P. Hen. Speak, sirs; how was it?
Gads. We four set upon some dozen,-
Fal. Sixteen, at least, my lord.

Gads. And bound them.

Peto. No, no, they were not bound.

Fal. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them; or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew.1 Gads. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us,

Fal. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other.

P. Hen. What, fought you with them all?

Poins. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason. Fal. What, upon compulsion? No; were I at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion! if reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.

P. Hen. I'll be no longer guilty of this sin: this sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-backbreaker, this huge hill of flesh;

Fal. Away, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neats-tongue, bull's pizzle, you stock-fish,O, for breath to utter what is like thee!-you tai lor's yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile stand

ture.

Poins. 'Pray God, you have not murdered some of them.

Fal. Nay, that's past praying for: for I have peppered two of them: two, I am sure, I have paid; two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal,-if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward;-here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me,

P. Hen. What, four? thou saidst but two, even

now.

Fal. Four, Hal; I told thee four.
Poins. Ay, ay, he said four.

Fal. These four camela-front, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target thus.

P. Hen. Seven? why, there were but four, even

now.

Fal. In buckram.

Poins. Ay, four, in buckram suits.

Fal. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else. P. Hen. Pr'ythee, let him alone; we shall have

more anon.

Fal. Dost thou hear me, Hal?

P. Hen. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.

P. Hen. Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again: and when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but this."

Poins. Mark, Jack.

P. Hen. We two saw you four set on four; you bound them, and were masters of their wealth.— Mark now, how plain a tale shall put you down.— Then did we two set on you four: and, with a word out-faced you from your prize, and have it; yea, and can show it you here in the house :—and, Fal staff, you carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still ran and roared, as ever I heard bull-calf. What a slave art thou, to hack thy sword as thou hast done; and then say, it was in fight? What trick, what device, what starting-hole, canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame ?

Poins. Come let's hear, Jack; What trick hast thou now?

Fal. By the Lord, I knew ye, as well as he that made ye. Why, hear ye, my masters: Was it fo me to kill the heir apparent? Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest, I am as var liant as Hercules: but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself and thee, during my life; I, for

P. Hen. So, two more aiready.
Fal. Their points being broken,-
Poins. Down fell their hose.2

Fal. Began to give me ground: But I followed me close, came in foot and hand; and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid.

P. Hen. O monstrous! eleven buckram men grown out of two!

Fal. But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves, in Kendal' green, came at my back, and let drive at me ;-for it was so dark, Hal, that thou could'st not see thy hand.

P. Hen. These lies are like the father that begets them; gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brained guts; thou knotty-pated fool; thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallowkeech

Fal. What, art thou mad? art thou mad? is not the truth, the truth?

P. Hen. Why, how could'st thou know these men in Kendal green, when it was so dark thou

1 So in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:-Thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.'

2 The same jest has already occurred in Twelfth Night, Act i. Sc. 5. To understand it, the double meanng of point must be remembered, which signifies a tagged lace used by our ancestors to fasten their garments, as well as the sharp end of a weapon. So in Sir Giles Goosocap, a comedy, 1606-Help me to truss my points. I had rather see your hose about your heels than I would help you to truss a point.'

the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money.. Hostess, clap to the doors; watch to-night, pray to-morrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you! What, shall we be merry? shall we have a play extempore?

P. Hen. Content;-and the argument shall be, thy running away.

Fal. Ah! no more of that, Hal, an thou loves

4 A keech is a round lump of fat, rolled up by the butcher in order to be carried to the chandler, and in its form resembles the rotundity of a fat man's belly. The old editions read catch.

5 The strappado was a dreadful punishment inflicted on soldiers and criminals, by drawing them up on high with their arms tied backward. Randle Holme says that they were suddenly let fall half way with a jerk, which not only broke the arms but shook all the joints out of joint. He adds, which punishment it is better to be hanged than for a man to undergo.' Academy of Arms and Blazon, b. iii. p. 310.

6 It has been proposed to read eel-skin, with great plausibility. Shakspeare had historical authority for the leanness of the prince. Stowe speaking of him, says He exceeded the mean stature of men, his neck long, body slender and lean, and his bones small,' &c.

Ful. What manner of man is he? Host. An old men.

P. Hen. So did he never the sparrow.
Fal. Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him;

P. Hen. 'Pr'ythee, do, Jack.

Fal. 'Faith, and I'll send him packing.

[Exit.

P. Hen. Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for running?

Fal. O'horseback, ye cuckoo! but, afoot, he will

P. Hen. Yes, Jack, upon instinct.

Peto. Why, he hacked it with his dagger; and said, he would swear truth out of England, but he would make you believe it was doue in fight; and persuaded us to do the like.

