ceti. This perhaps is a reminiscence of the play. In Pharmacopeia Extemporanea, by Thomas Fuller, M.D., Cantab. (3rd ed. 1719), one of the ingredients of 'A Bolus for a Bruise' is 'Spermaceti 1 Scruple.' Dr. Norman Moore has kindly furnished me with an earlier example from John Woodall's Surgeon's Mate, London 1639, p. 74: 'Sperma Ceti, or Spuma maris, or the spawne of the whale... is good also against bruises inwardly, taken with the former, namely, Mummia, and also outwardly warme, to annoint the parts contused therewith.'

62. tall, strong, active. See Twelfth Night, i. 3. 20: 'He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria.' The abuse of the word by these 'lisping, affecting fantasticoes' is ridiculed in Romeo and Juliet, ii. 4. 31.

65. unjointed, disconnected, incoherent.

75, 76. To do him wrong. . . said, to injure him or in any way put such a construction upon his words as to make them the foundation of a criminal charge. His words are to be taken in connexion with the circumstances in which they were spoken, and are not to be interpreted literally, in which case they might seem treasonable. Johnson regarded the words 'What then he said' as the subject and not the object of 'impeach,' and interprets the clause, 'Let what he then said never rise to impeach him, so he unsay it now.'

78. But with proviso and exception, that is, he does not positively refuse to give up his prisoners, but he practically does so, for he makes their surrender depend on an impossible condition.

80. Mortimer. See note on i. 1. 38.

87. indent, enter into a compact with. An indenture was a written compact made between two parties in duplicate on the same piece of parchment. The copies were then cut asunder by an indented line, and one copy was held by each party. The two could be identified when necessary by the indented margin of each fitting into the other. Ib. with fears, with those who are the cause of fear. So in 2 Henry IV, iv. 5. 196:

'All these bold fears

Thou see'st with peril I have answered,' where the fears' are the nobles whose turbulence alarmed the King. Steevens takes 'fears' in the sense of 'cowards,' and refers it to Mortimer. Johnson proposed to read 'peers,' and Knight changed 'fears' to 'feres,' to which he attributes the meaning of 'vassals.' 94. fall off, go over to the enemy. See King John, v. 5. 11:

'The English lords

By his persuasion are again fall'n off.'

97. Those mouthed wounds. Malone quotes Julius Cæsar [iii. 2. 232], where the like figure occurs:

There were an Antony

Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue
In every wound of Cæsar.'

100. confound, spend, consume; used of time, as in Coriolanus, i. 6. 17:

'How couldst thou in a mile confound an hour?'

And Antony and Cleopatra, i. I. 45:

6

'Let's not confound the time with conference harsh.' 101. in changing hardiment, in valorous exchange of blows. Hardiment' occurs several times in Spenser. See Faery Queen, iii. 9. 53: 'So long these knights discoursed diversly

Of straunge affaires, and noble hardiment.' 102. breathed, took breath. See v. 4. 15.

104. Who then, affrighted, &c. Knight has unearthed a curious specimen of the criticism of the last century in A Dialogue on Taste, 1762, which is too good to be lost. 'Had not Shakspere been perverted by wrong taste and imitation, he could never have produced such lines as those. Nature could never have pointed out to him that a river was capable of cowardice, or that it was consistent with the character of a gentleman such as Percy, to say the thing that was not.' It was in consequence of this wise remark that Johnson found it necessary to observe, 'Severn is not here the flood, but the tutelary power of the flood, who was affrighted, and hid his head in the hollow bank.' In Milton this tutelary power is represented as a goddess, Sabrina.

106. crisp, curled; from the rippling of the water. So in The Tempest, iv. 1. 130: 'Leave your crisp channels.' In Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 183, the same epithet is applied to the heaven, from its being covered with curled clouds.

108. base is the reading of the folios; bare of the quartos. The former agrees better with 'rotten,' though Johnson preferred 'bare,' in the sense of lying open to detection.' The 'base and rotten policy' is of course the policy attributed to Mortimer by Henry in betraying his army to Glendower. It would have been unnecessary to make this remark but that a contrary interpretation has been attributed to Delius, who is said to have regarded the 'policy' in this case as that of Henry himself. But he says nothing of the kind, and his language, which is quite plain, has been misunderstood.

113. belie, misrepresent, speak falsely of. It usually means to calumniate or slander. See 2 Henry IV, i. 1. 98.

118. Art... henceforth, &c. Pope, whose ear could not endure an irregular line, read,

'Art not asham'd? But, sirrah, from this hour, &c.'

Others have endeavoured to correct the metre otherwise, but in the impetuous language of passion it is not reasonable to look for regularity of verse.

125. An if the devil come and roar for them, an allusion to the part of the devil on the stage. Compare Henry V, iv. 4. 75: This roaring devil i' the old play.'

126. I will after. The verb of motion is omitted, as in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, iii. 1. 394: 'I'll after, to rejoice in the boy's correction.'

Ib. straight, immediately, straightway. As in Hamlet, v. 'Make her grave straight.'

128. Albeit I make a hazard. So the quartos.

Although it be with hazard.'

1. 4:

The folios have

129. choler, anger. See ii. 4. 311, where it is used with a pun on

'collar.'

131. 'Zounds. The folios have 'Yes.' 137. ingrate, ungrateful, thankless. 'Ingrate forgetfulness.'

See notes on i. 2. 63, 88.

So in Coriolanus, v. 2. 92:

Ib. canker'd, venomous, malignant, like a cancer. See King John, ii. 1. 194: A canker'd grandam's will.'

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143. an eye of death, an eye of deadly fear: not, as Johnson interprets, an eye menacing death, which is out of keeping with turning pale and trembling.

