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Enter with drum and colours, a party of the Florentine army, BERTRAM, and PAROLLES.

MAR. The gods forbid elfe!

WID.

So, now they come :

That is Antonio, the duke's eldest fon;
That, Efcalus.

HEL.

Which is the Frenchman?

He;

DIA.

That with the plume: 'tis a most gallant fellow;
I would, he lov'd his wife: if he were honester,
He were much goodlier :-Is't not a handsome gen-
tleman?

HEL. I like him well.

Did. 'Tis pity, he is not honeft: Yond's that fame knave,

That leads him to these places; were I his lady, I'd poifon that vile rafcal.

HEL.

Which is he?

DIA. That jack-an-apes with scarfs: Why is he melancholy?

HEL. Perchance he's hurt i'the battle.

PAR. Lofe our drum! well.

Yond's that fame knave,

That leads him to thefe places;] What places? Have they been talking of brothels; or, indeed, of any particular locality? I make no queftion but our author wrote:

That leads him to these paces.

i. e. fuch irregular fteps, to courfes of debauchery, to not loving his wife. THEOBALD.

The places are, apparently, where he

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brokes with all, that can in fuch a fuit
Corrupt the tender honour of a maid." STEEVENS.

MAR. He's fhrewdly vex'd at fomething: Look, he has fpied us.

WID. Marry, hang you!

MAR. And your courtefy, for a ring-carrier! [Exeunt BERTRAM, PAROLLES, Officers, and Soldiers.

WID. The troop is paft: Come, pilgrim, I will bring you

Where you fhall hoft: of enjoin'd penitents There's four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound, Already at my house.

HEL.

I humbly thank you: Please it this matron, and this gentle maid, To eat with us to-night, the charge, and thanking, Shall be for me; and, to requite you further, I will bestow fome precepts on this virgin, Worthy the note.

Вотн.

We'll take your offer kindly.

SCENE VI.

[Exeunt.

Camp before Florence.

Enter BERTRAM, and the two French Lords.

I LORD. Nay, good my lord, put him to't; let him have his way.

2 LORD. If your lordship find him not a hilding, hold me no more in your refpect.

5 on this-] Old copy-of this. Corrected in the fecond folio. MALONE.

6a hilding,] A bilding is a paltry cowardly fellow. So, in King Henry V:

"To purge the field from fuch a hilding foe." STEEVENS. See note on the Second Part of K. Henry IV. A& I. fc. i. REED.

I LORD. On my life, my lord, a bubble. BER. Do you think, I am fo far deceived in him?

I LORD. Believe it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge, without any malice, but to speak of him as my kinsman, he's a moft notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promisebreaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your lordship's entertainment.

2 LORD. It were fit you knew him; left, repofing too far in his virtue, which he hath not, he might, at fome great and trufty business, in a main danger, fail you.

BER. I would, I knew in what particular action to try him.

2 LORD. None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which you hear him fo confidently undertake to do.

I LORD. I, with a troop of Florentines, will suddenly furprize him; fuch I will have, whom, I am fure, he knows not from the enemy: we will bind and hood-wink him fo, that he fhall fuppofe no other but that he is carried into the leaguer of the adverfaries, when we bring him to our tents: Be but your lordship prefent at his examination; if he do not, for the promise of his life, and in the highest compulfion of bafe fear, offer to betray you, and deliver all the intelligence in his power against you, and that with the divine forfeit of his

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7 -he's carried into the leaguer of the adverfaries,] i. e. camp.

They will not vouchfafe in their fpeaches or writings to use our ancient termes belonging to matters of warre, but doo call a campe by the Dutch name of Legar; nor will not affoord to say, that fuch a towne or fuch a fort is befieged, but that it is belegard.” Sir John Smythe's Difcourfes, &c. 1590. fo. 2. DOUCE.

foul upon oath, never truft my judgement in any thing.

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2 LORD. O for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he fays, he has a stratagem for't: when your lordship fees the bottom of his fuccefs in't, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of ore will be melted, if you give him not John Drum's entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed. Here he comes.

of his-] Old copy-of this. Corrected by Mr. Rowe.

MALONE.

MALONE.

of ore-] Old copy-of ours. Lump of ours has been the reading of all the editions. Ore, according to my emendation, bears a confonancy with the other terms accompanying, (viz. metal, lump, and melted,) and helps the propriety of the poet's thought: for fo one metaphor is kept up, and all the words are proper and suitable to it.

2

THEOBALD.

if you give him not John Drum's entertainment,] But, what is the meaning of John Drum's entertainment? Lafeu feveral times afterwards calls Parolles, Tom Drum. But the difference of the Chriftian name will make none in the explanation. There is an old motley interlude, (printed in 1601,) called Jack Drum's Entertainment: Or, The Comedy of Pafquil and Catharine. In this, Jack Drum is a fervant of intrigue, who is ever aiming at projects, and always foiled, and given the drop. And there is another old piece (publifhed in 1627) called, Apollo fbroving, in which I find thefe expreffions:

"Thuriger. Thou lozel, hath Slug infected you?

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Why do you give fuch kind entertainment to that cobweb? Scopas. It fhall have Tom Drum's entertainment: a flap with a fox-tail."

But both thefe pieces are, perhaps too late in time, to come to the affiftance of our author: fo we muft look a little higher. What is faid here to Bertram is to this effect: " My lord, as you have taken this fellow [Parolles] into fo near a confidence, if, upon his being found a counterfeit, you don't cafhier him from your favour, then your attachment is not to be removed." I will now fubjoin a quotation from Holinfhed, (of whofe books Shakspeare was a moft diligent reader) which will pretty well ascertain Drum's

Enter PAROLLES.

I LORD. O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the humour of his defign; let him fetch off his drum in any hand.3

BER. How now, monfieur? this drum fticks forely in your disposition.

2 LORD. A pox on't let it go; 'tis but a drum. PAR. But a drum! Is't but a drum? A drum fo

hiftory. This chronologer, in his defcription of Ireland, speaking of Patrick Sarfefield, (mayor of Dublin in the year 1551,) and of his extravagant hospitality, fubjoins, that no gueft had ever a cold or forbidding look from any part of his family: fo that his porter or any other officer, durft not, for both his eares, give the fimpleft man that reforted to his houfe, Tom Drum his entertaynement, which is, to hale a man in by the heade, and thruft him out by both the fhoulders. THEOBALD.

A contemporary writer has ufed this expreffion in the fame. manner that our author has done; fo that there is no reafon to fufpect the word John in the text to be a mifprint: "In faith good gentlemen, I think we shall be forced to give you right John Drum's entertainment, [i. e. to treat you very ill,] for he that compofed the book we should prefent, hath-fnatched it from us at the very inftant of entrance." Introduction to Jack Drum's Entertainment, a comedy, 1601. MALONE.

Again, in Taylor's Laugh and be fat, 78:

And whither now is Mons' Odcome come

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"Who on his owne backe-fide receiv'd his pay? "Not like the Entertainm of Jacke Drum, "Who was beft welcome when he went away." Again, in Manners and Customs of all Nations, by Ed. Afton, 1611, 4to. p. 280: " fome others on the contrarie part, give them John Drum's intertainm' reviling and beating them away from their houfes," &c. REED.

3_ in any hand.] The ufual phrafe is at any hand, but in any hand will do. It is ufed in Holland's Pliny, p. 456.—“ he must be a free citizen of Rome in any hand." Again, p. 508, 553, 546. STEEVENS,

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