(Thus, leaning on mine elbow, I begin,)
I fhall befeech you-That is question now;
And then comes anfwer like an ABC-book 9.
O fir, fays anfwer, at your best command;
At your employment; at your fervice, fir:
No, fir, fays queftion; I, fweet fir, at yours:
And fo, ere anfwer knows what queftion would,
(Saving in dialogue of compliment;2

And talking of the Alps, and Apennines,
The Pyrenean, and the river Po,)

It draws toward fupper in conclufion fo.
But this is worshipful fociety,

And fits the mounting fpirit, like myself:
For he is but a baftard to the time,

3

the word is variously fpelt,) in the writings of our author and his contemporaries, generally means, Spruce, affected, effeminate.

See alfo Minfheu's Di&. 1617: "To picke or trimme. Vid. Trimme. MALONE.

9

My picked man of countries, is my travelled fop. HOLT WHITE. --like an ABC-book:] An ABC-book, or, as they spoke and wrote it, an abfey-book, is a catechism. JOHNSON.

So, in the ancient Interlude of Youth, bl. I. no date:

"In the A. B. C. of bokes the leaft,

Yt is written, deus charitas eft."

Again, in Tho. Nafh's dedication to Greene's Arcadia, 1616: make a patrimony of In Speech, and more than a younger brother's inheritance of their Abcie." STEEVENS.

And fo, ere anfwer knows what question would,

(Saving in dialogue of compliment;] Sir W. Cornwallis's 28th Effav thus ridicules the extravagance of compliment in our poet's, days, 1601 We spend even at his (i. e. a friend's or a stranger's)' entrance, a whole volume of words.What a deal of synamon and ginger is facrificed to diffimulation! O, how bleffed do I take mine eyes for prefenting me with this fight! O Signior, the far that governs my life in contentment, give me leave to interre myself in your arms! Noi fe, fir, it is too unworthy an inclofure to contain fuch preciousness, &c. &c. This, and a cup of drink, makes the time as fit for a departure as can be." TOLLET.

3 For he is but a bastard to the time, &c.] He is accounted but a mean man in the prefent age, who does not fhew by his dress, his

That doth not fmack of observation;
(And fo am I, whether I fmack, or no ;)
And not alone in habit and device,
Exterior form, outward accoutrement;
But from the inward motion to deliver
Sweet, fweet, fweet poifon for the age's tooth:
Which, though I will not practise to deceive,
Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;

For it fhall ftrew the footsteps of my rifing.-
But who comes 5 in fuch hafte, in riding robes?
What woman-poft is this? hath fhe no husband,
That will take pains to blow a horn before her?

6

Enter Lady FAULCONBRIDGE and James Gurney." O me! it is my mother:-How now, good lady? What brings you here to court so hastily?

LADY F. Where is that flave, thy brother? where is he?

That holds in chase mine honour up and down? BAST. My brother Robert? old fir Robert's fon?

deportment, and his talk, that he has travelled, and made obfervations in foreign countries. The old copy in the next line reads Smoak. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

4 Which, though-] The conftruction will be mended, if inftead of which though, we read this though. JOHNSON.

5 But who comes-] Milton, in his tragedy, introduces Dalilah with fuch an interrogatory exclamation. JOHNson.

6

ཡ to blow a horn-] He means, that a woman who travelled about like a poft, was likely to horn her husband.

JOHNSON.

7 -James Gurney.] Our author found this name in perufing the hiftory of King John; who not long before his vidory at Mirabeau over the French, headed by young Arthur, feized the lands and caftle of Hugh Gorney, near Butevant in Normandy.

MALONE.

Colbrand the giant, that fame mighty man?
Is it fir Robert's fon, that you feek fo?

LADY F. Sir Robert's fon! Ay, thou unreverend
boy,

Sir Robert's fon: Why fcorn'ft thou at fir Robert?

He is fir Robert's fon; and fo art thou.

BAST. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a

while?

9

GUR. Good leave, good Philip.

BAST.

Philip? fparrow!'-James,

• Colbrand-] Colbrand was a Danish giant, whom Guy of Warwick difcomfited in the prefence of King Athelftan. combat is very pompously described by Drayton in his Polyolbion.

• Good leave, &c.] Good leave means a ready affent. K. Henry VI. Part III. A& III. fc. ii:

2

The

JOHNSON.

So, in

" K. Edw. Lords, give us leave: I'll try this widow's wit. "Glo. Ay, good leave have you, for you will have leave." STEEVENS. Philip?-Sparrow!] Dr. Grey obferves, that Skelton has a poem to the memory of Philip Sparrow; and Mr. Pope in a fhort note remarks that a fparrow is called Philip. JOHNSON. Gafcoigne has likewise a poem entitled, Sparrow; and in Jack Drum's Entertainment, 1601, is the following

paffage :

The birds fit chirping, chirping, &c.

