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ELI. The very spirit of Plantagenet!

I am thy grandame, Richard; call me fo.

BAST. Madam, by chance, but not by truth: What though??

Something about, a little from the right,

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In at the window, or elfe o'er the hatch:9 Who dares not sftir by day, muft walk by night; And have is have, however men do catch: Near or far off, well won is ftill well fhot And I am I, howe'er I was begot.

Madam, by chance, but not by truth: What though?] I am your grandfon, madam, by chance, but not by bonefty-what JOHNSON.

then?

8 Something about, a little from the right, &c.] This speech, compofed of allufive and proverbial fentences, is obfcure. I am, fays the fpritely knight, your grandjon, a little irregularly, but every man cannot get what he wishes the legal way. He that dares not go about his defigns by day, muft make his motions in the night; he, to whom the door is fhut, muft climb the window, or leap the hatch. This, however, fhall not deprefs me; for the world never enquires how any man got what he is known to poffefs, but allows that to have is to have, however it was caught, and that he who wins, hot well, whatever was his skill, whether the arrow fell near the mark, or far off it. JOHNSON.

9 In at the window, &c.] Thefe expreffions mean, to be born aut of wedlock. So, in The Family of Love, 1608:

"Woe worth the time that ever I gave fuck to a child that came in at the window!"

So, in Northward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607:

-kindred that comes in o'er the hatch, and failing to Westminster," &c.

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Such another phrafe occurs in Any Thing for a quiet Life: then you keep children in the name of your own, which The fufpects came not in at the right door." Again, in The Witches of Lancashire, by Heywood and Broome, 1634; "It appears then by your difcourfe that you came in at the window."" I would not have you think I fcorn my grannam's cat to leap over the hatch." Again: "--to efcape the dogs hath leaped in at a window."""Tis thought you came into the world that way,— because you are a baftard." STEEVENS.

K. JOHN. Go, Faulconbridge; now haft thou thy defire,

A landless knight makes thee a landed 'fquire.— Come, madam, and come, Richard; we must speed For France, for France; for it is more than need.

BAST. Brother, adieu; Good fortune come to thee! For thou waft got i'the way of honesty.

[Exeunt all but the Bastard. A foot of honour better than I was; But many a many foot of land the worse. Well, now can I make any Joan a lady :Good den, fir Richard,-God-a-mercy, fellow ;And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter: For new-made honour doth forget men's names; 'Tis too refpective, and too fociable,

For your converfion. Now your traveller,"—

2 A foot of honour-] A ftep, un pas. JOHNSON.

3 Good den,] i. e. a good evening. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "God ye good den, fair gentlewoman." STEEVENS. —fir Richard,] Thus the old copy, and rightly. In Act IV. Salisbury calls him Sir Richard, and the King has juft knighted him by that name. The modern editors arbitrarily read, Sir Robert. Faulconbridge is now entertaining himself with ideas of greatnefs, fuggefted by his recent knighthood.-Good den, fir Richard, he fuppofes to be the falutation of a vaffal, God-amercy, fellow, his own fupercilious reply to it. STEEVENS.

S 'Tis too refpective, and too fociable,

For your converfion.] Refpective is respectful, formal. So, in The Cafe is Altered, by Ben Jonfon, 1609: "I pray you, fir; you are too refpective in good faith."

Again, in the old comedy called Michaelmas Term, 1607: "Seem refpective, to make his pride fwell like a toad with dew." Again, in The Merchant of Venice, A& V ;

"You should have been refpective," &c.

For your converfion, is the reading of the old copy, and may be right. It seems to mean, his late change of condition from a private gentleman to a knight. STEEVENS.

Mr. Pope, without neceffity, reads-for your converfing. Our author has here, I think, ufed a licence of phrafeology that he

He and his tooth-pick' at my worship's mess;*

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often takes. The Baftard has just said, that " new-made honour doth forget men's names;" and he proceeds as if he had faid, does not remember men's names.' To remember the name of an inferior, he adds, has too much of the refpect which is paid to fuperiors, and of the focial and friendly familiarity of equals, for your converfion,for your prefent condition, now converted from the fituation of a common man to the rank of a knight. MALONE.

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Now your traveller,] It is faid in All's well that ends well, that " a traveller is a good thing after dinner." In that age of newly excited curiofity, one of the entertainments at great tables feems to have been the difcourfe of a traveller. JOHNSON.

So, in The partyng of Frendes, a Copy of Verfes fubjoined to Tho. Churchyard's Praife and Reporte of Maifter Martyne Forboifher's Voyage to Meta Incognita, &c. 1578:

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and all the parish throw

"At church or market, in some fort, will talke of trav❜lar now." STEEVENS.

7 He and his tooth-pick-] It has been already remarked, that to pick the tooth, and wear a piqued beard, were, in that time, marks of a man affecting foreign fashions. JOHNSON.

