3

Steeples, and mofs-grown towers. At your birth, Our grandam earth, having this diftemperature, In paffion fhook.

GLEND.

Coufin, of many men

I do not bear thefe croffings. Give me leave
To tell you once again,-that, at my birth,
The front of heaven was full of fiery fhapes;
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were ftrangely clamorous to the frighted fields.+

Beldame is not used here as a term of contempt, but in the fenfe of ancient mother. Belle age, Fr. Drayton, in the 8th fong of his Polyolbion, ufes bel-fire in the fame fenfe:

"As his great bel-fire Brute from Albion's heirs it won." Again, in the 14th fong:

"When he his long defcent fhall from his bel-fires bring." Beau pere is French for father-in-law, but the word employed by Drayton feems to have no fuch meaning. Perhaps beldame originally meant a grandmother. So, in Shakspeare's Tarquin and Lucrece :

"To fhow the beldame daughters of her daughter."

STEEVENS.

3 and topples down Steeples, and mofs-grown towers.] To topple is to tumble So, in Macbeth:

Though caftles topple on their warders' heads."

4 The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds

STEEVENS.

Were ftrangely clamorous to the frighted fields.] Shakspeare appears to have been as well acquainted with the rarer phænomena, as with the ordinary appearances of nature. A writer in The

Philofophical Transactions, No. 207, defcribing an earthquake in Catanea, near Mount Etna, by which eighteen thousand perfons were deftroyed, mentions one of the circumstances that are here faid to have marked the birth of Glendower: "There was a blow, as if all the artillery in the world had been discharged at once; the fea retired from the town above two miles; the birds flew about aftonished; the cattle in the fields ran crying." MALONE.

to the frighted fields.] We fhould read-in the frighted fields. M. MASON.

In the very next scene, to is used where we should at present ufe-in:

"He hath more worthy intereft to the ftate-." STEEVENS,

These figns have mark'd me extraordinary;
And all the courfes of my life do fhow,
I 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 fon,
Can trace me in the tedious ways of art,
Or hold me pace in deep experiments.

Hor. I think, there is no man speaks better
Welsh:-

I will to dinner.

MORT. Peace, cousin Percy; you will make him mad.

GLEND. I can call fpirits from the vasty deep. Hor. Why, fo can I; or fo can any man: But will they come, when you do call for them? GLEND. Why, I can teach you, coufin, to command

The devil.

Hor. And I can teach thee, coz, to fhame the devil,s

By telling truth; Tell truth, and fhame the devil.If thou have power to raise him, bring him hi

ther,

And I'll be fworn, I have power to fhame him hence. O, while you live, tell truth, and fhame the devil. MORT. Come, come,

No more of this unprofitable chat.

GLEND. Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head

5 to flame the devil,] Speak the truth, and fhame the devil," was proverbial. See Ray's Proverbs, 163. REED.

Against my power: thrice from the banks of Wye, And fandy-bottom'd Severn, have I sent him, Bootlefs home, and weather-beaten back.

Hor. Home without boots, and in foul weather too!

How 'scapes he agues, in the devil's name?

GLEND. Come, here's the map; Shall we divide. our right,

According to our threefold order ta'en?

MORT. The archdeacon hath divided it"
Into three limits, very equally:

England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,8
By fouth and caft, is to my part affign'd:
All weftward, Wales beyond the Severn fhore,
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 fealed interchangeably,
(A bufinefs that this night may execute,)
To-morrow, coufin Percy, you, and I,
And my good lord of Worcester, will fet forth,
To meet your father, and the Scottish power,
As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.

My father Glendower is not ready yet,

6 Bootlefs-] Unless we read bootlefs as a trifyllable, the metre will be defective. In As you like it-wreftler is apparently to be thus pronounced:

"The parts and graces of the wreftler." STEEVENS.

Mr. Pope transferred the word him from the former line to this: and perhaps he was right. MALONE.

7 The archdeacon hath divided it-] The metre is here deficient

I fuppofe the line originally ran thus:

The archdeacon hath divided it already. STEEVENS.

8 England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,] i. c. to this spot (pointing to the map). MALONE.

Nor fhall we need his help these fourteen days:Within that space, [To GLEND.] you may have drawn together

Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentle

men.

GLEND. A fhorter time fhall fend me to you, lords,

And in my conduct fhall your ladies come:
From whom you now must steal, and take no leave;
For there will be a world of water fhed,

Upon the parting of wives and you.

your

Hor. Methinks, my moiety, north from Burton here,"

In quantity equals not one of yours:

See, how this river comes me cranking in,"
And cuts me, from the best of all my land,
A huge half-moon, a monftrous cantle out.3

9 Methinks, my moiety, north from Burton here,] The divifion is here into three parts.-A moiety was frequently used by the writers of Shakspeare's age, as a portion of any thing, though not divided into two equal parts. See a note on King Lear, Ã& I. fc. iv. MALONE.

2 cranking in,] Perhaps we fhould read-crankling. So, Drayton in his Polyolbion, fong 7, fpeaking of a river, fays that Meander

"Hath not fo many turns, nor crankling nooks as fhe." STEEVENS.

Mr. Pope reads-crankling. Cranking, however, is 'right. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis:

3

"He cranks and croffes with a thousand doubles."

MALONE.

cantle out.] A cantle is a corner, or piece of any thing, in the fame fenfe that Horace ufes angulus :

"Ofi angulus ille

"Proximus arridet!"

Canton, Fr. canto, Ital. fignify a corner. ufed in Decker's Whore of Babylon, 1607:

To cantle is a verb

"That this vaft globe terrestrial should be cantled.”

I'll have the current in this place damm'd up;
And here the smug and filver Trent shall run,
In a new channel, fair and evenly:

It fhall not wind with fuch a deep indent,
To rob me of fo rich a bottom here.

GLEND. Not wind? it fhall, it must; you fee, it doth.

MORT. Yea,

But mark, how he bears his courfe, and runs me up
With like advantage on the other fide;
Gelding the oppofed continent as much,
As on the other fide it takes from you.

WOR. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here,

And on this north fide win this cape of land;
And then he runs ftraight and even.

Hor. I'll have it fo; a little charge will do it.
GLEND. I will not have it alter'd.

GLEND. I can fpeak English, lord, as well as you;

The fubftantive occurs in Drayton's Polyolbion, fong 1:

"Rude Neptune cutting in a cantle forth doth take."

Again, in a New Trick to cheat the Devil, 1636:

"Not fo much as a cantell of cheese or craft of bread."

STEEVENS.

Canton in heraldry is a corner of the fhield. Cant of cheese is now used in Pembrokeshire. LORT.

4 Let me not understand you then,] Yon, an apparent interpolation, deftructive to the metre, fhould, I think, be omitted.

STEEVFNS.