SERV. It is, my lord. Hor. That roan fhall be my throne. Well, I will back him ftraight: O efperance !9- LADY. But hear you, my lord. HOT. [Exit Servant. What fay'ft, my lady? My horse,' LADY. What is it carries you away? Hor. My love, my horse. LADY. I'll know your business, Harry, that I will. In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry,' 9 efperance!] This was the motto of the Percy family. MALONE. 2 What fay'ft, my lady?] Old copies-What fay'ft thou, my lady? STEEVENS. 3 My horfe,] Old copies-Why, my horfe. STEEVENS. -did line the rebel "With hidden help and vantage." STEEVENS. 5I'll break thy little finger, Harry,] This token of amorous dalliance appeareth to be of a very ancient date; being mentioned in Fenton's Tragical Difcourfes, 1579: "Whereupon, I think, no fort of kyffes or follyes in love were forgotten, no kynd of crampe, nor pinching by the little finger." AMNER. Hor. Away, Away, you trifler!-Love?—I love thee not," See Antony and Cleopatra: "The ftroke of death is as a lover's pinch, "Which hurts, and is defired." 6 Hot. Away, MALONE. Away, you trifler!-Love?—I love thee not,] This I think would be better thus: Hot. Away, you trifler! Lady. Love! Hot. I love thee not. This is no world, &c. JOHNSON. The alteration propofed by Dr. Johnson seems unneceffary. The paffage, as now regulated, appears to me perfectly clear.-The firft love is not a fubftantive, but a verb: love [thee?]-I love thee not. Hotfpur's mind being intent on other things, his anfwers are irregular. He has been mufing, and now replies to what lady Percy had faid fome time before: "Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, "And I must know it,-elfe he loves me not.' In a fubfequent scene this diftinguishing trait of his character is particularly mentioned by the Prince of Wales, in his defcription of a converfation between Hotspur and lady Percy: "O my fweet Harry, (fays the,) how many haft thou kill'd to-day? Give my roan horfe a drench, (fays he, and anfwers,)-fome fourteen, AN HOUR AFTER. MALONE. 7 -mammets,] Puppets. JOHNSON. So Stubbs, fpeaking of ladies dreft in the fashion, fays: "they are not natural, but artificial women, not women of flesh and blood, but rather puppets or mammets, confifting of ragges and clowts compact together." So, in the old comedy of Every Woman in her Humour, 1609: -I have feen the city of new Nineveh, and Julius Cæfar, acted by mammets." Again, in the ancient romance of Virgilius, bl. 1. no date: "" -he made in that compace all the goddes that we call mawmets and ydolles." Mammet is perhaps a corruption of Mahomet. Throughout the English tranflation of Marco Paolo, 1579, Mahometans and other worshippers of idols are always called Mahomets and Mahmets. Holinfhed's Hiftory of England, P. 108, speaks" of marmets and idols." This laft conjecture and We must have bloody nofes, and crack'd crowns,' And pass them current too.-Gods me, my horse!What fay'ft thou, Kate? what would'st thou have with me? LADY. Do you not love me? do you not, indeed? Well, do not then; for, fince you love me not, Hor. Come, wilt thou fee me ride? No lady clofer; for I well believe, Thou wilt not utter what thou doft not know;" And fo far will I trust thee, gentle Kate? quotation is from Mr. Tollet. I may add, that Hamlet seems to have the fame idea when he tells Ophelia, that " he could interpret between her and her love, if he faw the puppets dallying." 8 STEEVENS. -crack'd crowns, &c.] Signifies at once crack'd money, and a broken head. Current will apply to both; as it refers to money, its fenfe is well known; as it is applied to a broken head, it infinuates that a foldier's wounds entitle him to universal reception. The fame quibble occurs in Sir John Oldcafile, 1600: JOHNSON. I'll none of your crack'd French crowns ———— King. No crack'd French crowns! I hope to fee more crack'd French crowns ere long. ་་ Prieft. Thou mean'ft of Frenchmen's crowns," &c. STEEVENS. 9 Thou wilt not utter what thou doft not know ;] This line is bor LADY. HOW! fo far? Hor. Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate: Whither I go, thither fhall you go too; LADY. It muft, of force. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. Eaftcheap. 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. rowed from a proverbial sentence: "A woman conceals what she knows not.' See Ray's Proverbs. STEEVENS. So, in Nafhe's Anatomie of Abfurditie, 1589: " In the fame place he [Valerius] faith, quis muliebri garrulitati aliquid committit, quæ illud folum poteft tacere quod nefcit? who will commit any thing to a woman's tatling truft, who conceales nothing but that the knows not?" MALONE. 2 Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar's Head Tavern.] In the old anonymous play of King Henry V. Eaftcheap is the place where Henry and his companions meet: " Henry 5. You know the old tavern in Eaftcheap; there is good wine." Shakspeare has hung up a fign for them that he faw daily; for the Boar's head tavern was very near Black-friars play-house. See Stowe's Survey, 4to. 1618, p. 686. MALONE. This fign is mentioned 'in a letter from Henry Wyndefore, 1459, 38 Henry VI. See Letters of the Pafton Family, Vol. I. p. 175. The writer of this letter was one of Sir John Faftolf's household. Sir John Faftolf, (as I learn from Mr. T. Warton,) was in his life-time a confiderable benefactor to Magdalen college, Oxford, for which his name is commemorated in an anniversary speech; and though the college cannot give the particulars at large, the Boar's Head in Southwark, (which still retains that name, though divided into tenements, yielding 150l. per ann.) and Caldecot manor in Suffolk, were part of the lands &c. he bestowed. STEEVENS, POINS. Where haft been, Hal? P. HEN. With three or four loggerheads, amongst three or four score hogfheads. I have founded the very base string of humility. Sirrah, I am fworn brother to a leafh of drawers; and can call them all by their Chriftian names, as-Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their falvation, that, though I be but prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtefy; and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff; but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy,-by the Lord, fo they call me; and when I am king of England, I fhall command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call— drinking deep, dying fcarlet: and when you breathe in your watering,' they cry-hem! and bid you play it off. To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour, that I can drink 3-I am fworn brother to a leafh of drawers;] Alluding to the fratres jurati in the ages of adventure. So, fays Bardolph, in King Henry V. A&t II. fc. i: " - we'll be all three fern brothers to France." See note on this paffage. STEEVENS. 4- Corinthian,] A wencher. JOHNSON. This cant expreffion is common in old plays. So Randolph, in The Jealous Lovers, 1632: 66 let him wench, Buy me all Corinth for him." "Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum." Again, in the tragedy of Nero, 1633: "Nor us, tho' Romans, Lais will refufe, "To Corinth any man may go." STEEVENS. - 3 — and when you breathe &c.] A certain maxim of health attributed to the fchool of Salerno, may prove the best comment on this paffage. I meet with a fimilar expreffion in a MS. play of Timon of Athens, which, from the hand-writing, appears to be at leaft as ancient as the time of Shakspeare: we alfo do enact "That all hold up their heads, and laugh aloud; "Drink much at one draught; breathe not in their drink; |
