Servants rush at the Tower gates. Enter, to the gates, WOODVILLE, the Lieutenant. WOOD. [Within.] What noife is this? what traitors have we here? GLO. Lieutenant, is it you, whofe voice I hear? Open the gates; here's Glofter, that would enter. WOOD. [Within.] Have patience, noble duke; I may not open; The cardinal of Winchefter forbids: From him I have exprefs commandement, Arrogant Winchefter? that haughty prelate, Whom Henry, our late fovereign, ne'er could brook? Thou art no friend to God, or to the king: 1. SERV. Open the gates unto the lord protector; Or we'll burft them open, if that you come not quickly. To break up in Shakspeare's age was the fame as to break open: Thus in our tranflation of the Bible: "They have broken up, and have paffed through the gate." Micah, ii. 13. So again, in St. Matthew, xxiv. 43: He would have watched, and would not have fuffered his houfe to be broken up." WHALLEY. Some one has proposed to read Break ope the gates, but the old copy is right. So Hall, HENRY VI. folio 78, b. "The lufty Kentifhmen hopyng on more friends, brake up the gaytes of the King's Bench and Marshallea," &c. MALONE. Enter WINCHESTER, attended by a train of Servants in tawny coats. 6 WIN. How now, ambitious Humphry? what means this? 7 GLO. Piel'd prieft, doft thou command me to be fhut out? 6 tawny coats. It appears from the following paffage in a comedy called A Maidenhead well Loft, 1634, that a tauny coat was the drefs of a fummoner, i. c. an apparitor, an officer whofe bu finefs it was to fummon offeuders to an ecclefiaftical court: 64 Tho I was never à tawny-coat, I have play'd the fummoner's part." There are the proper attendants therefore on the Bishop of Winchefter. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 822, " and by the way the bishop of London met him, attended on by a goodly company of gentlemen in tawny coats,' &c. Tawny was likewife a colour worn for mourning, as well as black and was therefore the fuitable and sober habit of any perfon employed in an ecclefiaftical court? "A croune of bayes fhall that man weare "That triumphs over me; For blacke and tawnie will I weare, "Whiche mournyng colours be." The Complaint of a Lover wearyng blacke and tawnie: by E. O. [i. e. the Earl of Oxford. ] Paradife of Dainty Devifes, 1576. STEEVENS. How now, ambitious Humphrey? what means this?] The firt folio has it--umpheir. The traces of the letters, and the word being printed in italicks, convince me, that the duke's chriftian name lurk'd under this corruption. THEOBALD. * Piel'd priest,] Alluding to his fhaven crown. POPE. In skinner (to whofe Dictionary I was directed by Mr. Edwards) I find that it means more: Pill'd or peel'd garlick, cui pellis, vel pili omnes ex morbo aliquo, præfertim è lue venerea, defluxerunt. In Ben Jonfon's Bartholomew Fair, the following inftance occurs: I'll fee them p-'d first, and pil'd and double pil'd." STEEVENS. In Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 364, Robert Baldocke, bishop of London, is called a peel'd prieft, pilide clerke feemingly in al WIN. I do, thou moft ufurping proditor, GLO. Stand back, thou manifeft confpirator; lufion to his fhaven crown alone. So, bald-head was a term of fcorn and mockery. TOLLET. The old copy has-piel'd priest. Piel'd and pil'd were only the old fpelling of peel'd. So, in our poet's Rape of Lucrece, 4to. 1594: "His leaves will wither, and his fap decay, "So muft my foul, her bark being pil'd away." See alfo Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: Pelare. To pill or pluck, as they do the feathers of fowle; to pull off the hair or Jkin." MALONE. 