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That ftill I lay upon my mother's head;
But, that I am as well begot, my liege,
(Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!)
Compare our faces, and be judge yourself.
If old fir Robert did beget us both,

And were our father, and this son like him ;-
O old fir Robert, father, on my knee

I give heaven thanks, I was not like to thee.

K. John. Why, what a mad-cap hath heaven lent
us here!

Eli. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face,
The accent of his tongue affecteth him :
Do you not read fome tokens of my fon
In the large compofition of this man?

K. John. Mine eye hath well examined his parts, And finds them perfect Richard.—Sirrah, speak, What doth move you to claim your brother's land ? ·

Phil. Because he hath a half-face, like my father; "With that half-face would he have all my land: A half-fac'd groat five hundred pound a year!

Rob.

He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face,] The trick, or tricking, is the fame as the tracing of a drawing, meaning that peculiarity of face which may be fufficiently fhewn by the flightest outline. This expreffion is ufed by Heywood and Rowley in their comedy called Fortune by Land and Sea :-" Her face, the trick of her her leer." The following paffages may more evidently prove the expreffion to be borrowed from delineation. Ben Jonfon's Every Man out of his Humour :

<6 -You can blazon the reft, Signior?

eye,

"O ay, I have it in writing here o' purpofe; it cost me two hillings the tricking." So again, in Cynthia's Revels:

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them."

the parish-buckets with his name at length trick'd upon STEEVENS.

7 With half that face-] But why with balf that face? There is no queftion but the poet wrote, as I have restored the text; With that half-face-Mr. Pope, perhaps, will be angry with me for discovering an anachronism of our poet's in the next line, where he alludes to a coin not ftruck till the year 1504, in the reign of king Henry VII. viz. a groat, which, as well as the half groat, bare but half faces impreffed. Vide Stow's Survey of London, p. 47. Holinfhed, Camden's Remains, &c, The poet fincers.

at

Rob. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,
Your brother did employ my father much ;-
Phil. Well, fir, by this you cannot get my
land;
Your tale muit be, how he employ'd my mother.
Rob. And once difpatch'd him in an embaffy
To Germany, there, with the emperor,
To treat of high affairs touching that time:
The advantage of his abfence took the king,
And in the mean time fojourn'd at my father's;
Where how he did prevail, I fhame to fpeak:
But truth is truth; large lengths of feas and fhores
Between my father and my mother lay,

(As I have heard my father fpeak himself)
When this fame lufty gentleman was got.
Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd
His lands to me; and took it on his death,
That this, my mother's fon, was none of his;
And, if he were, he came into the world.
Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.
Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,
My father's land, as was my father's will.

at the meagre sharp vifage of the elder brother, by comparing him to a filver groat, that bore the king's face in profile, fo fhewed but half the face: the groats of all our kings of England, and indeed all their other coins of filver, one or two only excepted, had a full face crowned; till Henry VII. at the time above-mentioned, coined groats and half-groats, as alfo fome fhillings, with half faces, i. e. faces in profile, as all our coin has now. The first groats of king Henry VIII. were like thofe of his father; though afterwards he returned to the broad faces again. Thefe groats, with the impreffion in profile, are undoubtedly here alluded to: though, as I faid, the poet is knowingly guilty of an anachronism in it for in the time of king John there were no groats at all; they being first, as far as appears, coined in the reign of king Edward III. THEOBALD.

The fame contemptuous allufion occurs in The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, 1601;

"You half-faed great, you thick-cheek'd chitty-face." Again, in Hiftriomaftix, 1610:

Whilft I behold yon half fac'd minion." STEEVENS!

K. John.

K. John. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate; Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him: And, if the did play falfe, the fault was hers; Which fault lies on the hazard of all husbands That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother, Who, as you fay, took pains to get this fon, Had of your father claim'd this fon for his? In footh, good friend, your father might have kept This caff, bred from his cow, from all the world; In footh, he might: then, if he were my brother's, My brother might not claim him; nor your father, Being none of his, refufe him: This concludesMy mother's fon did get your father's heir; Your father's heir must have your father's land. Rob. Shall then my father's will be of no force, To difpoffefs that child which is not his? Phil. Of no more force to difpoffefs me, fir, Than was his will to get me, as I think.

I

Eli. Whether hadit thou rather, -be a Faulconbridge,

And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land;

Or the reputed fon of Coeur-de-lion,

Lord of thy prefence, and no land befide?

Phil. Madam, an if my brother had my shape,

' And I had his, fir Robert's his, like him

And

8 This concludes] This is a decifive argument. As your father, if he liked him, could not have been forced to refign him, fo, not liking him, he is not at liberty to reject him. JOHNSON.

Lord of thy presence, ́and no land befide ?] Lord of thy prefence can fignify only, mafter of thyfelf; and it is a strange expreffion to fignify even that. However that he might be, without parting with his land, We fhould read: Lord of the prefence, i, e. prince of the blood. WARBURTON.

