That still 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 iny 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 Caur-de-lion's face 6,
The accent of his tongue affecteth him:
Do you not read some tokens of my son,
In the large composition of this man?

K. John. Mine eye hath well examined his parts, And finds thein 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,

Rob. My gracious liege, when that my father liy'd, Your brother did employ my father much ;

Phil. Well, fir, by this you cannot get my land; Your tale must be, how he employ'd my mother, · Rob. And once dispatch'd him in an embassy To Germany, there, with the emperor, To treat of high affairs touching that time : The advantage of his absence took the king, And in the mean time sojourn'd at my father's; Where how he did prevail, I shame to speak : But truth is truth ; large lengths of seas and Thores Between my father and my mother lay, (As I have heard my father speak himself ) When this same lusty 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 son, 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 visage of the elder brother, by comparing him to a silver groat, that bore the king's face in profile, so Thewed but half the face : the groats of all our kings of Ergland, 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 also fome shillings, with half faces, i. e. faces in profile, as all our coin has now. The first groats of king Henry VIII. were like those of his father; though arterwards he returned to the broad faces again. These groats, with the impression in profile, are undoubtedly here alluded to: though, as I said, the poet is knowingly guilty of an anachronisın in it: for in the time of king John there were no groats at all; they being firit, as far as appears, coined in the reign of king Edward III. THEOBALD.

The same contemptuous allusion occurs in The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, 1601:

- You balf-fai'd groat, you thick-cheek'd chitty-face." Again, in Hi friomafiix, 1010:

s Whilit I behold yon half fac'd minion." STEEVENS.

K. John,

Left men should say, Look, where threc-farthings

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

Eli. I like thee well; Wilt thou forsake thy forti
Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me ?
I am a soldier, 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 sell your face for five pence, and 'tis dear.
Madam, I'll follow you unto the death 4.