Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whifpers ESSEX. 8 ESSEX. My liege, here is the ftrangest contro verfy, Come from the country to be judg'd by you, Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, and PHILIP, bis baftard brother." This expedition's charge.-What men are you? Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, &c.] This stage direction I have taken from the old quarto. STEEVENS. 9 and Philip, his baftard brother.] Though Shakspeare adopted this character of Philip Faulconbridge from the old play, it is not improper to mention that it is compounded of two distinct perfonages. Matthew Paris fays:- Sub illius temporis curriculo, Falcafius de Brente, Neufterienfis, et fpurius ex parte matris, atque Baftardus, qui in vili jumento manticato ad Regis paulo ante clientelam defcenderat," &c. Matthew Paris, in his Hiftory of the Monks of St. Albans, calls him Falco, but in his General Hiftory, Falcafius de Brente, as above. Holinfhed fays, "That Richard I. had a natural fon named Philip, who in the year following killed the Viscount De Limoges to revenge the death of his father." STEEVENS. Perhaps the following paffage in the Continuation of Harding's Chronicle, 1543, fol. 24, b. ad ann. 1472, induced the author of the old play to affix the name of Faulconbridge to King Richard's natural fon, who is only mentioned in our hiftories by the name of Philip: " one Faulconbridge, therle of Kent, his baftarde, a ftoute-harted man." Who the mother of Philip was, is not afcertained. It is faid that she was a lady of Poitou, and that King Richard bestowed upon her fon a lordship in that province. BAST. Your faithful fubject I, a gentleman, ROB. The fon and heir to that fame Fauleonbridge. K. JOHN. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir? You came not of one mother then, it seems. BAST. Moft certain of one mother, mighty king, That is well known; and, as I think, one father: But, for the certain knowledge of that truth, I put you o'er to heaven, and to my mother; Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.* ELI. Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother, And wound her honour with this diffidence. BAST. I, madam? no, I have no reason for it; That is my brother's plea, and none of mine; The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out In expanding the character of the Baftard, Shakspeare feems to have proceeded on the following flight hint in the original play: "Next them, a bastard of the king's deceas'd, "A hardie wild-head, rough, and venturous.' But, for the certain knowledge of that truth, I put you o'er to heaven, and to my mother; MALONE. Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.] The resemblance between this fentiment, and that of Telemachus in the first Book of the Odyfey, is apparent. The paffage is thus tranflated by Chapman : 66 My mother, certaine, fayes I am his fonne; "I know not; nor was ever fimply knowne, By any child, the fure truth of his fire." Mr. Pope has obferved that the like fentiment is found in Euripides, Menander, and Ariftotle. Shakspeare expreffes the fame doubt in feveral of his other plays. STEEVINS. At least from fair five hundred pound a year: Heaven guard my mother's honour, and my land! K. JOHN. A good blunt fellow :-Why, being younger born, Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance? BAST. I know not why, except to get the land. And were our father, and this fon like him ;- I give heaven thanks, I was not like to thee. K. JOHN. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here! ELI. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face,* 3 But whe'r-] Whe'r for whether. So, in The Comedy of Errors: "Good fir, fay whe'r you'll answer me, or no." STEEVENS. 4 He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face,] The trick, or tricking, is the fame as the tracing of a drawing, meaning that peculiarity of face which may be fufficiently fhown by the flighteft outline. This expreffion is ufed by Heywood and Rowley in their comedy called Fortune by Land and Sea: "Her face, the trick of her her leer." The following paffage in Ben Jonfon's Every Man out of his Humour, proves the phrafe to be borrowed from delineation : You can blazon the reft, Signior? eye, "O ay, I have it in writing here o'purpofe; it cost me two fhillings the tricking." So again, in Cynthia's Revels: 66 the parifh-buckets with his name at length trick'd upon them." STEEVENS. By a trick, in this place, is meant fome peculiarity of look or motion. So, Helen, in All's well that ends well, fays, speaking of Bertram: The accent of his tongue affecteth him: K. JOHN, Mine eye hath well examined his parts, And finds them perfect Richard.—Sirrah, fpeak, What doth move you to claim your brother's land? BAST. Because he hath a half-face, like my father; With that half-face would he have all my land: A half-faced groat five hundred pound a year! 66 "Twas pretty, though a plague, "To fee him every hour; to fit and draw "In our heart's table; heart too capable 66 Of every line and trick of his sweet favour." And Glofter, in K. Lear fays, "The trick of that voice I do well remember." M. MASON. Our author often uses this phrafe, and generally in the fenfe of a peculiar air or caft of countenance or feature. So, in K. Henry VI. Part I: "That thou art my fon, I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own opinion; but chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye, MALONE. 4 With that half-face--] The old copy-with half that face. But why with half that face? There is no queftion but the poet wrote, as I have reftored the text: With that half-faceMr. Pope, perhaps, will be angry with me for discovering an anachronifm of our poet's in the next line, where he alludes to a coin not struck till the year 1504, in the reign of King Henry VII. viz. a groat, which, as well as the half groat, bore but half faces impreffed. Vide Stowe's Survey of London, p. 47. Holinshed, Camden's Remains, &c. The poet fneers at the meagre sharp vifage of the elder brother, by comparing him to a filver groat, that bore the King's face in profile, fo fhowed but half the face: the groats of all our Kings of England, and indeed all their other coins of filver, one or two only excepted, had a full face crowned; till Henry VII. at the time above mentioned, coined groats and half-groats, as alfo fome fhillings, with half faces, i. e. faces in profile, as all our coin has now. The first groats of King Henry VIII. were like thofe of his father; though afterwards he returned to the broad faces again. Thefe groats, with the impreffion in profile, are undoubtedly here alluded to: though, as I faid, the poet is knowingly guilty of an anachronism in it for in the time of King John there were no groats at all; ROB. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd, Your brother did employ my father much; land; BAST. Well, fir, by this you cannot get my Your tale must be, how he employ'd my mother. ROB. And once defpatch'd him in an embaffy To Germany, there, with the emperor, To treat of high affairs touching that time: The advantage of his abfence took the king, And in the mean time fojourn'd at my father's; Where how he did prevail, I fhame to speak : But truth is truth; large lengths of feas and fhores Between my father and my mother lay, (As I have heard my father speak himself,) When this fame lufty gentleman was got. Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd His lands to me; and took it, on his death,' That this, my mother's fon, was none of his; And, if he were, he came into the world Full fourteen weeks before the course of time. Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine, My father's land, as was my father's will. K. JOHN. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate; Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him: And, if she did play falfe, the fault was hers; Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother, Who, as you fay, took pains to get this fon, they being first, as far as appears, coined in the reign of King Edward III. THEOBALD. The fame contemptuous allufion occurs in The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, 1601: "You half-fac'd groat, you thick-cheek'd chitty-face." Again, in Hiftriomaftix, 1610: "Whilft I behold yon half-fac'd minion." STEEVENS. took it, on his death,] i. e. entertained it as his fixed opinion, when he was dying. So, in Hamlet: this, I take it, "Is the main motive of our preparations." STEEVENS. |