year before, I blufh'd to hear his monftrous devices. P. HEN. O villain, thou ftoleft a cup of fack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever fince thou haft blush'd extempore: 6 - taken with the manner,] Taken with the manner is a law phrafe, and then in common ufe, to fignify taken in the fact. But the Oxford editor alters it, for better fecurity of the fenfe, to-taken in the manor,-i. e. I suppose, by the lord of it, as a Aray. WARBURTON. a forensic term The expreffion-taken in the manner, or with the manner, is common to many of our old dramatick writers. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Rule a Wife and have a Wife: "How like a fheep-biting rogue taken in the manner, Again, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613: "Take them not in the manner, tho' you may." STEEVENS, Manour, or Mainour, or Maynour, an old law term, (from the French mainaver or manier, Lat. manu tractare,) fignifies the thing which a thief takes away or fteals: and to be taken with the manour or mainour is to be taken with the thing ftolen about him, or doing an unlawful act, flagrante delicto, or, as we fay, in the fact. The expreffion is much ufed in the foreft-laws. See Manwood's edition in quarto, 1665, p. 292, where it is spelt manner. HAWKINS. Dr. Pettengall in his Enquiry into the ufe and practice of Furies among the Greeks and Romans, 4to. p. 176, obferves, that" in the fenfe of being taken in the fact, the Romans ufed the expreffion manifefto deprehenfus, Cic. pro Cluentio-et pro Calio. The word manifefto feems to be formed of manu. Hence the Saxons expreffed this idea by words of the fame import, hand habend, having in the hand, or back berend, bearing on the back. The Welsh laws of Hoel-dda, used in the fame fenfe the words lledrad un y llaw— latrocinium vel furtum in manu, the theft in his hand. The English law calls it taken with the manner, instead of the mainer, from main, the hand, in the French language in which our statute laws were written from Westminft. primer 3 Edward I. to Richard III. In Weftminft. primer, c. xv. it is called prife ove le mainer. In Rot. Parliament. Richard II. Tit. 96. Cotton's Abridgement, and Coke's Inftitutes, it is corruptly called taken with the manner; and the English tranflators of the Bible following the vulgar jargon of the law, rendered Numbers v. 13, relating to a woman taken in the fact of adultery, by taken with the manner."—" In the Scotch Thou hadst fire and fword' on thy fide, and yet thou ran'ft away; What instinct hadft thou for it? BARD. My lord, do you fee these meteors? do you behold these exhalations? P. HEN. I do. BARD. What think you they portend? Re-enter FALSTAFF. Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone. law it is called taken with the fang. See Reg. Majeft. Lib. IV. c. xxi. And in cafes of murder manifeft, the murderer was faid to be taken with the red hand and bat blude. All which modes of expreffion in the Western Empire took their origin from the Roman manifefto deprehenfus." REED. Thou hadft fire and fword, &c.] The fire was in his face. A red face is termed a fiery face: "While I affirm a fiery face “Is to the owner no difgrace." Legend of Capt. Jones. JOHNSON. 8 Hot livers, and cold purfes.] That is, drunkenness and poverty. To drink was, in the language of those times, to heat the liver. JOHNSON. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act I. fc. ii. as Charmian repiies to the Soothsayer: "Sooth. You fhall be more beloving, than belov'd. 9 Bard. Choler, my lord, if rightly taken. STEEVENS. P. Hen. No, if rightly taken, halter.] The reader who would enter into the spirit of this repartee, muit recollect the fimilarity of found between collar and choler. So, in King John and Matilda, 1655: "O. Bru. Son, you're too full of choler. "Y. Bru. Choler! halter. "Fitz. By the mafs, that's near the collar." STEEVENS. How now, my fweet creature of bombaft? How long is't ago, Jack, fince thou faw'ft thine own knee? FAL. My own knee? when I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman's thumb-ring:' A plague of fighing and grief! it blows a man up like a bladder. There's villainous news abroad: here was fir John Bracy from your father; you must to the court in the morning. That fame mad fellow of the north, Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the baftinado, and made Lucifer cuckold, and fwore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook,+-What, a plague, call you him? 2 bombaft?] Is the stuffing of clothes. JOHNSON. Stubbs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1595, obferves, that in his time" the doublettes were fo hard quilted, ftuffed, bombafted, and fewed, as they could neither worke, nor yet well play in them.” And again, in the fame chapter, he adds, that they were "ftuffed with foure, five, or fixe pounde of bombaft at leaft." Again, in Deckar's Satiromaftix: You fhall fwear not to bombaft out a new play with the old linings of jefts." Bombaft is cotton. Gerard calls the cotton plant "the bombaft tree." STEEVENS. 