K. JOHN. Go, Faulconbridge; now haft thou thy defire, A landless knight makes thee a landed 'fquire.— Come, madam, and come, Richard; we must speed For France, for France; for it is more than need. BAST. Brother, adieu; Good fortune come to thee! For thou waft got i'the way of honesty. 2 [Exeunt all but the Baftard. A foot of honour better than I was; 4 But many a many foot of land the worse. For your converfion. Now your traveller,— 2 A foot of bonour -] A frep, un pas. JOHNSON. 3 Good den,] i. e. a good evening. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "God ye good den, fair gentlewoman." STEEVENS. -fir Richard,] Thus the old copy, and rightly. In Act IV. Salisbury calls him Sir Richard, and the King has juft knighted him by that name. The modern editors arbitrarily read, Sir Robert. Faulconbridge is now entertaining himself with ideas of greatnefs, fuggefted by his recent knighthood.-Good den, fir Richard, he fuppofes to be the falutation of a vassal, God-amercy, fellow, his own fupercilious reply to it. STEEVENS. 5 'Tis too refpective, and too fociable, For your converfion.] Refpective is refpectful, formal. So, in The Cafe is Altered, by Ben Jonfon, 1609: "I pray you, fir; you are too refpective in good faith." Again, in the old comedy called Michaelmas Term, 1607: "Seem refpective, to make his pride fwell like a toad with dew." Again, in The Merchant of Venice, A& V: "You should have been refpective," &c. For your converfion, is the reading of the old copy, and may be right. It seems to mean, his late change of condition from a private gentleman to a knight. STEEVENS. Mr. Pope, without neceffity, reads-for your converfing. Our author has here, I think, ufed a licence of phrafeology that he He and his tooth-pick' at my worship's mess ;' often takes. The Baftard has just said, that " new-made honour doth forget men's names;" and he proceeds as if he had faid, does not remember men's names." To remember the name of an inferior, he adds, has too much of the refpect which is paid to fuperiors, and of the focial and friendly familiarity of equals, for your converfion,-for your prefent condition, now converted from the fituation of a common man to the rank of a knight. 6 MALONE. Now your traveller,] It is faid in All's well that ends well, that " a traveller is a good thing after dinner." In that age of newly excited curiofity, one of the entertainments at great tables feems to have been the difcourfe of a traveller. JOHNSON. So, in The partyng of Frendes, a Copy of Verfes fubjoined to Tho. Churchyard's Praife and Reporte of Maifter Martyne Forboifher's Voyage to Meta Incognita, &c. 1578: - and all the parish throw "At church or market, in fome fort, will talke of trav❜lar now." STEEVENS. 7 He and his tooth-pick-] It has been already remarked, that to pick the tooth, and wear a piqued beard, were, in that time, marks of a man affecting foreign fashions. JOHNSON. Among Gafcoigne's poems I find one entitled, Councell given to Maifter Bartholomer Withipoll a little before his latter Journey to Geane, 1572. The following lines may perhaps be acceptable to the reader who is curious enough to enquire about the fashionable follies imported in that age: "Now, fir, if I thall fee your mastership "Come home disguis'd, and clad in quaint array;- Again, in Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonfon, 1601: A traveller, one fo made out of the mixture and threds of forms, that himself is truly deformed. He walks moft commonly with a clove or pick-tooth in his mouth." So alfo, Fletcher: You that truft in travel, "You that enhance the daily price of tooth-picks." Again, in Shirley's Grateful Servant, 1630: "I will continue my ftate-posture, ufe my tooth-pick with difcretion," &c. STREVENS. And when my knightly ftomach is fuffic'd, So, in Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, 1616 [Article, an Affected Traveller]: "He cenfures all things by countenances and fhrugs, and fpeaks his own language with fhame and lifping; he will choke rather than confefs beere good drink; and his tooth-pick is a main part of his behaviour." MALONE. 8 at my worship's mefs;] means, at that part of the table where I, as a knight, fhall be placed. See The Winter's Tale, Vol. VII. p. 29, n. 8. Your worship was the regular addrefs to a knight or efquire, in our author's time, as your honour was to a lord." MALONE. 