Should be the father of fome ftratagem:8 BARD. Noble earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. BARD. As good as heart can wish :- So fought, fo follow'd, and fo fairly won, NORTH. How is this deriv'd? Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury? BARD. I fpake with one, my lord, that came from thence; A gentleman well bred, and of good name, NORTH. Here comes my fervant, Travers, whom On Tuesday last to liften after news. BARD. My lord, I over-rode him on the way; 8 fome ftratagem:] Some ftratagem means here fome great, important, or dreadful event. So, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. the father who had killed his fon fays: "O pity, God! this miferable age! "What ftratagems, how fell, how butcherly! "This mortal quarrel daily doth beget!" M. MASON. And he is furnish'd with no certainties, Enter TRAVERS. NORTH. NOW, Travers, what good tidings come with you ? TRA. My lord, fir John Umfrevile turn'd me back With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, forfpent with Speed,] To forfpend is to wafte, to exhauft. So, in Sir A. Gorges' tranflation of Lucan, B. VII: crabbed fires forfpent with age." STEEVENS. armed heels-] Thus the quarto, 1600. The folio, 1623, reads-able heels; the modern editors, without authority-agile heels. STEEVENS. I poor jade] Poor jade is ufed, not in contempt, but in compaffion. Poor jade means the horse wearied with his journey. Jade, however, feems anciently to have fignified what we now call a hackney; a beaft employed in drudgery, oppofed to a horse kept for fhow, or to be rid by its mafter. So, in a comedy called A Knack to know a Knave, 1594: "Befides, I'll give you the keeping of a dozen jades, "And now and then meat for you and your horse." This is faid by a farmer to a courtier. STEEVENS. Shakspeare, however, (as Mr. Steevens has obferved,) cer Up to the rowel-head;3 and, ftarting fo, Again. Said he, young Harry Percy's fpur was cold? Had met ill luck! BARD. lord your My lord, I'll tell you what ;fon have not the day, tainly does not use the word as a term of contempt; for King Richard the Second gives this appellation to his favourite horse, Roan Barbary, on which Henry the Fourth rode at his coronation : 3 "That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand." MALONE. rowel-head;] I think that I have obferved in old prints the rowel of those times to have been only a single spike. JOHNSON. 4 He feem'd in running to devour the way,] So, in the Book of Job, chap. xxxix: "He fwalloweth the ground in fierceness and rage." The fame expreffion occurs in Ben Jonfon's Sejanus: "But with that speed and heat of appetite, "With which they greedily devour the way So Ariel, to defcribe his alacrity in obeying Profpero's commands: "I drink the air before me." M. MASON. So, in one of the Roman poets (I forget which): ourfu confumere campum. BLACKSTONE. The line quoted by Sir William Blackftone is in NEMESIAN: latumque fuga confumere campum. MALONE. 5 Of Hotfpur, coldfpur ?] Hotspur feems to have been a very common term for a man of vehemence and precipitation. Stanyhurft, who translated four books of Virgil, in 1584, renders the following line : Nec victoris heri tetigit captiva cubile. "To couch not mounting of mayster vanquisher hoatSpur." STEEVENS. Upon mine honour, for a filken point NORTH. Why fhould the gentleman, that rode by Travers, Give then fuch inftances of lofs? BARD. Who, he? He was fome hilding fellow," that had ftol'n The horse he rode on; and, upon my life, Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news. Enter MORTON. NORTH. Yea, this man's brow, like to a titleleaf,8 Foretells the nature of a tragick volume: Say, Morton, didft thou come from Shrewsbury? NORTH. How doth my fon, and brother? 6 -filken point-] A point is a ftring tagged, or lace. JOHNSON. 7 fome hilding fellow,] For hilderling, i. e. base, degenerate. POPE. Hilderling, Degener; vox adhuc argo Devon. familiaris. Spelman. REED. 8 like to a title-leaf,] It may not be amifs to obferve, that, in the time of our poet, the title-page to an elegy, as well as every intermediate leaf, was totally black. I have feveral in my poffeffion, written by Chapman, the translator of Homer, and ornamented in this manner. STEEVENS. 9 —a witness'd ufurpation.] i. e. an atteftation of its ravage. STEEVENS. Thou trembleft; and the whiteness in thy cheek But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue, Your brother, thus; fo fought the noble Douglas; NORTH. Why, he is dead. See, what a ready tongue fufpicion hath! I -fo woe-begone,] This word was common enough amongst the old Scottish and English poets, as G. Douglas, Chaucer, Lord Buckhurft, Fairfax; and fignifies, far gone in WARBURTON. woe. So, in The Spanish Tragedy: "Awake, revenge, or we are wo-begone!" Again, in Arden of Feverfham, 1592: "So woe-begone, fo inly charg'd with woe." Again, in A Looking Glafs for London and England, 1598: "Fair Alvida, look not fo woe-begone." Dr. Bentley is faid to have thought this paffage corrupt, and therefore (with a greater degree of gravity than my readers will probably exprefs) propofed the following emendation : So dead fo dull in look, Ucalegon, Drew Priam's curtain &c. The name of Ucalegon is found in the third Book of the Iliad, and the second of the Æneid. STEEVENS. |