Enter VALENTINE and SPEED. 3 OUT. Stand, fir, and throw us that you have 4 about you; If not, we'll make you fit and rifle you.* SPEED. Sir, we are undone! these are the villains That all the travellers do fear so much. VAL. My friends, 1 OUT. That's not so, fir; we are your enemies. 2 OUT. Peace; we'll hear him. 3 OUT. Ay, by my beard, will we; For he's a proper man.' VAL. Then know, that I have little wealth to lose; A man I am, cross'd with adversity: My riches are these poor habiliments, Of which if you should here disfurnish me, 2 OUT. Whither travel you? VAL. TO Verona. 1 OUT. Whence came you? VAL. From Milan. 3 OUT. Have you long fojourn'd there? VAL. Some fixteen months: and longer might have ftaid, 4 If not, we'll make you fit, and rifle you.) The old copy reads as I have printed the passage, Paltry as the opposition between ftand and fit may be thought, it is Shakspeare's own. My predeceffors read "we'll make you, fir," &c. STEEVENS. Sir, is the corrupt reading of the third folio. MALONE. 5 --a proper man.] i. e. a well-looking man; he has the ap pearance of a gentleman. So, afterwards: " And partly, feeing you are beautified "With goodly shape -." MALONE. Again, in Othello : " This Ludovico is a proper man." STEEVENS. If crooked fortune had not thwarted me. 1 OUT. What, were you banish'd thence? VAL. I was. 2 OUT. For what offence? VAL. For that which now torments me to rehearse: I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent; 1 1 OUT. Why ne'er repent it, if it were done so: But were you banish'd for fo small a fault? VAL. I was, and held me glad of fuch a doom. 1 OUT. Have you the tongues?. VAL. My youthful travel therein made me happy; Or elfe I often had been miferable. 3 OUT. By the bare fcalp of Robin Hood's fat friar, 6 --Robin Hood's fat friar, Robin Hood was captain of a band of robbers, and was much inclined to rob churchmen. So, in A mery Gefte of Robyn Hoode, &c. bl. 1. no date: "These byshoppes and these archebyshoppes "Ye shall them beate and bynde," &c. JOHNSON. But by Robin Hood's fat friar, I believe, Shakspeare means Friar Tuck, who was confeffor and companion to this noted out-law. So, in one of the old songs of Robin Hood: " And of brave little John, "Of Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett, Again, in the 26th song of Drayton's Polyolbion : " Of Tuck the merry friar which many a sermon made, " In praise of Robin Hoode, his out-lawes, and his trade." See figure III. in the plate at the end of the first part of King Henry IV. with Mr. Tollet's observations on it. STEEVENS. Dr. Johnson feems to have misunderstood this paffage. The speaker does not swear by the scalp of fome churchman who had been plundered, but by the shaven crown of Robin Hood's chaplain. -" We will live and die together, (says a perfonage in Peele's Edward I. 1593,) like Robin Hood, little John, friar Tuche, and Maide Marian." MALONE. / 1 This fellow were a king for our wild faction. 1 OUT. We'll have him: firs, a word. SPEED. Master, be one of them; It is an honourable kind of thievery. VAL. Peace, villain! 2 OUT. Tell us this: Have you any thing to take to? VAL. Nothing, but my fortune. 3 OUT. Know then, that fome of us are gentlemen, Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth An heir, and near allied unto the Duke. 7 - awful men:] Reverend, worshipful, such as magiftrates, and other principal members of civil communities. JOHNSON. Awful is used by Shakspeare, in another place, in the sense of lawful. Second part of K. Henry IV. A& IV. fc. ii: "We come within our awful banks again. TYRWHITT. So, in King Henry V. 1600: creatures that by awe ordain " An act of order to a peopled kingdom." MALONE. I believe we should read - lawful men -i. e. legales homines. So, in The Newe Boke of Justices, 1560: "-commandinge him to the same to make an inquest and pannel of lawful men of his countie." For this remark I am indebted to Dr. Farmer. STEEVENS. Awful men means men well-governed, obfervant of law and authority; full of, or fubject to awe. In the fame kind of fenfe as we use fearful. RITSON. 8 An heir, and near allied unto the duke.) All the impressions, from the first downwards, read - An heir and niece allied unto the duke. But our poet would never have expressed himself so stupidly, as to tell us, this lady was the duke's niece, and allied to him: for her alliance was certainly fufficiently included in the first term. Our author meant to say, she was an heiress, and near allied to the duke; an expression the most natural that can be for the purpose, and very frequently used by the stage-poets. THEOBALD. A niece, or a nephew, did not always fignify the daughter of a 2 OUT. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman, Whom, in my mood, I stabhid unto the heart." 1 OUT. And I, for fuch like petty crimes as these. But to the purpose,- (for we cite our faults, That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives,) And, partly, feeing you are beautify'd With goodly shape; and by your own report A linguist; and a man of fuch perfection, As we do in our quality much want;- 2 OUT. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man, Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you: Are you content to be our general? To make a virtue of neceffity, And live, as we do, in this wilderness? 3 OUT. What say'st thou? wilt thou be of our Say, ay, and be the captain of us all: brother or fifter, but any remote descendant. Of this ufe I have given inftances, as to a nephew. See Othello, A& I. I have not, however, difturbed Theobald's emendation. STEEVENS. Heir in our author's time (as it fometimes is now) was applied to females, as well as males. The old copy feads - And heir. The correction was made in the third folio. MALONE. 9 Whom in my mood I flabb'd unto the heart. Thus Dryden : "Madness laughing in his ireful mood." Again, Gray: "Moody madness, laughing, wild," HENLEY. Mood is anger or refentment. MALONE. 2-in our quality y --) - Our quality means our profeffion, calling, or condition of life. Thus in Maflinger's Roman Actor, Aretinus fays to Paris the tragedian: " In thee, as being chief of thy profeffion, " I do accufe the quality of treafon:" that is, the whole profession or fraternity. Hamlet, speaking of the young players, fays, "will they purfue the quality no longer than they can fing!" &c. &c. M. MASON. 1 OUT. But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest. 2 OUT. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd. VAL. I take your offer, and will live with you; 3 3 OUT. No, we detest such vile base practices. Come, go with us, we'll bring thee to our crews, And shew thee all the treasure we have got; Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose. SCENE Milan. II. Court of the Palace. Enter PROTEUS. [Exeunt. PRO. Already have I been false to Valentine, She twits me with my falfhood to my friend; On filly women, or poor passengers.] This was one of the rules of Robin Hood's government. 4 STEEVENS. -----sudden quips,] That is, hafty paffionate reproaches and scoffs. So Macbeth is in a kindred sense faid to be sudden; that is, irafcible and impetuous. JOHNSON. 1 |