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PRIN. Speak, brave Hector; we are much de

lighted.

ARM. I do adore thy fweet grace's flipper.

BOYET. Loves her by the foot.

DUM. He may not by the yard.

t

ARM. This Hector far furmounted Hannibal,—

Cosr. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; fhe is two months on her way.

ARM. What meanest thou?

COST. Faith, unless you play the honest Trojan, the poor wench is caft away: fhe's quick; the child brags in her belly already; 'tis yours.

ARM. Doft thou infamonize me among potentates? thou fhalt die.

COST. Then fhall Hector be whipp'd, for Jaquenetta that is quick by him; and hang'd, for Pompey that is dead by him.

DUM. Most rare Pompey!

BOYET. Renowned Pompey!

BIRON. Greater than great, great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the huge!

DUM. Hector trembles.

BIRON. Pompey is mov'd:-More Ates, more Ates; ftir them on! ftir them on!

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DUM. Hector will challenge him.

BIRON. Ay, if he have no more man's blood in's belly than will fup a flea.

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more Ates;] That is, more inftigation. Ate was the mifchievous goddess that incited bloodshed. JOHNSON. So, in K. John:

"An Até, ftirring him to war and ftrife." STEEVENS.

ARM. By the north pole, I do challenge thee.

COST. I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man; I'll flash; I'll do it by the fword:-I pray you, let me borrow my arms' again.

DUM. Room for the incensed worthies.

Cosr. I'll do it in my fhirt.

DUM. Moft refolute Pompey!

Morн. Mafter, let me take you a button-hole lower. Do you not fee, Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? you will lofe your reputation.

ARM. Gentlemen, and foldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my fhirt.

DUM. You may not deny it; Pompey hath made the challenge.

ARM. Sweet bloods, I both may and will.
BIRON. What reafon have you for't?

ARM. The naked truth of it is, I have no fhirt;

I go woolward for penance.

BOYET. True, and it was enjoin'd him in Rome for want of linen: fince when, I'll be fworn, he

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like a northern man ;] Vir Borealis, a clown. See Glossary to Urry's Chaucer. FARMER.

3 my arms-] The weapons and armour which he wore in the character of Pompey. JOHNSON.

4 it was enjoin'd him in Rome for want of linen: &c.] This may poffibly allude to a story well known in our author's time, to this effect. A Spaniard at Rome falling in a duel, as he lay expiring, an intimate friend, by chance, came by, and offered him his best fervices. The dying man told him he had but one request to make him, but conjured him, by the memory of their past friendship, punctually to comply with it, which was not to fuffer him to be ftript, but to bury him as he lay, in the habit he then had on. When this was promifed, the Spaniard clofed his eyes, and expired with great compofure and refignation. But his friend's curiofity prevailing over his good faith, he had him ftript, and found, to his great furprife, that he was without a fhirt. WARBURTON.

wore none, but a difh-clout of Jaquenetta's; and that 'a wears next his heart, for a favour.

Boyet. True, and it was enjoin'd him in Rome for want of linen: &c.] This is a plain reference to the following ftory in Stowe's Annals, p. 98. (in the time of Edward the Confeffor.)" Next after this (king Edward's firft cure of the king's evil) mine authors affirm, that a certain man, named Vifunius Spileorne, the fon of Ulmore of Nutgarshall, who, when he hewed timber in the wood of Bru theullena, laying him down to fleep after his fore labour, the blood and humours of his head fo congealed about his eyes, that he was thereof blind, for the space of nineteen years; but then (as he had been moved in his fleep) he went wool-ward and bare-footed to many churches, in every of them to pray to God for help in his blindnefs." DR. GREY.

The fame cuftom is alluded to in an old collection of Satyres, Epigrams, &c.

"And when his fhirt's a washing, then he must

"Go wool-ward for the time; he fcorns it, he,

"That worth two fhirts his laundress should him fee." Again, in A Mery Gefte of Robyn Hoode, bl. 1. no date: "Barefoot, wool ward have I hight,

"Thether for to go.”

Again, in Powell's Hiftory of Wales, 1584: "The Angles and Saxons flew 1000 priests and monks of Bangor, with a great number of lay-brethren, &c. who were come bare-footed and woelward to crave mercy," &c. STEEVENS.

In Lodge's Incarnate Devils, 1596, we have the character of a fwashbuckler: "His common courfe is to go always untruft; except when his birt is a washing, and then he goes woolward."

FARMER.

