If thou spy'st any, run and bring me word; Enter, in an upper Chamber of a Tower, the Lords SALISBURY and TALBOT,3 Sir WILLIAM GLANSDALE, Sir THOMAS GARGRAVE, and Others. SAL. Talbot, my life, my joy, again return'd! How wert thou handled, being prisoner? Or by what means got'st thou to be releas'd? Discourse, I pr'ythee, on this turret's top. TAL. The duke of Bedford had a prisoner, Called the brave lord Ponton de Santrailles ; And even these three days have I watcht Part of this line being in the old copy by a mistake of the transcriber connected with the preceding hemistich, the editor of the second folio supplied the metre by adding the word-boy, in which he has been followed in all the subsequent editions. MALONE. As I cannot but entertain a more favourable opinion than Mr. Malone of the numerous emendations that appear in the second folio, I have again adopted its regulation in the present instance. This folio likewise supplied the word-fully. STEevens. 3 Talbot,] Though the three parts of King Henry VI. are deservedly numbered among the feeblest performances of Shakspeare, this first of them appears to have been received with the greatest applause. So, in Pierce Penniless's Supplication to the Devil, by Nash, 1592: "How would it have joyed brave Talbot (the terror of the French,) to thinke that after he had lien two hundred years in his tombe, he should triumph againe on the stage, and have his bones new embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators at least (at several times,) who in the tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding?" STEEVENS. For him I was exchang'd and ransomed. Once, in contempt, they would have barter'd me: -so pil'd esteem'd.] Thus the old copy. Some of the modern editors read, but without authority-so vile-esteem'd.— So pill'd, may mean-so pillag'd, so stripp'd of honours; but I suspect a corruption, which Mr. M. Mason would remedy, by reading either vile or ill-esteemed. It is possible, however, that Shakspeare might have writtenPhilistin'd; i. e. treated as contumeliously as Samson was by the Philistines. Both Samson and Talbot had been prisoners, and were alike insulted by their captors. 66 Our author has jocularly formed more than one verb from a proper name; as for instance, from Aufidius, in Coriolanus: -I would not have been so fidius'd for all the chests in Corioli." Again in King Henry V. Pistol says to his prisoner: "Master Fer? I'll fer him," &c. Again, in Hamlet, from Herod, we have the verb "out-herod." Shakspeare, therefore, in the present instance, might have taken a similar liberty.-To fall into the hands of the Philistines has long been a cant phrase, expressive of danger incurred, whether from enemies, association with hard drinkers, gamesters, or a less welcome acquaintance with the harpies of the law. Talbot's idea would be sufficiently expressed by the term-Philistin'd, which (as the play before us appears to have been copied by the ear,) was more liable to corruption than a common verb. I may add, that perhaps no word will be found nearer to the sound and traces of the letters, in pil-esteem'd, than Philistin'd. Philistine, in the age of Shakspeare, was always accented on the first syllable, and therefore is not injurious to the line in which I have hesitatingly proposed to insert it. " I cannot, however, help smiling at my own conjecture; and should it excite the same sensation in the reader who journeys through the barren desert of our accumulated notes on this play, like Addison's traveller, when he discovers a cheerful spring amid the wilds of sand, let him— -bless his stars, and think it luxury." STEEVENS. a I have no doubt that we should read-so pile-esteem'd: Latinism, for which the author of this play had, I believe, no occasion to go to Lily's Grammar: "Flocci, nauci, nihili, pili, In fine, redeem'd I was as I desir'd. But, O! the treacherous Fastolfe wounds my heart! Whom with my bare fists I would execute, If I now had him brought into my power. SAL. Yet tell'st thou not, how thou wert entertain'd. TAL. With scoffs, and scorns, and contumelious taunts. In open market-place produc'd they me, Here, said they, is the terror of the French, &c. his verbis, æstimo, pendo, peculiariter adjiciuntur; ut,— Nec hujus facio, qui me pili æstimat." Even if we suppose no change to be necessary, this surely was the meaning intended to be conveyed. In one of Shakspeare's plays we have the same phrase, in English,-vile-esteem'd. MALONE. If the author of the play before us designed to avail himself of the Latin phrase-pili æstimo, would he have only half translated it for what correspondence has pile in English to a single hair? Was a single hair ever called-a pile, by any English writer? STEEVENS. 5 -the terror of the French, The scare-crow that affrights our children so.] From Hall's Chronicle: "This man [Talbot] was to the French people a very scourge and a daily terror, insomuch that as his person was fearful, and terrible to his adversaries present, so his name and fame was spiteful and dreadful to the common people absent; insomuch that women in France to feare their young children, would crye, the Talbot commeth, the Talbot commeth." The same thing is said of King Richard I. when he was in the Holy Land, See Camden's Remaines, 4to. 1614, p. 267. MALONE. So great fear of my name 'mongst them was spread, SAL. I grieve to hear what torments you endur'd; 6 Here, through this grate, I can count every one, Where is best place to make our battery next. lords. GLAN. And I, here, at the bulwark of the bridge. TAL. For aught I see, this city must be famish'd, Or with light skirmishes enfeebled." [Shot from the Town. SALISBURY and Sir THO. GARGRAVE fall. SAL. O Lord, have mercy on us, wretched sinners! GAR. O Lord, have mercy on me, woeful man! TAL. What chance is this, that suddenly hath cross'd us? ག Speak, Salisbury; at least, if thou canst speak; 6 Here, through this grate, I can count every one,] Thus the second folio. The first, very harshly and unmetrically, reads: Here, thorough this grate, I count each one. STEEVENS. enfeebled.] This word is here used as a quadrisyllable. MALONE. How far'st thou, mirror of all martial men? One eye thou hast, to look to heaven for grace:9 He beckons with his hand, and smiles on me; 8 thy cheek's side struck off!] Camden says in his Remaines, that the French scarce knew the use of great ordnance, till the siege of Mans in 1455, when a breach was made in the walls of that town by the English, under the conduct of this earl of Salisbury; and that he was the first English gentleman that was slain by a cannon-ball. MAlone. 9 One eye thou hast, &c.] A similar thought occurs in King Lear: my lord, you have one eye left, "To see some mischief on him." STEEVENS. 1 and Nero-like,] The first folio reads: Plantagenet, I will; and like thee STEEVENS. In the old copy, the word Nero is wanting, owing probably to the transcriber's not being able to make out the name. The |