The times are wild; contention, like a horse BARD. Noble earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. NORTH. Good, an heaven will! BARD. As good as heart can wish:The king is almost wounded to the death; And, in the fortune of my lord your fon, Prince Harry flain outright; and both the Blunts Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John, And Weftmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field; And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk fir John, Is prifoner to your fon: O, fuch a day, So fought, fo follow'd, and fo fairly won, Came not, till now, to dignify the times, Since Cæfar's fortunes! NORTH. How is this deriv'd? Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury? BARD. I fpake with one, my lord, that came from thence; A gentleman well bred, and of good name, On Tuesday laft to listen after news. BARD. My lord, I over-rode him on the way; And he is furnish'd with no certainties, More than he haply may retail from me. Enter TRAVERS. NORTH. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you? TRA. My lord, fir John Umfrevile turn'd me back With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, 3 forfpent with speed,] To forfpend is to waste, to exhaust. So, in Sir A. Gorges' tranflation of Lucan, B. VII: 66 crabbed fires forfpent with age." STEEVENS. armed heels-] Thus the quarto, 1600. The folio, 1623, reads able heels; the modern editors, without authority,agile heels. STEEVENS. poor jade-] Poor jade is ufed not in contempt, but in compaffion. Poor jade means the horse wearied with his journey. Jade, however, feems anciently to have fignified what we now call a backney; a beast employed in drudgery, oppofed to a horfe kept for show, or to be rid by its mafter. So, in a comedy called A Knack to know a Knave, 1594: "Befides, I'll give you the keeping of a dozen jades, This is faid by a farmer to a courtier. STEEVENS. Shakspeare, however, (as Mr. Steevens has obferved,) certainly does not use the word as a term of contempt; for King Richard the Second gives this appellation to his favourite horse Roan Barbary, on which Henry the Fourth rode at his coronation : "That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand.” MALONE. 6- rorvel-head;] I think that I have obferved in old prints the rowel of thofe times to have been only a fingle spike. JOHNSON. He feem'd in running to devour the way," NORTH. Ha! Again. Said he, young Harry Percy's fpur was cold? Had met ill luck? BARD. My lord, I'll tell you what ; If my young lord your fon have not the day, Upon mine honour, for a filken point" I'll give my barony: never talk of it. NORTH. Why should the gentleman, that rode by Travers, Give then fuch inftances of lofs? BARD. Who, he? He feem'd in running to devour the way,] So, in the book of Job, chap. xxxix: "He fwalloweth the ground in fiercenefs and rage." The fame expreffion occurs in Ben Jonfon's Sejanus: "But with that speed, and heat of appetite, So Ariel, to defcribe his alacrity in obeying Profpero's commands: "I drink the air before me." M. MASON. So, in one of the Roman poets (I forget which): curfu confumere cumpum. BLACKSTONE. The line quoted by Sir William Blackstone is in NEMESIAN: latumque fuga confumere campum. MALONE. 8 Of Hotfpur, coldfpur?] Hotspur feems to have been a very common term for a man of vehemence and precipitation. Stanyhurft, who tranflated four books of Virgil, in 1584, renders the following line: Nec victoris heri tetigit captiva cubile. "To couch not mounting of mayfter vanquisher boatspur." STEEVENS. 9filken point-] A point is a string tagged, or lace. JOHNSON. He was fome hilding fellow," that had ftol'n NORTH. Yea, this man's brow, like to a titleleaf,3 Foretells the nature of a tragick volume: So looks the ftrond, whereon the imperious flood Say, Morton, did'st thou come from Shrewsbury? NORTH. How doth my fon, and brother? Thou trembleft; and the whiteness in thy cheek Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand. Even fuch a man, fo faint, fo fpiritlefs, So dull, fo dead in look, fo woe-begone,' 2 fome hilding fellow,] For bilderling, i. e. base, degeneРОРЕ. rate. Hilderling, Degener; vox adhuc agro Devon. familiaris. Spelman. 3 REED. like to a title-leaf,] It may not be amifs to observe, that in the time of our poet, the title-page to an elegy, as well as every intermediate leaf, was totally black. I have feveral in my poffeffion, written by Chapman, the tranflator of Homer, and ornamented in this manner. STEEVENS. 5 a witness'd ufurpation.] i. e. an attestation of its ravage. STEEVENS. fo woe-begone,] This word was common enough amongst the old Scottish and English poets, as G. Douglas, Chaucer, Lord Buckhurst, Fairfax; and fignifies, far gone in woe. So, in The Spanish Tragedy: "Awake, revenge, or we are wo-begone!" Again, in Arden of Feverfham, 1592: WARBURTON. "So roe-begone, fo inly charg'd with woe." Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night, Your brother, thus; fo fought the noble Douglas; NORTH. Why, he is dead. See, what a ready tongue fufpicion hath! He, that but fears the thing he would not know, Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others' eyes, That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet fpeak, Morton; Tell thou thy earl, his divination lies; And I will take it as a fweet difgrace, And make thee rich for doing me fuch wrong. MOR. You are too great to be by me gainfaid: Your fpirit' is too true, your fears too certain. NORTH. Yet, for all this, fay not that Percy's dead." Again, in a Looking Glafs for London and England, 1598: Dr. Bentley is faid to have thought this paffage corrupt, and therefore (with a greater degree of gravity than my readers will probably exprefs) propofed the following emendation: So dead fo dull in look, Ucalegon, Drew Priam's curtain &c. The name of Ucalegon is found in the third book of the Iliad, and the fecond of the Eneid. STEEVENS. 5 Your Spirit-] The impreffion upon your mind, by which you conceive the death of your fon. JOHNSON. 6 Yet, for all this, fay not &c.] The contradiction in the firft |