Phil. Of no more force to difpoffeffe me fir, Then was his will to get me, as I think. Eli. Whether hadft thou rather be a Faulconbridge, And like thy brother to enjoy thy land: Or the reputed fonne of Cordelion, Lord of thy presence, and no land beside. 140 145 143. And...brother] F,F3, Huds. ii. And...brother, F4, Rowe,+, Hal. Wh. i, Del. And...brother, Cap. et cet. 144. Cordelion,] F2F, Rowe, Del. Fleay. Cordelion F3. Cœur-de-lion Pope et cet. 145. thy] the Warb. 142, 143. hadst thou rather ... to enioy] WRIGHT: In such clauses it is not uncommon to insert 'to' before the second infinitive, though it is omitted before the first. Compare: 'Brutus had rather be a villager Than to repute himself a son of Rome.'-Jul. Cæs., I, ii, 173. [For other examples, see ABBOTT, § 380; and for an account of the origin of this phrase, see MASON: English Grammar and Analysis, § 529, foot-note.] 145. Lord of thy presence] WARBURTON: 'Lord of thy presence' can signify only master of thyself, and it is a strange expression to signify even that. However, that he might be, without parting with his land. We should read-'Lord of the presence,' i. e., prince of the blood.-HEATH (p. 222): 'Lord of the presence' never yet signified 'a Prince of the blood,' nor can Mr Warburton produce a single instance of this expression. The common reading means, Lord of thine own person, which comprehends the whole of thy lands, lordships, and titles. Mr Warburton objects, that Robert [sic Qu. Philip?] 'might be lord of his person without parting with his land.' So undoubtedly he might; but our critick seems not to have understood the alternative proposed by Queen Elinor, which was this: Whether he would choose to be the heir of Faulconbridge with the enjoyment of his lands, or to be the acknowledged son of Cœur de Lion at the expense of giving up his claim to those lands, to which, if he were really the son of Cœur de Lion, he could not have the least title.-JOHNSON: 'Lord of thy presence' means: master of that dignity and grandeur of appearance that may sufficiently distinguish thee from the vulgar without the help of fortune.' Lord of his presence apparently signifies: great in his own person, and is used in this sense by King John in one of the following scenes [I, ii, 389].-F. GENTLEMAN (ap. BELL's ed., p. 9): This encouragement to own Bastardy upon supposition is a very indelicate stroke of her majesty's; and King John's knighting him without any merit to claim that honour, but impudence, is as silly a promotion as some other Kings have made.-KNIGHT: 'Presence' may here mean priority of place, preséance. As the son of Cœur de Lion, Faulconbridge would take rank without his land. If Warburton's 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.'-C. & M. COWDEN CLARKE (Sh. Key, p. 629): In this play twice occurs an expression which is to be found nowhere else used by Shakespeare. It is 'Lord of thy presence' and 'Lord of our presence,' employed to signify: master of thine own individuality, and: Baft. Madam, and if my brother had my shape And I had his, fir Roberts his like him, 146. Baft.] Phil. Theobald, Warb. Varr. Ran. Words. Dono. and if] Ff, Rowe, Pope, Theob. Warb. Johns. Fleay. an if Han. et cet. 147. his, fir Roberts his] his, Sir Robert's his F. his, Sir Robert's his, 146 Rowe, Cap. Var. '73, '78, Hal. Cam.+. master of our own individuality. In the first of the two passages we think it is meant to include the sense of: master of that fine manly person inherited from Coeur-de-Lion, as well as, master of thine own self.-IVOR JOHN suggests that this phrase may here 'bear the meaning of: Lord from thy very appearance, that is, your mere appearance would tell people that you were nobly born.' [That 'of' may have the force of from or in consequence of, ABBOTT (§ 168) shows by several examples, but is it necessary here so to understand it, as Ivor John suggests? Heath's interpretation, as it is the simplest, seems to be all sufficient.-ED.] 146. Bast.] WRIGHT calls attention to this change in designation of Philip, following directly upon his choice. 147. sir Roberts his like him] JOHNSON: This is obscure and ill expressed. The meaning is-'If I had his shape, sir Robert's-as he has.' Sir Robert his for Sir Robert's is agreeable to the practice of that time, when the 's added to the nominative was believed, I think erroneously, to be a contraction of his. [The genitive or possessive case in Anglo-Saxon is formed by adding as to the nominative. The apostrophe, therefore, represents the omitted letter a.