BAST.

Here's a ftay,

That shakes the rotten carcafe of old death
Out of his rags! Here's a large mouth, indeed,

2 Here's a stay,

That Shakes the rotten carcafe of old death

Out of his rags!] I cannot but think that every reader wishes for fome other word in the place of fray, which though it may fignify an hindrance, or man that hinders, is yet very improper to introduce the next line. I read:

Here's a flaw,

That Shakes the rotten carcafe of old death.

That is, here is a guft of bravery, a blaft of menace. This fuits well with the fpirit of the fpeech. Stay and flaw, in a careless hand are not eafily diftinguished; and if the writing was obfcure, flaw being a word less usual, was eafily miffed. JOHNSON.

Shakspeare feems to have taken the hint of this fpeech from the following in The Famous Hiftory of Tho. Stukely, 1605, bl. 1: Why here's a gallant, here's a king indeed!

66

"He fpeaks all Mars:-tut, let me follow fuch
"A lad as this:-This is pure fire:

"Ev'ry look he cafts, flafheth like lightning;
"There's mettle in this boy.

"He brings a breath that fets our fails on fire:

Why now I fee we shall have cuffs indeed."

Perhaps the force of the word ftay, is not exactly known. I meet with it in Damon and Pythias, 1582:

"Not to prolong my life thereby, for which I reckon not this,

"But to fet my things in a flay."

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Perhaps by a flay, the Baftard means "a fteady, refolute fellow, who thakes," &c. So, in Fenton's Tragical Difcourses, bl. 1. 4to. 1567: more apt to follow th' inclination of vaine and lafcivious defyer, than difpofed to make a ftaye of herfelfe in the trade of honeft vertue." A fay, however, feems to have been meant for fomething active, in the following paffage in the 6th canto of Drayton's Baron's Wars:

"Oh could ambition apprehend a stay,

The giddy courfe it wandereth in, to guide." Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. II. c. x:

"Till riper yeares he raught, and stronger stay."

Shakspeare therefore, who ufes wrongs for wrongers, &c. &c. might have ufed a ftay for a flayer. Churchyard, in his Siege of Leeth, 1575, having occafion to fpeak of a trumpet that founded to proclaim a truce, fays

"This ftaye of warre made many men to mufe."

That fpits forth death, and mountains, rocks, and

feas;

Talks as familiarly of roaring lions,
As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!
What cannoneer begot this lufty blood?

He fpeaks plain cannon, fire, and fmoke, and bounce;
He gives the bastinado with his tongue;
Our ears are cudgel'd; not a word of his,
But buffets better than a fift of France:
Zounds! I was never fo bethump'd with words,
Since I first call'd my brother's father, dad.

ELI. Son, lift to this conjunction, make this match;

Give with our niece a dowry large enough:

I am therefore convinced that the firft line of Faulconbridge's fpeech needs no emendation. STEEVENS.

Stay, I apprehend, here fignifies a supporter of a cause. Here's an extraordinary partizan, that shakes, &c. So, in the laft act of this play:

"What furety in the world, what hopes, what stay,
"When this was now a king, and now is clay?"

Again, in K. Henry VI. Part III:

"Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay.” Again, in K. Richard III:

What stay had I, but Edward, and he's gone." Again, in Davies's Scourge of Folly, printed about the year 1611: "England's fast friend, and Ireland's conftant tay."

It is obfervable that partizan in like manner, though now generally used to fignify an adherent to a party, originally meant a pike or halberd.

Perhaps, however, our author meant by the words, Here's a ftay, "Here's a fellow, who whilft he makes a propofition as a ftay or obftacle, to prevent the effufion of blood, fhakes," &c. The Citizen has juft faid:

"Hear us, great kings, vouchfafe a while to ftay,

"And I fhall fhow you peace," &c.

It is, I conceive, no objection to this interpretation, that an impediment or obftacle could not shake death, &c. though the perfon who endeavoured to ftay or prevent the attack of the two kings, might. Shakspeare feldom attends to fuch minutia.-But the first explanation appears to me more probable. MALONE.

I

For by this knot thou shalt fo furely tie
Thy now unfur'd affurance to the crown,
That yon green boy fhall have no fun to ripe
The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.
I fee a yielding in the looks of France;

Mark, how they whisper: urge them, while their fouls

Are capable of this ambition;

Left zeal, now melted, by the windy breath
Of foft petitions, pity, and remorse,
Cool and congeal again to what it was.'

