I I find one that can steal well? O for a fine thief, P. HEN. Bardolph BARD. My lord. P. HEN. Go bear this letter to lord John of Lan caster, My brother John; this to my lord of Westmore land. Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou, and I, Meet me to-morrow i' the Temple-hall At two o'clock i' the afternoon : There shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive Money, and order for their furniture. The land is burning; Percy stands on high; [Exeunt Prince, POINS, and Bardolph. FAL. Rare words! brave world!--Hostess, my breakfast; come : O, I could wish, this tavern were my drum. [Exit. 4 POINS, to horse,] I cannot but think that Peto is again put for Poins. I suppose the old copy had only a P. We have Peto afterwards, not riding with the Prince, but Lieutenant to Falstaff. JOHNSON. I have adopted Dr. Johnson's emendation, STEEVENS. The old copies read—“ Go, Peto, to horse." In further support of Dr. Johnson's emendation, it may be observed, that Poins suits the metre of the line, which would be destroyed by a word of two syllables. MALONE. I am inclined to think, with Mr. Douce, that this speech, from the commencement, to the words "at two o'clock i' the afternoon," was intended for prose. BOSWELL. ACT IV. SCENE I. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. Enter HOTSPUR, Worcester, and DOUGLAS. Hor. Well said, my noble Scot: If speaking truth, In this fine age were not thought flattery, The tongues of soothers; but a braver place No man so potent breathes upon the ground, 5 - THE Douglas-] This expression is frequent in Holinshed, and is always applied by way of pre-eminence to the head of the Douglas family. STEEVENS. - I DEFY The tongues of soothers ;] To defy means here to disdain. 7 But I will BEARD him.] To beard is to oppose face to face in a hostile or daring manner. So, in Drayton's Quest of Cynthia : "That it with woodbine durst compare "And beard the eglantine." Again, in Macbeth: 66 met them dareful, beard to beard." Again, in Chapman's version of the first Iliad: 66 or in this proud kind bear "Their beards against me." This phrase, which soon lost its original signification, appears to have been adopted from romance. In ancient language, to head a man, was to cut off his head, and to beard him, signified to cut off his beard; a punishment which was frequently inflicted by giants on such unfortunate princes as fell into their hands. So, Drayton, in his Polyolbion, Song 4: ACT Hor. Do so, and 'tis well : Enter a Messenger, with Letters. What letters hast thou there ?-I can but thank you. MESS. These letters come from your father,- self? MESS. He cannot come, my lord; he's grievous sick. Hor. 'Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick, In such a justling time? Who leads his power? Under whose government come they along? MESS. His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord 9. "And for a trophy brought the giant's coat away, 8 'Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick, In such a justling time ?] Epaminondas, being told, on the evening before the battle of Leuctra, that an officer of distinction had died in his tent, exclaimed, "Good gods! how could any body find time to die in such a conjuncture." Xenophon. Hellenic. lib. vi. p. 596. BLAKEWAY. 9 Mess. His letters bear his mind, not I, my LORD.] The old copies-" not I my mind," and-" not I his mind." STEEVENS. The line should be read and divided thus: "Mess. His letters bear his mind, not I. Hotspur had asked, "who leads his powers?" The Messenger answers, "His letters bear his mind." The other replies, "His mind!" As much as to say, I enquire not about his mind, I want to know where his powers are. This is natural, and perfectly in character. WARBURton. The earliest quarto, 1598, reads-" not I my mind; "—the compositor having inadvertently repeated the word mind, which had occurred immediately before; an error which often happens at the press. The printer of the third quarto, in 1604, not seeing how the mistake had arisen, in order to obtain some sense, changed my to his, reading, "not I his mind," which was followed in all the subsequent ancient editions. The present correction, which is certainly right, was made by Mr. Capell. In two of the other speeches spoken by the Messenger, he uses the 2 A VOL. XVI. WOR. I pr'ythee, tell me, doth he keep his bed? MESS. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth; And at the time of my departure thence, He was much fear'd by his physicians. WOR. I would, the state of time had first been whole, Ere he by sickness had been visited; His health was never better worth than now. Hor. Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprize; "Tis catching hither, even to our camp. He writes me here,-that inward sickness 9— same language, nor is it likely that he should address Hotspur, without this mark of respect. In his first speech the Messenger is interrupted by the impetuosity of the person whom he addresses, to whom, it may be supposed, he would otherwise have there also given his title. MALONE. I have followed Mr. Malone in printing this first speech with a break after-father. At the same time I suspect that the word-come, which deprives the sentence of all pretensions to harmony, was a playhouse interpolation, and that the passage originally ran as follows: "These letters from your father." STEEVENS. 9 that inward sickness-] A line, probably, has here been lost. MALONE. I suspect no omission. Hotspur is abruptly enumerating the principal topicks of the letter he has before him. STEEVENS. On any soul remov'd,] On any less near to himself; on any whose interest is remote. JOHNSON. So, in Hamlet: It wafts you to a more removed ground." MALONE. So, in As You Like It: "Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling." STEEVENS. For, as he writes, there is no quailing now? Of all our purposes. '; WOR. Your father's sickness is a maim to us. Hor. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off:And yet, in faith, 'tis not; his present want Seems more than we shall find it :-Were it good, To set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast? to set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? It were not good: for therein should we read Of all our fortunes 3. 2 —NO QUAILING now;] To quail is to languish, to sink into dejection. So, in Cymbeline: "For whom my heart drops blood, and my false spirits Quail to remember.' Perhaps from the timid caution occasionally practised by the bird of that name. So, in Chaucer's Clerke's Tale : "And thou shalt make him couche as doth a quaille." very bottom and the soul of hope; The very LIST, the very utmost bound STEEVENS. Of all our fortunes,] To read the bottom and the soul of hope, and the bound of fortune, though all the copies, and all the editors, have received it, surely cannot be right. I can think on no other word than risque : 66 therein should we risque "The very bottom," &c. The list is the selvage; figuratively, the utmost line of circumference, the utmost extent. If we should with less change read rend, it will only suit with list, not with soul or bottom. JOHNSON. I believe the old reading to be the true one. So, in King Henry VI. Part II. : we then should see the bottom "Of all our fortunes." STEEVENS. I once wished to read-tread, instead of read; but I now think, there is no need of alteration. To read a bound is certainly a very harsh phrase, but not more so than many others of Shakspeare. At the same time that the bottom of their fortunes should be dis |