Who then persuaded you to stay at home?

There were two honours lost; yours, and your son's. For yours, may heavenly glory brighten it!

For his, it stuck upon him, as the sun

In the grey vault of heaven; and, by his light,
Did all the chivalry of England move

To do brave acts; he was, indeed, the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
He had no legs, that practis'd not his gait:
And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant;8

For those that could speak low, and tardily,
Would turn their own perfection to abuse,
To seem like him: So that, in speech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,

In military rules, humours of blood,

He was the mark and glass, copy and book,

That fashion'd others." And him,-O wondrous him!

In the grey vault of heaven:] So, in one of our author's poems to his mistress:

"And truly, not the morning sun of heaven

"Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east," &c.

Steevens.

He had no legs, &c.] The twenty-two following lines are of those added by Shakspeare after his first edition. Pope. They were first printed in the folio, 1623. Malone.

8 And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, Became the accents of the valiant;] Speaking thick is, speaking fast, crowding one word on another. So, in Cymbeline:

say, and speak thick,

وو

"Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing "Became the accents of the valiant" is, "came to be affected by them," a sense which (as Mr. M. Mason observes) is confirmed by the lines immediately succeeding:

"For those that could speak low, and tardily,
"Would turn their own perfection to abuse,

"To seem like him:

The opposition designed by the adverb tardily, also serves to support my explanation of the epithet thick. Steevens.

9 He was the mark and glass, copy and book,

That fashion'd others.] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece,

1594:

"For princes are the glass, the school, the book,
"Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look."

Malone

O miracle of men!-him did you leave,
(Second to none, unseconded by you,)
To look upon the hideous god of war
In disadvantage; to abide a field,

Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name
Did seem defensible:1-so you left him:
Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong,
To hold your honour more precise and nice
With others, than with him; let them alone;
The marshal, and the archbishop, are strong:
Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.

North.

Beshrew your heart, Fair daughter! you do draw my spirits from me, With new lamenting ancient oversights.

But I must go, and meet with danger there;

Or it will seek me in another place,

And find me worse provided.

O, fly to Scotland,

Lady N.
Till that the nobles, and the armed commons,

Have of their puissance made a little taste.

Lady P. If they get ground and vantage of the king, Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,

To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
First let them try themselves: So did your son;
He was so suffer'd; so came I a widow;
And never shall have length of life enough,
To rain upon remembrance2 with mine eyes,
That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
For recordation to my noble husband.

1 Did seem defensible:] Defensible does not in this place mean capable of defence, but bearing strength, furnishing the means of defence;-the passive for the active participle. Malone.

2 To rain upon remembrance —] Alluding to the plant rosemary, so called, and used in funerals.

Thus, in The Winter's Tale:

"For you there 's rosemary and rue, these keep
"Seeming and savour all the winter long:

"Grace and remembrance be to you both," &c.

For as rue was called herb of grace, from its being used in exorcisms; so rosemary was called remembrance, from its being a cephalic. Warburton.

North. Come, come, go in with me: 'tis with my

mind,

As with the tide swell'd up unto its height,
That makes a still-stand, running neither way.
Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,
But many thousand reasons hold me back;-
I will resolve for Scotland; there am I,
Till time and vantage crave my company.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt

London. A Room in the Boar's Head Tavern, in

Eastcheap.

Enter Two Drawers.

1 Draw. What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-Johns? thou know'st, sir John cannot endure an apple-John. 3

2 Draw. Mass, thou sayest true: The prince once set a dish of apple-Johns before him, and told him, there were five more sir Johns: and, putting off his hat, said, I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights. It angered him to the heart; but he hath forgot that.

1 Draw. Why then, cover, and set them down: And see if thou canst find out Sneak's noise; mistress Tear

3

ley, 1639:

66

4

an apple-John.] So, in The Ball, by Chapman and Shir

thy man, Apple-John, that looks

"As he had been a sennight in the straw,

"A ripening for the market."

This apple will keep two years, but becomes very wrinkled and shrivelled. It is called by the French,-Deux-ans. Thus, Cogan, in his Haven of Health, 1595: "The best apples that we have in England are pepins, deusants, costards, darlings, and such other."` Again, among instructions given in the year 1580 to some of our navigators, "for banketting on shipboard persons of credite," we meet with "the apple John that dureth two yeares, to make shew of our fruits." See Hackluyt, Vol. I, p. 441. Steevens.

