CLIF. Ay, and old York, and yet not satisfied, RICH. For God's fake, lords, give fignal to the fight.

WAR. What fay'ft thou, Henry, wilt thou yield the crown?

Q. MAR. Why, how now, long-tongu'd War-
wick? dare you speak?

When you and I met at Saint Alban's last,
Your legs did better service than your hands.3
WAR. Then 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis
thine.

CLIF. You faid fo much before, and yet you fled.

WAR. 'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.

NORTH. No, nor your manhood, that durft make you stay.

RICH. Northumberland, I hold thee reverently;Break off the parle; for fcarce I can refrain The execution of my big-fwoln heart

Upon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.

CLIF. I flew thy father: Call'st thou him a child?

RICH. Ay, like a daftard, and a treacherous cow-
ard,

As thou didft kill our tender brother Rutland;
But, ere fun-fet, I'll make thee curfe the deed.

K. HEN. Have done with words, my lords, and
hear me speak.

3 Your legs did better fervice than your hands.] An allufion to the proverb: "One pair of heels is worth two pair of hands." STEEVENS.

Q. MAR. Defy them then, or else hold close thy lips.

K. HEN. I pr'ythee, give no limits to my tongue; I am a king, and privileg'd to speak.

CLIF. My liege, the wound, that bred this meeting here,

Cannot be cur'd by words; therefore be still.

RICH. Then, executioner, unfheath thy fword: By him that made us all, I am resolv'd,4 That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.

EDW. Say, Henry, fhall I have my right, or no? A thousand men have broke their fafts to-day, That ne'er fhall dine, unless thou yield the crown. WAR. If thou deny, their blood upon thy head; For York in juftice puts his armour on.

'PRINCE. If that be right, which Warwick fays is right,

There is no wrong, but every thing is right.

RICH. Whoever got thee,5 there thy mother ftands;

For, well I wot, thou haft thy mother's tongue. Q. MAR. But thou art neither like thy fire, nor dam;

But like a foul misfhapen ftigmatick,"

-I am refolv'd,] It is my firm perfuafion; I am no longer in doubt. JOHNSON.

Rich. Whoever got thee, &c.] In the folio this fpeech is erroneously affigned to Warwick. The answer shows that it belongs to Richard, to whom it is attributed in the old play.

MALONE.

6 misshapen ftigmatick,]." Aftigmatic," fays J. Bullokar in his English Expofitor, 1616, " is a notorious lewd fellow, which hath been burnt with a hot iron, or beareth other marks about him as a token of his punishment."

Mark'd by the deftinies to be avoided,
'As venom toads, or lizards' dreadful ftings."
RICH. Iron of Naples, hid with English gilt,
Whose father bears the title of a king,

(As if a channel fhould be call'd the fea,')

The word is likewife ufed in Drayton's Epiftle from Q. Mar garet to W. de la Poole :

"That foul, ill favour'd, crook-back'd ftigmatick." Again, in Drayton's Epiftle from King John to Matilda : "Thefe for the crook'd, the halt, the ftigmatick."

7

STEEVENS.

- lizards' dreadful stings.] Thus the folio. The quartos have this variation :

έσ or lizards' fainting looks."

This is the fecond time that Shakspeare has armed the lizard (which in reality has no fuch defence) with a fting; but great powers feem to have been imputed to its looks. So, in Noah's Flood, by Drayton :

The lizard fhuts up his Sharp-fighted eyes,

Amongst the serpents, and there fadly lies."

STEEVENS. Shakspeare is here answerable for the introduction of the lizard's fting; but in a preceding paffage, Vol. XIII. p. 298, the author of the old play has fallen into the fame mistake.

8

gilt,] Gilt is a fuperficial covering of gold.

So, in King Henry V:

"Our gaynefs and our gilt are all befmirch'd."

MALONE.

STEÉVENS.

·9 (As if a channel should be call'd the fea,)] A channel, in our author's time, fignified what we now call a kennel. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, quarto, 1605, p. 1148: "-such a storme of raine happened at London, as the like of long time could not be remembered; where-through, the channels of the citie fuddenly rifing," &c. Again, in King Henry IV. P. II: "quoit him into the channel." MALONE.

