There's toys abroad; anon I'll tell thee more.
[Exit Gurney.

Madam, I was not old fir Robert's fon;
Sir Robert might have eat his part in me
Upon Good-friday, and ne'er broke his fast: 4
Sir Robert could do well; Marry, (to confefs!).
Could he get me? Sir Robert could not do it;
We know his handiwork:-Therefore, good mo-
ther,

To whom am I beholden for these limbs?
Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.

LADY F. Haft thou confpired with thy brother

too,

That for thine own gain should'st defend mine ho

nour?

What means this fcorn, thou most untoward knave?

From the found of the fparrow's chirping, Catullus in his Elegy on Lefbia's Sparrow, has formed a verb:

"Sed circumfiliens modo huc, modo illuc,

"Ad folam dominam ufque pipilabat," HOLT WHITE, 3 There's toys abroad; &c.] i. e. rumours, idle reports. So, in Ben Jonfon's Sejanus:

Toys, mere toys,

"What wifdom's in the streets."

Again, in a poftfcript of a letter from the Countefs of Effex to Dr. Forman, in relation to the trial of Anne Turner for the murder of Sir Tho. Overbury: " they may tell my father and mother, and fill their cars full of toys." State Trials, Vol. I. p. 322.

4

might have eat his part in me

STEEVENS.

Upon Good-friday, and ne'er broke his faft:] This thought occurs in Heywood's Dialogues upon Proverbs, 1562:

he may his parte on good Fridaie eate, "And faft never the wurs, for ought he shall geate." STEEVENS. 5-(to confefs!)] 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.

BAST. Knight, knight, good mother,-Bafilifcolike: "

What! I am dubb'd; I have it on my fhoulder.
But, mother, I am not fir Robert's fon;
I have disclaim'd fir Robert, and my land;
Legitimation, name, and all is gone:

Then, good my mother, let me know my father
Some proper man, I hope; Who was it, mother?
LADY F. Haft thou denied thyself a Faulcon-
bridge?

BAST. AS faithfully as I deny the devil.

Knight, knight, good mother, Bafilifco-like:] Thus muft this paffage be pointed; and to come at the humour of it, I must clear up an old circumftance of ftage-hiftory. Faulconbridge's words here carry a concealed piece of fatire on a ftupid 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, inftance:

Baf. By the contents of this blade,

Pift. I, the aforefaid Bafilifco,

for

"Baf. I, the aforefaid Bafilifco,-knight, good fellow, knight. Pift. Knave, good fellow, knave, knave."

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 humorously 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 circumstance fo well known, as to become the butt for a stagefarcafm. THEOBALD.

The character of Bafilifco is mentioned in Nafh's Have with you to Saffron Walden, &c. printed in the year 1596. STFEVENS.

LADY F. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy
father;

By long and vehement fuit I was feduc'd
To make room for him in my husband's bed :-
Heaven lay not my tranfgreffion to my charge!-
Thou art the iffue of my dear offence,

Which was fo ftrongly urg'd, past my defence.
BAST. Now, by this light, were I to get again,
Madam, I would not with a better father.

8

Some fins do bear their privilege on earth,

And fo doth yours; your fault was not your folly;
Needs must you lay your heart at his difpofe,-
Subjected tribute to commanding love,-
Against whofe fury and unmatched force
The awless lion could not wage the fight,'
Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand.
He, that perforce robs lions of their hearts,
May easily win a woman's. Ay, my mother,
With all my heart I thank thee for my father!
Who lives and dares but fay, thou didst not well
When I was got, I'll fend his foul to hell.

7 Thou art-] Old copy-That art. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

Some fins-] There are fins, that whatever be determined of them above, are not much cenfured on earth. JOHNSON.

9 Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,

Against whofe fury und unmatched force

The awless lion could not wage the fight, &c.] Shak fpeare 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 ftory 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 ancient English Poetry. PERCY.

Vol. X.

Bb-369.

匚

Come, lady, I will fhow thee to my kin;
And they fhall fay, when Richard me begot,
If thou hadft said him nay, it had been fin:
Who fays it was, he lies; I fay, 'twas not.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

[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.-
Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood,
Richard, that robb'd the lion of his heart,"
And fought the holy wars in Palestine,
By this brave duke came early to his grave: 3

2 Richard, that robb'd &c.] So, Raftal, 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 yon by the harte fo hard that
he flewe the lyon, and therefore fome fay he is called Rycharde
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 hiftory of lord Fauconbridge, whence
Shakspeare might pick up this circumftance. FARMER.

In Heywood's Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, 1601, there is a long defcription of this fabulous atchievement.

The fame story is told by Knighton, inter Decem Scriptores, and by Fabian, who calls it a fable. It probably took its rife from. Hugh de Neville, one of Richard's followers, having killed a lion, when they were in the Holy Land: a circumftance recorded by Matthew Paris. MALONE.

3 By this brave duke came early to his grave:] The old play led Shakspeare into this error of afcribing to the Duke of Austria the

1

And, for amends to his pofterity,

At our importance hither is he come,

To fpread his colours, boy, in thy behalf;
And to rebuke the ufurpation

Of thy unnatural uncle, English John:

Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.
ARTH. God fhall forgive you Coeur-de-lion's

death,

The rather, that you give his offspring life,
Shadowing their right under your wings of war:

death of Richard, who loft his life at the fiege of Chaluz, long after he had been ranfomed out of Auftria's power. STEEVENS.

The producing Auftria on the scene is alfo contrary to the truth of hiftory, into which anachronifm our author was led by the old play. Leopold Duke of Austria, by whom Richard I. had been thrown in prifon in 1193, died in confequence of a fall from his horfe in 1195 fome years before the commencement of the present play.

The original caufe of the enmity between Richard the First, and the Duke of Auftria, was, according to Fabian, that Richard "tooke from a knighte of the Duke of Oftriche the faid Duke's banner, and in despite of the faid duke, trade it under foote, and did unto it all the fpite he might." Harding fays, in his Chronicle, that the cause of quarrel was Richard's taking down the Duke of Auftria's arms and banner, which he had set up above those of the King of France and the King of Jerufalem. The affront was given, when they lay before Acre in Paleftine. This circumftance is alluded to in the old King John, where the Baftard, after killing Auftria, fays,

"And as my father triumph'd in thy fpoils,

"And trod thine enfigns underneath his feet," &c.

Other hiftorians fay, that the Duke fufpected Richard to have been concerned in the affaffination of his kinfman, the Marquis of Montferrat, who was ftabbed in Tyre, foon after he had been elected King of Jerufalem; but this was a calumny, propagated by Richard's enemies for political purpofes. MALONE.

• At our importance-] At our importunity. JOHNSON.
So, in Twelfth Night:

Maria writ

"The letter at Sir Toby's great importance." STEEVENS.