In fine, redeem'd I was as I defir'd. But, O! the treacherous Faftolfe wounds my heart! Whom with my bare fifts I would execute, If I now had him brought into my power. SAL. Yet tell'ft thou not, how thou wert entertain'd. TAL. With fcoffs, and scorns, and contumelious taunts. In open market-place produc'd they me, Here, faid they, is the terror of the French, I may add, that perhaps no word will be found nearer to the found and traces of the letters, in pil-esteem'd, than Philiftin'd. Philistine, in the age of Shakspeare, was always accented on the firft fyllable, and therefore is not injurious to the line in which I have hesitatingly propofed to infert it. I cannot, however, help fmiling at my own conjecture; and fhould it excite the fame sensation in the reader who journeys through the barren defert of our accumulated notes on this play, like Addison's traveller, when he discovers a cheerful fpring amid the wilds of fand, let him bless his ftars, and think it luxury. STEEVENS. I have no doubt that we should read—fo pile-esteem'd: a Latinism, for which the author of this play had, I believe, no occafion to go to Lilly's grammar. "Flocci, nauci, nihili, pili, &c. his verbis, eftimo, pendo, peculiariter adjiciuntur; ut,. Nec hujus facio qui me pili æftimat. Even if we fuppofe no change to be neceffary, this furely was the meaning intended to be conveyed. In one of Shakfpeare's plays we have the fame phrafe, in English, vile-efteem'd. MALONE. If the author of the play before us designed to avail himself of the Latin phrase — pili æftimo, would he have only half translated it? for what correspondence has pile in English to a fingle hair? Was a fingle hair ever called a pile, by any English writer? STEEVENS. 7- the terror of the French, The Scare-crow that affrights our children fo.] From Hall's Chronicle: This man [Talbot] was to the French people a very fcourge and a daily terror, infomuch that as his perfon was fearful, and terrible to his adverfaries prefent, fo his name and fame was Then broke I from the officers that led me; And with my nails digg'd ftones out of the ground, To hurl at the beholders of iny fhame. My grifly countenance made others fly; None durft come near, for fear of fudden death. So great fear of my name 'mongst them was spread, Ready they were to fhoot me to the heart. SAL. I grieve to hear what torments you endur'd; But we will be reveng'd fufficiently. Now it is fupper-time in Orleans: 8 Here, through this grate, I can count every one, Where is beft place to make our battery next. GLAN. And I, here, at the bulwark, of the bridge. spiteful and dreadful to the common people absent; infomuch that women in France to feare their yong children, would crie, the Talbot commeth, the Talbot commeth. The fame thing is faid of King Richard I. when he was in the Holy Land. See Camden's Remaines, 4to. 1614, p. 267. MALONE. Here, through this grate, I can count every one, ] Thus the fecond folio. The firft, very harfhly and unmetrically, reads: Here, thorough this grate, I count each one. STEEVENS. 1 TAL. For aught I fee, this city must be famifh'd, Or with light fkirmishes enfeebled. 8 [Shot from the town. SALISBURY and Sir THO. GARGRAVE fall. SAL. O Lord, have mercy on us, wretched fin ners! GAR. O Lord, have mercy on me, woful man! TAL. What chance is this, that fuddenly hath crofs'd us? Speak, Salisbury; at leaft, if thou, canft fpeak; That hath contriv'd this woful tragedy! fail, One eye thou haft to look to heaven for grace:* 8 enfeebled.] This word is here ufed as a quadrifyllable. MALONE, thy cheek's fide ftruck off!] Camden fays in his Remaines, that the French fcarce knew the ufe of great ordnance, till the fiege of Mans in 1425, when a breach was made in the walls of that town by the English, under the condu& of this earl of Salifbury; and that he was the firft English gentleman that was flain by a cannon-ball. MALONE. 2 One eye thou haft &c.] A fimilar thought occurs in King Lear : my lord, you have one eye left, tr "To fee some mifchief on him." STEEVENS. Bear hence his body, I will help to bury it. He beckons with his hand, and fmiles on me; Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn; [Thunder heard; afterwards an alarum. What ftir is this? What tumult's in the heavens? Whence cometh this alarum, and the noife? Enter a Meffenger. MESS. My lord, my lord, the French have gather'd head: The Dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle join'd, A holy prophetefs, new rifen up, Is come with a great power to raise the fiege. SALISBURY groans. TAL. Hear, hear, how dying Salisbury doth groan! ૩ and Nero-like, ] The firft folio reads: Plantagenet, I will; and like thee STEEVENS. In the old copy, the word Nero is wanting, owing probably to the tranfcriber's not being able to make out the name. The editor of the second folio, with his ufual freedom, altered the line thus: I am content to read with the fecond folio (not conceiving the emendation in it to be an arbitrary one) and omit only the needlefs repetition of the verb -will. Surely there is fome abfurdity in making Talbot addrefs Plantagenet, and invoke Nero, in the fame line. STEEVEns. It irks his heart: he cannot be reveng'd. And then we'll try what thefe daftard Frenchmen Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish,] Puffel means a dirty wench or a drab, from puzza, i. e. malus fætor, fays Minfheu. In a tranflation from Stephen's Apology for Herodotus, in 1607, p. 98, we read — "Some filthy queans, efpecially our puzzles of Paris, ufe this other theft. TOLLET. So, Stubbs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1595: "No nor yet any droye nor puzzel in the country but will carry a nosegay in her hand. Again, in Ben Jonfon's Commendatory Verfes, prefixed to works of Beaumont and Fletcher: "Lady or Pufill, that wears mask or fan. As for the conceit, miferable as it is, it may be countenanced by that of James I. who looking at the flatue of Sir Thomas Bodley in the library at Oxford, "Pii Thomæ Godly nomine infignivit, eoque potius nomine quam Bodly, deinceps merito nominandum.effe cenfuit. See Rex Platonicus, &c. edit, quint. Oxon. 1635, p. 187. It should be remembered, that in Shakspeare's time the word dauphin was always written dolphin. STEEVENS. , There are frequent references to Pucelle's name in this play: "Ifcar'd the dauphin and his trull. Again: "Scoff on, vile fiend, and fhameless courtezan!" MALONE. And then we'll try what thefe daftard Frenchmen dare.] Perhaps the conjunction and, for the fake of metre, fhould be omitted at the beginning of this line, which, in my opinion, however, originally ran thus: Then try we what thefe daftard Frenchmen dare. STEEVENS. |