assembled together, and fell at argument, every man with another, intending to turne their cruelty upon the Romaines, confirming and ratifying the same atonement and purpose, by swearing one to another; and so became peace among them. Wherefore joyning together, that before were three severall parts, they set open the gates, and the best of them issued out with an horrible noyse and shoute, that they made the Romaines afraide withall, in such wise that they fled before the seditious, which sodainly did set upon them unawares." MAL.

P. 37. Volquessen,] This is the ancient name for the country now called the Vexin; in Latin, Pagus Velocassinus. That part of it called the Norman Vexin, was in dispute between Philip and John. STE.

P. 44. To England, if you will.] Neither the French king nor Pandulph has said a word of England since the entry of Constance. Perhaps, therefore, in despair, she means to address the absent King John: "Take my son to England, if you will;" now that he is in your power, I have no prospect of seeing him again. It is therefore, of no consequence to me where he is. MAL.

KING RICHARD II.

P. 24. Like to a tenement, or pelting farm :] "In this 22d yeare of King Richard (says Fabian,) the common fame ranne, that the king had letten to farm the realme unto Sir William Scrope, earle of Wiltshire, and then treasurer of England, to Syr John Bushey, Sir John Bagot, and Sir Henry Grene, knightes." MAL.

P. 29. As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what :] Stow records, that Richard II. " compelled all the Religious, Gentlemen, and Commons, to set their seales to blankes, to the end he might as it pleased him, oppresse them severally, or all at once some of the Commons paid 1000 markes, some 1000 pounds," &c. Chronicle, p. 319, fol. 1639. HOLT WHITE.

P. 54. Then I must not say, no.] "The duke with a high sharpe voyce bade bring forth the kings horses, and then two little nagges, not worth forty franks, were brought forth; the king was set on the one, and the earl of Salisburie on the other and thus the duke brought the king from Flint to Chester, where he was delivered to the duke of Gloucesters sonne, and to the earle of Arundels sonne, (that loved him but little, for he had put their fathers to death, who led him straight to the castle." Stowe, (p. 521, edit. 1605,) from a manuscript account written by a person who was present. MAL

P. 57. Westminster Hall.] The rebuilding of Westminster-Hall, which Richard had begun in 1397, being finished in 1399, the first meeting of parliament in the new edifice was for the purpose of deposing him. MAL.

P.59. Surrey] Thomas Holland earl of Kent. He was brother to John Holland duke of Exeter, and was created duke of Surrey in the 21st year of King Richard the Second, 1397. The dukes of Surrey and Exeter were half brothers to the King, being sons of his mother Joan, (daughter of Edmond earle of Kent,) who after the death of her second husband, Lord Thomas Holland, married Edward the Black Prince.

P.81. The grand conspirator, abbot of Westminster,

MAL.

Hath yielded up his body to the grave;} This Abbot of Westminster was William de Colchester. The relation here given of his death, after Holinshed's Chronicle, is untrue, as he survived the King many years; and though called "the grand conspirator," it is very doubtful whether he had any concern in the conspiracy; at least nothing was proved against him. RITSON.

P.82. Carlisle, this is your doom] This prelate was committed to the Tower, but on the intercession of his friends, obtained leave to change his prison for Westminster Abbey. In order to deprive him of his see, the Pope, at the King's instance, translated him to a bishopric in partibus infidelium; and the only preferment he could ever after obtain, was a rectory in Gloucestershire. He died in 1409. RITSON.

HENRY IV. PART I.

P. 7. the prisoners,] Percy had an exclusive right to these prisoners, except the Earl of Fife. By the law of arms, every man who had taken any captive, whose redemption did not exceed ten thousand crowns, had him clearly for himself, either to acquit or ransom, at his pleasure. It seems from Camden's Britannia, that Pounouny castle in Scotland was built out of the ransome of this very Henry Percy, when taken prisoner at the battle of Otterbourne by an ancestor of the present Earl of Eglington.

TOLLET.

Percy could not refuse the Earl of Fife to the King; for being a prince of the blood royal, (son to the Duke of Albany, brother to King Robert III.) Henry might justly claim him by his acknowledged military prerogative. STE.

P. 8. Phabus,-he, that wandering knight so fair.] Falstaff starts at the idea of Phoebus, i. e. the sun; but deviates into an allusion to El Donzel del Febo, the knight of the sun in a

Spanish Romance translated (under the title of The Mirror of Knighthood, &c.) during the age of Shakspeare. This illustrious personage was "most excellently faire," and a great wanderer, as those who travel after him throughout three thick volumes in 4to. will discover.

STE.

P. 11. sir John Sack-and-Sugar.] Much inquiry has been made about Falstaff's sack, and great surprize has been expressed that he should have mixed sugar with it. As they are here mentioned for the first time in this play, it may not be improper to observe, that it is probable that Falstaff's wine was Sherry, a Spanish wine, originally made at Xeres. He frequently himself calls it Sherris-sack. Nor will his mixing sugar with sack appear extraordinary, when it is known that it was a very common practice in our author's time to put sugar into all wines. "Clownes and vulgar men (says Fynes Moryson) only use large drinking of beer or ale,-but gentlemen garrawse only in wine, with which they mix sugar, which I never observed in any other place or kingdom for that purpose. And because the taste of the English is thus delighted with sweetness, the wines in taverns (for I speak not of merchantes' or gentlemen's cellars) are commonly mixed at the filling thereof, to make them pleasant." MAL.

