And when my knightly ftomach is fuffic'd, And talking of the Alps, and Apennines, It draws towards fupper in conclufion fo. And fits the mounting fpirit, like myself: That 3 Means, at that part of the table where I, as a knight, fhall be placed. Your worship was the regular address to a knight or efquire, in our author's time, as your bonour was to a lord. MALONE. 4 The word picked may not refer to the beard, but to the fhoes, 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. Picked may, however, mean only fpruce in drefs. STEEVENS. The laft interpretation of picked, offered by Mr. Steevens, is undoubtedly the true one. So, in Wilfon's Arte of Rbetorique, 1553: "-fuch riot, dicyng, carding, pyking," &c. Piked or picked, (for the word is variou fly fpelt,) in the writings of our author and his contemporaries, generally means, fpruce, affected, effeminate. MALONE. My picked man of countries, is-my travelled fop HOLT WHITE. 5 An ABC-book, or, as they spoke and wrote it, an abfey-book, is a catechifm. JOHNSON. 6 Sir W. Cornwallis's 28th Effay thus ridicules the extravagance of compliment 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 diffimulation! O, bow 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! Net fo, fir, it is too unworthy an inclofure to contain fuch preciousness, &c. &c. This, and a cup of drink, makes the time as fit for a departure as can be.” TOLLET. 7 He is accounted but a mean man in the prefent age, who does not thew by his dress, his deportment, and his talk, that he has travelled, and made obfervations in foreign countries. MALONE. That doth not fmack of observation; For it fhall ftrew the footsteps of my rifing.- Enter Lady FAULCONBRIDGE and James Gurney.3 Lady F. Where is that flave, thy brother? where is he? Lady F. Sir Robert's fon! Ay, thou unreverend boy, Baft. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a while? Baft. The conftruction will be mended, if inftead of which though, we read this though. JOHNSON. 9 Milton, in his tragedy, introduces Dalilah with such an interrogatory exclamation. JOHNSON. 2 He means, that a woman who travelled about like a post, was likely to born her husband. JOHNSON. -3 Our author found his name in perufing the hiftory of King John; who not long before his victory at Mirabeau over the French, headed by young Arthur, feized the lands and caftle of Hugh Gorney, near Butevant in Normandy. MALONE. 4 Colbrand was a Danish giant, whom Guy of Warwick discomfited in the prefence of King Athelitan. The combat is very pompously defcrib ed by Drayton in his Polyclbion. JOHNSON. 5 Good leave means a ready affent. STEEVENS, Baft. Philip-fparrow! 6-James, There's toys abroad; anon I'll tell thee more. 7 [Exit Gurney. Madam, I was not old fir Robert's fon; Lady F. Haft thou confpired with thy brother too, What 6 Dr. Grey obferves, that Skelton has a poem to the memory of Philip Sparrow; and Mr. Pope in a short note remarks that a sparrow is called Philip. JOHNSON. `The Baftard means: Philip / Do you take me for a sparrow? The fparrow is called Philip from its note. cry "Phip phip the Sparrowes as they fly." From the found of the fparrow's chirping, Lefbia's Sparrow, has formed a verb: HAWKINS Lyly's Mother Bombie. Catullus in his Elegy on Sed circumfiliens modo huc, modo illue, "Ad folam dominam usque pipilabat.” HOLT WHITE. 7 i. e. rumours, idle reports. STEEVENS, Mr. M. Mafon regards the adverb to, as an error of the prefs: But I rather think, to confefs, means-to come to confeffion. "But, to come to a fair confeffion now, (fays the Baftard,) could he have been the inftrument of my production?" STEEVENS. 9 Thus muft this paffage be pointed; and to come at the humour of it, I must clear up an old circumstance of stage-history. Faulconbridge's words here carry a concealed piece of fatire on a stupid drama of that age, printed in 1599, and called Soliman and Perfeda. In this piece there is a character of a bragging cowardly knight, called Bafilifco. His pretenfion to valour is fo blown, and feen through, that Pifton, a buffoon-fervant in the play, jumps upon his back, and will not difengage him, till he makes Bafilifco fwear upon his dudgeon dagger to the contents, and in the terms he dictates to him; as, for inftance: "Baf. Q, I fwear, I fwear. Pift. By the contents of this blade,— « Bas my land; What! I am dubb'd; I have it on my shoulder. father; Lady F. King Richard Cœur-de-lion was thy father; To make room for him in my husband's bed :- Which was fo ftrongly urg'd paft my defence. "Baf. By the contents of this blade, Pift. 1, the aforefaid Bafilifco, "Baf, I, the aforefaid Bafilifco,-knight, good fellow, knight. "Pift. Knave, good fellow, knave, knave." Nor So that it is clear, our poet is fneering at this play; and makes Philip, when his mother calls him knave, throw off that reproach by humourously laying claim to his new dignity of knighthood; as Bafilifco arrogantly infifts on his title of knight in the paffage above quoted. The old play is an execrable bad one; and, I fuppofe, was fufficiently exploded in the reprefentation: which might make this circum tance fo well known, as to become the butt for a stage sarcasm. THEOBALD. 2 There are fins, that whatever be determined of them above, are not much cenfured on earth. JoHNSON. 3 Shakspeare here alludes to the old metrical romance of Richard Coeur-de-lion, wherein this once celebrated monarch is related to have acquired his diftinguishing appellation, by having plucked out a lion's heart to whofe fury he was expofed by the Duke of Auftria, for having flain his fon with a blow of his fift. From this ancient romance the story has crept into fome of our old chronicles: but the original paffage may be feen at large in the introduction to the third volume of Reliques of ane cient English Poetry. PERCY. Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand. [Exeunt, France. Before the walls of Angiers. Enter, on one fide, the Archduke of Auftria, and Forces; on the other, PHILIP, King of France, and Forces, Lewis, ConSTANCE, ARTHUR, and Attendants. Lew. Before Angiers well met, brave Auftria.- And 4 So, Rastal, in his Chronicle; " It is fayd that a lyon was put to kynge Richard, beynge in prifon, to have devoured him, and when the lyon was gapynge he put his arme in his mouth, and pulled the lyon by the harte fo hard that he flewe the lyon, and therefore fome fay he is called Richarde Cure de Lyon; but fome fay he is called Cure de Lyon, because of his boldness and hardy ftomake." GREY, I have an old black-lettered biftory of lord Faulconbridge, whence Shakfpeare might pick up this circumftance. FARMER. In Heywood's Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601, there is a long defcription of this fabulous atchievement. The fame ftory is told by Knighton, inter Decem Scriptores, and by Fabian, who calls it a fable. It probably took its rife from Hugh de Nevill, one of Richard's followers, having killed a lion, when they were in the Holy Land: a circumftance recorded by Matthew Paris. MALONE. |