Bard. Yea, and to tickle our noses with speargrass, to make them bleed; and then to beslubber our garments with it, and to swear it was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven year before, I blushed to hear his monstrous devices.

P. Hen. O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blushed extempore: Thou hast fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou ran'st away; What instinct hast thou for it? Bard. My lord, do you see these meteors? do you behold these exhalations?

P. Hen. I do.

Bard. What think you they portend? P. Hen. Hot livers and cold purses.3 Bard. Choler, my lord, if rightly taken. P. Hen. No, if rightly taken, halter.

Re-enter FALSTAFF.

Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet creature of bombast ?4 How long Is't ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee? Fal. My own knce? when I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the waist; could have crept into any alderman's thumb-ring: A plague of sighing and grief! it blows a man up like a bladder. There's villainous news abroad: here was Sir John Bracy from your father; you must to the court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the north, Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold, and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook'—What, a plague, call you him?

Poins. O, Glendower.

Fal. Owen, Owen; the same ;-and his son-inlaw, Mortimer; and old Northumberland; and that sprightly 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 sparrow flying. Fal. You have hit it.

John Blower, in a sermon before her majesty, first said: My royal queen,' and a little after, My noble queen.' Upon which says the queen, What, am I ten groats worse than I was?'-Hearne's Discourse of some Antiquities between Windsor and Orford.

1 i. e. taken in the fact. See Love's Labour's Lost, Act i. Sc. 1.

2 The fire in Bardolph's face. 3 i. e. drunkenness and poverty. 4 i. e. my sweet stuffed creature.' ton. Gerard calls the cotton plant the is here used for the stuffing of clothes. Love's Labour's Lost, Act v. Sc. 2.

Bombast is cot. bombast tree. It See a note on

5 The custom of wearing a ring upon the thumb is very ancient. The rider of the brazen horse in Chaucer's Squiers Tale :

" -upon his thombe he had a ring of gold.' Grave personages, citizens, and aldermen wore a plain broad gold ring upon the thumb, which often had a motto engraved in the inside of it. An alderman's thumb-ring, and its motto, is mentioned in The Antipodes, by Brome.

6 A demon; who is described as one of the four kings who rule over all the demons in the world.

7 The Welsh hook was a kind of hedging bill made with a hook at the end, and a long handle like the par

P. Hen. Why then, 'tis like, if there come a hot June, and this civil buffeting hold, we should buy maidenheads as they buy hob-nails, by the hundreds.

Fal. By the mass, lad, thou sayest true; it is like, we shall have good trading that way. But, tell me, Hal, art thou not horribly afeard? thou being heir apparent, could the world pick thee out three such enemies again, as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly afraid? doth not thy blood thrill at it?

P. Hen. Not a whit, i'faith; I lack some of thy instinct.

Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow, when thou comest to thy father: if thou love me, practise an answer.

P. Hen. Do thou stand for my father, and exa mine me upon the particulars of my life.

Fal. Shall I content:-This chair shall be my state,10 this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my

crown.

P. Hen. Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precí ous rich crown, for a pitiful bald crown!

Ful. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be moved.-Give me a cup of sack, to make mine eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein. P. Hen. Well, here is my leg.12

Fal. And here is my speech :-Stand aside, nobility.

Host. This is excellent sport, i'faith.

Fal. Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain.

Host. O, the father, how he holds his counte nance !

Fal. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful

tisan or halbert. "The Welsh glaive,' (which appears to be the same thing,) Grose says, 'is a kind of bill some. times reckoned among the pole-axes.'

8 Pistols were not in use in the age of Henry IV They are said to have been much used by the Scotch in Shakspeare's time.

9 Scotsmen, on account of their blue bonnets.

10 In the old anonymous play of King Henry V. the same strain of humour is discoverable:- Thou shalt be my lord chief justice, and shalt sit in this chair; and I'll be the young prince, and hit thee a box of the ear, &c. A state is a chair with a canopy over it.

11 The banter is here upon the play called A Lamen. table Tragedie mixed full of pleasant Mirthe, contain. ing the Life of Cambises, King of Persia, by Thomas Preston [1570.] There is a marginal direction in this play, At this tale tolde, let the queen weep,' which is prob ably alluded to, though the measure in the parody is not the same with that of the original. 12 i. e. my obeisance.

