Harry: I hear, you are going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland. 2 Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it: Well, I cannot for last ever: But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you will needs say, I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God, my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And God bless your expedition! Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth? Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses.* Fare you well: Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland. 2 [Exeunt Ch. Just. and Atten. - would I might never spit white again.] i. e. May I never have my stomach inflamed again with liquor, for, to spit white is the consequence of inward heat. So, in Mother Bombie, a comedy, 1594: " They have sod their livers in sack these forty years; that makes them spit white broth as they do." Again, in The Virgin Martyr, by Massinger: 66 I could not have spit white for want of drink." Steevens. 3 But it was always &c.] This speech, in the folio, concludes at -I cannot last ever. All the rest is restored from the quarto. A clear proof of the superior value of those editions, when compared with the publication of the players. Steevens. 4 -you are too impatient to bear crosses.] I believe a quibble was here intended. Falstaff had just asked his lordship to lend him a thousand pound, and he tells him in return that he is not to be entrusted with money. A cross is a coin so called, because stamped with a cross. So, in As you Like it: "If I should bear you, I should bear no cross." Steevens. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.—A man can no more separate age and covetousness, than he can part young limbs and lechery:,but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the disenfes "degrees prevent my curses.—Boy! Page. Sir? Fal. What money is in my purse? Page. Seven groats and two-pence. Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.-Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin: About it; you know where to find me. [exit Page] A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one, or the other, plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if I do halt; I have the 5 fillip me with a three-man beetle.] A beetle wielded by three men. Pope. A diversion is common with boys in Warwickshire and the adjoining counties, on finding a toad, to lay a board about two or three feet long, at right angles, over a stick about two or three inches diameter. Then, placing the toad on the end of the board which rests on the ground, the other end is struck by a bat or large stick, which throws the creature forty or fifty feet perpendicular from the earth, and its return in general kills it. This is called Filliping the Toad.-A three-man beetle is an implement used for driving piles; it is made of a log of wood about eighteen or twenty inches diameter, and fourteen or fifteen inches thick, with one short and two long handles. A man at each of the long handles manages the fall of the beetle, and a third man, by the short handle, assists in raising it to strike the blow. Such an implement was, without doubt, very suitable for filliping so corpulent a being as Falstaff. With this happy illustration, I was favoured by Mr. Johnson, the architect. Steevens. So, in A World of Wonders, A Mass of Murthers, A Covie of Cosenages, &c. 1595, sign. F. ". whilst Arthur Hall was weighing the plate, Bullock goes into the kitchen and fetcheth a heavie washing betle, wherewith he comming behinde Hall, strake him," &c. Reed. 6 -prevent my curses.] To prevent means, in this place, to anticipate. So, in the 119th Psalm: "Mine eyes prevent the night watches." Steevens. wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable: A good wit will make use of any thing; I will turn diseases to commodity.7 SCENE III. York. A Room in the Archbishop's Palace. [Exit. Enter the Archbishop of York, the Lords HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH. Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and known our means; And, my most noble friends, I pray you all, Mowb. I well allow the occasion of our arms; How, in our means, we should advance ourselves Hast. Our present musters grow upon the file Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus; Whether our present five and twenty thousand May hold up head without Northumberland. Hast. With him, we may. Bard. Ay, marry, there's the point; But if without him we be thought too feeble, My judgment is, we should not step too far Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted. Arch. 'Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed, It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. 7- to commodity.] i. e. profit, self-interest. See Vol. VII, p. 332, n. 7. Steevens. 8 step too far-] The four following lines were added in the second edition. Johnson. Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope, Eating the air on promise of supply, Flattering himself with project of a power Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts: Proper to madmen, led his powers to death, Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt, 9 Much smaller -] i. e. which turned out to be much smaller. Musgrave. 1 Yes, in this present quality of war; &c.] These first twenty lines were first inserted in the folio of 1623. The first clause of this passage is evidently corrupted. All the folio editions and Mr. Rowe's concur in the same reading, which Mr. Pope altered thus: Yes, if this present quality of war Impede the instant act This has been silently followed by Mr. Theobald, Sir Thomas Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton; but the corruption is certainly deeper, for, in the present reading, Bardolph makes the inconvenience of hope to be that it may cause delay, when, indeed, the whole tenor of his argument is to recommend delay to the rest that are too forward. I know not what to propose, and am afraid that something is omitted, and that the injury is irremediable. Yet, perhaps, the alteration requisite is no more than this: Yes, in this present quality of war, Indeed of instant action. It never, says Hastings, did harm to lay down likelihoods of hope. Yes, says Bardolph, it has done harm in this present quality of war, in a state of things such as is now before us, of war, indeed of instant action. This is obscure, but Mr. Pope's reading is still less reasonable. Johnson. I have adopted Dr. Johnson's emendation, though I think we might read: if this present quality of war Impel the instant action. Hastings says, it never yet did hurt to lay down likelihoods and forms of hope. Yes, says Bardolph, it has in every case like ours, where an army inferior in number, and waiting for supplies, has, without that reinforcement, impelled, or hastily brought on, an immediate action. Steevens. If we may be allowed to read-instanc'd, the text may mean-Yes, it has done harm in every case like ours; indeed, it did harm in young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury, which the Archbishop of York has just instanced or given as an example. Tollet. ་ Lives so in hope, as in an early spring We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit, That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,2 We first survey the plot, then draw the model; What do we then, but draw anew the model 3 " last To build at all? Much more, in this great work, 4 the Consult Consent upon a sure foundation; careful leader sums what for This passage is allowed on all hands to be corrupt, but a slight alteration will, I apprehend, restore the true reading: Yes, if this present quality of war Induc'd the instant action. Henley. Mr. M. Mason has proposed the same reading. Steevens. in this present quality of war;] This and the following nineteen lines appeared first in the folio. That copy reads: Yes, if this present &c. I believe the old reading is the true one, and that a line is lost; but have adopted Dr. Johnson's emendation, because it makes sense. The punctuation now introduced appears to me preferable to that of the old edition, in which there is a colon after the word action. Bardolph, I think, means to say, "Indeed the present action (our cause being now on foot, war being actually levied,) lives," &c. otherwise the speaker is made to say, in general, that all causes once on foot afford no hopes that may securely be relied on; which is certainly not true. Malone. 2 When we mean to build,] Whoever compares the rest of this speech with St. Luke, xiv, 28, &c. will find the former to have been wrought out of the latter. Henley. 3 at least,] Perhaps we should read-at last. Steevens. 4 Consent upon a sure foundation;] i. e. agree. So, in As you Like it, Act V, sc. i: "For all your writers do consent that ipse is he." Again, ibid. sc. ii: “ consent with both, that we may enjoy each other." Steevens. |
