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of the Bible: (Matthew, chap. ii., v. 16.) "It is lyk to children sittynge in chepynge that crien to her peeris." Our authorized translation of the Bible gives us the same passage as follows: "It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows." We see, then, that gesell, comes, count, fellow, peer, and fere, are all equivalent to vassal, in the sense of companion. But it is more than possible, that the fere, pheer, or peer, were companions subject to a superior, and endowed by him with grants of land in fee-the only mode by which, in the early feudal times, any of the associates, followers, fellows, companions, of the chief could be maintained. A remarkable illustration of our belief that Peer and Fere were cognate terms,-and that a Fere or Fear was one holding of the Crown in Fee,-is furnished by the title which the famous John Napier attached to his name. At the end of the Dedication to his "Plain Discovery of the whole Revelation of St. John," -in the edition of 1645, Napier signs himself

"Peer of Marchistown." Mr. Mark Napier, in the Life of his great ancestor, (1834) says that the true signature is "Fear of Marchistown," and that "Fear" means that he was invested with the Fee of his paternal Barony. "Peer" might have been a printer's or transcriber's substitution for "Fear;" -or "Fear" might have been rejected by Napier for the more common word "Peer." Such a change took place in a passage in Titus Andronicus. Whilst the only quarto edition of that play, and the first folio, describe (Act IV.) Tarquin as a feere, the word subsequently became changed to Peer, and was restored by Tyrwhitt. If the critical student will not accept feres or feires, in the sense of vassals, there is the word feodars, which might be easily misprinted feares, and which gives a clear meaning, and accords with the rhythm of the line. For the use of this term, in the sense of those holding feods, Marston is an authority in the drama :—

"For seventeen kings were Carthage feodars."
'Wonder of Women.'

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE events which form the action of the first part of Henry IV. are included within a period of ten months. The battle of Holmedon, or Homildon, the result of which the king communicates in the first scene, was fought on the 14th September, 1402, and the battle of Shrewsbury, with which the fifth act closes, took place on the 21st July, 1403.

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After the defeat of Hepburn of Hales, by the Earl of March, at Nesbit Moor, in 1402, Archibald Earl Douglas, the Douglas of this play, sore displeased in his mind for this overthrow, procured a commission to invade England." So writes Holinshed. The Douglas with an army of ten thousand men advanced as far as Newcastle, but finding no army to oppose him, he retreated loaded with plunder, and satisfied with the devastation he had committed and the terror he had produced. The king at this time was vainly chasing Glendower up and down his mountains; but the Earl of Northumberland and his son Hotspur gathered a powerful army, and intercepted Douglas on his return to Scotland. This army awaited the Scots near Milfield, in the north of Northumberland, and Douglas, upon arriving in sight of his enemy, took up a strong post upon Homildon Hill. The English weapon, the long bow, decided the contest, for the Scots fell almost without fight. The desperate valour of two Scotch knights, Swinton and Gordon, forms the subject of Sir Walter Scott's spirited dramatic sketch of Halidon Hill. But he has transferred the incidents of Holmedon to another scene and another period. "For who," he says, "would again venture to introduce upon the scene the celebrated Hotspur." Shakspere took the names of the prisoners at Holmedon from Holinshed: but from some confusion in the Chronicler's recital, he has made Mordake, Earl of Fife, the eldest son of Douglas, when in truth he was the son of the Duke of Albany, Governor of Scotland; and he has omitted Douglas himself, who was the chief of the prisoners. There is a dramatic propriety in

our poet making Sir Walter Blunt, "the dear and true industrious friend" of the king, bring the "smooth and welcome news" of this great victory; and in this he is neither borne out nor contradicted by the Chronicles. An entry, however, has been found in the Pell Rolls, of a grant of forty pound; yearly "To Nicholas Merbury for other good services, as also because the same Nicholas was the first person who reported for a certainty to the said lord the king, the good, agreeable, and acceptable news of the success of the late expedition at Holmedon, near Wollor." [Wooler.]

Holinshed thus describes the origin of the quarrel between the Percies and the king:

"Henry Earl of Northumberland, with his brother Thomas Earl of Worcester, and his son, the Lord Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, which were to King Henry, in the beginning of his reign, both faithful friends and earnest aiders, began now to envy his wealth and felicity; and especially they were grieved because the king demanded of the earl and his son such Scottish prisoners as were taken at Homeldon and Nesbit: for of all the captives which were taken in the conflicts fought in those two places, there was delivered to the king's possession only Mordake Earl of Fife, the Duke of Albany's son, though the king did divers and sundry times require deliverance of the residue, and that with great threatenings: wherewith the Percies being sore offended, for that they claimed them as their own proper prisoners, and their peculiar prizes, by the council of the Lord Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, whose study was ever (as some write) to procure malice and set things in a broil, came to the king unto Windsor (upon a purpose to prove him), and there required of him that, either by ransom or otherwise, he would cause to be delivered out of prison Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, their cousin german, whom (as they reported) Owen Glendower kept in filthy prison, shackled with irons, only for that he took his part, and was to him faithful and true.