13 Thus in Cambyses:

Queen. These words to hear makes stilling tears issue from chrystall eyes.' Ritson thinks that the following passage in Soliman and Perseda is glanced at :

How can mine eyes dart forth a pleasant look, When they are stopp'd with floods of flowing tears?

spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied for though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou art my son, I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own opinion; but chiefly, a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point;-Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries? a question not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses? a question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also:-And yet there is a virtuous man, whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.

P. Hen. What manner of man, an it like your majesty ?

Fal. A good portly man, i'faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or by'r-lady, inclining to threescore; And now I remember me, his name is Falstaff: if that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff: him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where hast thou been this month?

P. Hen. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I'll play my father.

Fal. Depose me? if thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbet-sucker, or a poulter's hare.

P. Hen. Well, here I am set.

Fal. And here I stand :-judge, my masters.
P. Hen. Now, Harry? whence come you?
Fal. My noble lord, from Eastcheap.

P. Hen. The complaints I hear of thee are griev

ous.

Fal. 'Sblood, my lord, they are false:-nay, I'll tickle ye for a young prince, i'faith.

P. Hen. That villainous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan. Fal. My lord, the man I know.

P. Hen. I know, thou dost.

Fal. But to say, I know more harm in him than in myself, were to say more than I know. That he is old (the more the pity,) his white hairs do witness it: but that he is (saving your reverence) a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know, is damned: if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and there fore more valiant, being as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company; banish plump Jack, and banish all the world. P. Hen. I do, I will. [A knocking heard. [Exeunt Hostess, FRANCIS, and BARDOLPH. Re-enter BARDOLPH, running. Bard. O, my lord, my lord; the sheriff, with a most monstrous watch, is at the door.

Fal. Out, you rogue! play out the play; I have much to say in the behalf of that Falstaff. Re-enter Hostess, hastily.

Host. O Jesu, my lord! my lord !———— Fal. Heigh, heigh! the devil rides upon a fiddlestick: What's the matter?

Host. The sheriff and all the watch are at the door: they are come to search the house: Shall I let them in?

Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? never call a true piece of gold, a counterfeit: thou art essentially mad, without seeming so.

P. Hen. And thou a natural coward, without instinct.

Fal. I deny your major: if you will deny the sheriff, so; if not, let him enter: if I become not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my bring ing up! I hope, I shall as soon be strangled with a halter as another.

P. Hen. Go, hide thee behind the arras;-the rest walk up above. Now, my masters, for a true face, and good conscience.

[Exeunt all but the Prince and POINS. P. Hen. Call in the sheriff.

Enter Sheriff and Carrier.

Now, master Sheriff; what's your will with me?
Hath follow'd certain men unto this house.
Sher. First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry

1 A micher here signifies a truant. So in an old phrase book, Hormanni Vulgaria, 1509:- He is a mychar; vagus est non discolus.' To mich was to skulk, to hide; and hence the word sometimes also signified a skulking thief, and sometimes a miser. In Lyly's Mother Bombie, 1594, we have: How like a micher he stands, as if he had truanted from honesty.' 2 A young rabbit.

3 The machine which separates flour from bran. 4 A bombard was a very large leathern vessel to hold drink, perhaps so called from its similarity to a sort of cannon of the same name. That it was not a barrel, as some have supposed, is evident from the following passage:

"His boots as wide as the black jacks,
Or bombards toss'd by the king's guards.'
Shirley's Martyr'd Soldier.

5 Manningtree, in Essex, formerly enjoyed the privi

A

P. Hen. What men?

Sher. One of them is well known, my gracious lord, gross fat man. Car. As fat as butter. For I myself at this time have employ'd him. P. Hen. The man, I do assure you, is not here; And, Sheriff, I will engage my word to thee, That I will, by to-morrow dinner time,

Send him to answer thee, or any man, For any thing he shall be charg'd withal: And so let me entreat you leave the house. lege of fairs, by exhibiting a certain number of stagt plays yearly. It appears from other intimations that there were great festivities there, and much good eating at Whitsun ales, &c.

6 i. e. go no faster than I can follow.

7 When arras was first brought into England, it was suspended on small hooks driven into the walls of hou ses and castles; but this practice was soon discontinued After the damp of the stone and brickwork had been found to rot the tapestry, it was fixed on frames of wood at such distance from the wall as prevented the damp from being injurious; large spaces were thus left between the arras and the walls, sufficient to contain even one of Falstaff's bulk. Our old dramatists avail themselves of this convenient hiding place upon all occasions

Sher. I will, my lord: There are two gentlemen Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks. P. Hen. It may be so: if he have robb'd these

men,

He shall be answerable; and so, farewell.
Sher. Good night, my noble lord.

P. Hen. I think it is good morrow: Is it not? Sher. Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o'clock. [Exeunt Sheriff and Carrier. P. Hen. This oily rascal is known as well as Paul's. Go call him forth.

