ROB. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd, Your brother did employ my father much;

BAST. Well, fir, by this you cannot get my land;
Your tale must be, how he employ'd my mother.
ROB. And once defpatch'd him in an embaffy
To Germany, there, with the emperor,
To treat of high affairs touching that time:
The advantage of his abfence took the king,
And in the mean time fojourn'd at my father's;
Where how he did prevail, I fhame to speak:
But truth is truth; large lengths of feas and fhores
Between my father and my mother lay,

(As I have heard my father speak himself,)
When this fame lufty gentleman was got.
Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd
His lands to me; and took it, on his death,'
That this, my mother's fon, was none of his;
And, if he were, he came into the world
Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.
Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,
My father's land, as was my father's will.

K. JOHN. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate; Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him: And, if she did play false, the fault was hers; Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother, Who, as you say, took pains to get this fon,

they being first, as far as appears, coined in the reign of King Edward III. THEOBALD.

The fame contemptuous allufion occurs in The Dow fall of Robert Earl of Huntington, 1601:

"You half-fac'd groat, you thick-cheek'd chitty-face." Again, in Hiftriomaftix, 1610:

"Whilft I behold yon half-fac'd minion." STEEVENS, s—took it, on his death,] i. e. entertained it as his fixed opinion, when he was dying. So, in Hamlet:

this, I take it,

"Is the main motive of our preparations." STEEVENS.

Had of your father claim'd this fon for his?
In footh, good friend, your father might have kept
This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;
In footh, he might: then, if he were my brother's,
My brother might not claim him; nor your father,
Being none of his, refufe him: This concludes,'-
My mother's fon did get your father's heir;
Your father's heir must have your father's land.
ROB. Shall then my father's will be of no force,
To difpoffefs that child which is not his?

BAST. Of no more force to difpoffefs me, fir, Than was his will to get me, as I think.

ELI. Whether hadft thou rather,-be a Faulconbridge,

And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land;
Or the reputed fon of Coeur-de-lion,
Lord of thy prefence, and no land befide?"

BAST. Madam, an if my brother had my fhape, And I had his, fir Robert his, like him;"

5 This concludes,] This is a decifive argument. As your father, if he liked him, could not have been forced to refign him, so not liking him, he is not at liberty to reject him. JOHNSON.

6 Lord of thy prefence, and no land befide?] Lord of thy prefence means, mafter of that dignity and grandeur of appearance that may fufficiently distinguish thee from the vulgar, without the help

of fortune.

Lord of his prefence apparently fignifies, great in his own person, and is used in this fenfe by King John in one of the following fcenes. JOHNSON.

" And I had his, fir Robert his, like him;] This is obfcure and ill expreffed. The meaning is-If I had his shape, fir Robert's

as he has.

Sir Robert his, for Sir Robert's, is agreeable to the practice of that time, when the 's added to the nominative was believed, I think erroneously, to be a contraction of his. So, Donne:

Who now lives to age,

"Fit to be call'd Methufalem bis page?" JOHNSON.

This ought to be printed:

Sir Robert his, like him.

And if my legs were two fuch riding-rods,
My arms such eelskins stuff'd; my face fo thin,
That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose,

Left men should fay, Look, where three-farthings goes!

His according to a mistaken notion formerly received, being the fign of the genitive cafe. As the text before stood there was a double genitive. MALONE.

-my face fo thin,

That in mine ear I durft not stick a rofe,

Left men fhould fay, Look, where three-farthings goes!] In this very obfcure paffage our poet is anticipating the date of another coin; humorously to rally a thin face, eclipfed, as it were, by a full blown rofe. We muft obferve, to explain this allufion, that Queen Elizabeth was the firft, and indeed the only prince, who coined in England three-half-pence, and three-farthing pieces. She coined fhillings, fix-pences, groats, three-pences, two-pences, threehalf-pence, pence, three-farthings, and half-pence. And these pieces all had her head, and were alternately with the rose behind, and without the rofe. THEOBALD.

Mr. Theobald has not mentioned a material circumstance rela tive to these three-farthing pieces, on which the propriety of the allufion in fome measure depends; viz. that they were made of filver, and confequently extremely thin. From their thinnefs they were very liable to be cracked. Hence Ben Jonfon, in his Every Man in his Humour, fays, "He values me at a crack'd threefarthings." MALONE.

So, in The Shoemaker's Holiday, &c. 1610:

Here's a three-penny piece for thy tidings."

