Ch. Just. And so they are. P. John. The king hath call'd his parliament, my lord. Ch. Just. He hath. P. John. I will lay odds,-that, ere this year ex pire, We bear our civil swords, and native fire, As far as France: I heard a bird so sing, Whose musick, to my thinking, pleas'd the king. [Exeunt. 285 EPILOGUE Spoken by a Dancer. FIRST, my fear; then, my court'sy: last, my speech. My fear is your displeasure; my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say, is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture.-Be it known to you, (as it is very well,) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this; which, if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment,-to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gen tlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloy'd with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be kill'd with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you;-but, indeed, to pray for the queen. ANNOTATIONS UPON THE SECOND PART OF HENRY IV. INDUCTION. 1 Enter Rumour-] This speech of Rumour is not inelegant or unpoetical, but is wholly useless, since we are told nothing which the first scene does not clearly and naturally discover. The only end of such prologues is to inform the audience of some facts previous to the action, of which they can have no knowledge from the persons of the drama. JOHNSON. Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.] This the author probably drew from Holinshed's Description of a Pageant, exhibited in the court of Henry VIII. with uncommon cost and magnificence. "Then entered a person called Report, apparelled "In crimson sattin, full of toongs, or chronicles." Vol. 3. p. 805. This however might be the common way of representing this personage in masques, which were frequent in his own times. WARTON. Stephen Hawes, in his Pastime of Pleasure, had long ago exhibited her (Rumour) in the same man ner: "A goodly lady, envyroned about "With tongues of fyre." And so had Sir Thomas Moore, in one of his Pageants, "Fame I am called, mervayle you nothing "Thoughe with tonges I am compassed all arounde." Not to mention her elaborate portrait by Chaucer, in The Booke of Fame; and by John Higgins, one of the assistants in The Mirror for Magistrates, in his Legend of King Albanacte. FARMER. 2-painted full of tongues.] This direction, which is only to be found in the first edition in quarto of 1600, explains a passage in what follows, otherwise obscure. POPE. 3 Rumour is a pipe-] Here the poet imagines himself describing Rumour, and forgets that Rumour is the speaker. JOHNSON. + And this worm-eaten hole of ragged stone,] Northumberland had retired and fortified himself in his castle, a place of strength in those times, though the building might be impaired by its antiquity; and, therefore, I believe our poet wrote, And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone. THEOBALD. 5-rowel head-] I think that I have observed in old prints the rowel of those times to have been only a single spike. JOHNSON. |