Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith 7. 8 It is a conquest for a prince to boast of. K. HEN. Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st me sin In envy that my lord Northumberland Of my young Harry. O, that it could be prov'd, Of this young Percy's pride? the prisoners, 7 * So quarto: folio, of so blest a son. and MENTEITH.] This is a mistake of Holinshed in his English History, for in that of Scotland, p. 259, 262, and 419, he speaks of the Earl of Fife and Menteith as one and the same person. STEEVENS. 8 In faith, It is] These words are in the first quarto, 1598, by the inaccuracy of the transcriber, placed at the end of the preceding speech, but at a considerable distance from the last word of it. Mr. Pope and the subsequent editors read—“ 'Faith 'tis," &c. MALONE. 9 the prisoners,] Percy had an exclusive right to these prisoners, except the Earl of Fife. By the law of arms, every man who had taken any captive, whose redemption did not exceed ten thousand crowns, had him clearly for himself, either to acquit or ransom, at his pleasure. It seems from Camden's Britannia, that Pounouny castle in Scotland was built out of the ransom of this very Henry Percy, when taken prisoner at the Which he in this adventure hath surpriz'd, To his own use he keeps; and sends me word, WEST. This is his uncle's teaching, this is Worcester, Malevolent to you in all aspects'; Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up The crest of youth against your dignity. K. HEN. But I have sent for him to answer this; Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we WEST. I will, my liege. * Folio, and so. [Exeunt. battle of Otterbourne by an ancestor of the present Earl of Eglinton. TOLLlet. Percy could not refuse the Earl of Fife to the King; for being a prince of the blood royal, (son to the Duke of Albany, brother to King Robert III.) Henry might justly claim him by his acknowledged military prerogative. STEEVENS. Malevolent to you in all aspects;] An astrological allusion. Worcester is represented as a malignant star that influenced the conduct of Hotspur. HENLEY. 2 Which makes him PRUNE himself,] The metaphor is taken from a cock, who in his pride prunes himself; that is, picks off the loose feathers to smooth the rest. To prune and to plume, spoken of a bird, is the same. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson is certainly right in his choice of the reading. So, in The Cobler's Prophecy, 1994: "Sith now thou dost but prune thy wings, "And make thy feathers gay." Again, in Greene's Metamorphosis, 1613: "Pride makes the fowl to prune his feathers so." But I am not certain that the verb to prune is justly interpreted. In The Booke of Haukynge, &c. (commonly called The Booke of St. Albans,) is the following account of it: "The hauke proineth when she fetcheth oyle with her beake over the taile, and anointeth her feet and her fethers. She plumeth when she pulleth fethers of anie foule and casteth them from her." STEEVENS. SCENE II. The Same. Another Room in the Palace. Enter HENRY, Prince of Wales, and FALSTAFF. FAL. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad? P. HEN. Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou would'st truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flamecolour'd taffeta; I see no reason, why thou should'st be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. FAL. Indeed, you come near me, now, Hal: for we, that take purses, go by the moon and seven stars; and not by Phoebus,-he, that wandering knight so fair. And, I pray thee, sweet wag, 3 Than out of anger can be uttered.] That is, "More is to be said than anger will suffer me to say: more than can issue from a mind disturbed like mine." JOHNSON. 4 - to demand that truly which thou would'st truly know.] The Prince's objection to the question seems to be, that Falstaff had asked in the night what was the time of the day. JOHNSON. This cannot be well received as the objection of the Prince; for presently after, the Prince himself says: "Good morrow, Ned," and Poins replies: "Good morrow, sweet lad." truth may be, that when Shakspeare makes the Prince wish Poins a good morrow, he had forgot that the scene commenced at night. STEEVens. The S PHOEBUS,-HE, that wandering knight so fair,] Falstaff starts the idea of Phœbus, i. e. the sun; but deviates into an allusion to El Donzel del Febo, the "knight of the sun" in a Spanish romance translated (under the title of The Mirror of Knighthood, &c.) during the age of Shakspeare. This illustrious personage was most excellently faire," and a great wanderer, as those who travel after him throughout three thick volumes in 4to. 66 when thou art king,-as, God save thy grace, (majesty, I should say; for grace thou wilt have none,). P. HEN. What! none? FAL. No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter. P. HEN. Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly. FAL. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us, that are squires of the night's body, be called thieves of the day's beauty; let us be-Diana's foresters', gentlemen of the shade, will discover. Perhaps the words "that wandering knight so fair," are part of some forgotten ballad on the subject of this marvellous hero's adventures. In Peele's Old Wives Tale, Com. 1595, Eumenides, "the wandering knight," is a character. STEEVENS. 6 - let not us, that are squires of the night's body, be called thieves of the day's beauty;] This conveys no manner of idea to me. How could they be called thieves of the day's beauty? They robbed by moonshine; they could not steal the fair day-light. I have ventured to substitute booty: and this I take to be the meaning. Let us not be called thieves, the purloiners of that booty, which, to the proprietors, was the purchase of honest labour and industry by day. THEOBALD. It is true, as Mr. Theobald has observed, that they could not steal the fair day-light; but I believe our poet by the expression, "thieves of the day's beauty," meant only, "let not us who are body squires to the night," i. e. adorn the night, "be called a disgrace to the day." To take away the beauty of the day, may probably mean, to disgrace it. A "squire of the body" signified originally, the attendant on a knight; the person who bore his head-piece, spear, and shield. It became afterwards the cant term for a pimp; and is so used in the second part of Decker's Honest Whore, 1630. Again, in The Witty Fair One, 1633, for a procuress: "Here comes the squire of her mistress's body." Falstaff, however, puns on the word knight. See the Curialia of Samuel Pegge, Esq. Part I. p. 100. STEEVENS. There is also, I have no doubt, a pun on the word beauty, which in the western counties is pronounced nearly in the same manner as booty. See King Henry VI. Part III. : "So triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty." MALONE. minions of the moon : And let men say, we be men of good government; being governed as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we-steal. P. HEN. Thou say'st well; and it holds well, too: for the fortune of us, that are the moon's men, doth ebb and flow like the sea; being governed as the sea is, by the moon. As, for proof, now: A purse of gold most resolutely snatched on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing-lay by '; and spent with crying -bring in1: now, in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder; and, by and by, in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows. FAL. By the Lord, thou say'st true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench? 7 Diana's foresters, &c.] 66 Exile and slander are justly mee awarded, "My wife and heire lacke lands and lawful right; "And me their lord made dame Diana's knight." So lamenteth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, in The Mirror for Magistrates. HENDERSON. We learn from Hall, that certain persons who appeared as foresters in a pageant exhibited in the reign of King Henry VIII. were called Diana's knights. Malone. 8 - minions of the MOON:] Thus, as Dr. Farmer observes, Gamaliel Ratsey and his company "became servants to the moone, for the sunne was too hot for them." STEEVENS. 9 - got with swearing-LAY BY ;] i. e. swearing at the passengers they robbed," lay by your arms;" or rather, lay by was a phrase that then signified stand still, addressed to those who were preparing to rush forward. But the Oxford editor kindly accommodates these old thieves with a new cant phrase, taken from Bagshot-heath or Finchley-common, of lug out. WARBURTON. To lay by, is a phrase adopted from navigation, and signifies, by slackening sail to become stationary. It occurs again in King Henry VIII. : "Even the billows of the sea "Hung their heads, and then lay by." STEEVENS. 2. - And is not my hostess of the tavern, &c.] more wine. MALONE. We meet with |