelmas Term, 1607:

"Seem refpective, to make his pride fwell like a toad with dew." So, in The Merchant of Venice, a&t V:

• You

For your converfing.

[ocr errors]

Now your traveller,

He and his tooth-pick at my worship's mefs;

"You should have been refpective, &c." Again, in The Cafe is alter'd, by Ben Jonfon, 1659:

“I pray you, fir; you are too refpective, in good faith "

STEEVENS.

For your converfing. - ] The copy reads - converfion, which may be right; meaning his late change of condition from a private gentleman to a knight. STEEVENS.

3

-Now your traveller,] It is faid in All's Well that ends Well, that "a traveller is a good thing after dinner." In that age of newly excited curiofity, one of the entertainments at great tables feems to have been the difcourfe of a traveller.

JOHNSON.

↑ He and his tooth-pick-] It has been already remarked, that to pick the tooth, and wear a piqued beard, were, in that time, marks of a man affecting foreign fashions. JOHNSON.

Among Gascoigne's poems I find one entitled, Councell given to Maifter Bartholomew Withipoll a little before his latter journey to Grane, 1572. The following lines may perhaps be acceptable to the reader who is curious enough to enquire about the fashionable follies imported in that age:

"Now, fir, if I thall fee your maftership

"Come home disguis'd, and clad in quaint array ; "As with a pike-tooth byting on your lippe; "Your brave muftachio's turn'd the Turkie way; "A coptankt hat made on a Flemish blocke; "A night-gowne cloake down trayling to your toes; A flender flop clofe couched to your dock; "A curtolde flipper, and a short filk hofe, &c." So, Fletcher:

"You that truft in travel;

"You that enhance the daily price of toothpicks." Again, in Shirley's Grateful Servant, 1630:

"I will continue my ftate-pofture, ufe my toothpick with dif cretion, &c."

Again, in The Tragedy of Hoffman, 1631: "this matter will trouble us more than all your poem on picktooths."

So, again, in Cinthia's Revels by Ben Jonfon, 1601: "A traveller, one fo made out of the mixture and threds and forms that himfelt is truly deformed. He walks most commonly with a clove or picktooth in his mouth." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wild Gorfe Chafe:

"Their very pick-teeth peak more man than we do." Again, in The Honeft Man's Fortune by the fame authors: "You have travell'd like a fidler, to make faces; and brought home nothing but a cafe of toothpicks." STEEVENS.

And

And when my knightly ftomach is fuffic'd,
Why then I fuck my teeth, and catechife
"My piked man of countries: My dear fir,
(Thus, leaning on my elbow, I begin)

I fhall befeech you-That is queftion now;

6

And then comes anfwer like an ABC-book :-
O fir, fays anfwer, at your best command;
At your employment; at your fervice, fir:

My piked man of countries:

] The word piked may not

refer to the beard, but to the hoes, which were once worn of an immoderate length. To this fashion our author has alluded in King Lear, where the reader will find a more ample explanation. Piked may, however, mean only fpruce in drefs.

Chaucer fays in one of his prologues :-" Fresh and new her geare ypiked was." And in the Merchaunts Tale :-" He kempeth him, and proineth him, and piketh." In Hyrd's tranflation of Vives's Inftruction of a Chriftian Woman, printed in 1591, we meet with "picked and apparelled goodly-goodly and pickedly arrayed.-Licurgus, when he would have women of his country to be regarded by their virtue and not their ornaments, banished out of the country by the law, all painting, and commanded out of the town all crafty men of picking and apparelling."

Again, in a comedy called All Fools, by Chapman, 1602: ""Tis fuch a picked fellow, not a haire

"About his whole bulk, but it stands in print."

Again, in Love's Labour Loft: "He is too piqued, too fpruce, &c." Again, in Greene's Defence of Coney-catching, 1592, in the defcription of a pretended traveller: "There be in England, efpecially about London, certain quaint, pickt, and neat companions, attired &c. alamode de France &c. Again: "Straight after he hath bitten his peak by the end &c." If a comma be placed after the word man:

6

"I catechize

"My picked man, of countries." the paffage will feem to mean, "I catechife my selected man, about the countries through which he travelled." STEEVENS. -like an ABC-book : -] An ABC-book, or, as they fpoke and wrote it, an abfy-book, is a catechifm. JOHNSON. So, in the ancient Interlude of Youth, bl. 1. no date : "In the A. B. C. of bokes the least,

"Yt is written, deus charitas eft."

Again, in Tho. Nath's dedication to Greene's Arcadia, 1616; make a patrimony of In fpeech, and more than a younger

66

brother's inheritance of their Abcie." STEEVENS.

No

No, fir, fays queftion; I, fweet fir, at yours:
And fo, e'er anfwer knows what question would,
(Saving in dialogue of compliment;

And talking of the Alps, and Apennines,
The Pyrenean, and the river Po)

It draws toward fupper in conclufion fo.

66

7 And fo, e'er anfwer knows what question would,
(Saving in dialogue of compliment ;]

In this fine fpeech, Faulconbridge would fhew the advantages and prerogatives of men of worship. He obferves, particularly, that be has the traveller at command (people at that time, when a new world was discovering, in the highest eftimation). At the first intimation of his defire to hear strange stories, the traveller com plies, and will fcarce give him leave to make his question, but 'e'er anfwer knows what question would”. What then, why, according to the prefent reading, it grows towards fupper-time: and is not this worshipful fociety ?" To spend all the time between dinner and fupper before either of them knows what the other would be at. Read ferving instead of saving, and all this nonfenfe is avoided; and the account ftands thus: "E'er answer knows what question would be at, my traveller ferves in his dialogue of compliment, which is his standing dish at all tables; then he comes to talk of the Alps and Apennines, &c. and by the time this difcourfe concludes, it draws towards fupper." All this is fenfible and humorous; and the phrafe of ferving in is a very pleasant one to denote that this was his worship's fecond courfe. What follows, fhews the romantic turn of the voyagers of that time; how greedily their relations were fwallowed, which he calls "sweet poifon for the age's tooth;" and how acceptable it made men at court- "For it shall strew the footsteps of my rif ing." And yet the Oxford editor fays, by this fiveet poison is meant Aattery. WARBURTON.

This paffage is obfcure; but fuch an irregularity and perplexity runs through the whole fpeech, that I think this emendation not neceffary. JOHNSON.

Sir W. Cornwallis's 28th effay thus ridicules the extravagance of compliments in our poet's days, 1601: "We spend even at his (i. e. a friend's or a ftranger's) entrance, a whole volume of words. What a deal of fynamon and ginger is facrificed to dif fimulation! Oh, how blessed do I take mine eyes for presenting me with this fight! O Signior, the ftar that governs my life in contentment, give me leave to interre myself in your arms! Not fo, fir, it is too unworthy an inclofure to contain fuch precioufnefs, &c. &c. This, and a cup of drink, makes the time as fit for a departure as can be."

[blocks in formation]

--

TOLLET.

But

« AnteriorContinuar »