Kennel is ftill pronounced channel in the North. So, in Marlowe's Edward ÎI :

"Throw off his golden mitre, rend his ftole,
"And in the channel chriften him anew."

'Sham'ft thou not, knowing whence thou art ex

traught,

'To let thy tongue detect' thy bafe-born heart?

2

EDW. A wifp of ftraw were worth a thoufand

Again:

Again:

crowns,

"Here's channel water, as our charge is given."

"

To which the channels of the caftle run." RITSON.

To let thy tongue detect-] To fhow thy meanness of birth by the indecency of language with which thou raileft at my deformity. JOHNSON.

To let thy tongue detect thy bafe-born heart ?] So the folio. The quartos:

"To parly thus with England's lawful heirs."

STEEVENS.

A wisp of firaw-] I fuppofe, for an inftrument of correction that might difgrace, but not hurt her. JOHNSON.

I believe that a wifp fignified fome inftrument of correction ufed in the time of Shakspeare. The following inftance feems to favour the fuppofition. See A Woman never Vexed, a comedy by Rowley, 1632:/

"Nay, worfe; I'll ftain thy ruff; nay, worfe than that,
"I'll do thus-
[Holds up a wifp.

doft wifp me thou tatterdemallion ?" Again, in Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1604:

"Thou little more than a dwarf, and something less than a woman!

"Crif. A wifpe! a wifpe! a wifpe!"

Barrett, in his Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580, interprets the word wifpe by peniculus or ovyos, which fignify any thing to wipe or cleanse with; a cook's linen apron, &c. Pewter is still scoured by a wifpe of firaw, or hay. Perhaps Edward means one of these wifps, as the denotement of a menial servant. Barrett adds, that, like a wase, it fignifies" a wreath to be laied under the veffel that is borne upon the head, as women ufe." If this be its true sense, the Prince may think that such a wifp would better become the head of Margaret, than a crown.

It appears, however, from the following paffage in Thomas Drant's tranflation of the seventh fatire of Horace, 1567, that a wifpe was the panishment of a fcold:

To make this fhameless callet know herself.3
*Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,
Although thy husband may be Menelaus ;4
*And ne'er was Agamemnon's brother wrong'd

"So perfyte and exacte a fcoulde that women mighte geve place

"Whose tatling tongues had won a wife," &c.

STEEVENS.

See alfo, Nafhe's Apology of Pierce Pennileffe, 1593: "Why, thou errant butter-whore, thou cotquean and ferattop of fcolds, wilt thou never leave afflicting a dead carcaffe? continually read the rhetorick lecture of Ramme-Alley? a wifpe, a wifpe, you kitchen-ftuffe wrangler." Again, in 4 Dialogue between John and Jone, ftriving who fhall wear the Breeches, Pleasures OF POETRY, bl. 1. no date :

"Good gentle Jone, with-holde thy hands,

"This once let me entreat thee,

"And make me promife, never more
"That thou fhalt mind to beat me;

"For feare thou weare the wifpe, good wife,
"And make our neighbours ride-."

MALONE.

3 To make this fhameless callet know herself.] Shakspeare ufes the word callet likewife in The Winter's Tale, A& II. fc. in : "A callat

"Of boundless tongue; who late hath beat her husband, "And now baits me.'

Callet, a lewd woman, a drab, perhaps fo called from the French calote, which was a fort of head-drefs worn by country girls. See Gloffary to Urry's Chaucer. So, in Chaucer's Remedy of Love, v. 307:

"A cold old knave cuckolde himself wenyng,

"And of calot of lewd demenyng."

So, Skelton, in his Elinour Rumming, Works, p. 133 : "Then Elinour faid, ye callettes,

"I fhall break your palettes."

Again, in Ben Jonfon's Volpone:

46

Why the callet you told me of here,

"I have tane difguis'd." GREY.

Menelaus ;] i. e. a cuckold. So, in Troilus and Creffida, Therfites, fpeaking of Menelaus, calls him "the goodly transformation of Jupiter there,-the primitive ftatue and oblique memorial of cuckolds." STEEVENS.