-ED.]-MALONE follows Theobald's regulation of the text (see Text. Notes), and points out that 'his' is here redundant, ascribing its use, as does Johnson, to the mistaken formation of the possessive.-WALKER (Crit., iii, 117), referring to Johnson and Malone's explanation, says: 'But his in this construction, without a substantive, is a different idiom, and one of which I have met with no example; nor is there any necessity of metre to palliate such a violence on language.' Walker conjectures that a comma should be inserted after 'Sir Roberts', wherein, as his editor LETTSOM points out, Walker is anticipated by Hanmer (see Text. Notes). Lettsom adds: 'I believe [the Folio reading] to be the genuine one, though I must own I doubt Walker's interpretation. The double genitive, though denounced by Malone, is occasionally heard even now in the mouths of the vulgar; and, though it may not accord with modern notions of grammar, it is not more repugnant to them than the double nominative, "God he knoweth," or the double accusative, "God I pray him," both of which examples (not to mention others elsewhere) occur in Rich. III.'-JOHN HUNTER: That is, And if Sir Robert had his shape like him; if Sir Robert's shape was like my brother's. [Hunter follows Theobald, but omits the comma after 'Robert.'-FLEAY: I understand the passage thus: His (my brother's) shape of Sir Robert; his (my brother's); like him (my brother)-Philip pointing at his brother at the words his and him. I take 'his Sir Robert's' to be a compound phrase, 'his' being an attributive to 'Sir Robert's' (shape).-WRIGHT: [Following the Folio], that is, his shape, which is also his father Sir Robert's.-GOLLANCZ: Surely his is used substantively with that rollicking effect which is so characteristic of Faulconbridge. There is no need to explain the phrase as equivalent to his shape, which is also his father Sir Robert's; 'Sir Robert's his' = Sir Robert's shape, 'his' emphasizing substantively And if my legs were two fuch riding rods, My armes, fuch eele-skins ftuft, my face fo thin, That in mine eare I durft not sticke a rose, Left men should fay, looke where three farthings goes, 149. ftuft] Ff, Rowe,+, Cap. Varr. Ran. stuffed Dono. stuff'd Mal. et cet. 148 151 151. looke...goes,] Ff, Rowe, Pope, Han. 'look...goes!' Theob. Warb. Look,...goes! Johns. et cet. the previous pronominal use of the word.-HERtford quotes with approval the foregoing explanation by Gollancz, and adds: 'The line might be paraphrased: "And I had his shape, in other words, a his of Sir Robert's." -[Any interpretation which wrests an intelligible meaning from the Folio text without change of letter or punctuation is assuredly alluring. If 'his' be here used substantively it is a áraž λeyóμevov not only for Shakespeare but all other writers according to that court of last appeal, the New English Dictionary; such being the case we must, I fear, reluctantly accept the decision of that lesser court, SCHMIDT's Lexicon, that 'Sir Robert's his' is here a reduplicated genitive.-ED.] 148. riding rods] CRAIGIE (N. E. D., s. v.) quotes in illustration: 1555 Rutland MSS (1905), IV, 376: Paid for ij ryding-roddes of bone for my Ladie, and other thinges, xxijd. 150, 151. rose... three farthings [THEOBALD: In this very obscure passage our poet is anticipating the date of another coin; humorously to rally a thin face, eclipsed, as it were, by a full blown rose. We must observe, to explain this allusion, that Queen Elizabeth was the first, and indeed the only prince, who coined in England three-half-pence, and three-farthing pieces. She coined shillings, sixpences, groats, three-pences, two-pences, three-half-pence, pence, three-farthings, and, half-pence; and these pieces all had her head, and were alternately with the rose behind, and without the rose. The shilling, groat, two-pence, penny, and halfpenny had it not: the other intermediate coins, viz., the sixpence, three-pence, three half-pence, and three-farthings, had the rose.