Poins. Falstaff!-fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a horse.

P. Hen. Hark, how hard he fetches breath: Search his pockets. [POINs searches.] What hast thou found?

Poins. Nothing but papers, my lord.

P. Hen. Let's see what they be read them.
Poins. Item, A capon, 2s, 2d.

No, here it is.

Sit, cousin Percy; sit, good cousin Hotspur,
For by that name as oft as Lancaster
Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale; and, with
A rising sigh, he wisheth
you in heaven.

Hot. And you in hell, as often as he hears
Owen Glendower spoke of.

Glend. I cannot blame him: at my nativity,
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and, at my birth,

The frame and huge foundation of the earth,
Shak'd like a coward.

Hot.
Why, so it would have done
At the same season, if your mother's cat had
But kitten'd, though yourself had ne'er been born.

St. Paul's Cathedral.

2 In a very curious letter from Thomas Rainolds, vice chancellor of Oxford, in 1566, to Cardinal Pole, among the Conway Papers, he entreats the suppression of some of the wine taverns in Oxford, and states as one of his reasons that they sell Gascony wine at 16d. a gallon, sacke at 2s. 4d. per gallon, and Malvoisie at 2s. 6d. to the utter ruin of the poor students.' In Florio's First Frutes, 1578:- Claret wine, red and white, is sold for fivepence the quarte, and sacke for sixpence; muscadel and malmsey for eight. Twenty years afterwards sack had probably risen to eightpence or eightpence halfpenny a quart, which would make the computation of five shillings and eightpence for two gallons correct. To the note on sack, at p. 433, we may add that sack is called Vinum Hispanicum by Coles, and Vin d'Espagne by Sherwood. In Florio's Second Frutes it is Vino de Spagna.

3 A score, in the language Toxopholites, was twenty yards. A mark of twelve score meant a mark at a distance of two hundred and forty yards.

4 Induction is used by Shakspeare for commencement, beginning. The introductory part of a play or poem was called the induction. Such is the prelude of

Glend. I say, the earth did shake when I was

born.

Hot. And I say, the earth was not of my mind, If you suppose, as fearing you it shook.

Glend. The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.

Hot. O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,

And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions: oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colick pinch'd and vex'd
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldame earth, and toppless down
Steeples, and moss-grown towers. At your birth,
Our grandam earth, having this distemperature,
In passion shook.

Glend.

Cousin, of many men

I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave
To tell you once again,-that, at my birth,
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes;
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
These signs have mark'd me extraordinary;
And all the courses of my life do show,
am not in the roll of common men.
Where is he living, clipp'd in with the sea
That chides the banks of England, Scotland,
Wales,-
Which calls me pupil, or hath read to me?
And bring him out, that is but woman's son,
Can trace me in the tedious ways of art,
And hold me pace in deep experiments.
Hot. I think, there is no man speaks better
Welsh:-
I'll to dinner.

Mort. Peace, cousin Percy; you will make him

mad.

the Tinker to the Taming of the Shrew. Sackville's in duction to the Mirror for Magistrates is another instance. 5 Shakspeare has amplified the hint of Holinshed, who says, Strange wonders happened at the nativity of this man; for the same night that he was born, all his father's horses in the stable were found to stand in blood up to their bellies.' The poet had probably also heard that, in 1402, a blazing star appeared, which the Welsh bards represented as portending good fortune to Owen Glendower.

6 Cressets were open lamps, exhibited on a beacon, carried upon a pole or otherwise suspended. Cotgrave thus describes them under the word falot, a cresset light (such as they use in playhouses,) made of ropes wreathed, pitched, and put into small open cages of iron.' 7 Beldame, and belsire, formerly signified grand mother and grandfather.

8 To topple, in its active sense, is to throw down. 9 Shakspeare has already, in Act ii. Sc. 1, quibbled upon boots and boot, profit.

Engiana, from Trent and Severn hitherto,1
By south and east, is to my part assign'd:
All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,
And all the fertile land within that bound,
To Owen Glendower: and, dear coz, to you
The remnant northward, lying off from Trent.
And our indentures tripartite are drawn:
Which being sealed interchangeably,
(A business that this night may execute,)
To-morrow, cousin Percy, you, and I,

And my good lord of Worcester, will set forth,
To meet your father, and the Scottish power,
As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.

My father Glendower is not ready yet,
Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days:-
Within that space [To GLEND.] you may have
drawn together

Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen.
Glend. A shorter time shall send me to you, lords,
And in my conduct shall your ladies come :
From whom you now must steal, and take no leave;
For there will be a world of water shed,
Upon the parting of your wives and you.