Lord of thy prefence may fignify fomething more diftinct than mafter of thyself: it means master of that dignity and grandeur of appearance that may fufficiently diftinguish thee from the vulgar, without the help of fortune.

Lord of bis prefence apparently fignifies, great in his own perfan, and is ufed in this fenfe by king John in one of the following fcenes. JOHNSON.

And I had his, fir Robert's bis, like him;] This is obfcure and

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And if my legs were two fuch riding-rods,
My arms fuch eel-fkins ftuft; my face fo thin,
3 That in mine ear I durft not stick a rofe,

Left

ill expreffed. The meaning is: If I had his shape-fir Robert's— as he has.

Sir Robert his, for fir Robert's, is agreeable to the practice of that time, when the 's added to the nominative was believed, I think erroneoufly, to be a contraction of his. So, Donne :

2

66 Who now lives to age,

Fit to be call'd Methufalem bis page ?" JOHNSON.
my face fo thin,

That in mine ear I durft not fiick a rofe,

Left men fhould fay, Look, where three-farthings goes!] In this very obfcure paffage our poet is anticipating the date of another coin; humoroufly to rally a thin face, eclipfed, as it were, by a full-blown rofe. We muft obferve, to explain this allufion, that queen Elizabeth was the firft, and indeed the only prince, who coined in England three-half-pence, and three-farthing pieces. She at one and the fame time coined fhillings, fix-pences, groats, three-pences, two-pences, three-half-pence, pence, three-farthings, and half-pence. And thefe pieces all had her head, and were alternately with the rose behind, and without the rofe. The fhilling, groat, two-pence, penny, and half-penny had it not: the other intermediate coins, viz. the fix-pence, three-pence, three-half-pence, and three-farthings had the rofe. THEOBALD. So, in The Shoemaker's Holiday, &c. 1610:

"Here's a three-penny piece for thy tidings."

"Firk. Tis but three-half-pence I think: yes, 'tis threepence; I fmell the rofe." STEEVENS.

As we are on the fubject of coinage, it may be observed that the following paffage in Ben Jonfon's Devil is an Afs, remains unexplained:

"I will not bate a Harrington o'th' sum.”

Lord Harrington obtained a patent from K. James I. for making brafs farthings. See a Hiftorical Narration of the Firft 14 Years of K. James I. p. 56. TOLLET.

The fame term occurs in Ben Jonson's Magnetic Lady:

"They shall ne'er be a Harrington the better for't."

STEEVENS.

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3 That in mine ear I durft not flick a rofe,] The sticking rofes about them was then all the court-fafhion, as appears from this patiage of the Confeffion Catholique du S. de Sancy, I. ii. c. 1 : 'Je luy ay appris à mettre des refes par tous les coins," i. e. in every place about him, fays the fpeaker, of one to whom he had taught all the court-fashions. WARBURTON.

Thefe

Left men fhould fay, Look, where three-farthings

goes!

And, to his fhape, were heir to all this land,
'Would I might never ftir from off this place,
I'd give it every foot to have this face;
I would not be fir Nob in any cafe.

Eli. I like thee well; Wilt thou forfake thy fortune, Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me ?

I am a foldier, and now bound to France.

Phil. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance :

Your face hath got five hundred pound a year;
Yet fell your face for five pence, and 'tis dear.-
Madam, I'll follow you unto the death 4.

These roses were, I believe, only rofes compofed of ribbands. In Mariton's What you will is the following paffage:

"Dupatzo the elder brother, the fool, he that bought the half-penny ribband, wearing it in his ear, &c."

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-This ribband

Again, in Every Man out of bis Humour : in my ear, or fo." Again, in Love and Honour, by fir W. Davenant, 1649:

"A lock on the left fide, fo rarely hung
"With ribbanding, &c."

I think I remember, among Vandyck's pictures in the duke of Qucenfberry's collection at Ambrofbury, to have seen one with the lock nearest the ear ornamented with ribbands which terminate in rofes; and Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, fays, "that it was once the fashion to stick real flowers in the car." STEEVENS. Marston alfo in his Satires, 1599, alludes to this fashion as fantaftical:

66.

Caftilios, Cyprians, court-boyes, Spanish blocks, "Ribanded eares, Grenada nether-stocks."

Again, in Epigrams by J. D. (perhaps John Davis) printed at Middleburgh, without date:

"Thou know'ft I love thee, dear;

"Yet for thy fake I will not bore mine ear,

"To hang thy dirty filken fhoe-tyes there." MALONE.

unto the death.] This expreffion is common among our ancient writers. So, in A Merye Jeft of a Man called Howleglas, bl. 1. no date: "" Howleglas found a woulie that was frozen to the deth." STEEVENS.

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