"Firk. "Tis but three-half-pence I think: yes, 'tis three-pence; I fmell the rofe." STEEVENS.

The flicking rofes about them was then all the court-fashion, as appears from this paffage of the Confeffion Catholique du S. de Sancy, L. II. c. i: " Je luy ay appris à mettre des rafes par tous les coins," i. e. in every place about him, fays the speaker, of one to whom he had taught all the court-fashions. WARBURTON.

The rafes ftuck in the ear, were, I believe, only rofes compofed of ribbands. In Marfton's What you will, is the following paffage : "Dupatzo the elder brother, the fool, he that bought the halfpenny ribband, wearing it in his ear," &c.

Again, in Every Man out of his Humour: “ This ribband in my ear, or fo." Again, in Love and Honour, by Sir W. D'Avenant, 1649:

And, to his fhape, were heir to all this land,"
'Would I might never ftir from off this place,
I'd give it every foot to have this face;
I would not be fir Nob in any cafe.*

ELI. I like thee well; Wilt thou forfake thy fortune,

Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me?
I am a foldier, and now bound to France.

BAST. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance:

"A lock on the left fide, fo rarely hung
"With ribbanding," &c.

I think I remember, among Vandyck's pictures in the Duke of Queenfbury's collection at Ambrofbury, to have feen one, with the lock neareft the ear ornamented with ribbands which terminate in rofes; and Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, fays, "that it was once the fashion to ftick real flowers in the ear.'

"

At Kirtling, in Cambridgefhire, the magnificent refidence of the firft Lord North, there is a juvenile portrait (fuppofed to be of Queen Elizabeth) with a red rofe sticking in her ear. STEEVENS. Marston in his Satires, 1598, alludes to this fashion as fantastical: "Ribbanded eares, Grenada nether-stocks."

And from the epigrams of Sir John Davies, printed at Middleburgh, about 1598, it appears that fome men of gallantry in our author's time fuffered their ears to be bored, and wore their miftrefs's filken fhoe-ftrings in them. MALONE.

9 And, to his shape, were heir to all this land,] There is no noun to which were can belong, unless the perfonal pronoun in the line laft but one be understood here. I fufpect that our author wroteAnd though his fhape were heir to all this land,Thus the fentence proceeds in one uniform tenour. Madam, an if my brother had my shape, and I had his—and if my legs were, &c.and though his shape were heir, &c. I would give. MALONE. The old reading is the true one. "To his fhape" means in addition to it. So, in Troilus and Crefida:

"The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their ftrength,
"Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant.”
STEEVENS.

2 I would not be fir Nob-] Sir Nob is ufed contemptuously for Sir Robert. The old copy reads-It would not be. The correction was made by the editor of the fecond folio. I am not fure that it is neceffary. MALONE.

Your face hath got five hundred pounds a year; Yet fell your face for fivepence, and 'tis dear.Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.'

ELI. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.

BAST. Our country manners give our betters way. K. JOHN. What is thy name?

BAST. Philip, my liege; fo is my name begun; Philip, good old fir Robert's wife's eldest fon. K. JOHN. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bear'st:

Kneel thou down Philip, but arise more great ; * Arise fir Richard, and Plantagenet.'

BAST. Brother by the mother's fide, give me your hand;

My father gave me honour, yours gave land:Now bleffed be the hour, by night or day, When I was got, fir Robert was away.

unto the death.] This expreffion (a Gallicism,—à la mort) is common among our ancient writers. STEEVENS.

66

but arife more great;] The old copy reads only-rife. Mr. Malone conceives this to be the true reading, and that more is here used as a diffyllable." I do not fupprefs this opinion, though I cannot concur in it. STEEVENS.

5 Arife fir Richard, and Plantagenet.] It is a common opinion, that Plantagenet was the furname of the royal houfe of England, from the time of King Henry II.; but it is, as Camden obferves in his Remaines, 1614, a popular miftake. Plantagenet was not a family name, but a nick-name, by which a grandfon of Geffrey, the first Earl of Anjou was distinguished, from his wearing a broomftalk in his bonnet. But this name was never borne either by the firft Earl of Anjou, or by King Henry II. the fon of that Earl by the Emprefs Maude; he being always called Henry Fitz-Empress; his fon, Richard Coeur-de-lion; and the prince who is exhibited in the play before us, John fans-terre, or lack-land. MALONE.