—WARBURTON: The sticking roses about them was then all the court-fashion, as appears from this passage of the Confession Catholique du S. de Sancy, l. ii, c. i: 'Je luy ay appris à mettre des roses par tous les coins': i. e., in every place about him, says the speaker of one whom he had taught all the court fashions. [Does 'tous les coins' not rather mean in every corner or in all places? It can hardly refer to personal adornment.-ED.]—STEEVENS, in corroboration of the appearance of the Tudor rose on coins of that time, quotes: Here's a three penny-piece for thy tidings. Firk. 'Tis but three halfpence I think: yes, 'tis three-pence; I smell the rose.'-Shoemaker's Holiday, [ed. Pearson, vol. i, p. 41]. And in regard to the fashion mentioned by Warburton says: 'The roses stuck in the ear were, I believe, only roses composed of ribbons. In Marston's What You Will is the following passage: "Dupatzo, the elder brother, the fool, he that bought the half-penny ribband, wearing it in his ear," &c. [IV, i; ed. Bullen, p. 391]. Again, in Every Man out of his Humour: “—This ribband in my ear, or so." [II, i; ed. Gifford, p. 70]. Again, in Love and Honour (D'Avenant, 1649): "A lock on the left side, so rarely hung With ribbanding," &c.' [II, i; ed. Maidment, p. 128]. 'I think I remember,' adds Steevens, 'among Vandyck's pictures in the Duke of Queensbury's collection at Ambrosbury, to have seen one, with the lock nearest the ear ornamented with ribbands which terminate in roses; and Burton, in Anatomy of Melancholy, says, "that it was once the fashion to stick real flowers in the ear." 152 And to his shape were heyre to all this land, 152. And to his shape] And with his shape Han. And, to his shape, Cap. et seq. 152. this land] his land Vaughan. At Kirtling (vulgarly pronounced-Catlage), in Cambridgeshire, the magnificent residence of the first Lord North, there is a juvenile portrait (supposed to be of Queen Elizabeth), with a red rose sticking in her ear.'-MALONE: Marston in his Satires, 1598, alludes to this fashion as fantastical: 'Ribbanded ears, Grenada nether-stocks.' [Scourge of Villanie: Address to Reader; ed. Hallowell, iii, 243.] And from the Epigrams of Sir John Davies, printed at Middleburgh, about 1598, it appears that some men of gallantry in our author's time, suffered their ears to be bored, and wore their mistress's silken shoe-strings in them. ['Yet for thy sake I will not bore mine ear To hang thy dirty silken shoe-tires there.'—Ignoto. Dyce's Marlowe, iii, 263.-That such a fashion as tying ribbons in the ears was practised by the gallants of the latter years of Elizabeth and the early years of King James, these passages quoted by Steevens and Malone abundantly prove, but that there is a reference to this fashion in the present passage in King John is not, I think, so clearly evident. Steevens's reference to the supposed portrait of Elizabeth with the red rose in the ear is much more to the point. PLANCHE (ii, 232) alludes to this latter fashion, giving as illustration of it a portion of a contemporaneous portrait of Richard Lee wherein a rose is worn in the same way, appending as explanation these lines from King John. There is, of course, the difficulty contained in Philip's words 'in my ear,' but we need not place too literal a meaning on the preposition, since the reference is to the appearance of the face on a coin with a rose as its background. Moreover, the word 'rose' applied to a bunch or knot of ribbon was not in use until after 1600, and even then was almost exclusively used to describe the ornament on a shoe. It is noticeable that in none of the quotations given by Steevens and Malone is this decoration called by any other name than a ribbon, whereas Philip distinctly mentions that which is, presumably, the well-known badge of the Tudors-a rose. The following passage in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy is, I think, the one to which Steevens refers: "Tis the common humor of all suitors to trick up themselves, to be prodigal in apparel, pure lotus, neat, comb'd and curl'd, with powder'd hairs, comptus et calamistratus; with a long lovelock, a flowre in his ear, perfumed gloves, rings, scarfs, feathers, points, &c.'-Part 3, Sec. 2, Mem. 4, Subsec. 1.-ED.] 151. three farthings] HALLIWELL says that 'the expression three farthings came to be used as typical of any thing or person very worthless or mean,' quoting in support of this, from Nomenclator, 1585: "The least peece of coine or currant monie, as three-farthings with us.'