And if my legs were two such riding-rods, My arms such eel-skins stuff'd; my face so thin, That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose, Lest men should say, Look, where three-farthings goes1! sign of the genitive case. As the text before stood there was a double genitive. MALONE. I my face so thin, That in mine EAR I durst not stick a ROSE, Lest men should say, Look, where THREE-FARTHINGS goes!] In this very obscure passage our poet is anticipating the date of another coin; humorously to rally a thin face, eclipsed, as it were, by a full blown rose. We must observe, to explain this allusion, that Queen Elizabeth was the first, and indeed the only prince, who coined in England three-half-pence, and three-farthing pieces. She coined shillings, six-pences, groats, three-pences, two-pences, three-half-pence, pence, three-farthings, and half-pence; and these pieces all had her head, and were alternately with the rose behind, and without the rose. THEOBALD. Mr. Theobald has not mentioned a material circumstance relative to these three-farthing pieces, on which the propriety of the allusion in some measure depends; viz. that they were made of silver, and consequently extremely thin. From their thinness they were very liable to be cracked. Hence Ben Jonson, in his Every Man in his Humour, says, "He values me at a cracked three-farthings." MALONE. So, in The Shoemaker's Holiday, &c. 1610: 66 Here's a three-penny piece for thy tidings. "Firk. Tis but three-half-pence I think: yes, 'tis threepence ; I smell the rose." STEEVENS. The sticking roses about them was then all the court-fashion, as appears from this passage of the Confession Catholique du S. de Sancy, 1. ii. c. i.: Je luy ay appris à mettre des roses par tous les coins:" i. e. "in every place about him," says the speaker, of one to whom he had taught all the court-fashions. 66 WARBURTON. The roses stuck in the ear were, I believe, only roses composed of ribbands. In Marston's What You Will is the following passage: Dupatzo the elder brother, the fool, he that bought the half-penny ribband, wearing it in his ear," &c. Again, in Every Man out of his Humour : 66 -This ribband in my ear, or so." Again, in Love and Honour, by Sir W. D'Avenant, 1649: "A lock on the left side, so rarely hung "With ribbanding," &c. I think I remember, among Vandyck's pictures in the Duke of And, to his shape, were heir to all this land2, 'Would I might never stir from off this place, I'd give it every foot to have this face I would not be sir Nob in any case". ; ELI. I like thee well; Wilt thou forsake thy fortune, Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me ? Queensbury's collection at Ambrosbury, to have seen one, with the lock nearest the ear ornamented with ribbands which terminate in roses; and Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, says, "that it was once the fashion to stick real flowers in the ear." At Kirtling, (vulgarly pronounced-Catlage,) in Cambridgeshire, the magnificent residence of the first Lord North, there is a juvenile portrait, (supposed to be of Queen Elizabeth,) with a red rose sticking in her ear." STEEVENS. Marston, in his Satires, 1598, alludes to this fashion as fantas- tical: "Ribbanded eares, Grenada nether-stocks." And from the epigrams of Sir John Davies, printed at Middleburgh, about 1598, it appears that some men of gallantry, in our author's time, suffered their ears to be bored, and wore their mistress's silken shoe-strings in them. MALONE. 2 And, To his shape, WERE heir to all this land,] There is no noun to which were can belong, unless the personal pronoun in the last line but one be understood here. I suspect that our author wrote 66 "And though his shape were heir to all his land." Thus the sentence proceeds in one uniform tenour. Madam, an if my brother had my shape, and I had his-and if my legs were, &c.—and though his shape were heir, &c. I would giveMALONE. The old reading is the true one. "To his shape" means, 'in addition to it.' So, in Troilus and Cressida : "The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, "Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant." Mr. M. Mason, however, would transpose the words his and this: "And to this shape were heir to all his land." By this shape, says he, Faulconbridge means, the shape he had been just describing. STEEVENS. 3 I would not be sir NOB-] Sir Nob is used contemptuously for Sir Robert. The old copy reads-" It would not be." The correction was made by the editor of the second folio. I am not sure that it is necessary. MALONE. Р VOL. XV. I am a soldier, and now bound to France. BAST. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance : Your face hath got five hundred pounds a year; Yet sell your face for five pence, and 'tis dear.Madam, I'll follow you unto the death *. ELI. Nay, I would have you go before me thither. BAST. Our country manners give our betters way. K. JOHN. What is thy name? BAST. Philip, my liege; so is my name begun ; Philip, good old sir Robert's wife's eldest son. K. JOHN. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bear'st: 5 Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great3; BAST. Brother, by the mother's side, give me your hand; My father gave me honour, yours gave land :- 4 ELI. The very spirit of Plantagenet !— unto the death.] This expression (a Gallicism,—à la mort) is common among our ancient writers. STEEVENS. but ARISE more great;] The old copy reads only-rise. STEEVENS. 66 Perhaps, as Colonel Roberts suggested to me- rise up more great." But I rather think more is a dissyllable. MALONE. 6 Arise sir Richard, and PLANTAGENET.] It is a common opinion, that Plantagenet was the surname of the royal house of England, from the time of King Henry II.; but it is, as Camden observes, in his Remaines, 1614, a popular mistake. Plantagenet was not a family name, but a nick-name, by which a grandson of Geffrey, the first Earl of Anjou, was distinguished, from his wearing a broom-stalk in his bonnet. But this name was never borne either by the first Earl of Anjou, or by King Henry II. the son of that Earl by the Empress Maude; he being always called Henry Fitz-Empress; his son, Richard Coeur-de-lion; and the prince who is exhibited in the play before us, John sans-terre, or lackland, MALONE. I am thy grandame, Richard; call me so. Something about, a little from the right, In at the window, or else o'er the hatch": Who dares not stir by day, must walk by night; And have is have, however men do catch: Near or far off, well won is still well shot; And I am I, howe'er I was begot. K. JOHN. GO, Faulconbridge; now hast thou thy desire, A landless knight makes thee a landed 'squire.— Come, madam, and come, Richard; we must speed For France, for France; for it is more than need. 7 Madam, by chance, but not by truth: What though ?] I am your grandson, madam, by chance, but not by honesty-what then? JOHNSON. 8 Something about, a little from the right, &c.] This speech, composed of allusive and proverbial sentences, is obscure. I am, says the sprightly knight, your grandson, a little irregularly, but every man cannot get what he wishes the legal way. He that dares not go about his designs by day, must make his motions in the night; he, to whom the door is shut, must climb the window, or leap the hatch. This, however, shall not depress me; for the world never enquires how any man got what he is known to possess, but allows that to have is to have, however it was caught, and that he who wins, shot well, whatever was his skill, whether the arrow fell near the mark, or far off it. JOHNSON. 66 9 In at the window, &c.] These expressions mean, to be 'born out of wedlock.' So, in The Family of Love, 1608: "Woe worth the time that ever I gave suck to a child that came in at the window!" So, in Northward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: - kindred that comes in o'er the hatch, and sailing to Westminster," &c. Such another phrase occurs in Any Thing for a Quiet Life: then you keep children in the name of your own, which she suspects came not in at the right door.' Again, in The Witches of Lancashire, by Heywood and Broome, 1634: It appears then by your discourse that you came in at the window.""I would not have you think I scorn my grannam's cat to leap over the hatch." Again : to escape the dogs hath leaped in at a window."- -""Tis thought you came into the world that way, because you are a bastard." STEEVENS. 66 66 BAST. Brother, adieu; Good fortune come to thee ! For thou wast got i' the way of honesty. [Exeunt all but the Bastard. A foot of honour' better than I was; I A foot of honour-] A step, un pas. JOHNSON. 5, 2 Good den,] i. e. a good evening. So, in Romeo and Juliet: God ye good den, fair gentlewoman." STEEVENS. 66 3 sir Richard,] Thus the old copy, and rightly. In Act IV. Salisbury calls him sir Richard, and the King has just knighted him by that name. The modern editors arbitrarily read, sir Robert. Faulconbridge is now entertaining himself with ideas of greatness, suggested by his recent knighthood.-Good den, sir Richard, he supposes to be the salutation of a vassal; God-amercy, fellow, his own supercilious reply to it. STEEVENS. 4 'Tis too RESPECTIVE, and too sociable For your CONVERSION.] Respective is respectful, formal. So, in The Case is Altered, by Ben Jonson, 1609: " I pray you, sir; you are too respective in good faith." Again, in the old comedy called Michaelmas Term, 1607: "Seem respective, to make his pride swell like a toad with dew." Again, in The Merchant of Venice, Act V.: "You should have been respective," &c. Again, in Chapman's version of the eleventh Iliad : 66 his honourable blood "Was struck with a respective shame; "For your conversion" is the reading of the old copy, and may be right. It seems to mean, his late change of condition from a private gentleman to a knight.' STEEVENS. Mr. Pope, without necessity, reads-for your conversing. Our author has here, I think, used a licence of phraseology that he often takes. The Bastard has just said, that "new-made honour doth forget men's names;' and he proceeds as if he had said, "does not remember men's names." To remember the name of an inferior, he adds, has too much of the respect which is paid to superiors, and of the social and friendly familiarity of equals, for |