(Thus leaning on mine elbow, I begin)
I shall beseech you that is question now ;
And then comes answer like an A B C-book :
O Sir, says answer, at your best command,
At your imployment, at your service, Sir ;
No, Sir, says question, I, sweet Sir, at yours,
And so e'er answer knows what question would,
Saving in dialogue of compliment;
And talking of the Alps and Apennines,
The Pyrenean and the river Po;
It draws towards supper in conclusion, fo.
But this is worshipful society,
And fits the mounting spirit like myself :
For he is but a bastard to the time,
That doth not smack of observation.

(2) That pale that white-fac'd fhore, Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides,

And

.

true) strikes me on reading the passage.“ Richard says, the traveller and his tootb-pick shall be both at his table, and for my own part, he goes on, when I have suffic'd my knightly stomach, then I shall fit at my ease picking my teeth, and catechising my picked man of countries, i. e. my traveller who has already picked his teeth, and does not take the liberty which I do, to loll on his elbow, and pick bis teeth, being subservient to my commands, and waiting for my catechising him.” In this sense picked is right in the old copies.

(2) That, &c.] Shakespear, like a true lover of his country, has never omitted any opportunity to celebrate it or his countrymen, the reader will find besides the passages in the present play, one in Richard II. A. 2. S. 1. and Cymbeline, A. 3. S 1. Spenser too forgot not to pay due honours to his country in his Fairie Queene, but has given us one whole Canto, which he entitles,

A Chre

And coops from other lands her iflanders ;
Ev'n till that England, hedg'd in with the main,
That water-walled bulwark, still fecure
And confident from foreign purposes,
Ev'n till that utmost corner of the west,
Salute thee for her king.

Defcriftion of an English Army.
His marches are expedient to this town,
His forces strong, his soldiers confident.
With him along is come the mother-queen ;
An Ate stirring him to blood and strife.
With her, her neice, the lady Blanch of Spain ;
(3) With them a bastard of the king deceas'd;
And all th' unsettled humours of the land,
Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,

A chronicle of Briton kings

From Brute to Urbers raigne :
And rolls of Elfin emperors
Till time of Gloriane.

B. 2. C. 106 Neither has Milton omitted to mention his country ; in his admir. able mark of Comus, he calls it

An ille

The greatest and the best of all the main ; And his countrymen, An old and haughty nation proud in arms.

(3) With them, &c.] There is a flight error in the pointing here, which I the rather take notice of, as it runs thro' all the editions, and seems to have given the editors a wrong sense of the passage ; 'tis faid, the king is come with the mother qucen,

With her, her niece the lady Blanch of Spain,
With them a bastard of the king deceas'd,
And all the unsettled humours of the land :

Rash inconsiderate, &c.
I think there is no doubt, the semicolon Mould be after the ba-
Atard of the king deceas'd; then he adds, and all the unsettled
humours of the land, rash, &c. have sold, &c." Scathe in the last
line but two, fignifies damage, hurt, mischief, derived from a
Saxon word : Skinner lays, it is yet used in Lincolnshire, which it
might have been in his time, and probably may be now, tho' I
don't récollect ever to have heard it,

hiling ready

oll on

E 2

With lady's faces, and fierce dragon's spleens,
Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,
Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,
To make a hazard of new fortunes here.
In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits,
Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er,
Did never float upon the swelling tide,
To do offence and scathe in Christendom.
The interruption of their churlifh drums
Cuts off more circumstance ; they are at hand.

COURAGE.
By how much unexpected, by so much
We must awake endeavour for defence ;
For courage mounteth with occasion,

SCENE II. A Boaster, .
What cracker is this same, that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?

SCENE IV. Description of Victory, by the French.

You men of Angiers,' open wide your gates,
And let young Arthur duke of Bretagne in :
Who by the hand of France this day hath made,
Much work for tears in many an English mother,
Whofe fons lye scatter'd on the bleeding ground:
And many a widow's husband groveling lies,
Coldly embracing the discolour'd earth ;
While victory with little loss doth play
Upon the dancing banners of the French ;
Who are at hand, triumphantly display'd,
To enter conquerors.

B

By the English. Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells, King John, your king, and England's, doth approach, Commander of this hot, malicious day: Their armours that march'd hence, so filver-bright, Hither return all gilt in Frenchmens blood There stuck no plume in any English crest, That is removed by a staff of France. Our colours do return in those fame hands That did display them, when we first marh'd forth; And like a jolly troop of huntsmen, come Our lufty English, all with purple hands, Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foesi

SCENE V. A compleat Lady. If lusty love should go in queft of beauty, Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch? If zealous love should go in search of Virtue, Where shou'd he find it fairer, than in Blanch? If love, ambitious fought a match of birth Whose veins bound richer blood, than lady Blanch? Scene VI. On Commodity, or Self. Interest.

Rounded in the ear With that same purpose-changer, that sy devil, That broker, that still breaks the pate of faith, That daily break-vow, he that wins of all, Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids, Who having no external thing to lose But the word maid, cheats the poor maid of that ; That smooth fac'd gentleman, tickling commodity, Commodity, the biass of the world, The world, which of itself is poised well, Made to run even, upon even ground ; Till this advantage, this vile drawing bials,

E 3

This

This sway of motion, this commodity,
Makes it take head from all indifferency,
From all direction, purpose, course, intent.
And this same bias, &c.

ACT III, SCENEI.

Tokens of Grief. * What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head ? Why dost thou look so sadly on my son ? What means that hand upon that breast of thine ? Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum, Like a proud river peering o'er its bounds ? Be these fad fighs confirmers of thy words? Then speak again, not all thy former tale, But this one word, whether thy tale be true.

A Mother's Fondness for a beautiful Child. (a) If thou, that bid'ft me be content, wert grim Ugly, and fland'rous to thy mother's womb,

Full

* Wbat. &c.] So Seneca in his Oedipus says,

Effari dubitas ? cur genas mutat color ?

Quid verba quæris? And in his Agamemnon,

Quid racita verfas,

Licet ipfa faleas, totus in vultu dolor eft.
Why dost thou fear to speak ? Why on thy cheeks
Does thus thy colour come and go?' And wherefore

Art thou thus at a loss to speak thy purpose ?
Again,

What secret forrows roll within thy breast,

Thus filent ?--All thy looks bespeak affliction. (4) If thoil, &c.] So in the Unnatural combat of Malinger, the father, who was struggling with the violent and fhocking paflion He had conceiv'd for his daughter, observes,

IF