A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel, Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif; Grief, in ancient language, signifies bodily pain, as well as sorrow. So, in A Treatise of sundrie Diseases, &c. by T. T. 1591: "-he being at that time griped sore, and having grief in his lower bellie." Dolor ventris is, by our old writers, frequently translated "grief of the guts." I perceive no need of alteration. 6 nice-] i. e. trifling. So, in Julius Cæsar: Steevens. "That every nice offence should bear his comments." Steevens. 7 The ragged'st hour-] Mr. Theobald and the subsequent editors read-The rugged'st. But change is unnecessary, the expression in the text being used more than once by our author, In As you Like it, Amiens says, his voice is ragged; and rag is employed as a term of reproach in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and in Timon of Athens. See also the Epistle prefixed to Spenser's Shepherd's Calender, 1579: ". -as thinking them fittest for the rustical rudeness of shepherds, either for that their rough sound would make his rimes more ragged, and rustical," &c. The modern editors of Spenser might here substitute the word rugged with just as much propriety as it has been substituted in the present passage, or in that in As you Like it. See Vol. V, p. 47, n. 7. Again, in The Rape of Lucrece: "Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,— Again, in our poet's eighth Sonnet: "Then let not Winter's ragged hand deface "In thee thy summer." Again, in the play before us: "A ragged and fore-stall'd remission." Malone. 8 And darkness be the burier of the dead!] The conclusion of this Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord. Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your ho nour. Mor. The lives of all your loving complices Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er To stormy passion, must perforce decay. You cast the event of war, my noble lord, And summ'd the account of chance, before you said,— You were advis'd, his flesh was capable2 Of wounds, and scars; and that his forward spirit Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss,3 noble speech is extremely striking. There is no need to suppose it exactly philosophical; darkness, in poetry, may be absence of eyes, as well as privation of light. Yet we may remark, that by an ancient opinion it has been held, that if the human race, for whom the world was made, were extirpated, the whole system of sublunary nature would cease. Fohnson. 9 in the dole of blows -] The dole of blows is the distribu tion of blows. Dole originally signified the portion of alms (consisting either of meat or money) that was given away at the door of a nobleman. See Vol. VII, p. 207, n. 9. Steevens. 1 You knew, he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge, More likely to fall in, than to get o'er:] So, in King Henry IV, Part I: "As full of peril and adventurous spirit, Malone. 2 You were advis'd, his flesh was capable —] i. e. you knew. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: "How shall I doat on her with more advice —.” i. e. on further knowledge. Malone. Thus also, Thomas Twyne, the continuator of Phaer's transla tion of Virgil, 1584, for haud inscius, has advis'd: He spake and strait the sword advisde into his throat receives." Steevens. Knew that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas, Mor. 'Tis more than time: And, my most noble lord, Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts, Of fair king Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret stones : Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke; And more, and less, do flock to follow him. North. I knew of this before; but, to speak truth, This present grief had wip'd it from my mind. Go in with me; and counsel every man The aptest way for safety, and revenge: 3 We all, that are engaged to this loss,] We have a similar phraseology in the preceding play: "Hath a more worthy interest to the state, Malone. 4 The gentle &c.] These one-and-twenty lines were added since the first edition Johnson. 5 Tells them, he doth bestride a bleeding land,] That is, stands over his country to defend her as she lies bleeding on the ground. So Falstaff before says to the Prince, If thou see me down, Hal, and bestride me, so; it is an office of friendship. Johnson. Get posts, and letters, and make friends with speed; SCENE II. London. A Street. [Exeunt. Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his Sword and Buckler. Fal. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?6 Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water: but, for the party that owned it, he might have more diseases than he knew for. Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me:7 The brain of this foolish-compound clay, man, is not able to vent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee, like a sow, that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou 6 what says the doctor to my water?] The method of investigating diseases by the inspection of urine only, was once so much the fashion, that Linacre, the founder of the College of Physicians, formed a statute to restrain apothecaries from carrying the water of their patients to a doctor, and afterwards giving medicines, in consequence of the opinions they received concerning it. This statute was, soon after, followed by another, which forbade the doctors themselves to pronounce on any disorder from such an uncertain diognostic. It will scarcely be believed hereafter, that in the years 1775 and 1776, a German, who had been a servant in a public ridingschool, (from which he was discharged for insufficiency) revived this exploded practice of water-casting. After he had amply increased the bills of mortality, and been publicly hung up to the ridicule of those who had too much sense to consult him, as a monument of the folly of his patients, he retired with a princely fortune, and perhaps is now indulging a hearty laugh at the expense of English credulity. Steevens. 7 to gird at me:] i. e. to gibe. So, in Lyly's Mother Bombie, 1594: We maids are mad wenches; we gird them, and flout them," &c. Steevens. 8 mandrake,] Mandrake is a root supposed to have the shape of a man; it is now counterfeited with the root of briony. Johnson art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now: but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel; the juvenal,1 the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say, his face is a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal,2 for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him.- What said master Dumbleton 3 about the satin for my short cloak, and slops? 9 I was never manned with an agate till now: :] That is, I never before had an agate for my man. Johnson. The virtues of the agate were anciently supposed to protect the wearer from any misfortune. So, in Greene's Mamilia, 1593: the man that hath the stone agathes about him, is surely defenced against adversity." Steevens. I believe an agate is used merely to express any thing remarkably little, without any allusion to the figure cut upon it. So, in Much Ado about Nothing, Vol. IV, p. 234, n. 7: 1 "If low, an agate very vilely cut." Malone. the juvenal,] This term, which has already occurred in The Midsummer Night's Dream, and Love's Labour's Lost, is used in many places by Chaucer, and always signifies a young man. Steevens. 2 he may keep it still as a face-royal,] That is, a face exempt from the touch of vulgar hands. So, a stag-royal is not to be hunted, a mine-royal is not to be dug. Johnson. Old copies at a face-royal. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. Malone.. Perhaps this quibbling allusion is to the English real, rial, or royal. The poet seems to mean that a barber can no more earn sixpence by his face-royal, than by the face stamped on the coin oalled a royal; the one requiring as little shaving as the other. was. Steevens. If nothing be taken out of a royal, it will remain a royal as it This appears to me to be Falstaff's conceit. A royal was a piece of coin of the value of ten shillings. I cannot approve either of Johnson's explanation, or of that of Steevens. 3 M. Mason. Dumbleton] The folio has-Dombledon; the quarto→ Dommelton. This name seems to have been a made one, and designed to afford some apparent meaning. The author might |