the Douglas? Have I not all their letters, to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month; and are they not, some of them, set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this? an infidel? Ha! you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the king, and lay open all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skimmed milk with so honourable an action! Hang him! let him tell the king: We are prepared: I will set forward tonight. Enter LADY PERCY. How now, Kate1? I must leave you within these two hours. Lady. O my good lord, why are you thus alone? For what offence have I, this fortnight, been A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed? Tell me, sweet lord what is't that takes from thee Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep5? Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth; And start so often when thou sit'st alone? Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks; And given my treasures, and my rights of thee, To thick-ey'd musing, and curs'd melancholy? In thy faint slumbers, I by thee have watch'd, And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars: Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed; Cry, Courage!-to the field! And thou hast talk'd Of sallies, and retires; of trenches, tents, 4 Shakspeare either mistook the name of Hotspur's wife (which was not Katherine but Elizabeth), or else designedly changed it, out of the remarkable fondness he seems to have had for the name of Kate. Hall and Holinshed call her erroneously Elinor. 5 In King Richard III. we have leaden slumber.' In Virgil 'ferreus somnus.' Homer terms sleep brazen, or, more strictly, copper, χαλκεος υπνος. 6 Retires are retreats. So in Holinshed, p. 960:-'-- the Frenchmen's flight, for manie so termed their sudden retire.' Of palisadoes, frontiers 7, parapets; Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain, And in thy face strange motions have appear'd, Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, And I must know it, else he loves me not. Serv. He is, my lord, an hour ago. Hot. Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff? Serv. One horse, my lord, he brought even now. Hot. What horse? a roan, a crop-ear, is it not? Serv. It is, my lord. Hot. That roan shall be my throne. 7 Frontiers formerly meant not only the bounds of different territories, but also the forts built along or near those limits. Thus in Ives's Practice of Fortification, 1589:-'A forte not placed where it were needful, might skantly be accounted for frontier.' Florio interprets frontiera, a frontire or bounding place; also a skonce, a bastion, a defence, a trench, or block-house upon or about confines or borders." Vide note on Act i. Sc. 3, p. 136. In Notes from Black fryers, by H. Fitzgeoffrey, 1617 :'He'll tell of basilisks, trenches, and retires, Of palisadoes, parapets, frontiers.' 8 Basilisks are a species of ordnance, probably so named from the imaginary serpent or dragon, with figures of which it was ordinary to ornament great guns. 9 Occurrences. Well, I will back him straight: O espérance 10!— Bid Butler lead him forth into the park. lord. [Exit Servant. Lady. But hear you, my 11 A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen 11, In faith, I'll know your business, Harry, that I will. Hot. So far afoot, I shall be weary, love. Lady. Come, come, you paraquito, answer me Directly to this question that I ask. In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry, Hot. Away, Away, you trifler!-Love? I love thee not, I care not for thee, Kate: this is no world, To play with mammets 13, and to tilt with lips: 10 The motto of the Percy family. 11 So in Cymbeline we have : 'As quarrellous as the weasel.' 12 i. e. to strengthen. So in Macbeth : 13 Mammets were puppets or dolls, here used by Shakspeare for a female plaything; a diminutive of mam. Quasi dicat parvam matrem, seu matronulam.'-'Icunculæ, mammets or puppets that goe by devises of wyer or strings, as though they had life and moving.' Junius's Nomenclator, by Fleming, 1585.—Mr. Gifford has thrown out a conjecture about the meaning of mammets from the Italian mammetta, which signified a bosom as well as a young wench. See Ben Jonson's Works, vol. v. p. 66. I have not found the word used in English in that sense; but mammet, for a puppet or dressed up living doll is common enough. We must have bloody noses, and crack'd crowns, And pass them current too.—Gods me, my horse!— What say'st thou, Kate? what would'st thou have with me? Lady. Do you not love me? do you not indeed? Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know; Lady. How! so far? Hot. Not an inch further. Whither I go, thither shall you go too; To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you.- Lady. SCENE IV. It must, of force. Eastcheap1. A Room in the Boar's Head Tavern. Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS. P. Hen. Ned, pr'ythee, come out of that fat room, and lend me thy hand to laugh a little. 1 Eastcheap is selected with propriety for the scene of the prince's merry meetings, as it was near his own residence; a mansion called Cold Harbour (near All Hallows Church, Upper Poins. Where hast been, Hal? P. Hen. With three or four loggerheads, amongst three or four score hogsheads. I have sounded the very base string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their Christian names, as-Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, that, though I be but prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy; and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff; but a Corinthian2, a lad of mettle, a good boy,-by the Lord, so they call me; and when I am king of England, I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call-drinking deep, dying scarlet: and when you breathe in your watering, they cry-hem! and bid you play it off3.-To conclude, I am so good a proficient in Thames Street), was granted to Henry prince of Wales. 11 Henry IV. 1410. Rymer. vol. viii. p. 628. In the old anonymous play of King Henry V. Eastcheap is the place where Henry and his companions meet: Hen. V. You know the old tavern in Eastcheap; there is good wine.' Shakspeare has hung up a sign for them that he saw daily; for the Boar's Head tavern was very near Blackfriars' Playhouse.-Stowe's Survey. Sir John Falstaff was in his lifetime a considerable benefactor to Magdalen College, Oxford; and though the College cannot give the particulars at large, the Boar's Head in Southwark, and Caldecot Manor in Suffolk were part of the lands, &c. he be stowed. 2 A Corinthian was a wencher, a debauchee. The fame of Corinth, as a place of resort for loose women, was not yet extinct. Thus Milton, in his Apology for Smectymnus:- And raps up, without pity, the sage and rheumatic old prelatess with all her young Corinthian laity.' 3 Mr. Gifford has shown that there is no ground for the filthy interpretation of this passage which Steevens chose to give. To breathe in your watering' is to stop and take breath when you are drinking.' Thus in the old MS. play of Timon of Athens, cited by Steevens: That all hold up their heads and laugh aloud, Drink much at one draught; breathe not in their drink, So in Rowland's Letting of Humours Blood in the Head Vaine, |