" Philip is treading, treading," &c.

Again, in The Northern Lafs, 1633:

"A bird whose paftime made me glad,
"And Philip 'twas my Sparrow."

The Praife of Phil

Again, in Magnificence, an ancient Interlude, by Skelton, published

by Raftell:

"With me in kepynge fuch a Phylyp Sparowe."

STEEVENS.

HAWKINS.

The Bastard means: Philip! Do you take me for a sparrow?

Lyly's Mother Bombie.

3

There's toys abroad; anon I'll tell thee more.

[Exit Gurney.

Madam, I was not old fir Robert's fon;
Sir Robert might have eat his part in me,
Upon Good-friday, and ne'er broke his fast:4
Sir Robert could do well; Marry, (to confefs!) 5
Could he get me? Sir Robert could not do it;
We know his handiwork :-Therefore, good mo-
ther,

To whom am I beholden for thefe limbs?
Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.

LADY F. Hast thou confpired with thy brother

too,

That for thine own gain fhould'ft defend mine honour?

What means this fcorn, thou moft untoward knave?

1

From the found of the fparrow's chirping, Catullus in his Elegy on Lefbia's Sparrow, has formed a verb:

"Sed circumfiliens modo huc, modo illuc,

"Ad folam dominam ufque pipilabat." HOLT WHITE.

3 There's toys abroad; &c.] i. e. rumours, idle reports. So, in Ben Jonson's Sejanus:

-Toys, mere toys,

"What wifdom's in the ftreets.

Again, in a poftfcript of a letter from the Countefs of Effex to Dr. Forman, in relation to the trial of Anne Turner for the murder of Sir Tho. Overbury: "they may tell my father and mother, and fill their ears full of toys." State Trials, Vol. I. p. 322.

4

-might have eat his part in me

STEEVENS.

Upon Good-friday, and ne'er broke his faft] This thought occurs in Heywood's Dialogues upon Proverbs, 1562;

66

-he may his parte on good Fridaie eate,
“And fast never the wurs, for ought he shall geate.”

STEEVENS.

5 (to confefs!)] Mr. M. Mafon regards the adverb to, as an error of the prefs: but I rather think, to confefs, means-to come to confeffion. But, to come to a fair confeffion now, (fays the Baftard,) could he have been the inftrument of my production?"

STEEVENS.

BAST. Knight, knight, good mother,-Bafilifco-
like: 6

What! I am dubb'd; I have it on my fhoulder.
But, mother, I am not fir Robert's fon;
I have disclaim'd fir Robert, and my land:
Legitimation, name, and all is gone:

Then, good my mother, let me know my father;
Some proper man, I hope; Who was it, mother?
LADY F. Haft thou denied thyself a Faulcon-
bridge?

BAST. As faithfully as I deny the devil.

Knight, knight, good mother,-Bafilifco-like:] Thus muft this
paffage be pointed; and to come at the humour of it, I muft clear
up an old circumftance of ftage-hiftory. Faulconbridge's words
here carry a coucealed piece of fatire on a ftupid drama of that age,
printed in 1599, and called Soliman and Perfeda.
In this piece
there is a character of a bragging cowardly knight, called Bafilisco.
His pretenfion to valour is so blown, and feen through, that Pifton,
a buffoon-fervant in the play, jumps upon his back, and will not
difengage him, till he makes Bafilifco fwear upon his dudgeon
dagger to the contents, and in the terms he dictates to him; as, for
inftance:

་་

Baf. O, I fwear, I fwear.

"Pift. By the contents of this blade,

"Baf. By the contents of this blade,-
"Pift. I, the aforefaid Bafilifco,-

"Baf. I, the aforefaid Bafilifco,-knight, good fellow, knight,
"Pift. Knave, good fellow, knave, knave.'

"

So that it is clear, our poet is fneering at this play; and makes
Philip, when his mother calls him knave, throw off that reproach
by humorously laying claim to his new dignity of knighthood; as
Bafilifco arrogantly infifts on his title of knight in the paffage above
quoted. The old play is an execrable bad one; and, I suppose,
was fufficiently exploded in the representation: which might make
this circumftance fo well known, as to become the butt for a stage-
farcafm. THEOBALD.

The charader of Bafilifco is mentioned in Nash's Have with you to Saffron Walden, &c. printed in the year 1596.

.

STEEVENS.