INDUCTION. Warkworth. Before Northumberland's Castle. Enter RUMOUR, painted full of Tongues3. RUM. Open your ears; For which of you will stop The vent of hearing, when loud Rumour speaks ? 2 Enter RUMOUR,] This speech of Rumour is not inelegant or unpoetical, but it is wholly useless, since we are told nothing which the first scene does not clearly and naturally discover. The only end of such prologues is to inform the audience of some facts previous to the action, of which they can have no knowledge from the persons of the drama. JOHNSON. 3 RUMOUR, painted full of TONGUES.] This the author probable drew from Holinshed's Description of a Pageant, exhibited in the court of Henry VIII. with uncommon cost and magnificence: "Then entered a person called Report, apparelled in crimson sattin, full of toongs, or chronicles." Vol. iii. p. 805. This however might be the common way of representing this personage in masques, which were frequent in his own times. T. WARTON. had long ago ex Stephen Hawes, in his Pastime of Pleasure, hibited her (Rumour) in the same manner : "A goodly lady, envyroned about "With tongues of fire." And so had Sir Thomas More, in one of his Pageants : "Fame I am called, merveyle you nothing "Thoughe with tonges I am compassed all rounde." Not to mention her elaborate portrait by Chaucer, in The Booke of Fame; and by John Higgins, one of the assistants in The Mirror for Magistrates, in his Legend of King Albanacte. FARMER. In a masque presented on St. Stephen's night, 1614, by Thomas Campion, Rumour comes on in a skin-coat full of winged togues. I from the orient to the drooping west*, Rumour is likewise a character in Sir Clyomon, Knight of the Golden Shield, &c. 1599. So also, in The whole magnificent Entertainment given to King James, and the Queen his Wife, &c. &c. 15th March, 1603, by Thomas Decker, 4to. 1604: "Directly under her in a cart by herselfe, Fame stood upright: a woman in a watchet roabe, thickly set with open eyes and tongues, a payre of large golden winges at her backe, a trumpet in her hand, a mantle of sundry cullours traversing her body: all these ensignes displaying but the propertie of her swiftnesse and aptnesse to disperse Rumoure." STEEVENS. painted full of tongues." This direction, which is only to be found in the first edition in quarto of 1600, explains a passage in what follows, otherwise obscure. POPE. 4 the DROOPING Wést,] A passage in Macbeth will best explain the force of this epithet: "Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, MALONE. 5 RUMOUR is a pipe-] Here the poet imagines himself describing Rumour, and forgets that Rumour is the speaker. JOHNSON. Surely this is a mistake. Rumour is giving her own description, but says of herself: 66 66 what need I thus My well known body to anatomize And then proceeds to tell why she was come. BOSWELL And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, Can play upon it. But what need I thus Among my household? Why is Rumour here? Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury, Hath beaten down young Hotspur, and his troops, Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I To noise abroad,—that Harry Monmouth fell 6 so easy and so plain a STOP,] The stops are the holes in a flute or pipe. So, in Hamlet: "Govern these ventages with your finger and thumb:-Look you, these are the stops." Again: "You would seem to know my stops." STEEVENS. 7 And this worm-eaten HOLD of ragged stone,] The old copies read-" worm-eaten hole." MALONE. Northumberland had retired and fortified himself in his castle, a place of strength in those times, though the building might be impaired by its antiquity; and, therefore, I believe our poet wrote: "And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone." THEOBALD. Theobald is certainly right. So, in The Wars of Cyrus, &c. 1594: Besieg'd his fortress with his men at arms, "Where only I and that Libanio stay'd "By whom I live. For when the hold was lost," &c. Again, in King Henry VI. Part III. : "She is hard by with twenty thousand men, "And therefore fortify your hold, my lord." STEEVENS. And not a man of them brings other news Than they have learn'd of me; From Rumour's tongues They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs. [Exit. SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV. ACT I. SCENE I. The Same. The Porter before the Gate; Enter Lord BAR DOLPH. BARD. Who keeps the gate here, ho?-Where is the earl? PORT. What shall I say you are? Tell thou the earl, BARD. Port. His lordship is walk'd forth into the or chard; Please it your honour, knock but at the gate, BARD. Enter NORTHUMBERLAND. Here comes the earl, NORTH. What news, lord Bardolph ? every mi nute now Should be the father of some stratagem": The times are wild; contention, like a horse 8 some STRATAGEM :] Some stratagem means here some great, important, or dreadful event. So, in The Third Part of King Henry VI, the father who had killed his son says: "O pity, God! this miserable age! "What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly! "This mortal quarrel daily doth beget!" M. MASON. |