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him in the fifth act, that he was glad to fill it up with whatever he could get; and not even Shakspeare can write well without a proper subject. It is a vain endeavour for the most skilful hand to cultivate barrenness, or to paint upon vacuity. JOHNSON.

Line 309. take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy;] i. e. A constancy in the ingot, that hath suffered no alloy, as all coined metal has. WARBURTON.

I believe this explanation to be more ingenious than true; to coin is to stamp and to counterfeit. He uses it in both senses; uncoined constancy signifies real and true constancy, unrefined and unadorned. JOHNSON.

Line 363. with scambling,] i. e. with scrambling.

454. Pardon the frankness of my mirth,] We have here but a mean dialogue for princes; the merriment is very gross, and the sentiments are very worthless. JOHNSON.

Line 475. This moral-] That is, the application of this fable. The moral being the application of a fable, our author calls any application a moral. JOHNSON.

Line 548. Mangling by starts—] By touching only on select parts.

JOHNSON.

END OF THE ANNOTATIONS ON KING HENRY THE

FIFTH.

ANNOTATIONS

ON

THE FIRST PART OF

KING HENRY VI.

LINE 27.

ACT I. SCENE I.

-the subtle-witted French &c.] There was a notion prevalent a long time, that life might be taken away by metrical charms. As superstition grew weaker, these charms were imagined only to have power on irrational animals. In our author's time it was supposed that the Irish could kill rats by a song. JOHNSON.

Line 91. her flowing tides.] i. e. England's flowing tides. MALONE.

-96. their intermissive miseries.] i. e. their miseries, which have had only a short intermission from Henry the Fifth's death to my coming amongst them. WARBURTON.

Line 144. -If sir John Fastolfe &c.] Mr. Pope has taken notice, "That Falstaff is here introduced again, who was dead in Henry V. The occasion whereof is, that this play was written before King Henry IV. or King Henry V." But it is the historical Sir John Fastolfe (for so he is called in both our

Chronicles) that is here mentioned; who was a lieutenant general, deputy regent to the duke of Bedford in Normandy, and a knight of the garter; and not the comick character afterwards introduced by our author, and which was a creature merely of his own brain. Nor when he named him Falstaff do I believe he had any intention of throwing a slur on the memory of this renowned old warrior. THEOBALD.

Mr. Theobald might have seen his notion contradicted in the very line he quotes from. Fastolfe, whether truly or not, is said by Hall and Holinshed to have been degraded for cowardice. Dr. Heylin, in his Saint George for England, tells us, that, "he was afterwards, upon good reason by him alledged in his defence, retored to his honour."-" This Sir John Fastolfe," continues he, was without doubt, a valiant and wise captain, notwithstanding the stage hath made merry with him.” FARMER.

ACT I. SCENE II.

Line 231. England all Olivers and Rowlands bred,] These were two of the most famous in the list of Charlemagne's twelve peers; and their exploits are rendered so ridiculously and equally extravagant by the old romancers, that from thence arose that saying amongst our plain and sensible ancestors, of giving one a Rowland for his Oliver, to signify the matching one incredible lie with another. WARBURTON.

Line 243. -gimmals-] A gimmal is a piece of jointed work, where one piece moves within another, whence it is taken at large for an engine. It is now by the vulgar called a gimcrack. JOHNSON.

Line 244. Their arms are set, like clocks,] Perhaps our author was thinking of the clocks in which figures in the shape of men struck the hours. Of these there were many in his time.

MALONE.

Line 260. --nine sibyls of old Rome;] There were no nine sibyls of Rome; but he confounds things, and mistakes this for the nine books of Sibylline oracles, brought to one of the Tarquins. WARBURTON.

Line 262. Believe my words,] It should be read:

Believe her words.

JOHNSON.

I perceive no need of change. The Bastard calls upon the Dauphin to believe the extraordinary account he has just given of the prophetick spirit and prowess of the Maid of Orleans.

MALONE.

Line 351. Expect Saint Martin's summer,] That is, expect prosperity after misfortune, like fair weather at Martlemas, after winter has begun. JOHNSON.

Line 360. Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?] Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World, informs us, Mahomet had a dove," which he used to feed with wheat out of his ear; which dove, when it was hungry, lighted on Mahomet's shoulder, and thrust its bill in to find its breakfast; Mahomet persuading the rude and simple Arabians, that it was the Holy Ghost that gave him advice.” GREY. Meaning the HANMER.

Line 363. Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters,] four daughters of Philip mentioned in the Acts.

Line 375.

ACT I. SCENE III. there is conveyance.] Conveyance means theft.

HANMER.

-414. Piel'd priest,] Alluding to his shaven crown.

РОРЕ.

-420. Thou, that giv'st whores indulgences to sin;] The public stews were formerly under the district of the bishop of Winchester.

POPE.

There is now extant an old manuscript (formerly the officebook of the court-leet held under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Winchester in Southwark,) in which are mentioned the several fees arising from the brothel-houses allowed to be kept in the bishop's manor, with the customs and regulations of them. One of the articles is:

"De his, qui custodiunt mulieres habentes nefandam infirmitatem."

"Item. That no stewholder keep any woman within his house, that hath any sickness of brenning, but that she be put out upon pain of making a fyne unto the lord of C shillings." UPTON.

Line 425. This be Damascus, be thou cursed Cain,] About four

[blocks in formation]

miles from Damascus is a high hill, reported to be the same on which Cain slew his brother Abel. Maundrel's Travels, p. 131.

POPE

Line 443. -Winchester goose,] A strumpet, or the consequences of her love, was a Winchester goose.

JOHNSON.

Line 478. I'll call for clubs, if you will not away:] That is for peace-officers armed with clubs or staves. In affrays, it was customary in this author's time to call out clubs, clubs! MALONE.

500.

ACT I. SCENE IV.

Line 498. The prince's espials-] i. e. the prince's spies. Wont, through a secret grate of iron bars &c.] That is, the English went not through a secret grate, but went to overpeer the city through a secret grate which is in yonder tower. I did not know till of late that this passage had been thought difficult.

Line 523. so pillag'd. Line 572.

JOHNSON,

-so pil'd esteem'd.] Mr. Steevens thinks means

thy cheek's side struck off!] Camden says in his Remaines, that the French scarce knew the use of great ordnance, till the siege of Mans in 1455, when a breach was made in the walls of that town by the English, under the conduct of this earl of Salisbury; and that he was the first English gentleman that was slain by a cannon-ball. MALONE.

Line 600. Pucelle, &c.] Mr. Tollet says that pussell signifies a wench, a drab.

ACT I. SCÈNE V.

Line 620. Blood will I draw on thee,] The superstition of these times taught that he that could draw the witch's blood, was free from her power. JOHNSON,

ACT I. SCENE VI.

Line 681. Than Rhodope's,] Rhodope was a famous strumpet, who acquired great riches by her trade. The least but most finished of the Egyptian pyramids (says Pliny, in the 36th book of his Natural History, ch. xii.) was built by her. STEEVENS.

Line 684. —coffer of Darius,] When Alexander the Great

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