-MOBERLY objects to Theobald's explanation, as in the foregoing note, on the ground that 'it seems a little hazy; for the rose was on other coins, and not only on the three-farthing piece; so why should laughers be particularly reminded of the latter? On the other hand, if we suppose the joke to mean that the rose was to the face as a halfpenny to a farthing, this is just the kind of disproportion which the mind of the lieges would be prepared duly to resent and stigmatise.'-[Is it necessary to limit the exact meaning conveyed by this contemptuous remark? It hardly needs Halliwell's assertion that 'three-farthings' was symbolical of paltriness; the very name of the coin suggests it, conveying the idea of smallness and incompleteness; it is not even so much as a penny; and the triplex dental sound of the words is almost the same as fie! or faugh!-Ed.] Would I might neuer stirre from off this place, 153. Would...place,] In parentheses, Del. Would] Ff, Rowe, Pope, Theob. i, Han. Coll. Dyce, Hal. Wh. i, Sta. Cam.+, Del. 'Would, Theob. ii. et cet. 154. I would...euery] Ff, Rowe, Knt, 153 155 Cam.+. I'd...ev'ry Pope, Theob. Han. Warb. Johns. I'd...every Cap. et cet. 154. face] hand Fleay. 155. It] Knt. Del. i. I Ff. et cet. fir nobbe] Sir Nobbe F4, Rowe,+. sir Nob Cap. et seq. 152. his shape... this land] MALONE: There is no noun to which 'were' can belong, unless the personal pronoun in the last line but one be understood here. I suspect that our author wrote 'And though his shape were heir to all his land.' Thus the sentence proceeds in one uniform tenour-'and if my legs were,' &c.-and though his shape,' &c.-M. MASON (Comments on Beaumont & Fletcher: Appendix, p. 35): The difficulty in this passage arises from a transposition of the words 'his' and 'this'; it should run thus: 'And to this shape were heir to all his land.' By 'this shape' Faulconbridge means the shape he had just been describing.STEEVENS: The old reading is the true one. 'To his shape' means, in addition to it. So, in Tro. & Cress.: 'The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant.'-I, i, 7. [For other examples of this construction, see ABBOTT, § 185.] 154, 155. I would . . . in any case] W. G. STONE (Notes & Queries, 1886, VII, i, 143): Halle relates that Dunois, natural son of Louis, Duke of Orleans, preferred, like the Bastard in King John, a splendid illegitimacy to a respectable name and an inheritance attached thereto. When Dunois was a year old his mother and nominal father, 'the lorde of Cauny,' died, shortly after Orleans's murder in 1407. The infant's paternity was debated before the Parliament of Paris by his mother's relatives and Cauny's next of kin, but the question remained undecided until Dunois was eight years old, ‘at whiche tyme,' says Halle, 'it was demaunded of hym openly whose sonne he was: his frendes of his mothers side aduertised him to require a day, to be aduised of so great an answer, whiche he asked, & to hym it was graunted. . . . At the daie assigned, . . . when the question was repeated hym again, he boldly answered, "my harte geueth me, & my noble corage telleth me, that I am the sonne of the noble Duke of Orleaunce, more glad to be his Bastarde, with a meane liuyng, then the lawfall sonne of that coward cuckolde Cauny, with his four thousand crounes [a year]."'-Halle's Chronicle, ed. 1809, pp. 144, 145. What authority had Halle for this story? I have not found it in Monstrelet and his continuators (Chroniques Nationales Francaise, ed. Buchon). A similar story is recorded by Stow, under the year 1213: 'Morgan Prouost of Beuerley, Brother to K. John, was elected byshop of Durham, but he comming to Rome to be consecrated returned againe without it, for that he was a bastard, and K. Henry, father to K. John, had begotten him of the wife of one Radulph Bloeth, yet would the Pope have dispensed with him, if he would have called himself the son of the knight, and not of the king. But he vsing the aduise of one William of Lane his Clarke, aunswered, that for no worldly promotion, he would deny the kings blood.'-Stow's Annales, 1605, p. 256.-Stow's authority appears to be Lib[er] Bermond[sey].—P. SIMPSON (Notes & Queries, 1900, IX, v, 393) quotes a passage from B. Riche: The Irish Hubbub, 1617, wherein is related an incident from a |