* "The king, when he had studied on the matter, made answer that the Earl of March was not taken prisoner for his cause, nor in his service, but willingly suffered himself to be taken, because he would not withstand the attempts of Owen Glendower and his complices, therefore he would neither ransom him, nor release him.

"The Percies with this answer and fraudulent excuse were not a little fumed, insomuch that Henry Hotspur said openly: Behold, the heir of the realm is robbed of his right, and yet the robber with his own will not redeem him. So in this fury the Percies departed, minding nothing more than to depose King Henry from the high type of his royalty, and to place in his seat their cousin Edmund Earl of March, whom they did not only deliver out of captivity, but also (to the high displeasure of King Henry) entered in league with the aforesaid Owen Glendower."

The refusal of Henry IV. to ransom Mortimer, or to allow him to be ransomed, proceeded from a not unnatural jealousy; but the prisoner of Glen

dower was not "the heir of the realm," as Holinshed represents, but Sir Edmund Mortimer, the uncle of the young Earl of March, whom Henry kept in close custody, because he had a prior claim to the crown by succession. Sir Edmund Mortimer was the "brother-in-law" to Hotspur, who had married his sister. Shakspere has, of course, followed Holinshed in confounding Sir Edmund Mortimer with the Earl of March;-but those from whom accuracy is required have fallen into the same error as the old Chronicler,-amongst others Rapin and Hume. A despatch of the king to his council states, "The rebels have taken my beloved cousin, Esmon Mortymer." Edmund, Earl of March, was at this period only ten years old, and a state prisoner.

The Earl of Westmoreland, who appears throughout this play as one of the most faithful adherents of the king, was a partisan of Bolingbroke from his first landing. We shall find him in the second part of Henry IV., actively engaged in suppressing the insurrection in Yorkshire.

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SCENE I.-Rochester. An Inn Yard.

ACT II.

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1 Car. Poor fellow! never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was the death of him.

2 Car. I think this is the most villainous house in all London road for fleas : I am stung like a tench.2

1 Car. Like a tench? by the mass, there is ne'er a king in Christendom could be better bit than I have been since the first cock.

2 Car. Why, you will allow us ne'er a jordan, and then we leak in your chimney; and your chamber-lie breeds fleas like a loach.

1 Car. What, ostler! come away, and be hanged, come away.

a

2 Car. I have a gammon of bacon, and two razes of ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing Cross.3

1 Car. 'Odsbody! the turkies in my pannier are quite starved.-What, ostler!-A plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy head?

a Razes of ginger. Mr. Grant White says "a raze of ginger, according to Theobald, was a package, and must be distinguished from a race, which was merely a root." See Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 493.

canst not hear? An 't were not as good a deed as drink to break the pate of thee, I am a very villain.-Come, and be hanged :-Hast no faith in thee?

Enter GADSHILL.

Gads. Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock? 1 Car. I think it be two o'clock."

Gads. I prithee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable.

1 Cur. Nay, soft, I pray ye; I know a trick worth two of that.

Gads. I prithee, lend me thine.

2 Car. Ay, when? canst tell ?-Lend me thy lantern, quoth a ?-marry, I'll see thee hanged first.

Gads. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?

2 Car. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.-Come, neighbour Mugs, we 'll call up the gentlemen; they will along with company, for they have great charge.

[Exeunt Carriers.

Gads. What, ho! chamberlain ! Cham. [Within.] At hand, quoth pick-purse. Gads. That's even as fair as-at hand, quoth the chamberlain: for thou variest no more from picking of purses, than giving direction doth from labouring; thou lay'st the plot how.

Enter Chamberlain.

Cham. Good-morrow, master Gadshill. It holds current that I told you yesternight: There's a franklin in the wild of Kent hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold: I heard him tell it to one of his company, last night at supper; a kind of auditor; one that hath abnndance of charges too, God knows what. They are up already, and call for eggs and butter: They will away presently.

Gads. Sirrah, if they meet not with saint Nicholas' clerks I'll give thee this neck.

