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,

To be a publick spectacle to all;

Here, said they, is the terror of the French,

Philistin'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.

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

66

bless his stars, and think it luxury." STEEVENS. I think vile-esteem'd was the author's word. We meet with it again in his 121st Sonnet:

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'Tis better to be vile than vile-esteem'd." MALONE.

The scare-crow that affrights our children so 5.
Then broke I from the officers that led me;
And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground,
To hurl at the beholders of my shame.

My grisly countenance made others fly;

None durst come near for fear of sudden death.
In iron walls they deem'd me not secure ;

So great fear of my name 'mongst them was spread,
That they suppos'd, I could rend bars of steel,
And spurn in pieces posts of adamant:
Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had,
That walk'd about me every minute-while;
And if I did but stir out of my bed,
Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.

SAL. I grieve to hear what torments you endur'd; But we will be reveng'd sufficiently.

Now it is supper-time in Orleans:

Here thorough this grate, I count each one",
And view the Frenchmen how they fortify;

Let us look in, the sight will much delight thee.—
Sir Thomas Gargrave, and sir William Glansdale,
Let me have your express opinions,

Where is best place to make our battery next. GAR. I think, at the north gate; for there stand lords.

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 yong 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.

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.

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?

Speak, Salisbury; at least, if thou canst speak;
How far'st thou, mirror of all martial men?

One of thy eyes, and thy cheek's side struck off!-
Accursed tower! accursed fatal hand,
That hath contriv'd this woeful tragedy!
In thirteen battles Salisbury o'ercame;
Henry the fifth he first train'd to the wars;
Whilst any trump did sound, or drum struck up,
His sword did ne'er leave striking in the field.—
Yet liv'st thou, Salisbury? though thy speech doth

fail,

One eye thou hast, to look to heaven for grace 9:
The sun with one eye vieweth all the world.-
Heaven, be thou gracious to none alive,
If Salisbury wants mercy at thy hands!—
Bear hence his body, I will help to bury it.—
Sir Thomas Gargrave, hast thou any life?
Speak unto Talbot; nay, look up to him.

7- enfeebled.] This word is here used as a quadrisyllable [as Mr. Capell has observed]. MALONE.

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.

Salisbury, cheer thy spirit with this comfort;
Thou shalt not die, whiles--

He beckons with his hand, and smiles on me;
As who should say, When I am dead and gone,
Remember to avenge me on the French.-
Plantagenet, I will; and like thee, Nero',
Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn:
Wretched shall France be only in my name.

[Thunder heard; afterwards an Alarum. What stir is this? What tumult's in the heavens ? Whence cometh this alarum, and the noise?

Enter a Messenger.

MESS. My lord, my lord, the French have gather'd head:

The Dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle join'd,—
A holy prophetess, new risen up,—

Is come with a great power to raise the siege.

[SALISBURY groans. TAL. Hear, hear, how dying Salisbury doth groan!

It irks his heart, he cannot be reveng'd.-
Frenchmen, I'll be a Salisbury to you:
Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish 2,

1

and LIKE THEE, NERO,] 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 editor of the second folio, with his usual freedom, altered the line thus:

and Nero-like will-." MALONE.

I am content to read with the second folio (not conceiving the emendation in it to be an arbitrary one,) and omit only the needless repetition of the word-will. Surely there is some absurdity in making Talbot address Plantagenet, and invoke Nero, in the same line. STEEVENS.

2 PUCELLE or PUZZEL, DOLPHIN or dogfish,] Pussel means a dirty wench or a drab, from puzza, i. e. malus fætor, says Min

Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels, And make a quagmire of your mingled brains.Convey me Salisbury into his tent,

And then we'll try what these dastard Frenchmen dare. [Exeunt, bearing out the Bodies.

sheu. In a translation from Steevens's Apology for Herodotus, in 1607, p. 98, we read-"Some filthy_queans, especially our puzzles of Paris, use 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 Jonson's Commendatory Verses, prefixed to the works of Beaumont and Fletcher:

'Lady or Pusill, that wears mask or fan."

As for the conceit, miserable as it is, it may be countenanced by that of James I. who looking at the statue of Sir Thomas Bodley in the library at Oxford. "Pii Thomæ Godly nomine insignivit, eoque potius nomine quam Bodly, deinceps merito nominandum esse censuit." 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 : "I'scar'd the dauphin and his trull.”

Again :

"Scoff on, vile fiend, and shameless courtezan!”

MALONE.

3 AND then we'll try what these dastard Frenchmen dare.] Perhaps the conjunction-and, or the demonstrative pronounthese, for the sake of metre, should be omitted at the beginning of this line, which, in my opinion, however, originally ran thus : "Then try we what these dastard Frenchmen dare."

STEEVENS.