Woolward-]"I have no fhirt: I go wool-ward for penance." The learned Dr. Grey, whofe accurate knowledge of our old hiftorians has often thrown much light on Shakspeare, fupposes that this paffage is a plain reference to a story in Stowe's Annals, p. 98. But where is the connection or resemblance between this monkish tale and the paffage before us? There is nothing in the ftory, as here related by Stowe, that would even put us in mind of this dialogue between Boyet and Armado, except the fingular expreffion go woolward; which, at the fame time is not explained by the annotator, nor illuftrated by his quotation. To go wool-ward, I believe, was a phrase appropriated to pilgrims and penitentiaries. In this fenfe it seems to be used in Pierce Plowman's Vifions, Pass. xviii. fol. 96. b. edit. 1550:

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Enter MERCADE.

MER. God fave you, madam!

PRIN. Welcome, Mercade;

But that thou interrupt'ft our merriment.

- MER. I am forry, madam; for the news I bring, Is heavy in my tongue. The king your fatherPRIN. Dead, for my life.

MER. Even fo; my tale is told.

BIRON. Worthies, away; the fcene begins to cloud.

ARM. For mine own part, I breathe free breath: I have feen the day of wrong through the little hole of difcretion, and I will right myfelf like a foldier. Exeunt Worthies.

"Wolward and wetfhod went I forth after
"As a rechlefs reuke, that of no wo retcheth,
"And yedeforth like a lorell," &c.

Skinner derives wool-ward from the Saxon wol, plague, fecondarily any great diftrefs, and weard, toward. Thus, fays he, it fignifies, "in magno difcrimine expectatione magni mali conftitutus." I rather think it should be written wool-ward, and that it means cloathed in wool, and not in linen. This appears, not only from Shakspeare's context, but more particularly from an hiftorian who relates the legend before cited, and whofe words Stowe has evidently tranflated. This is Ailred abbot of Rievaulx, who fays, that our blind man was admonished, "Ecclefias numero octoginta nudis pedibus et abfque linteis circumire." Dec. Scriptor. 392. 50. The fame ftory is told by William of Malmfbury, Geft. Reg. Angl. lib. ii. p. 91. edit. 1601. And in Caxton's Legenda Aurea, fol. 307. edit. 1. By the way it appears, that Stowe's Vifunius Spileorne, fon of Ulinore of Nutgarfhall, ought to be Wulwin, furnamed de Spillicote, fon of Wulmar de Lutegarfhelle, now Ludgerfhall: and the wood of Brutheullena is the forest of Bruelle, now called Brill, in Buckinghamshire. T. WARTON.

1493.

To this fpeech in the old copy Boy. is prefixed, by which defignation moft of Moth's fpeeches are marked. The name of Boyet is generally printed at length. It feems better fuited to Armado's than to Boyet, to whom it has been given in the modern ediMALONE.

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tions.

I have feen the day of wrong through the little hole of difcretion, This has no meaning. We thould read, the day of right, i. e. 1

KING. How fares your majefty?

PRIN. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night. KING. Madam, not fo; I do beseech you, ftay. PRIN.Prepare, I fay.-I thank you, gracious lords, For all your fair endeavours; and entreat, Out of a new-fad foul, that you vouchsafe In your rich wifdom, to excufe, or hide, The liberal oppofition of our fpirits: If over-boldly we have borne ourselves In the converfe of breath, your gentleness

have seen that a day will come when I fhall have justice done me, and therefore I prudently referve myself for that time.

WARBURTON.

I believe it rather means, I have hitherto looked on the indignities I have received, with the eyes of discretion, (i. e. not been too forward to refent them) and shall infift on fuch fatisfaction as will not difgrace my character, which is that of a foldier. To have decided the quarrel in the manner propofed by his antagonist, would have been at once a derogation from the honour of a foldier, and the pride of a Spaniard.

"One may fee day at a little hole," is a proverb in Ray's Collection: "" Day-light will peep through a little hole," in Kelly's. Again, in Churchyard's Charge, 1580. p. 9:

"At little hoales the daie is feen." STEEVENS.

The paffage is faulty; but Warburton has miftaken the meaning of it, and the place in which the error lies.

Armado means to fay, in his affected ftyle, that " he had discovered that he was wronged, and was determined to right himself as a foldier;" and this meaning will be clearly expreffed if we read it thus, with a very flight alteration :" I have seen the day of wrong, through the little hole of difcretion." M. MASON.

6 -liberal-] Free to excefs. So, in The Merchant of Venice: " - there they show

"Something too liberal." STEEVENS.

7 In the converfe of breath,] Perhaps converfe may, in this line, mean interchange. JOHNSON.

Converfe of breath means no more than converfation " made up of breath," as our author expresses himself in Othello. Thus alfo in The Merchant of Venice:

"Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy." STEEVENS.

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