Cham. No, I'll none of it: I prithee, keep that for the hangman; for I know thou worship'st saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may.

Gads. What talkest thou to me of the hangman? if I hang, I'll make a fat pair of gallows: for if I hang old sir John hangs with me; and

a Two o'clock. The carrier is deceiving Gadshill. He has just said it is four o'clock.

b Ay, when? canst tell?-a slang phrase, which we also find in the Comedy of Errors. It seems equivalent to the modern "I wish you may get it."

e Wild of Kent. Undoubtedly the weald of Kent.

d Saint Nicholas' clerks-thieves.

a

thou knowest he's no starveling. Tut! there are other Trojans that thou dreamest not of, the which, for sport sake, are content to do the profession some grace; that would, if matters should be looked into, for their own credit sake make all whole. I am joined with no foot-land-rakers, no long-staff, sixpenny strikers; none of these mad, mustachio purple-hued malt-worms: but with nobility and tranquillity; burgomasters and great oneyers; such as can hold in; such as will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray And yet I lie; for they pray continually to their saint, the commonwealth; or, rather, not pray to her, but prey on her; for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots.

с

Chum. What, the commonwealth their boots? will she hold out water in foul way?

Gads. She will, she will; justice hath liquored her. We steal as in a castle, cock-sure; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible.

Cham. Nay, by my faith; I think rather you are more beholding to the night than to fernseed, for your walking invisible.

d

Gads. Give me thy hand: thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as I am a true man. Cham. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.

Gads. Go too; Homo is a common name to all Bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, ye muddy knave. [Exeunt.

men.

SCENE II.-The Road by Gadshill.

Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS.

Poins. Come, shelter, shelter; I have removed Falstaff's horse, and he frets like a gumined velvet.

P. Hen. Stand close.

Enter FALSTAFF.

Fal. Poins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins! P. Hen. Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal; What a brawling dost thou keep!

a Sixpenny strikers,-petty footpads-robbers for sixb Malt-worms-drunkards.

pence.

c Oneyers. Pope interprets this oneraires-trustees or commissioners :-Theobald, moneyers; Hanmer, owners; Hardinge, moniers-mintmen; Capell, mynheers; Malone, onyers, public accountants. Johnson wisely dispenses with such subtleties, and thinks that great oney rs is merely a cant phrase for great ones. The variorum editions contain many comments on other parts of Gadshill's slang, which leave the text pretty much as they found it.

d Purchase. This was another soft name for a theft, of the same kind as convey. (See note to Richard II., Act IV.)

Fal. Where's Poins, Hal?

P. Hen. He is walked up to the top of the hill; I'll seek him. [Pretends to seek POINS. go Fal. I am accursed to rob in that thief's company the rascal hath removed my horse, and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the squire further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I 'scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly any time these two-and-twenty years; and yet I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; it could not be else; I have drunk medicines.-Poins!Hal!-A plague upon you both!—Bardolph! Peto!-I'll starve, ere I'll rob a foot further. | An 't were not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough: A plague upon 't, when thieves cannot be true one to another! [They whistle.] Whew!-A plague light upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues; give me my horse, and be hanged.

P. Hen. Peace, ye fat-guts! lie down; lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers.

Fal. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? 'Sblood, I'll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again, for all the coin in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus ?

P. Hen. Thou liest, thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.

Fal. I prithee, good prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king's son.

P. Hen. Out, you rogue! shall I be your ostler ?

Fal. Go, hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison: When a jest is so forward, and afoot too,-I hate it.

Enter GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and PETO.

Gads. Stand.

Fal. So I do, against my will.

Poins. O, 't is our setter: I know his voice; Bardolph, what news?

a By the squire-by the rule.

b To coll-to trick.

Gads. Case ye, case ye; on with your visors; there's money of the king's coming down the hill; 't is going to the king's exchequer.

Fal. You lie, you rogue; 't is going to the king's tavern.

Gads. There's enough to make us all.
Fal. To be hanged.

P. Hen. You four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned and I will walk lower: if they 'scape from your encounter then they light

on us.

Peto. How many be there of them.
Gads. Some eight, or ten.

Fal. Zounds! will they not rob us?
P. Hen. What, a coward, sir John Paunch?
Fal. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your
grandfather: but yet no coward, Hal.

P. Hen. We'll leave that to the proof. Poins. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge; when thou need'st him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast. Fal. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged.

P. Hen. Ned, where are our disguises?
Poins. Here, hard by; stand close.

[Exeunt P. HENRY and POINS. Fal. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business.

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