145. proclaim'd. It was Roger Mortimer, fourth Earl of March, the elder brother of Edmund Mortimer, Glendower's prisoner, who was proclaimed by Richard II as heir presumptive to the throne in the October parliament of 1385. After his death in August, 1398, his son Edmund Mortimer, then a child not seven years old, succeeded to his claim, and was regarded by the adherents of Richard as the future King. But in the rebellion of the Percies his pretensions were set aside in favour of his uncle Edmund.

146. that dead is. For this inverted order of words see the Duke of Buckinghain's oration as given in Sir Thomas More's History of Richard the Third (Works, ed. 1557, p. 62): Among vs neuer so long continued dissension, nor so many battailes in ye season, nor so cruel & so deadly foughtē, as was in ye kinges daies yt dead is god forgiue it his soule.' Again, in Holland's Plutarch, p. 1154: Now when she saw that he had drunke it all off, she fetched a grievous grone, and brake forth aloud into this speech, naming withall her husband that dead was.'

149. in us, in consequence of us, caused by us.

152. shortly, in a short time after. So Twelfth Night, i. 2. 39:

'Her brother,

Who shortly also died.'

I

159. wish'd him . . . starve. Measure for Measure, iv. 3. 138:

See 1. 89. For the construction see

'Pace your wisdom

In that good path that I would wish it go.'

And All's Well, ii. 1. 134:

As one near death to those that wish him live.' 163. murderous subornation, secret prompting to murder.

168. predicament, originally a term in logic, is the Latin equivalent of the Greek category as translated by the schoolmen. The categories of Aristotle were used as a classification of all existing things. Hence predicament,' which first meant a class,' came to have the signification of condition, situation,' and in later usage bears an unfavourable See The Merchant of Venice, iv. 1. 357

sense.

And the offender's life lies in the mercy

Of the duke only, 'gainst all other voice.
In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st.'
See note on this passage in the Clarendon Press edition.
173. gage, pledge; and so, risk.

Ib. in an unjust behalf, in behalf of injustice. Behalf,' which was originally a prepositional phrase, is commonly used as a substantive with the definite article or a possessive pronoun, 'in the behalf of,' 'in my behalf,' &c., but I have not met with another instance such as this, 'in an unjust behalf,' nor do I find it noticed in Dr. Murray's Dictionary.

174. both of you. Northumberland was one of the first to join Henry at Doncaster after his landing at Ravenspurgh, and when he was proclaimed traitor by Richard, his brother the Earl of Worcester gave up his office of Lord High Steward.

176. this canker. A canker was a dog-rose, and the word is still to be found in some provincial dialects. See Much Ado, i. 3. 28, where Don John says, I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace.' 178. shook is the more usual form of the participle in Shakespeare, though 'shaken,' as in i. 1. 1, and 'shaked' also occur. See note on Henry V, ii. 1. 124 (113, Clarendon Press ed.).

183. disdain'd, full of disdain, disdainful; an adjective in the form of a participle, derived not from a verb but a substantive. Compare The Merchant of Venice, iii. 2. 97:

'Thus ornament is but the guiled shore

To a most dangerous sea,'

where' guiled' means 'full of guile.' Many examples of words similarly formed are given by Schmidt in the Appendix to his Shakespeare Lexicon, P. 1417.

185. To answer, to meet an obligation, to pay a debt. Compare Comedy of Errors, iv. 1. 82:

'But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear
As all the metal in your shop will answer.'

187. cousin, used of those who were not within the first degree of relationship. See notes on Richard III, ii. 2. 8, and Hamlet, i. 2. 64. 193. On the unsteadfast footing of a spear. This passage is not illustrated by Douce's reference to an ivory cabinet which is engraved in Carter's Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Engraving, i. 45. A knight in armour is there represented as crossing a run of water by making a bridge of his sword when he could have easily stepped over it.

194. If he fall in, good night! The attraction of an adventure to Hotspur was its danger, not its prospect of success. See 2 Henry IV, i. 1. 170. It has been proposed to give these words to Worcester, to whom they are inappropriate. Another suggestion is that we should read, 'If he fall in? Good knight!' which has little to commend it.

Ib. or sink or swim, like many other colloquial expressions, such as 'hit or miss,' requires no illustration; but Steevens has pointed out that in Chaucer's Knight's Tale (ed. Tyrwhitt), l. 2399, we find

'Ne recceth never, whether I sinke or flete.'

See also Nashe, Dido, Queene of Carthage, l. 1200 (Works, ed. Grosart, vi. 56):

'No, no, she cares not how we sinke or swimme,

So she may haue Æneas in her armes.'

198. To rouse a lion, &c. Staunton remarks that Shakespeare's acquaintance with the technical phraseology of the chase proves him to have been an accomplished woodman.' It may be so, but the same kind of evidence is used to prove that he was a skilled lawyer. Among the Hunters' Terms in The Gentleman's Recreation (1721) are given Rouse the Buck. Start the Hare.' But naturally no term is given as appropriate to the lion, and we may suppose that Shakespeare's intelligence rather than his experience led him to select the appropriate words. 201-205. In the Induction to Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, these lines, slightly altered, are recited by Ralph the Apprentice as a specimen of a 'huffing part.' Johnson thought it worth while to defend them from the charge of extravagance; but it is not necessary to suppose that in their quotation by Beaumont and Fletcher any ridicule of Shakespeare was intended. Hotspur was brave enough, but there was a touch of the braggadocio about him.

201. By the omission of the speaker's name in the first four quartos the lines 201-208 are made part of Northumberland's speech.

207. corrival, rival. Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) gives 'Rival: m. A riuall, corriuall, competitor in loue.' In the sense of companion' it occurs again in this play, iv. 4. 31.

208. this half-faced fellowship, this miserable sharing of honours,