9 My picked man of countries:] The word picked may not refer to the beard, but to the fhoes, which were once worn of an immoderate length. To this fashion our author has alluded in King Lear, where the reader will find a more ample explanation. Picked may, however, mean only fpruce in dress. Chaucer fays in one of his prologues: "Fresh and new her geare ypiked was." And in The Merchant's Tale: "He kempeth him, and proineth him, and piketh." In Hyrd's tranflation of Vives's Inftruction of a Chriftian woman, printed in 1591, we meet with "picked and apparelled goodly-goodly and pickedly arrayed.Licurgus, when he would have women of his country to be regarded by their virtue and not their ornaments, banished out of the country by the law, all painting, and commanded out of the town all crafty men of picking and apparelling." Again, in a comedy called All Fools, by Chapman, 1602: " "Tis fuch a picked fellow, not a haire "About his whole bulk, but it stands in print." Again, in Love's Labour's Loft: "He is too picked, He is too picked, too spruce," &c. Again, in Greene's Defence of Coney-catching, 1592, in the defcription of a pretended traveller: There be in England, efpecially about London, certain quaint pickt, and neat companions, attired, &c. alamode de France," &c. If a comma be placed after the word man, "My picked man, of countries.” "I catechize felected man, the paffage will feem to mean, "I catechife my The laft interpretation of picked, offered by Mr. Steevens, is undoubtedly the true one. So, in Wilfon's Arte of Rhetorique, 1553: "-fuch riot, dicyng, cardyng, pyking," &c. Piked or picked, (for (Thus, leaning on mine elbow, I begin,) And talking of the Alps, and Apennines, It draws toward supper in conclufion fo. And fits the mounting fpirit, like myself: the word is variously spelt,) in the writings of our author and his contemporaries, generally means, Spruce, affected, effeminate. See alfo Minfheu's Dict. 1617: "To picke or trimme. Vid. Trimme." MALONE. My picked man of countries, is-my travelled fop. HOLT WHITE. 9-like an ABC-book:]. An ABC-book, or, as they spoke and wrote it, an abfey-book, is a catechism. JOHNSON. So, in the ancient Interlude of Youth, bl. 1. no date : "In the A. B. C. of bokes the least, 66 "Yt is written, deus charitas eft." Again, in Tho. Nafh's dedication to Greene's Arcadia, 1616: make a patrimony of In Speech, and more than a younger brother's inheritance of their Abcie." STEEVENS. And fo, ere answer knows what question would, (Saving in dialogue of compliment;] Sir W. Cornwallis's 28th Effay thus ridicules the extravagance of compliment in our poet's days, 1601: "We spend even at his (i. e. a friend's or a stranger's) entrance, a whole volume of words. -What a deal of fynamon and ginger is facrificed to diffimulation! O, how blessed do I take mine eyes for prefenting me with this fight! O Signior, the ftar that governs my life in contentment, give me leave to interre myself in your ns!—Not fo, fir, it is too unworthy an inclofure to contain fuch precioufnefs, &c. &c. This, and a cup of drink, makes the time as fit for a departure as can be." TOLLET. arms 3. For he is but a baftard to the time, &c.] He is accounted but a mean man in the prefent age, who does not fhew by his dress, his * That doth not fmack of observation; (And fo am I, whether I fmack, or no;) And not alone in habit and device, Exterior form, outward accoutrement; But from the inward motion to deliver Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth: For it shall strew the footsteps of my rifing. 6 Enter Lady FAULCONBRIDGE and James Gurney." O me! it is my mother:-How now, good lady? What brings you here to court so hastily? LADY F. Where is that flave, thy brother? where is he? That holds in chafe mine honour up and down? BAST. My brother Robert? old fir Robert's fon? deportment, and his talk, that he has travelled, and made obfervations in foreign countries. The old copy in the next line reads― Smoak. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. 4 Which, though-] The conftruction will be mended, if inftead of which though, we read this though. JOHNSON. 5 But who comes-] Milton, in his tragedy, introduces Dalilah with fuch an interrogatory exclamation. JOHNSON. 6 to blow a horn-] He means, that a woman who travelled about like a poft, was likely to horn her husband. 7 JOHNSON. James Gurney.] Our author found this name in perufing the hiftory of King John; who not long before his victory at Mirabeau over the French, headed by young Arthur, feized the lands and caftle of Hugh Gorney, near Butevant in Normandy. MALONE. |