And his achievements of no less account:

Fain would mine eyes be witness with mine ears, To give their censure1 of these rare reports.

Enter Messenger and TALBOT.

Mess. Madam,

According as your ladyship desir'd,

By message crav'd, so is Lord Talbot come.
Count. And he is welcome.

man?

What! is this the

Is this the scourge of France?

Mess. Madam, it is.

Count.

Is this the Talbot, so much fear'd abroad,

That with his name the mothers still their babes??

I see report is fabulous and false:

I thought I should have seen some Hercules,

A second Hector, for his grim aspéct,

And large proportion of his strong-knit limbs.
Alas! this is a child, a silly dwarf:

It cannot be, this weak and writhled shrimp
Should strike such terror to his enemies.
Tal. Madam, I have been bold to trouble you:
But, since your ladyship is not at leisure,
I'll sort some other time to visit you.

Count. What means he now?-Go ask him,
Iwhither he goes.

Mess. Stay, my Lord Talbot; for my lady craves To know the cause of your abrupt departure. Tal. Marry, for that she's in a wrong belief, I go to certify her, Talbot's here.

1 i. e. judgment, opinion. So in King Richard III.:And give your censures in this weighty business." * Dryden has transplanted this idea into his Don Sebastian: 'Nor shall Sebastian's formidable name

'Be longer used, to lull the crying babe.'

3 Writhled for wrinkled. Thus Spenser:

'Her writhled skin as rough as maple rind.'

And Marston, in his fourth Satire :

'Cold writhled eld, his lives web almost spent.

Re-enter Porter, with Keys.

Count. If thou be he, then art thou prisoner.
Tal. Prisoner! to whom?

Count.

To me, blood-thirsty lord; And for that cause I train'd thee to my house. Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me, For in my gallery thy picture hangs;

But now the substance shall endure the like;
And I will chain these legs and arms of thine,
That hast by tyranny, these many years,
Wasted our country, slain our citizens,
And sent our sons and husbands captivate1.
Tal. Ha, ha, ha!

Count. Laughest thou, wretch? thy mirth shall

turn to moan.

Tal. I laugh to see your ladyship so fond5,
To think that you have aught but Talbot's shadow,
Whereon to practise your severity..

Count. Why, art not thou the man?
Talys

Count. Then have I substance too.

I am indeed.

Tal. No, no, I am but shadow of myself: You are deceiv'd, my substance is not here; For what you see, is but the smallest part And least proportion of humanity:

I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here,
It is of such a spacious lofty pitch,

Your roof were not sufficient to contain it.
Count. This is a riddling merchant for the nonce";

Thus in Solyman and Persida :

'If not destroy'd and bound and captivate,
If captivate, then forc'd from holy faith.'

i. e. foolish, silly, weak.

The term mer

"This is a riddling merchant for the nonce.' chant, which was, and even now is, frequently applied to the lowest kind of dealers, seems anciently to have been used on these familiar occasions in contradistinction to gentleman; signifying that the person showed by his behaviour he was a low fellow. Thus in Romeo and Juliet, the nurse says 'I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?' And in Churchyard's Chance, 1580:

'What saucie merchant speaketh now, said Venus in het rage.'

He will be here, and yet he is not here:
How can these contrarieties agree?

Tal. That will I show you presently.

He winds a Horn. Drums heard; then a Peal of Ordnance. The Gates being forced, enter

Soldiers.

How say you, madam? are you now persuaded,
That Talbot is but shadow of himself?

These are his substance, sinews, arms, and strength,
With which he yoketh your rebellious necks;
Razeth your cities, and subverts your towns,
And in a moment makes them desolate.

Count. Victorious Talbot! pardon my abuse:
I find, thou art no less than fame hath bruited',
And more than may be gather'd by thy shape.
Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath;
For I am sorry, that with reverence

I did not entertain thee as thou art.

Tal. Be not dismay'd, fair lady; nor misconstrue
The mind of Talbot, as you did mistake
The outward composition of his body.

What you have done, hath not offended me:
No other satisfaction do I crave,

But only (with
your patience) that we may
Taste of your wine, and see what cates you have;
For soldiers' stomachs always serve them well.

Count. With all my heart: and think me honoured To feast so great a warrior in my house. [Exeunt.

The term chap, an abridgment of chapman, is still in use in valgar speech, in speaking of any one with freedom or disrespect. For the nonce is for the purpose.

7 Bruited is reported, loudly announced. So in Macbeth →→→

--one of great note Seems bruited."

The fame or bruite that one hath among the common people is lost or buried when he dieth.

Cooper.

SCENE IV. London. The Temple Garden.

Enter the Earls of SOMERSET, SUFFOLK, and WarWICK; RICHARD PLANTAGENET, VERNON, and another Lawyer1.

Plan. Great lords, and gentlemen, what means this silence?

Dare no man answer in a case of truth?

Suff. Within the Temple hall we were too loud : The garden here is more convenient.

Plan. Then say at once, if I maintain'd the truth; Or, else, was wrangling Somerset in the error?? Suff. 'Faith, I have been a truant in the law; And never yet could frame my will to it; And, therefore, frame the law unto my will. Som. Judge you, my lord of Warwick, then be

tween us.

War. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch,

Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,
Between two blades, which bears the better temper,
Between two horses, which doth bear him best3,
Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye,
I have, perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment:
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.

Plan. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:
The truth appears so naked on my side,
That any purblind eye may find it out.

Som. And on my side it is so well apparell'd, So clear, so shining, and so evident,

That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye.

1 We should read a lawyer. This lawyer was probably Roger Nevyle, who was afterwards hanged. See W. Wyrcester, p. 478. 2 Johnson observes that' 'there is apparently a want of opposition between the two questions here, but there is no reason to suspect that the text is corrupt.

3 i. e. regulate his motions most adroitly. We still say that a horse carries himself well. In Romeo and Juliet we have:

'He bears him like a portly gentleman.'

Plan. Since you are tongue-ty'd, and so loath to speak,

In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts:
Let him, that is a true-born gentleman,
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.
Som. Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.
War. I love no colours5; and, without all colour
Of base insinuating flattery,

I pluck this white rose, with Plantagenet.

Suf. I pluck this red rose, with young Somerset; And say withal, I think he held the right. Ver. Stay, lords and gentlemen: and pluck no

more,

Till you conclude that he, upon whose side
The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree,
Shall yield the other in the right opinion.

Som. Good master Vernon, it is well objected"; If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.

Plan. And I.

Ver. Then, for the truth and plainness of the case, I pluck this pale, and maiden blossom here, Giving my verdict on the white rose side.

Som. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off; Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red, And fall on my side so against your will.

4 Dumb significants, which Malone would have changed to significance, is nothing more than signs or tokens. Armado calls the letter he sends to Jaquenetta 'this significant. Love's Labour's Lost, Act iii. Sc. 1.

5 Colours is here used ambiguously for tints and deceits. Thus in Love's Labour's Lost :-'I do fear colourable colours."

6 Well objected is properly proposed, properly thrown in our way. Thus in Goulart's Admirable Histories, 4to, 1607-'Because Sathan transfigures himself into an angell of light, I abjected many and sundry questions to him. Again, in Chapman's version of the twenty-first book of the Odyssey:

'Excites Penelope t object the prize

(The bow and bright steeles) to the woer's strength.'