Sneak's noise;] Sneak was a street minstrel, and therefore the drawer goes out to listen if he can hear him in the neighbourhood. Johnson.

A noise of musicians anciently signified a concert or company of them. In the old play of Henry V, (not that of Shakspeare)

sheet would fain hear some musick. Despatch:5—The room where they supped, is too hot; they'll come in straight.

2 Draw. Sirrah, here will be the prince, and master Poins anon: and they will put on two of our jerkins, and aprons; and sir John must not know of it: Bardolph hath brought word.

1 Draw. By the mass, here will be old utis: It will be an excellent stratagem.

there is this passage: "there came the young prince, and two or three more of his companions, and called for wine good store, and then they sent for a noyse of musitians," &c.

Falstaff addresses them as a company in another scene of this play. So again, in Westward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: "All the noise that went with him, poor fellows, have had their fiddle-cases pulled over their ears."

Again, in The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, a comedy, printed 1598, the Count says: "O that we had a noise of musicians, to play to this antick as we go."

Heywood, in his Iron Age, 1632, has taken two expressions from these plays of Henry IV, and put them into the mouth of Thersites addressing himself to Achilles:

"Where's this great sword and buckler man of Greece?
"We shall have him in one of Sneak's noise,

"And come peaking into the tents of the Greeks,
"With,―will you have any musick, gentlemen?”

Among Ben Jonson's Leges convivales is—

"Fidicen, nisi accersitus, non venito." Steevens.

5 Despatch: &c.] This period is from the first edition. Pope. These words, which are not in the folio, are in the quarto given to the second drawer. Mr. Pope rightly attributed them to the first. Malone.

6 here will be old utis:] Utis, an old word yet in use in some counties, signifying a merry festival, from the French huit, octo, ab. A. S. Cahta, Octave festi alicujus.-Skinner. Pope.

Skinner's explanation of utis (or utas) may be confirmed by the following passage from T. M.'s Life of Sir Thomas More: "-tomorrow is St. Thomas of Canterbury's eeve, and the utas of St. Peter-." The eve of Thomas à Becket, according to the new style, happens on the 6th of July, and St. Peter's day on the 29th of June.

Again, in A Contention between Liberality and Prodigality, a comedy, 1602:

"Then if you please, with some roysting harmony,

"Let us begin the utas of our iollitie." Henley. Old, in this place, does not mean ancient, but was formerly a common augmentative in colloquial language. Old Utis signifies festivity in a great degree.

2 Draw. I'll see, if I can find out Sneak.

Enter Hostess and Doll Tear sheet.

[Exit.

Host. I' faith, sweet heart, methinks now you are in an excellent good temperality: your pulsidge beats" as extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose: But, i' faith, you have drunk too much canaries; and that 's a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere one can say, What's this? How do you now?

Dol. Better than I was. Hem.

Host. Why, that 's well said; a good heart 's worth gold. Look, here comes sir John.

Enter FALSTAFF, singing.

Fal. When Arthur first in court-Empty the jordan. -And was a worthy king: [exit Draw.] How now, mistress Doll?

So, in Lingua, 1607:

66 there 's old moving among them."

Again, in Decker's comedy, called, If this be not a good Play the Devil is in it, 1612:

"We shall have old breaking of necks then."

Again, in Soliman and Perseda, 1599:

"I shall have old laughing."

Again, in Arden of Feversham, 1592:

"Here will be old filching, when the press comes out of Paul's." Steevens.

See Vol. VI, p. 83, n. 5. Malone.

7 • your pulsidge beats &c.] One would almost regard this speech as a burlesque on the following passage in the interlude, called The Repentance of Mary Magdalene, 1567. Infidelity says to Mary:

"Let me fele your poulses, mistresse Mary, be you sicke? "By my troth in as good tempre as any woman can be: "Your vaines are as full of blood, lusty and quicke, "In better taking truly I did you never see." Steevens. a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood -1 The same phraseology is seriously used by Arthur Hall, in his translation of the first Iliad, 4°. 1581:

8

66

good Chrise with wine so red

"The aulter throughly doth perfume:—”

Steevens.

9 When Arthur first in court —] The entire ballad is published in the first volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of ancient English Poetry.

The words in the ballad are

"When Arthur first in court began,
“And was approved king." Malone.

Steevens.