K. JOHN. Why, what a madcap hath Heaven lent us here!
ELI. He hath a trick a of Coeur-de-lion's face;

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 them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,
What doth move you to claim your brother's land?
BAST. 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. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,
Your brother did employ my father much :-
BAST. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:
Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother.
ROB. And once despatch'd him in an embassy
To Germany, there, with the emperor,

To treat of high affairs touching that time:
Th' 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 shores
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.
K. JOHN. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate;

Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him:
And, if she did play false, the fault was hers;
Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands

a Trick, here and elsewhere in Shakspere, means peculiarity. Gloster remembers the "trick" of Lear's voice;-Helen thinking of Bertram, speaks

"Of every line and trick of his sweet favour; "—

Falstaff notes the "villainous trick" of the prince's eye. In all these cases trick seems to imply habitual manner. Wordsworth has the Shaksperean use of "trick" in 'The Excursion' (book i.):"Her infant babe

Had from its mother caught the trick of grief,

And sigh'd among its playthings."

That half-face is a correction by Theobald, which appears just, the first folio giving "half that face." For an explanation of half-face, see Illustrations.

That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,
Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,
Had of your father claim'd this son for his?
In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept
This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;
In sooth, he might: then, if he were my brother's,
My brother might not claim him; nor your father,
Being none of his, refuse him: This concludes:
My mother's son 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 dispossess that child which is not his?
BAST. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,
Than was his will to get me, as I think.
ELI. Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge,
And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land;
Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,
Lord of thy presence, and no land beside?
BAST. Madam, an if my brother had my shape,
And I had his, sir Robert his, like him;
And if my legs were two such riding-rods;
My arms such eel-skins stuff'd; my face so thin,
That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose,

Lest men should say, Look, where three-farthings goes
And, to his shape, were heir to all this land,
'Would I might never stir from off this place,

I would give it every foot to have this face;

:

It would not be sir Nobd in any case.
ELI. I like thee well: Wilt thou forsake thy fortune,
Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me?

I am a soldier, and now bound to France.

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

* Presence may here mean "priority of place," préséance. As the son of Cœur-de-Lion, Faulconbridge would take rank without his land. Warburton judged it meant "master of thyself." If this interpretation be correct, the passage may have suggested the lines in Sir Henry Wotton's song on a 'Happy Life,'—

"Lord of himself, though not of lands,

And, having nothing, yet hath all."

We are inclined to receive it in the sense of the man's whole carriage and appearance-" a goodly presence."

* Sir Robert his. This is the old form of the genitive, such as all who have looked into a legal instrument know. Faulconbridge says, "If I had his shape-sir Robert's shape-as he has." To his shape-in addition to his shape.

We have given the text of the folio-"It would not be sir Nob,"-not "I would not be.". "This face," he says, "would not be sir Nob." Nob is now, and was in Shakspere's time, a cant

word for the head.

Your face hath got five hundred pound a-year;
Yet sell your face for five pence, and 't is dear.
Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.

ELI. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.
BAST. Our country manners give our betters way.
K. JOHN. What is thy name?

BAST. Philip, my liege; so is my name begun;

Philip, good old sir Robert's wife's eldest son.

K. JOHN. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bearest:
Kneel thou down Philip, but arise more great;

Arise sir Richard, and Plantagenet".

BAST. Brother, by the mother's side, give me your hand;

My father gave me honour, yours gave land:
Now blessed be the hour, by night or day,
When I was got, sir Robert was away.

ELI. The very spirit of Plantagenet!

I am thy grandame, Richard; call me so.

BAST. Madam, by chance, but not by truth; What though?
Something about, a little from the right,

In at the window, or else o'er the hatch;
Who dares not stir by day must walk by night;

And have is have, however men do catch;

Near or far off, well won is still well shot;
And I am I, howe'er I was begot.

K. JOHN. Go, Faulconbridge; now hast thou thy desire,
A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.-
Come, madam, and come, Richard; we must speed
For France, for France; for it is more than need.
BAST. Brother, adieu; Good fortune come to thee!

For thou wast got i' the way of honesty.
A foot of honour better than I was;
But many a many foot of land the worse.
Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.

Good den, sir Richard,-God-a-mercy, fellow;
And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter:
For new-made honour doth forget men's names;
"T is too respective, and too sociable,

For your conversion. Now your traveller,

[Exeunt all but the Bastard.

a In at the window, &c. These were proverbial expressions, which, by analogy with irregular modes of entering a house, had reference to cases such as that of Faulconbridge's, which he gently terms "a little from the right."

Good den-good evening-good e'en.