Glend. Come, you shall have Trent turn'd. Hot. I do not care; I'll give thrice so much land To any well-deserving friend;

But, in the way of bargain, mark ye me,

I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.

Are the indentures drawn? shall we be gone
Glend. The moon shines fair, you may away by
night:

I'll in and haste the writer, and, withal,
Break with your wives of your departure hence:
I am afraid, my daughter will run mad,
So much she doteth on her Mortimer."
Mort. Fye, cousin Percy! how you cross my
father!

here,

In quantity equals not one of yours:
See, how this river comes me cranking3 in,
And cuts me from the best of all my land,

A huge half moon, and monstrous cantle out.
I'll have the current in this place damm'd up;
And here the smug and silver Trent shall run,
In a new channel, fair and evenly:

It shall not wind with such a deep indent,
To rob me of so rich a bottom here.

That were his lackeys: I cried, humph,—and well,

-go to,

But mark'd him not a word. O, he's as tedious
As is a tired horse, a railing wife;
Worse than a smoky house;-I had rather live
With cheese and garlick, in a windmill, far,
Than feed on cates, and have him talk to me,
In any summer-house in christendom.

Mort. In faith, he is a worthy gentleman;
Exceedingly well read, and profited

doth.

Mort. Yea,

And wondrous affable: and as bountiful
As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?

With like advantage on the other side;
Gelding the opposed continent as much,
As on the other side it takes from you.

Wor. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here,
And on this north side win this cape of land;
And then he runs straight and even.

Hot. I'll have it so; a little charge will do it.
Glend. I will not have it alter'd.
Hot.

Glend. No, nor you shall not.
Hot.

Glend. Why, that will I.
Hot.

Speak it in Welsh.

Will not you?

Who shall say me nay?

Let me not understand you then,

Glend. I can speak English, lord, as well as you; For I was trail. up in the English court; Where, being bu oung, I framed to the harp Many an English da 'v, lovely well, And gave the tongue a helpful ornament;" A virtue that was never seen in you.

Hot. Marry, and I'm glad of it with all my heart;

I had rather be a kitten, and cry-mew,
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers:
I had rather hear a brazen canstick' turn'd,

Or a dry wheel grate on an axle-tree;

And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry;
Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag.

1 i. e. to this spot (pointing to the map.) 2 A moiety was frequently used by the writers of Shakspeare's age as a portion of any thing, though not divided into equal parts.

3 To crank is to crook, to turn in and out. Crankling is used by Drayton in the same sense: speaking of a river, he says that Meander

Hath not so many turns and crankling nooks as she.' 4 A cantle is a portion, a part, a corner or fragment of any thing. The French had chanteau and chantel, and the Italians canto and cantone in the same sense.

5 Owen Glendower's real name was Owen ap-Gryf. fyth Vaughan. He took the name of Glendower from the lordship of which he was the owner.

6 This disputed passage seems to me to mean that he gave to the language the helpful ornament of verse. Hotspur's answer shows that he took it in that sense

And curbs himself even of his natural scope,
When you do cross his humour; 'faith, he does:
I warrant you, that man is not alive,
Might so have tempted him as you have done,
Without the taste of danger and reproof;
But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.

Wor. In faith, my lord, you are too wilfu’blame;11

And since your coming hither, have done enough
To put him quite beside his patience.

You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault:
Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood,
(And that's the dearest grace it renders you,)
Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage,
Defect of manners, want of government,
Pride, haughtiness, opinion,12 and disdain:
The least of which, haunting a nobleman,
Loseth men's hearts; and leaves behind a stain
Upon the beauty of all parts besides,
Beguiling them of commendation.

Hot. Well, I am school'd; good manners be your speed!

Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.

Re-enter GLENDOWER, with the Ladies. Mort. This is the deadly spite that angers me,My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.

7 A very common contraction of candlestick. The noise to which Hotspur alludes is mentioned in A New Trick to cheat the Devil, 1636:-

'As if you were to lodge in Lothbury,
Where they turn brazen candlesticks.

8 i.e. the writer of the articles. The old copy reads I'll haste the writer, &c.' The two necessary words (in and) were suggested by Steevens.

9 The moldwarp is the mole, A. S. molde and wearpan; because it warps or renders the surface of the earth uneven by its hillocks.

10 Skilled in wonderful secrets.

11 Shakspeare has several compounds in which the first adjective has the power of an adverb. In King Richard III. we meet with childish-foolish, senseless obstinate, and mortal-staring. 12 i e. self-coinion or conceit.