9 Thou, that giv'fi whores indulgences to fin:] The publick ftews were formerly under the district of the bishop of Winchester. POPE. There is now extant an old manufcript (formerly the office book of the court-leet held under the jurifdiction of the bishop of Winchefter in Southwark) in which are mentioned the feveral fees arifing from the brothel-houfes allowed to be kept in the bishop's manor, with the customs and regulations of them. One of the articles is, "De his, qui cuftodiunt mulieres habentes nefardam infirmitatem." "Item. That no ftewholder keep any woman within his house, that hath any fickness of brenning, but that he be put out upon pain of making a fyne unto the lord of C fhillings." UPTON. 2 I'll canvas thee in thy broad cardinal's hat, ] This means, I believe I'll tumble thee into thy great hat, and shake thee, as bran and meal are fhaken in a fieve. So, fir W. D'Avenaut, in The Cruel Brother, 1630: "I'll fift and winnow him in an old hat." To canvas was anciently used for to fift. So, in Hans Beerpot's Invifible Comedy, 1618: We'll canvas him.. I am too big Again, in the Epiftle Dedicatory to Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, &c. 1596: canvaze him end his angell brother Gabriell, in ten fheets of paper," &c. STEEVENS T " WIN. Nay ftand thou back, I will not budge a foot; This be Damafcus, be thou curfed Cain," GLO. I will not flay thee, but I'll drive thee back! Thy scarlet robes, as a child's bearing-cloth WIN. Do what thou dar'ft; I beard thee to thy face. し GLO. What? am I dar'd and bearded to my face?Draw, men, for all this privileged place; Blue-coats to tawny-coats. Prieft, beware your beard; [Glofter and his men attack the Bishop. I mean to tug it, and to cuff you foundly: Under my feet I ftamp thy cardinal's hat; In fpite of pope, or dignities of church, Here by the cheeks I'll drag thee up and down. Again, in the Second Part of King Henry IV. Doll Tearsheet fays to Falftaff_ "If thou doft, I'll canvas thee between a pair of fheets." M. MASON. Probably from the materials of which the bottom of a fieve is made. Perhaps, however, in the paffage before us Glofter means, that he will tofs the cardinal in a fheet, even while he was invested with the peculiar badge of his ecclefiaftical dignity.-Coarfe sheets were formerly terined canvass fheets. See Vol. XIII. p. 96, n. 8. Malone. 3 This be Damafcus, be thou curfed Cain, ] About four miles om Damafcus is a high hill, reported to be the fame on which Cain flew his brother Abel. Maundrel's Travels, p. 131. POPE. Sir John Maundeville fays, " And in that place where Damafcus was founded, Kaym floughe Abel his brother." Maundeville's Travels, edit. 1725, p. 148. REED. Damafcus is as moche to faye as fhedynge of blood. For there Chaym flowe Abell, and hydde hym in the fonde." Polychronicon, fo. xii. RITSON. WIN. Glofter, thou'lt anfwer this before the pope. GLO. Winchester goofe, I cry-arope! a rope! Now beat them hence, Why do you let them ftay? Thee I'll chafe hence, thou wolf in fheep's array.— Out, tawny coats!-out, fcarlet hypocrite!5 Here a great tumult. In the midst of it, Enter the Mayor of London, and Officers. MAY. Fie, lords! that you, being fupreme magiftrates, Thus contumelioufly fhould break the peace! GLO. Peace, mayor; thou know'ft little of my wrongs: Here's Beaufort, that regards nor God nor king, Hath here diftrain'd the Tower to his use. WIN. Here's Glofter too, a foe to citizens;" One that ftill motions war, and never peace, O'ercharging your free purfes with large fines; That feeks to overthrow religion, Because he is protector of the realm; 3 Winchester goofe, ] A ftrumpet, or the confequences of her love, was a Winchester goofe. JOHNSON. 4 a rope! a rope!] See the Comedy of Errors, p. 288, n. 2. MALONE. 5 - Vol. X. out, fcarlet hypocrite!] Thus, in King Henry VIII. the Earl of Surrey, with a fimilar allufion to Cardinal Wolfey's habit, calls him- fcarlet fin." STEEVENS. 6 the Mayor of London, ] I learn from Mr. Pennant's LONDON, that this Mayor was John Coventry, an opulent mercer, from whom is defcended the prefent Earl of Coventry. STEEVENS 7 Here's Glofler too, &c.] Thus the fecond folio. The firft folio, with lefs fpirit of reciprocation, and feebler metre,-Here is Glofter &c. STEEVENS. |
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