2

TRA. This ftrained paffion doth you wrong, my

lord.

BARD. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

MOR. The lives of all your loving complices Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er To ftormy paffion, muft perforce decay.

You caft the event of war,' my noble lord,

And fumm'd the account of chance, before you

faid,

Let us make head. It was your presurmise,
That, in the dole of blows your fon might drop:

eyes, as well as privation of light. Yet we may remark, that by an ancient opinion it has been held, that if the human race, for whom the world was made, were extirpated, the whole system of fublunary nature would cease. JOHNSON.

2 This ftrained paffion-] This line in the quarto, where alone it is found, is given to Umfrevile, who, as Mr. Steevens has obferved, is fpoken of in this very scene as abfent. It was on this ground probably rejected by the player-editors. It is now, on the fuggeftion of Mr. Steevens, attributed to Travers, who is prefent, and yet (as that gentleman has remarked) is made to fay nothing on this interefting occafion." MALONE.

3 You caft the event of war, &c.] The fourteen lines from hence to Bardolph's next fpeech, are not to be found in the first editions till that in the folio of 1623. A very great number of other lines in this play were inferted after the first edition in like manner, but of fuch fpirit and maftery generally, that the infertions are plainly by Shakspeare himself. POPE.

To this note I have nothing to add, but that the editor fpeaks of more editions than I believe him to have seen, there having been but one edition yet discovered by me that precedes the first folio. JOHNSON.

in the dole of blows-] The dole of blows is the diftri bution of blows. Dole originally fignified the portion of alms (confifting either of meat or money) that was given away at the door of a nobleman. See Vol. VIII. p. 429, n. 5. STEVENS.

You knew, he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
More likely to fall in, than to get o'er:"
You were advis'd, his flesh was capable"

Of wounds, and scars; and that his forward fpirit
Would lift him where moft trade of danger rang'd;
Yet did you fay,-Go forth; and none of this,
Though ftrongly apprehended, could restrain
The ftiff-borne action: What hath then befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprize brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be?

BARD. We all, that are engaged to this lofs,"
Knew that we ventur'd on fuch dangerous feas,
That, if we wrought out life, 'twas ten to one:
And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd
Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd;
And, fince we are o'erfet, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth; body, and goods.
MOR. 'Tis more than time: And, my moft no-
ble lord,

5 You knew, he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,

P. I;

More likely to fall in, than to get o'er:] So, in King Henry IV.

"As full of peril and adventurous fpirit,

"As to o'erwalk a current roaring loud,

"On the unsteadfast footing of a spear." MALONE.

You were advis'd, his flesh was capable—] i. e. you knew. So,

in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :

"How fhall I doat on her with more advice.

i. e. on further knowledge. MALONE.

Thus alfo, Thomas Twyne, the continuator of Phaer's tranflation of Virgil, 1584, for haud infcius, has advis'd:

"He fpake: and ftrait the fword advisde into his throat receives." STEEVENS.

We all, that are engaged to this lofs,] We have a fimilar phrafeology in the preceding play :

66

Hath a more worthy intereft to the state,

"Than thou the fhadow of fucceffion." MALONE.

8

I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,
The gentle archbishop of York is up,
With well-appointed powers; he is a man,
Who with a double furety binds his followers.
My lord your fon had only but the corps,
But fhadows, and the fhows of men, to fight:
For that fame word, rebellion, did divide
The action of their bodies from their fouls;
And they did fight with queafinefs, conftrain'd,
As men drink potions; that their weapons only
Seem'd on our fide, but, for their spirits and fouls,
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond: But now the bishop
Turns infurrection to religion:

Suppos'd fincere and holy in his thoughts,
He's follow'd both with body and with mind;
And doth enlarge his rifing with the blood
Of fair king Richard, fcrap'd from Pomfret ftones:
Derives from heaven his quarrel, and his caufe;
Tells them, he doth beftride a bleeding land,'
Gafping for life under great Bolingbroke;
And more, and lefs, do flock to follow him.

The gentle &c.] Thefe one-and-twenty lines were added fince the first edition. JOHNSON.

This and the following twenty lines are not found in the quarto, 1600, either from fome inadvertence of the transcriber or compofitor, or from the printer not having been able to procure a perfect copy. They firft appeared in the folio, 1623; but it is manifeft that they were written at the fame time with the reft of the play, Northumberland's answer referring to them. MALONE.

9 Tells them, he doth beftride a bleeding land,] That is, ftands over his country to defend her as fhe lies bleeding on the ground. So Falstaff before fays to the Prince, If thou fee me down, Hal, and beftride me, fo; it is an office of friendship. JOHNSON.

2 And more, and lefs,] More and lefs means greater and lefs. So, in Macbeth:

"Both more and lefs have given him the revolt."

STEEVENS.

NORTH. I knew of this before; but, to speak

truth,

This prefent grief had wip'd it from my mind. Go in with me; and counfel every man

The apteft way for fafety, and revenge:

Get pofts, and letters, and make friends with speed;

Never fo few, and never yet more need. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

London. A Street.

Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his fword and buckler.

FAL. Sirrah, you giant, what fays the doctor to my water? 3

3what fays the doctor to my water?] The method of inveftigating difeafes by the infpection of urine only, was once fo much the fashion, that Linacre, the founder of the College of Phyficians, formed a ftatute to reftrain apothecaries from carrying the water of their patients to a doctor, and afterwards giving medicines in confequence of the opinions they received concerning it. This ftatute was, foon after, followed by another, which forbade the doctors themselves to pronounce on any disorder from fuch an uncertain diagnoftic.

John Day, the author of a comedy called Law Tricks, or Who would have thought it? 1608, describes an apothecary thus: “—his houfe is fet round with patients twice or thrice a day, and because they'll be fure not to want drink, every one brings his own water in an urinal with him."

Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady:

"I'll make her cry fo much, that the phyfician,
"If fhe fall fick upon it, fhall want urine
"To find the cause by."

and

It will scarcely be believed hereafter, that in the years 1775 1776, a German, who had been a fervant in a public riding-school,

PAGE. He faid, fir, the water itfelf was a good healthy water: but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.

FAL. Men of all forts take a pride to gird at me:4 The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the caufe that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee, like a fow, that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to fet me off, why then I have no judgement. Thou whorefon mandrake,' thou art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never mann'd with an agate till now:"

(from which he was discharged for infufficiency,) revived this exploded practice of water-cafting. After he had amply increased the bills of mortality, and been publickly hung up to the ridicule of those who had too much fenfe to confult him, as a monument of the folly of his patients, he retired with a princely fortune, and perhaps is now indulging a hearty laugh at the expence of English. credulity. STEEVENS.

to gird at me: i. e. to gibe. So, in Lyly's Mother Bombie, 1594: "We maids are mad wenches; we gird them, and flout them," &c. See Vol. VI. p. 547, n. 7. STEEVENS. - mandrake,] Mandrake is a root fuppofed to have the fhape of a man; it is now counterfeited with the root of briony. JOHNSON.

3

6 I was never mann'd with an agate till now:] That is, I never before had an agate for my man. JOHNSON.

Alluding to the little figures cut in agates, and other hard ftones, for feals; and therefore he fays, I will fet you neither in gold nor filver. The Oxford editor alters it to aglet, a tag to the points then in ufe (a word indeed which our author ufes to exprefs the fame thought): but aglets, though they were fometimes of gold or filver, were never fet in thofe metals. WARBURTON.

It appears from a paffage in Beaumont and Fletcher's Coxcomb, that it was usual for juftices of peace either to wear an agate in a ring, or as an appendage to their gold chain: "Thou wilt