OFF. All manner of men, assembled here in arms this day, against God's peace and the king's, we charge and command you, in his highness' name, to repair to your several dwelling-places; and not to wear, handle, or use, any sword, weapon, or dagger, henceforward, upon pain of death. GLO. Cardinal, I'll be no breaker of the law: But we shall meet, and break our minds at large. WIN. Gloster, we'll meet; to thy dear cost, be sure:5 Thy heart-blood I will have, for this day's work. MAY. I'll call for clubs, if you will not away: This cardinal is more haughty than the devil. GLO. Mayor, farewell: thou dost but what thou may'st. WIN. Abominable Gloster! guard thy head; For I intend to have it, ere long. [Exeunt. MAY. See the coast clear'd, and then we will depart. • Gloster, we'll meet; to thy dear cost, be sure:] Thus the second folio. The first omits the epithet-dear; as does Mr. Malone, who says that the word-sure "is here used as a dissyllable." STEEVENS. 6 • I'll call for clubs, if you will not away:] This was an outcry for assistance, on any riot or quarrel in the streets. It hath been explained before. WHALLEY. So, in King Henry VIII: ". and hit that woman, who cried out, clubs!" STEEVENS. In That is, for peace-officers armed with clubs or staves. affrays, it was customary in this author's time to call out clubs, clubs! See As you like it, Vol. VIII. p. 166, n. 3. MALONE. D 2 Good God! that nobles should such stomachs' bear! I myself fight not once in forty year. SCENE IV. France. Before Orleans. [Exeunt. Enter, on the Walls, the Master-Gunner and his Son. M. GUN. Sirrah, thou know'st how Orleans is be sieg'd; And how the English have the suburbs won. SON. Father, I know; and oft have shot at them, Howe'er, unfortunate, I miss'd my aim. 7-stomachs-] Stomach is pride, a haughty spirit of resentment. So, in King Henry VIII: 8 66 he was a man that nobles should such stomachs bear! I myself fight not once in forty year.] Old copy-these nobles. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. The Mayor of London was not brought in to be laughed at, as is plain by his manner of interfering in the quarrel, where he all along preserves a sufficient dignity. In the line preceding these, he directs his Officer, to whom without doubt these two lines should be given. They suit his character, and are very expressive of the pacific temper of the city guards. WARBURTON. I see no reason for this change. The Mayor speaks first as a magistrate, and afterwards as a citizen. JOHNSON. Notwithstanding Warburton's note in support of the dignity of the Mayor, Shakspeare certainly meant to represent him as a poor, well-meaning, simple man, for that is the character he invariably gives to his Mayors. The Mayor of London, in Richard III. is just of the same stamp. And so is the Mayor of York, in the Third Part of this play, where he refuses to admit Edward as King, but lets him into the city as Duke of York, on which Gloster says "A wise stout captain! and persuaded soon. "Hast. The good old man would fain that all were well." Such are all Shakspeare's Mayors. M. MASON. M. GUN. But now thou shalt not. Be thou rul'd by me: Chief master-gunner am I of this town; And thence discover, how, with most advantage, A piece of ordnance 'gainst it I have plac❜d; 9 The prince's espials-] Espials are spies. So, in Chaucer's Freres Tale: "For subtilly he had his espiaille." STEEVENS. The word is often used by Hall and Holinshed. MALONE. 1 Wont, through a secret grate of iron bars &c.] Old copywent. See the notes that follow Dr. Johnson's. STEEVens. That is, the English went not through a secret grate, but went to over-peer the city through a secret grate which is in yonder tower. I did not know till of late that this passage had been thought difficult. JOHNSON. I believe, instead of went, we should read wont. The third person plural of the old verb wont. The English-wont, that is, are accustomed -to over-peer the city. The word is used very frequently by Spenser, and several times by Milton. TYRWHITT. The emendation proposed by Mr. Tyrwhitt is fully supported by the passage in Hall's Chronicle, on which this speech is formed. So, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584: 66 the usual time is nie, "When wont the dames of fate and destinie 2-Now, boy, do thou watch, For I can stay no longer.] The first folio reads: MALONE. If thou spy'st any, run and bring me word; 3 Enter, in an upper Chamber of a Tower, the Lords SALISBURY and TALBOT, Sir WILLIAM GLANSDALE, Sir THOMAS GARGRAVE, and Others. SAL. Talbot, my life, my joy, again return'd! How wert thou handled, being prisoner? Or by what means got'st thou to be releas'd? Discourse, I pr'ythee, on this turret's top. TAL. The duke of Bedford had a prisoner, Called the brave lord Ponton de Santrailles; And even these three days have I watcht Part of this line being in the old copy by a mistake of the transcriber connected with the preceding hemistich, the editor of the second folio supplied the metre by adding the word-boy, in which he has been followed in all the subsequent editions. MALONE. As I cannot but entertain a more favourable opinion than Mr. Malone of the numerous emendations that appear in the second folio, I have again adopted its regulation in the present instance. This folio likewise supplied the word-fully. STEEVENS. 3 -Talbot,] Though the three parts of King Henry VI. are deservedly numbered among the feeblest performances of Shakspeare, this first of them appears to have been received with the greatest applause. So, in Pierce Penniless's Supplication to the Devil, by Nash, 1592: "How would it have joyed brave Talbot (the terror of the French,) to thinke that after he had lien two hundred years in his tombe, he should triumph againe on the stage, and have his bones new embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators at least (at several times,) who in the tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding?" STEEVENS, For him I was exchang'd and ransomed. Once, in contempt, they would have barter'd me: -so pil'd esteem'd.] Thus the old copy. Some of the modern editors read, but without authority-so vile-esteem'd.So pill'd, may mean-so pillag'd, so stripp'd of honours; but I suspect a corruption, which Mr. M. Mason would remedy, by reading either vile or ill-esteemed. It is possible, however, that Shakspeare might have writtenPhilistin'd; i. e. treated as contumeliously as Samson was by the Philistines.-Both Samson and Talbot had been prisoners, and were alike insulted by their captors. 66 Our author has jocularly formed more than one verb from a proper name; as for instance, from Aufidius, in Coriolanus: -I would not have been so fidius'd for all the chests in Corioli." Again in King Henry V. Pistol says to his prisoner: "Master Fer? I'll fer him," &c. Again, in Hamlet, from Herod, we have the verb "out-herod." Shakspeare, therefore, in the present instance, might have taken a similar liberty.-To fall into the hands of the Philistines has long been a cant phrase, expressive of danger incurred, whether from enemies, association with hard drinkers, gamesters, or a less welcome acquaintance with the harpies of the law. Talbot's idea would be sufficiently expressed by the term-Philistin'd, which (as the play before us appears to have been copied by the ear,) was more liable to corruption than a common verb. I may add, that perhaps no word will be found nearer to the sound and traces of the letters, in pil-esteem'd, than Philistin'd. Philistine, in the age of Shakspeare, was always accented on the first syllable, and therefore is not injurious to the line in which I have hesitatingly proposed to insert it. I cannot, however, help smiling at my own conjecture; and should it excite the same sensation in the reader who journeys through the barren desert of our accumulated notes on this play, like Addison's traveller, when he discovers a cheerful spring amid the wilds of sand, let him— 66 -bless his stars, and think it luxury." STEEVENS. I have no doubt that we should read-so pile-esteem'd: a Latinism, for which the author of this play had, I believe, no occasion to go to Lily's Grammar: "Flocci, nauci, nihili, pili, |