And witch the worlds with noble horfemanfhip. This praife doth nourifh agues. Let them come; Come, let me take my horse, Who, is to bear me, like a thunderbolt, Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse.— VER. There is more news: I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along, DOUG. That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet. VER. To thirty thousand. HOT. Forty let it be; My father and Glendower being both away, DOUG. Talk not of dying; I am out of fear Of death, or death's hand, for this one half year. [Exeunt. 5 And witch the world ] For bewitch, charm. Pore. So, in King Henry VI. Part. II: To fit and witch me, as Afcanius did." STEEVENS. . FAL. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of fack : our foldiers fhall march through; we'll to Sutton-Colfield to-night. BARD. Will you give me money, captain? FAL. Lay out, lay out. BARD, This bottle makes an angel. FAL. An if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make twenty, take them all, I'll anfwer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. BARD. I will, captain: farewell. [Exit. FAL. If I be not afhamed of my foldiers, I am a fouced gurnet.' I have misused the king's press 6 lieutenant Peto-] This paffage proves that Peto did not go with the Prince. JOHNSON. 7 -fouced gurnet. ] This is a difh mentioned in that very laughable poem called The Counter-fcuffle, 1658: "Stuck thick with cloves upon the back, Souc'd gurnet. Souced gurnet is an appellation of contempt very frequently employed in the old comedies. So, in Decker's Honeft Whore, 1635 : Punck! you fauc'd gurnet!". Again, in the Prologue to Wily Beguiled, 1606: "Out you fouced gurnet, you wool-fift!" Among the Cotton MSS. is a part of an old household book for the year 1594. See Vefp. F. xvi: "Supper. Paid for a gurnard, viii. d," STEEVENS, A gurnet is a fifh very nearly refembling a piper. damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty foldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I prefs me none but good householders, yeomen's fons inquire me out contracted bachelors, fuch as had been alk'd twice on the bans; fuch a commodity of warın flaves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum; fuch as fear the report of a caliver, worfe than a ftruck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck.9 I It should feem from one of Taylor's pieces, entitled A bawd, 12mo. 1635, that a fowced gurnet was fometimes ufed in the fame metaphorical fenfe in which we now frequently use the word gudgeon: Though the [a bawd] live after the flesh, all is fish that comes to the net with her;-She hath baytes for all kinde of frye a great lord is her Greenland whale; a countrey gentleman is her cods head; a rich citizen's fon is her fows'd gurnet, or ber gudgeon." MALONE. 8 I prefs we none but good householders, &c.] This practicę is complained of in Barnabie Riche's Souldier's Wife to Briton's welfare, or Captaine Skill and Captaine Pill, 1604, p. 62: " Sir, I perceive by the found of your words you are a favourite to Captaines, and I thinke you could be contented, that to ferve the expedition of these times, we should take up honeft householders, men that are of wealth and abilitie to live at home, fuch as your captaines might chop and chaunge, and make marchandife of," &c. STEEVENS. 9 worse than a truck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck. ] The repetition of the fame image difpofed Sir Thomas Haumer, and after him Dr. Warburton to read, in oppofition to all the copies, a ftruck deer, which is indeed a proper expreffion, but not likely to have been corrupted. Shakspeare, perhaps, wrote a firuck forrel, which, being negligently read by a man not killed in hunter's language, was eafily changed to ftruck fowl. Sorrel is ufed in Love's Labour's Loft for a young deer; and the terms of the chafe were, in our author's time, familiar to the ears of every gentleman. JOHNSON. --fowl, Thus the first quarto, 1598. In a fubfequent copy (1608) the word fowl being erroneously printed fool, that errour was adopted in the quarto 1613, and confequently in the folia, which was printed from it. MALONG. Fowl, feems to have been the word defigned by the poet, who might have thought an oppofition between fowl, i. e. domeftick birds, and wild-fowl, fufficient on this occafion. He has almoft the fame expreffion in Much Ado about Nothing: "Alas poor hurt fowl now will he creep into fedges." STEEVENS. 2 prefs'd me none but fuch toafts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their fervices; and now my whole charge confifts of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, flaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his fores: and fuch as, indeed, were never foldiers; but difcarded unjuft fervingmen, younger fons to younger brothers, revolted tapfters, and oftlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world, and a long peace: ten times more difhonourable ragged than an old faced ancient: 5 3 fuck toafts and butter, ] This term of contempt is used in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money: They love young toast and butter, Bow-bell fuckers." STEEVENS. "Londiners, and all within the found of Bow-bell, are in reproch called cocknies, and eaters of buttered toftes." Moryfon's Itin. 1617. MALONE. 3 younger fons to younger brothers, &c. ] Raleigh, in his Difcourfe on War, ufes this very expreffion for men of defperatè fortune. and wild adventure. Which borrowed it from the other, I know not, but I think the play was printed before the Difcourfe. JOHNSON. Perhaps Oliver Cromwell was indebted to this fpeech, for the farcafm which he threw out on the foldiers commanded by Hampden: "Your troops are most of them old decayed ferving men and tapfters." &c. STEEVENS. 4 cankers of a calm world, and a long peace; ] So, in The Puritan: 66 hatch'd and nourished in the idle calmness of Again, in Pierce Penniless his Supplication to the Devil, all the canker-wormes that breed on the ruft peace. 1592: 5 of peace." STEEVENS. ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient Shakspeare ufes this word fo promifcuously to fignify an enfign or ftandard-bearer, and also the colours or ftandard borne, that I cannot be at a certainty for his allufion here. If the text be genuine, I think the meaning muft be, as dithonourably ragged as one that has been an enfign all his days; that has let age creep and fuch have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their fervices; that you would think, Dr. upon him, and never had merit enough to gain preferment Warburton, who understands it in the fecond conftruction, bas fufpected the text, and given the following ingenious emendation: "How is an old-fac'd ancient or enfign, difhonourably ragged? on the contrary, nothing is esteemed more honourable than a ragged pair of colours. A very little alteration will reftore it to its original fenfe, which contains a touch of the strongest and most fine-turn'd fatire in the world : ten times more dishonourably ragged than an old feast ancient; i. e. the colours ufed by the citycompanies in their feafts and proceffions; for each company had one with its peculiar device, which was ufually displayed and borne about on fuch occafions. Now nothing could be more witty or farcaftical than this comparifon: for as Falftaff's raggamuffins were reduced to their tatter'd condition through their riotous exceffes; fo this old feat ancient became torn and fhatter'd, not in any manly exercife of arms, but amidft the revels of drunken bacchanals." THEOBALD. Dr. Warburton's emendation is very acute and judicious; but I know not whether the licentiousness of our author's diction way not allow us to fuppofe that he meant to reprefent his foldies, as more ragged, though lefs honourably ragged, than an old ancient. JOHNSON. An old fac'd ancient, is an old ftandard mended with a different colour. It should not be written in one word, as old and fac'd are diftin& epithets. To face a gown is to trim it; an expreffion at prefent in use. In our author's time the facings of gowns were always of a colour different from the fluff itself. So, in this play: "To face the garment of rebellion "With fome fine colour." Again, in Ram-allay or Merry Tricks, 1611: "Your tawny coats with greasy facings here." STEEVENS. So, in The Puritan, a comedy, 1607 : "full of holes, like a fhot ancient." The modern editors, inftead of dishonourable read dishonourably; but the change is unneceffary, for our author frequently ufes a&je&tives adverbially. So again in this play: "And fince this business so fair is done.” Again, in K. Henry VIII: He is equal ravenous as he is fubtle." Again, in Hamlet: "I am myfelf indifferent honeft." Again, in The Taming of the Shrew: |