Among Gascoigne's poems I find one entitled, Councell given to Maifer Bartholomery Withipoll a little before his latter Journey to Geane, 1572. The following lines may perhaps be acceptable to the reader who is curious enough to enquire about the fashionable follies imported in that age:

"Now, fir, if I fhall fee your mastership

"Come home difguis'd, and clad in quaint array;-
"As with a pike-tooth byting on your lippe;
"Your brave muftachios turn'd the Turkie way;
"A coptankt hat made on a Flemish blocke;

"A night-gowne cloake down trayling to your toes;
"A flender flop clofe couched to your dock;
"A curtolde flipper, and a fhort filk hofe," &c.

Again, in Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonson, 1601:

Á traveller, one so made out of the mixture and shreds of forms, that himself is truly deformed. He walks moft commonly with a clove or pick-tooth in his mouth."

So alfo, Fletcher:

You that truft in travel;

"You that enhance the daily price of tooth-picks." Again, in Shirley's Grateful Servant, 1630: "I will continue my ftate-pofture, ufe my tooth-pick with difcretion," &c. STREVENS.

And when my knightly ftomach is fuffic'd,
Why then I fuck my teeth, and catechise
My picked man of countries: ———— -My dear fir,

So, in Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, 1616 [Article, an Affected Traveller]: "He cenfures all things by countenances and fhrugs, and fpeaks his own language with fhame and lifping; he will choke rather than confess beere good drink; and his tooth-pick is a main part of his behaviour." MALONE.

8 at my worship's mefs;] means, at that part of the table where I, as a knight, fhall be placed. See The Winter's Tale, Vol. VII. p. 29, n. 8.

Your worship was the regular address to a knight or efquire, in our author's time, as your honour was to a lord.” MALONE.

9 My picked man of countries:] The word picked may not refer to the beard, but to the shoes, 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 spruce in dress. Chaucer fays in one of his prologues: "Fresh and new her geare ypiked was." And in The Merchant's Tale: "He kempeth him, and proineth him, and piketh." In Hyrd's tranflation of Vives's Inftruction of a Chriftian woman, printed in 1591, we meet with "picked and apparelled goodly-goodly and pickedly arrayed.Licurgus, when he would have women of his country to be regarded by their virtue and not their ornaments, banished out of the country by the law, all painting, and commanded out of the town all crafty men of picking and apparelling."

Again, in a comedy called All Fools, by Chapman, 1602:

" "Tis such a picked fellow, not a haire

"About his whole bulk, but it ftands in print."

Again, in Love's Labour's Loft: "He is too picked, too fpruce," &c. Again, in Greene's Defence of Coney-catching, 1592, in the defcription of a pretended traveller: "There be in England, efpecially about London, certain quaint pickt, and neat companions, attired, &c. alamode de France," &c.

If a comma be placed after the word man,- "I catechize My picked man, of countries."

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the paffage will feem to mean, "I catechife my felected man, about the countries through which he travelled." STEEVENS.

The laft interpretation of picked, offered by Mr. Steevens, is undoubtedly the true one. So, in Wilfon's Arte of Rhetorique, 1553: "-fuch riot, dicyng, cardyng, pyking," &c. Piked or picked," (for

(Thus, leaning on mine elbow, I begin,)
I fhall befeech you-That is queftion now;
And then comes anfwer like an ABC-book: "—
O fir, fays answer, at your best command;
At your employment; at your fervice, fir :-
No, fir, fays queftion; I, Sweet fir, at yours:
And fo, ere answer knows what queftion would,
(Saving in dialogue of compliment;2

And talking of the Alps, and Apennines,
The Pyrenean, and the river Po,)

It draws toward fupper in conclufion fo.
But this is worshipful fociety,

And fits the mounting fpirit, like myself:
For he is but a bastard to the time,'

the word is variously fpelt,) in the writings of our author and his contemporaries, generally means, Spruce, affected, effeminate.

See alfo Minfheu's Dict. 1617: "To picke or trimme. Vid. Trimme." MALONE.

My picked man of countries, is-my travelled fop. HOLT WHITE. like an ABC-book:] An ABC-book, or, as they spoke and wrote it, an abfey-book, is a catechifm. JOHNSON.

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So, in the ancient Interlude of Youth, bl. 1. no date: "In the A. B. C. of bokes the leaft,

"Yt is written, deus charitas eft."

Again, in Tho. Nafh's dedication to Greene's Arcadia, 1616: make a patrimony of In Speech, and more than a younger brother's inheritance of their Abcie." STEEVENS.

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2 And fo, ere answer knows what question would,

(Saving in dialogue of compliment;] 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 stranger's) entrance, a whole volume of words.- -What a deal of fynamon and ginger is facrificed to diffimulation! O, how blessed do I take mine eyes for prefenting me with this fight! O Signior, the ftar that governs my life in contentment, give me leave to interre myself in your arms!-Not fo, fir, it is too unworthy an inclofure to contain fuch precioufnefs, &c. &c. This, and a cup of drink, makes the time as fit for a departure as can be." TOLLET.

3 For he is but a baftard to the time, &c.] He is accounted but a mean man in the prefent age, who does not fhew by his dress, his

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