With one appearing hair, that will not follow back; [Alarum ; and Chambers 4 go off. And down goes all before them. Still be kind, And eke 5 out our performance with your mind. [Erit. 3 - linstock-] The staff to which the match is fixed when ordnance is fired. Johnson. So, in Middleton's comedy of Blurt Master Constable, 1602 : “- 0 Cupid, grant that my blushing prove not a linstocke, and give fire too suddenly,” &c. Again, in The Jew of Malta, by Marlowe, 1633 : “ Till you shall hear a culverin discharg'd “ By him that bears the linstock kindled thus." I learn from Smith's Sea Grammar, 1627, that the “ Lintstock is a handsome carved stick, more than halfe yard long, with a cocke at the one end, to hold fast his match," &c. STEEVENS. 4 - Chambers - ) Small pieces of ordnance. See p. 75, n. 6. STEEVENS. “ Aud time that is so briefly spent, “What's dumb in show I'll plain with speech." MALONE. See also the concluding speech of The First Part of the Spanish Tragedy, 1605 : “My armes are of the shortest, SCENE I. The Same. Before Harfleur. Alarums. Enter King HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, friends, once more ; 6 Or close the wall, &c.] Here is apparently a chasm. One line at least is lost, which contained the other part of a disjunctive proposition. The King's speech is, dear friends, either win the town, or close up the wall with dead.' The old quarto gives no help. Johnson. I do not perceive the chasm which Dr. Johnson complains of. What the King means to say is, - Re-enter the breach you have made, or fill it up with your own dead bodies ; ' i. e. Pursue your advantage, or give it up with your lives. Mount the breach in the wall, or repair it by leaving your own carcases in lieu of the stones you have displaced : in short-Do one thing or the other. So, in Church-yard's Siege of Edenbrough Castle: “ we will possesse the place, “ Or leaue our bones and bowels in the breatch.” This speech of King Henry was added after the quartos 1600 and 1608. Steevens. 7 ~ when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger ;] Sir Thomas Hanmer has observed on the following passage in Troilus and Cressida, that in storms and high winds the tiger roars and rages most furiously: even so “ Doth valour's show and valour's worth divide “ In storms of fortune : for, in her ray and brightness, “ The herd hath more annoyance by the brize “ Than by the tiger : but when splitting winds “ Make flexible the knees of knotted oaks, VOL. XVII. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, “ And Aies fee under shade ; why then the thing of courage, “As rouz’d with rage, with rage doth sympathize,” &c. STEEVENS. 8 — SUMMon up the blood,] Old copy-commune, &c. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. 9 — PORTAGE of the head,] Portage, open space, from port, a gate. Let the eye appear in the head as cannon through the battlements, or embrasures, of a fortification. Johnson. So we now say—“the port-holes of a ship." M. Mason. 1-jutty — The force of the verb to jutty, when applied to a rock projecting into the sea, is not felt by those who are un. aware that this word anciently signified a mole raised to withstand the encroachment of the tide. In an act. 1 Edw. VI. c. 14, provision is made for “ the maintenaunce of piers, jutties, walles, and bankes, against the rages of the sea.” Holt White. Jutty-heads, in sea-language, are platforms standing on piles, near the docks, and projecting without the wharfs, for the more convenient docking and undocking ships. See Chambers's Dictionary. STEEVENS. 2 - his coNFOUNDED base,] His worn or wasted base. Johnsox. So, in The Tempest: “- the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd, “ As stooping to relieve him.” Steevens. One of the senses of to confound, in our author's time, was, to destroy. See Minsheu's Dictionary, in v. MALONE. 3 let the brow o'erwhelm it, As fearfully, as doth a galled rock Swillid with the wild and wasteful ocean.] So, in Daniel's Civil Warres, 1595 : “ A place there is, where proudly rais'd there stands Now set the teeth “, and stretch the nostril wide ; yeomen, . not ; “ And spurns the waves, that in rebellious bands “ Assault his empire, and against him rise." Malone. 4 Now set the teeth,] So, in Antony and Cleopatra : “ How I'll set my teeth, “And send to darkness all that stop me." STEEVENS. 5 -- bend up every spirit -] A metaphor from the bow. JOHNSON. So again, in Hamlet : "they fool me to the top of my bent.” Again, in Macbeth : “I am settled, and bend up “ Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.” MALONE. 6- you NOBLBST English,] Thus the second folio. The first has-noblish. Mr. Malone reads--noble; and observes that this speech is not in the quartos. Steevens. 7 Whose blood is fer from fathers of war-proof!] Thus the folio 1623, and rightly. So, Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. iii. : “ Whom strange adventure did from Britain fet." Again, in the Prologue to Ben Jonson's Silent Woman: " Though there be none far-fet, there will dear bought." Again, in Lord Surrey's translation of the second book of Virgil's Æneid : “And with that winde had fet the land of Greece.” The sacred writings afford many instances to the same purpose. Mr. Pope first made the change, [to fetch'd], which I, among others, had inadvertently followed. Steevens. 8 - argument.] Is matter, or subject. Johnson. For there is none of you so mean and base, (Exeunt. Alarum, and Chambers go off. WO SCENE II. The Same. BARDOLPH, on Forces pass over; then enter Nym, BARDOLPH, Pistol, and Boy. BARD. On, on, on, on, on! to the breach, to the breach! Nym. 'Pray thee, corporal ?, stay: the knocks are too hot; and for mine own part, I have not a case of lives': the humour of it is too hot, that is the very plain-song of it. | rasa in In Se 1594 pam In co 9 — like greyhounds in the slips,] Slips are a contrivance of leather, to start two dogs at the same time. C. STRAINING upon the start.] The old copy reads--Straying. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. Malone. 2 - corporal.] We should read-lieutenant. It is Bardolph to whom he speaks. STEEVENS. Though Bardolph is only a corporal in King Henry IV. as our author has in this play, from inadvertence or design, made him a lieutenant, I think, with Mr. Steevens, that we should read lieua tenant. See a former note, p. 294, n. 8. The truth is, I believe, that the variations in his title proceeded merely from Shakspeare's inattention. MALONE. 3a case of lives :] A set of lives, of which, when one is worn out, another may serve. JOHNSON. Perhaps only two; as a case of Pistols; and, in Ben Jonson, a case of masques. WHALLEY. I believe Mr, Whalley's explanation is the true one. A case of pistols, which was the current phrase for a pair or brace of pistols, in our author's time, is at this day the term always used |