SCENE II. France. Before Orleans. Enter CHARLES, with his forces; ALENÇON, CHAR. Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens, So in the earth, to this day is not known: ALEN. They want their porridge, and their fat bull-beeves: Either they must be dieted, like mules, REIG. Let's raise the siege; Why live we idly here? Talbot is taken, whom we wont to fear: 2 Mars his true moving, &c.] So, Nash, in one of his prefaces before Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, 1596 :" You are as ignorant in the true movings of my muse, as the astronomers are in the true movings of Mars, which to this day they could never attain to." STEEVENS. VOL. XIV. Now for the honour of the forlorn French: 1 [Exeunt. Alarums; Excursions; afterwards a Retreat. Re-enter CHARLES, ALENÇON, REIGNIER, and CHAR. Who ever saw the like? what men have Dogs! cowards! dastards!-I would ne'er have fled, But that they left me 'midst my enemies. 3 REIG. Salisbury is a desperate homicide; He fighteth as one weary of his life. The other lords, like lions wanting food, Do rush upon us as their hungry prey.3 ALEN. Froisard, a countryman of ours, records, England all Olivers and Rowlands bred, During the time Edward the third did reign. More truly now may this be verified; 3 4 as their hungry prey.] I believe it should be read: --as their hungred prey. JOHNSON. I adhere to the old reading, which appears to fignify-the prey for which they are hungry. STEEVENS. 4 England all Olivers and Rowlands bred, ) These were two of the most famous in the lift of Charlemagne's twelve peers; and their exploits are rendered so ridiculoufly and equally extravagant by the old romancers, that from thence arose that saying amongst our plain and fenfible ancestors, of giving one a Rowland for his Oliver, to fignify the matching one incredible lye with another. WARBURTON. Rather, to oppose one hero to another, i. e. to give a perfon as good a one as he brings. STEEVENS.. The old copy has breed. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. i For none but Sampsons, and Goliaffes, CHAR. Let's leave this town; for they are hair- And hunger will enforce them to be more eager:5 vice, * And hunger will enforce them to be more eager :) The preposition to should be omitted, as injurious to the measure, and unneceffary in the old elliptical mode of writing. So, A& IV. fc. i. of this play: "Let me perfuade you take a better course." i. e. to take &c. The error pointed out, occurs again in p. 29: " Piel'd priest, doft thou command me to be shut out?" STEEVENS. 6- gimmals - ) A gimmal is a piece of jointed work, where one piece moves within another, whence it is taken at large for an engine. It is now by the vulgar called a gimcrack. JOHNSON. In the inventory of the jewels, &c. belonging to Salisbury cathedral, taken in 1536, 28th of Henry VIII. is, A faire cheft with gimmals and key." Again: "Three other chefts with gimmals of filver and gilt." Again, in The Vow-breaker, or The 7 Their arms are fet, like clocks,) Perhaps the author was thinking of the clocks in which figures in the shape of men struck the hours. Of these there were many in his time. MALONE. To go like clockwork, is ftill a phrase in common use, to express a regular and conftant motion. STEEVENS. Enter the Bastard of Orleans. BAST. Where's the prince Dauphin? I have news appall'd; 9 Hath the late overthrow wrought this offence? * Baftard of Orleans, That this in former times was not a term of reproach, fee Bishop Hurd's Letters on Chivalry and Romance, in the third volume of his Dialogues, p. 233, who observing on circumftances of agreement between the heroic and Gothick manners, says that " Baftardy was in credit with both." One of William the Conqueror's charters begins, " Ego Gulielmus cognomento Baftardus." And in the reign of Edward I. John Earl Warren and Surrey being called before the King's Justices to show by what title he held his lands, produxit in medium gladium antiquum evaginatum & ait, Ecce Domini mei, ecce warrantum meum! Anteceffores mei cum Willo Baftardo venientes conquesti funt terras fuas, &c. Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 13. Dugd. Bar. of Engl. Vol. I. Blount 9. "Le Baftarde de Savoy," is inscribed over the head of one of the figures in a curious picture of the Battle of Pavia, in the Ashmolean Museum. In Fenn's Pafton Letters, Vol. III. p. 72-3, in the articles of impeachment against the Duke of Suffolk, we - read of the " Erle of Danas, bastard of Orlyaunce." VAILLANT. 9 - your cheer appall'd ;) Cheer is jollity, gaiety. M. MASON. Cheer, rather fignifies-countenance. So, in A Midsummer Night's "All fancy-fick she is, and pale of cheer." See Vol. VII. p. 95, n. 4. STREVENS. Dream: 2 Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome ; * For they are certain and infallible. CHAR. Go, call her in: [Exit Bastard.] Bat, first, to try her skill, Reignier, stand thou as Dauphin in my place: Enter LA PUCELLE, Bastard of Orleans, and REIG. Fair maid, is't thou wilt do these won d'rous feats? Puc. Reignier, is't thou that thinkest to beguile Where is the Dauphin?-come, come from behind; ter, My wit untrain'd in any kind of art. nine fibyls of old Rome;) There were no nine fibyls of Rome; but he confounds things, and mistakes this for the nine books of Sibylline oracles, brought to one of the Tarquins. 3 - Believe my words,] It should be read: -- Believe her words. JOHNSON. WARBURTON, I perceive no need of change. The Baftard calls upon the Dauphin to believe the extraordinary account he has just given of the prophetick spirit and prowess of the Maid of Orleans. ! MALONE. |