and a' would manage you his piece thus: and 'a would about, and about, and come you in, and come you in: rah, tah, tah, would 'a say; bounce, would 'a say; and away again would 'a go, and again would 'a come:-I shall never see such a fellow.

Fal. These fellows will do well, master Shallow. -God keep you, master Silence; I will not use many words with you:-Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank you: I must a dozen mile to-night.Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.

Shal. Sir John, heaven bless you, and prosper your affairs, and send us peace! As you return, visit my house; let our old acquaintance be renewed: peradventure, I will with you to the court.

well.

Fal. I would you would, master Shallow. Shal. Go to; I have spoke, at a word. Fare you [Exeunt SHALLOW and SILENCE. Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. On, Bardolph; lead the men away. [Exeunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, &c.] As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. names of the knights in the romantic history of that chivalric worthy. According to their historian and poet, Richard Robinson, this society was established by charter under King Henry the Eighth, who, when he sawe a good archer indeede, he chose him and ordained such a one for a knight of this order.' Robinson's book was printed in 1583, and in a MS. list of his own works, now in the British Museum, he says, 'Mr. Thomas Smith, her majestie's customer, representing himself Prince Arthure, gave me for his booke vs. His 56 knightes gave me every one for his xviijd, and every Esqre for his booke viijd, when they shott under the same Prince Arthure at MYLES END GREEN.' Shakspeare has admirably heightened the ridicule of Shallow's vanity and folly, by making him boast in this parenthesis that he was Sir Dagonet, who, though one of the knights, is also represented in the romance as King Arthur's fool. This society is also noticed by Richard Mulcaster (who was a member) in his book Concerning the training up of Children, 1581, in a passage communicated to Malone by the Rev. Mr. Bowle.

Lord, lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull Street 20; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: he was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invincible 21 : he was the very Genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him-mandrake 22: he came ever in the rear-ward of the fashion; and sung those tunes to the overscutched 23 huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware-they were his fancies, or his goodnights 24 And now is this Vice's dagger 25 become a squire; and talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt,

20 Turnbull-street, or Turnball-street, is a corruption of Turnmill-street, near Clerkenwell; anciently the resort of bullies, rogues, and other dissolute persons. The reader will remember its vicinity to Ruffians' Hall, now Smithfield Market. Pickt Hatch, a celebrated brothelry, is supposed to have been situate in or near Turnbull-street.

21 Steevens has adopted Rowe's alteration of this word invincible to invisible without necessity. The word is metaphorically used for not to be mastered or taken in.

22 See Sir Thomas Brown's Vulgar Errors, 1686, p. 72; and note on Act i. Sc. 2, p. 263, of this play.

23 i. e. whipped, carted, says Pope; and notwithstanding Johnson's doubts, Pope is right. A scutcher was a whip or riding rod, according to Cotgrave. And for a further illustration of this passage the reader, curious in such matters, may turn to Torriano's Italian Dictionary, 1659, in v. Trentuno.

24 Titles of little poems.

25 For some account of the Vice and his dagger of lath the reader may see Twelfth Night, Act iv. Sc. 2, note 15, p. 377. There is something excessively ludicrous in the comparison of Shallow to this powerless weapon of that droll personage the Old Vice or fool.

as if he had been sworn brother to him: and I'll be sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst 26 his head, for crowding among the marshal's men. I saw it; and told John of Gaunt, he beat his own name 27; for you might have truss'd him, and all his apparel, into an eelskin; the case of a treble haut-boy was a mansion for him, a court; and now has he land and beeves. Well; I will be acquainted with him, if I return: and it shall go hard, but I will make him a philosopher's two stones 28 to me: If the dace be young a bait for the old pike, I see no reason, in the law of nature, but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.

[Exit.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. A Forest in Yorkshire.

Enter the Archbishop of York, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and Others.

Arch. What is this forest call'd?

Hast. 'Tis Gualtree forest, an't shall please your grace.

Arch. Here stand, my lords; and send discoverers forth,

To know the numbers of our enemies.

26 Burst, brast, and broken, were formerly synonymous; as may be seen under the words break and broken, in Baret. The Hostess says to Sly, in the Induction to The Taming of the Shrew, 'You will not pay for the glasses you have burst.'

27 Gaunt is thin, slender.

28 This is only a humorous exaggerative way of expressing, 'He shall be more than the philosopher's stone to me, or twice as good. I will make gold out of him.'

Hast. We have sent forth already.

Arch.

"Tis well done.
My friends, and brethren in these great affairs,
I must acquaint you that I have receiv'd
New-dated letters from Northumberland;

Their cold intent, tenour, and substance, thus:-
Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
As might hold sortance1 with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retir'd, to ripe his growing 'fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers,
That your attempts may overlive the hazard,
And fearful meeting of their opposite.

Mowb. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch
ground,

And dash themselves to pieces.

Hast.

Enter a Messenger.

Now, what news?

Mess. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile, In goodly form comes on the enemy:

And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number Upon, or near, the rate of thirty thousand.

Mowb. The just proportion that we gave them out, Let us sway on, and face them in the field.

2

Enter WESTMORELAND.

3

Arch. What well appointed 3 leader fronts us here?
Mowb. I think, it is my lord of Westmoreland.

1 Be suitable.

2 That is, let us pass on with our armament. To sway was sometimes used for a rushing hasty movement. Thus Holinshed, p. 986:— The left side of the enemy was compelled to sway a good way back and give ground.' So in King Henry VI. Part III. Act ii. Sc. 5:

Now sways it this way like a mighty sea,

Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind;
Now sways it that way,' &c.

3 Completely accoutred.

West. Health and fair greeting from our general, The prince, Lord John and duke of Lancaster. Arch. Say on, my lord of Westmoreland, in peace; What doth concern your coming?

West.

Then, my lord, Unto your grace do I in chief address

The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,

4

Led on by bloody youth, guarded 5 with rage,
And countenanc'd by boys, and beggary;
if damn'd commotion so appear'd,

1

say,
In his true, native, and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords,
Had not been here, to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection

With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,-
Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd;

Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd;
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor❜d;
Whose white investments figure innocence,
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,
Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself,
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war?

In this

4 Baret carefully distinguishes between bloody, full of blood, sanguineous, and bloody, desirous of blood, sanguinarius. speech Shakspeare uses the word in both senses.

5 Guarded is a metaphor taken from dress; to guard being to ornament with guards or facings. Thus in The Merchant of Venice:

give him a livery

More guarded than his fellows.'

We have the same allusion in the former part of this play:

To face the garment of rebellion

With some fine colour, that may please the eye

Of fickle changelings.'

:

6 Formerly all bishops wore white, even when they travelled.'--Hody's History of Convocations, p. 141. This white investment was the episcopal rochet.