3I could have crept into any alderman's thumb-ring:] Ariftophanes has the fame thought: Δια δακτυλίδ μὲν ἦν ἐμέ γ ̓ ἂν διελκύσαις. Plutus, V. 1037. Sir W. RAWLINSON. An alderman's thumb-ring is mentioned by Brome in The Antipodes, 1640: -Item, a diftich graven in his thumb-ring." Again, in The Northern Lafs, 1632: "A good man in the city &c. wears nothing rich about him, but the gout, or a thumb-ring." Again, in Wit in a Conftable, 1640: “ —no more wit than the reft of the bench; what lies in his thumb-ring." The custom of wearing a ring on the thumb, is very ancient. In Chaucer's Squier's Tale, it is faid of the rider of the brazen horse who advanced into the hall of Cambufcan, that upon his thombe he had of gold a ring." STEEVENS. upon the cross of a Welsh hook,] A Welsh book appears to have been fome inftrument of the offenfive kind. It is mentioned in the play of Sir John Oldcastle: POINS. O, Glendower. FAL. Owen, Owen; the fame ;-and his fon-inlaw, Mortimer; and old Northumberland; and that fprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs o’horseback up a hill perpendicular. P. HEN. He that rides at high speed, and with his pistol kills a fparrow flying. that no man prefume to wear any weapons, efpecially weifb-books and foreft-bills." Again, in Weftward Hoe, by Deckar and Webster, 1607: it will be as good as a Welsh-book for you, to keep out the other at ftaves-end.' Again, in The Infatiate Countefs, by Marston, 1613: "The ancient hooks of great Cadwallader." "The Welsh Glaive," (which I take to be the fame weapon under another name,) fays Captain Grofe in his Treatife on ancient Armour," is a kind of bill, fometimes reckoned among the poleaxes;" a variety perhaps of the securis falcata, or probably refembling the Lochaber axe, which was used in the late rebellion. Colonel Gardner was attacked with fuch a one at the battle of Preftonpans. See the reprefentation of an ancient watchman, with a bill on his shoulder, Vol. IV. p. 478. STEEVENS. The Welsh book, I believe, was pointed, like a fpear, to push or thruft with; and below had a hook to feize on the enemy if he fhould attempt to escape by flight. I take my ideas from a paffage in Butler's Character of a Justice of the Peace, whom the witty author thus defcribes: His whole authority is like a Welsh book; for his warrant is a puller to her, and his mittimus a thruster from ber." Remains, Vol. II. p. 192. WHALLEY. "Ar Minsheu in his Dict. 1617, explains a Welsh book thus: morum genus eft are in falcis modum incurvato, pertica longiffime præfixo." Cotgrave calls it "a long hedging-bill, about the length of a partifan." See alfo Florio's Italian Dict. 1 1598: "Falcione. A bending forreft bill, or Welsh book."Pennati. Hedge-bills, foreft bills, Welsh hooks, or weeding hooks." MALONE. 5 -piftol-] Shakspeare never has any care to preserve the manners of the time. Piftols were not known in the age of Henry. Piftols were, I believe, about our author's time, eminently used by the Scots. Sir Henry Wotton fomewhere makes mention of a Scottish piftol. JOHNSON. Demetrius FAL. You have hit it. P. HEN. So did he never the fparrow. FAL. Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him; he will not run. P. HEN. Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him fo for running? FAL. O'horfeback, ye cuckoo! but, afoot, he will not budge a foot. P. HEN. Yes, Jack, upon instinct. FAL. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps" more: Worcester is ftolen away to-night; thy father's beard is turned white with the news; you may buy land now as cheap as ftinking mackarel. Beaumont and Fletcher are ftill more inexcufable. In The Humourous Lieutenant, they have equipped one of the immediate fucceffors of Alexander the Great, with the fame weapon. 6 STEEVENS. There is an old ballad called Blew Cap for me, or "Shee'll have bonny blew cap, all other refufing." STEEVENS. 7 -thy father's beard is turned white with the news;] I think Montaigne mentions a perfon condemned to death, whose hair turned grey in one night. TOLLET. Nafhe, in his Have with you to Saffron Walden, &c. 1596, fays: "looke and you fhall find a grey haire for everie line I have writ against him; and you fhall have all his beard white too, by the time he hath read over this book." The reader may find more examples of the fame phænomenon in Grimefton's translation of Goulart's Memorable Hiftories, STEEVENS. 8 -you may bay land, &c.] In former times the profperity of the nation was known by the value of land, as now by the price of ftocks. Before Henry the Seventh made it fafe to serve the King regnant, it was the practice at every revolution, for the conqueror to confifcate the eftates of thofe that oppofed, and perhaps of those who did not affift him. Thofe, therefore, that forefaw the change h.489 |