P. 16. His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer ;] Shakspeare has fallen into some contradictions with regard to this Lord Mortimer. Before he makes his personal appearance in the play, he is repeatedly spoken of as Hotspur's brother-inlaw. In Act II. Lady Percy expressly calls him her brother Mortimer. And yet when he enters in the third Act, he calls Lady Percy his aunt, which in fact she was, and not his sister. This inconsistence may be accounted for as follows. It appears from Dugdale's and Sandford's account of the Mortimer family, that there were two of them taken prisoners at different times by Glendower; each of them bearing the name of Edmund; one being Edmund earl of March, nephew to Lady Percy, and the proper Mortimer of this play; the other, Sir Edmund Mortimer, uncle to the former, and brother to Lady Percy. Shakspeare confounds the two persons. STE.

Another cause also may be assigned for this confusion. Henry Percy, according to the accounts of our old historians, married Eleanor, the sister of Roger earl of March, who was the father of the Edmund earl of March, that appears in the present play. But this Edmund had a sister likewise named Eleanor. Shakspeare might, therefore, have at different times confounded these two Eleanors. In fact, however, the sister of Roger earl of March, whom young Percy married, was called Elizabeth.

MAL

P. 30. How now, Kate 2] Shakspeare either mistook the name of Hotspur's wife, (which was not Katharine but Elizabeth,) or else designedly changed it, out of the remarkable fondness he seems to have had for the familiar appellation of Kate, which he is never weary of repeating, when he has once introduced it; as in this scene, the scene of Katharine and Petruchio, and the courtship between King Henry V. and the French Princess. The wife of Hotspur was the Lady Elizabeth Mortimer, sister to Roger Earl of March, and aunt to Edmund Earl of March, who is introduced in this play by the name of Lord Mortimer.

STE.

P. 38. in Kendal green,] Kendal-green was the livery of Robert Earl of Huntington and his followers, while they remained in a state of outlawry, and their leader assumed the title of Robin Hood. STE.

P. 40. Give him as much as will make him a royal man.] He that received a noble was, in cant language, called a nobleman; in this sense the Prince catches the word, and bids the landlady "give him as much as will make him a royal man,” that is, a real or royal man, and send him away.

JOH.

The royal went for 10s.-the noble only for 6s. and 8d. TYRWHITT.

66

This seems to be an allusion to a jest of Queen Elizabeth. Mr. John Blower, in a sermon before her majesty, first said: "My royal Queen," and a little after : My noble Queen." Upon which says the Queen: "What, am I ten groats worse than I was ?" TOLLET.

P.55. Thy place in council thou hast rudely lost,] The Prince was removed from being President of the Council, immediately after he struck the Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne. MAL.

P. 59. Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word,] There was no such person as Lord Mortimer of Scotland; but there was a Lord March of Scotland, (George Dunbar,) who having quitted his own country in disgust, attached himself so warmly to the English, and did them such signal services in their wars with Scotland, that the Parliament petitioned the King to bestow some reward on him. He fought on the side of Henry in this rebellion, and was the means of saving his life at the battle of Shrewsbury, as is related by Holinshed. This, no doubt, was the lord whom Shakspeare designed to represent in the act of sending friendly intelligence to the King.Our author had a recollection that there was in these wars a Scottish lord on the King's side, who bore the same title with the English family, on the rebel side, (one being the Earl of March in England, the other, Earl of March in Scotland,) 12

VOL. IX.

but his memory deceived him as to the particular name which was common to them both. He took it to be Mortimer, instead of March.

HENRY IV. PART HI.

·P. 63. —1, in my condition,

STE.

Shall better speak of you than you deserve.] I know not well the meaning of the word condition in this place; I believe it is the same with temper of mind : I shall, in my good nature, speak better of you than you merit.

P. 78. Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,

Јон.

But Harry Harry] Amurath the Third (the sixth Emperor of the Turks) died on January the 18th, 1595-6. The people being generally disaffected to Mahomet his eldest son, and inclined to Amurath, one of his younger children, the Emperor's death was concealed for ten days by the Janizaries, till Mahomet came from Amasia to Constantinople. On his arrival he was saluted Emperor by the great Bassas, and others his favourers; "which done, (says Knolles,) he presently after caused all his brethren to be invited to a solemn feast in the court; whereunto they, yet ignorant of their father's death, came chearfully, as men fearing no harm: but, being come, were there all most miserably strangled." It is highly probable that Shakspeare here alludes to this transaction; which was pointed out to me by Dr. Farmer.

This circumstance, therefore, may fix the date of this play subsequently to the beginning of the year 1596; and perhaps it was written while this fact was yet recent.

P.. 83.

-fig me, like

MAL.

The bragging Spaniard.] Dr.Johnson has properly explained this phrase; but it should be added, that it is of Italian origin. When the Milanese revolted against the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, they placed the empress his wife upon a mule with her head towards the tail, and ignominiously expelled her their city. Frederick afterwards besieged and took the place, and compelled every one of his prisoners on pain of death to take with his teeth a fig from the posteriors of a mule. The party was at the same time obliged to repeat to the executioner the words "ecco la fica." From this circumstance “Far la fica" became a term of derision, and was adopted by other nations. The French say likewise "faire la figue." DOUCE.

P. 84. Nuthook, nuthook, you lie.] From a late "critical review," I learn that nutk-hut in the language of the Bazegurs or Nuts of Hindostan signifies rascal or blackguard, and that it was probably introduced into England by the gypsies, between