3 Left zeal, now melted, &c.] We have here a very unusual, and, I think, not very juft image of zeal, which, in its highest degree, is reprefented by others as a flame, but by Shakspeare, as a froft. To reprefs zeal, in the language of others, is to cool, in Shakspeare's to melt it; when it exerts its utmoft power it is commonly faid to flame, but by Shakspeare to be congealed. JOHNSON.

Sure the poet means to compare zeal to metal in a state of fufion, and not to diffolving ice. STEEVENS.

The allufion, I apprehend, is to diffolving ice; and if this paffage be compared with others in our author's plays, it will not, I think, appear liable to Dr. Johnfon's objection. The fenfe, I conceive, is, Left the now zealous and to you well-affected heart of Philip, which but lately was cold and hard as ice, and has newly been melted and foftened, bould by the foft petitions of Conftance, and pity for Arthur, again become congealed and frozen. I once thought that "the windy breath of foft petitions," &c. fhould be coupled with the preceding words, and related to the propofal made by the citizen of Angiers; but I now believe that they were intended to be connected, in conftruction, with the following line.-In a subsequent scene we find a fimilar thought couched in nearly the fame expreffions:

"This act, fo evilly born, fhall cool the hearts

"Of all his people, and freeze up their zeal." Here Shakspeare does not fay that zeal, when " congealed, exerts its utmost power," but, on the contrary, that when it is congealed or frozen, it ceases to exert itself at all; it is no longer zeal.

We again meet with the fame allufion in King Henry VIII:

This makes bold mouths;

Tongues fpit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze
Allegiance in them."

I CIT. Why answer not the double majesties This friendly treaty of our threaten'd town? K. PHI. Speak England first, that hath been forward firft

To speak unto this city: What say you?

K. JOHN. If that the Dauphin there, thy princely fon,

Can in this book of beauty read, I love,
Her dowry fhall weigh equal with a queen:
For Anjou, and fair Touraine, Maine, Poitiers,

Both zeal and allegiance therefore, we fee, in the language of Shakspeare, are in their highest state of exertion, when melted; and repreffed or diminished, when frozen. The word freeze in the paffages juft quoted, fhews that the allufion is not, as has been fuggefted, to metals, but to ice.

The obfcurity of the prefent paffage arifes from our author's use of the word zeal, which is, as it were, perfonified. Zeal, if it be understood strictly, cannot "cool and congeal again to what it was," (for when it cools, it ceases to be zeal,) though a person who is become warm and zealous in a caufe, may afterwards become cool and indifferent, as he was, before he was warmed.-" To what it was," however, in our author's licentious language, may mean, "to what it was, before it was zeal." MALONE.

The windy breath that will cool metals in a state of fufion, produces not the effects of froft. I ain therefore yet to learn, how "the foft petitions of Conftance, and pity for Arthur," (two gentle agents) were competent to the act of freezing.-There is furely fomewhat of impropriety, in employing Favonius to do the work of Boreas. STEEVENS.

4 Can in this book of beauty read,]
So, in Pericles, 1609:
"Her face, the book of praises," &c.

Again, in Macbeth:

"Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men

,,

May read ftrange matters.' MALONE.

For Anjou,] In old editions:

For Angiers, and fair Touraine, Maine, Poitiers,
And all that we upon this fide the fea,

(Except this city now by us befieg'd,}

Find liable, c.

What was the city befieged, but Angiers? King John agrees to give

And all that we upon this fide the fea
(Except this city now by us befieg'd,)
Find liable to our crown and dignity,
Shall gild her bridal bed; and make her rich
In titles, honours, and promotions,

As fhe in beauty, education, blood,

Holds hand with any princefs of the world.

K. P. What fay'ft thou, boy? look in the lady's face.

LEI. I do, my lord; and in her eye I find
A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,

The fhadow of myfelf form'd in her eye;
Which, being but the fhadow of your fon,
Becomes a fun, and makes your fon a fhadow:
I do proteft, I never lov'd myself,

Till now infixed I beheld myself,

Drawn in the flattering table of her eye."

[Whispers with BLANCH.

BAST. Drawn in the flattering table of her eye!Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow!And quarter'd in her heart!-he doth espy

Himself love's traitor: This is pity now,

up all he held in France, except the city of Angiers, which he now befieged and laid claim to. But could he give up all except Angiers, and give up that too? Anjou was one of the provinces which the English held in France. THEOBALD.

Mr. Theobald found, or might have found, the reading which he would introduce as an emendation of his own, in the elder play of King John, 4to. 1591. STEEVENS.

6 Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.] So, in All's well that ends well:

"His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,

"In our heart's table."

Table is picture, or, rather, the board or canvas on which any object is painted. Tableau, Fr. STEEVENS.