Glo. I go; And if you plead as well for them, As I can say nay to thee for myself, No doubt we'll bring it to a happy issue. Buck. Go, go, up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks. [Exit GLO. Now, Catesby! what says your lord to my request? He is within, with two right reverend fathers, Divinely bent to meditation; And in no worldly suit would he be mov❜d, To draw him from his holy exercise. Buck. Return, good Catesby, to the gracious duke; Tell him, myself, the mayor and aldermen, In deep designs, in matter of great moment, Are come to have some conference with his grace. But on his knees at meditation; Not dallying with a brace of courtezans, But, sure, I fear, we shall ne'er win him to it. May. Marry, God defend his grace should say us nay !7 4 As I can say nay to thee-] I think it must be read: if you plead as well for them As I must say, nay to them for myself Johnson. Perhaps the change is not necessary. Buckingham is to plead for the citizens; and if (says Richard) you speak for them as plausibly as I in my own person, or for my own purposes, shall seem to deny your suit, there is no doubt but we shall bring all to a happy issue. Steevens. 5 6 -day-bed,] i. e. a couch, or sofa Steevens. to engross —] To fatten; to pamper. Johnson. Buck. I fear, he will: Here Catesby comes again;Re-enter CATESBY. Now Catesby, what says his grace? Cates. He wonders to what end you have assembled Such troops of citizens to come to him, His grace not being warn'd thereof before: When holy and devout religious men [Exit CATES, Are at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence; Enter GLOSTER, in a Gallery, above, between Two May. See, where his grace stands 'tween two clergymen! Buck. Two props of virtue for a christian prince, And, see, a book of prayer in his hand; 7 God defend, his grace should say us nay!] This pious and courtly Mayor was Edmund Shaw, brother to Doctor Shaw, whom Richard had employed to prove his title to the crown, from the pulpit at Saint Paul's Cross. Malone. 8 between Two Bishops.] "At the last he came out of his chamber, and yet not downe to theim, but in a galary over theim, with a bishop on every hande of hym, where thei beneth might see hym and speake to hym, as though he woulde not yet come nere theim til he wist what they meant," &c. Hall's Chronicle. Farmer. So also, Holinshed after him. The words "with a bishop on every hande of hym," are an interpolation by Hall, or rather by Grafton, (See his Continuation of Harding's Chronicle, 1543, fol. 75,) not being found in Sir Thomas More's History of King Richard III, folio, 1557, from whom the rest of the sentence is tran scribed. Malone. 9- to know a holy man. n.] i. e. to know a holy man by. See note on Coriolanus, Act III, sc. ii, where several instances of a similar phraseology are given. Malone. And pardon us the interruption Of thy devotion, and right-christian zeal. Who, earnest in the service of my God, friends. But, leaving this, what is your grace's pleasure? Glo. I do suspect, I have done some offence, And that you come to reprehend my ignorance. grace, On our entreaties, to amend your fault! Glo. Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land? Buck. Know, then, it is your fault, that you resign The supreme seat, the throne majestical, The scepter'd office of your ancestors, Your state of fortune, and your due of birth, Whilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts, 1 her proper limbs;] Thus the quarto 1598. The folio has his limbs; an error which I should not mention, but that it jus tifies corrections that I have made in other places, where, for want of more ancient copies than one, conjectural emendation became necessary. Malone. 2 Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,] Shakspeare seems to have recollected the text on which Dr. Shaw preached his remarkable Sermon at Saint Paul's Cross: "Bastard slips shall never take deep root." Malone. 3 And almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf Of dark forgetfulness -] What it is to be shoulder'd in a gulph, Hanmer is the only editor who seems not to have known; for the rest let it pass without observation. He reads: Almost shoulder'd into th' swallowing gulph. I believe we should read: Which to recure, we heartily solicit Your gracious self to take on you the charge In this just suit come I to move your grace. And almost smoulder'd in the swallowing gulph. That is, almost smother'd, covered and lost. Johnson. I suppose the old reading to be the true one. So, in The Barons' Wars, by Drayton, canto i: "Stoutly t'affront and shoulder in debate." In is used for into. So before in this play: "But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave." Again, ibid: Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects." Shoulder'd has the same meaning as rudely thrust into. So, in a curious ancient paper quoted by Mr. Lysons in his Environs of London, Vol. III, p. 80, n. 1: "-lyke tyraunts and lyke madde men helpynge to shulderynge other of the sayd bannermen ynto the dyche," &c. Again, in Arthur Hall's translation of the second Iliad, 1581: "He preaseth him, him he again, shouldring ech one his feere." Steevens. 4 Which to recure,] To recure is to recover. This word is frequently used by Spenser; and both as a verb and a substantive in Lyly's Endymion, 1591. Steevens. 5 If, not to answer,] If I should take the former course, and depart in silence, &c. So below: "If, to reprove," &c. The editor of the second folio reads-For not to answer; and his capricious alteration of the text has been adopted by all the subsequent editors. This and the nine following lines are not in the quarto. Malone. So season'd with your faithful love to me, Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert That I would rather hide me from my greatness,- Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time, Which, God defend, that I should wring from him! All circumstances well considered. You say, that Edward is your brother's son; 8 6 As the ripe revenue and due of birth;] So the folio. The quarto 1598 thus: "As my right, revenue, and due by birth." A preceding line seems rather to favour the original reading: "Your right of birth, your empery, your own." The first quarto, [1597] I find, reads: "As my ripe revenew, and due by birth." Malone. 7 And much I need to help you,] And I want much of the ability requisite to give you help, if help were needed. Johnson. 8 — are nice and trivial,] Nice is generally used by Shak. speare in the sense of minute, trifling, of petty import. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "The letter was not nice, but full of charge." Malone. |