Conversion. This is the reading of the folio, but was altered, by Pope, to conversing. The Bastard, whose "new-made honour" is a conversion,-a change of condition,-would say that to remember men's names (opposed, by implication, to forget) is too respective (punctilious, discriminating) and too sociable for one of his newly-attained rank.

He and his toothpick at my worship's mess,
And when my knightly stomach is suffic'd,
Why then I suck my teeth, and catechise
My picked man of countries:-My dear sir,
(Thus leaning on my elbow, I begin,)

I shall beseech you-That is question now;
And then comes answer like an Absey book:
O, sir, says answer, at your best command;
At your employment; at your service, sir:
No, sir, says question, I, sweet sir, at yours:
And so, ere answer knows what question would,
Saving in dialogue of compliment;

And talking of the Alps and Apennines,
The Pyrenean, and the river Po,

It draws toward supper in conclusion so.
But this is worshipful society,

And fits the mounting spirit like myself:
For he is but a bastard to the time,
That doth not smack of observation;
(And so am I, whether I smack, or no;)
And not alone in habit and device,
Exterior form, outward accoutrement;
But from the inward motion to deliver
Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth:
Which, though I will not practise to deceive,
Yet to avoid deceit I mean to learn;

For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.-
But who comes in such haste, in riding robes?
What woman-post is this? hath she no husband,
That will take pains to blow a horn before her?

Enter Lady FAULCONBRIDGE and JAMES GURNEY.

O me! it is my mother:-How now, good lady?
What brings you here to court so hastily?

LADY F. Where is that slave, thy brother? where is he?

That holds in chase mine honour up and down?

BAST. My brother Robert? old sir Robert's son?

Colbrand the giant', that same mighty man?

Is it sir Robert's son that you seek so?

■ Picked man of countries. "The travelled fool," "the pert, conceited, talking spark," of the modern fable, is the old "picked man of countries." "To pick" is the same as "to trim." Steevens says it is a metaphor derived from the action of birds in picking their feathers. picked, too spruce, too affected," occurs in 'Love's Labour 's Lost,' Act V.

"He is too

b Absey-book, the common name for the first or A, B, C, book. The Catechism was generally included in these books; and thus the reference in the text to "question" and “answer.”

Smack. The original has smoke.

LADY F. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,
Sir Robert's son: Why scorn'st thou at sir Robert?
He is sir Robert's son; and so art thou.
BAST. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a while?
GUR. Good leave, good Philip.

BAST.

Philip?-sparrow a!—James,
There's toys abroad; anon I'll tell thee more.
Madam, I was not old sir Robert's son;
Sir Robert might have eat his part in me
Upon Good-Friday, and ne'er broke his fast:
Sir Robert could do well; Marry-to confess-
Could he get me? Sir Robert could not do it;
We know his handiwork:-Therefore, good mother,
To whom am I beholden for these limbs?

Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.
LADY F. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,

That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour?
What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?
BAST. Knight, knight, good mother,-Basilisco-like b;
What! I am dubb'd; I have it on my shoulder.
But, mother, I am not Sir Robert's son;
I have disclaim'd sir Robert, and my land;
Legitimation, name, and all is gone:

Then, good my mother, let me know my father;
Some proper man, I hope; Who was it, mother?
LADY F. Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge?
BAST. As faithfully as I deny the devil.

LADY F. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father:
By long and vehement suit I was seduc'd

To make room for him in my husband's bed.
Heaven! lay not my transgression to my charge,
Thou art the issue of my dear offence,

Which was so strongly urg'd, past my defence.

[Exit GURN.

a Philip?—sparrow! The sparrow was called Philip,—perhaps from his note, out of which Catullus, in his elegy on Lesbia's sparrow, formed a verb, pipilabat. When Gurney calls the bastard "good Philip," the new "Sir Richard" tosses off the name with contempt-" sparrow!" He then puts aside James, with "anon I'll tell thee more."

Basilisco-like. Basilisco is a character in a play of Shakspere's time, 'Soliman and Perseda,' from which Tyrwhitt quotes a passage which may have suggested the words of the Bastard. The oaths of Basilisco became proverbial. Basilisco is mentioned by Nash, in 1596.

c

Heaven, &c. We have restored the reading of the old copy, which appears to us more in Shakspere's manner than the customary text

"Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge,

Thou art the issue of my dear offence," &c.

Lady Faulconbridge is not invoking Heaven to pardon her transgression; but she says to her son, -for Heaven's sake, lay not (thou) my transgression to my charge that art the issue of it. The reply of Faulconbridge immediately deprecates any intention of upbraiding his mother.