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A Note on Gadshill, Our Setter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Bertrand H. Bronson
Bertrand H. Bronson*
Affiliation:
University of California
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Extract

For a man of so questionable a reputation, Gadshill in Henry IV, Part 1, has been happy in escaping undue attention. He is, truly, one of Falstaff's “gentlemen of the shade.” His shady presence is of some interest, however, if only because he has kept good company for so long.

In the current texts of the play, Gadshill favors us with his actual person in three scenes. But his existence is amplified elsewhere in the play by the reference of other characters to him, directly and indirectly. Falstaff and Poins both mention him by name in the second scene of Act I; and the number of the robbers (excluding Hal and Poins) is six times given as four by the Prince and Falstaff, in the course of the second Act.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , September 1930 , pp. 749 - 753
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1930

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References

1 II. i; ii; iv.

2 Falstaff at I. ii. 118; Poins at I. ii. 142, 181. References are to the Oxford text, ed. W. J. Craig.

3 By the Prince in II. ii. 65; iv. 283, 286: by Falstaff in II. iv. 178, 183, 196.

4 I. ii. 180-2. Theobald's correction, embodied in these lines, will be dealt with presently.

5 I. ii. 202-7.

6 II. ii. 54-7. This follows the reading of the first Quarto. Johnson suggested making Bardolph the speaker of “What news?”, and giving the next speech to Gadshill, instead of to Bardolph. The Oxford text adopts this suggestion.

7 II. ii. 22 ff.

8 II. iv. 528-34.

9 II. iv. 332 ff.

10 Speeches attributed to him: II. i. 36, 38-9, 42, 46-7, 52, 54-7, 67-8, 73-91, 94-6, 100-1, 104-6; ii. 54, 63, 70; iv. 196, 198, 203-4. Oxford text gives II. ii. 58-60 also to Gadshill. The first Quarto gives II. iv. 195 to Gadshill, and 196, 198, 203-4 to “Rossil,” who, in I. ii. 181, had stood for Peto (?). Cf. later in this enquiry.

11 II. iv. 195-206.

12 There is a difficulty, perhaps serious, at II. iv. 178. Falstaff says: “There be four of us here have ta'en a thousand pound this day morning.” But it is not unreasonable to take here in its circumstantial, rather than its local, significance. Falstaff is the man to present a situation vividly.

13 H. A. Evans, author of the forewords of the Griggs photo-lithographic facsimile of Q1, notes that neither name occurs on the list of actors belonging to the Lord Chamberlain's company, and concludes that their connection must have been temporary.

14 Of the two possibilities, Bardolph and Peto, to be substituted for Rossil, Peto is here eliminated because of his speech already standing in the passage. Cf. above.