but the old quarto, and firft folio editions of better authority have it thus, That face of his the hungry canibals Would not have touch'd, would not have ftain'd with blood. And this is fenfe. Could any one now have believed that an editor of common understanding should reject this, and faften upon the nonfenfe of a latter edition only because it afforded matter of conjecture: and yet Mr. Theobald will needs correct, rofes juft with blood, to rofes juic'd with blood, that is, change one blundering editor's nonfense for another. But if there ever was any meaning in the line, it was thus expreffed, Would not have ftain'd the rofes juft in bud. And this the Oxford editor hath efpoufed. WARB. P. 342. 1. 9. Methinks, 'tis prize enough to be his fon.] The old quarto reads pride, which is right, for ambition. i. e. We need not aim at any higher glory than this. WARB. Ibid.] I believe prize is the right word. Richard's sense is, though we have miffed the prize for which we fought, we have yet honour left that may content us. JOHNS. L. 11. and takes her farewel of the glorious fun,] Aurora takes for a time her farewel of the fun, when the difmiffes him to his diurnal course. JOHNS. L. 25. Blazing by our meeds,] Illuftrious and fhining by the armorial enfigns granted us as meeds of our great exploits. It might be plaufibly read, Blazing by our deeds. JOHNS. P. 343. 1. 6. Ob, fpeak no more!] The generous tenderness of Edward, and favage fortitude of Richard, are well diftinguished by their different reception of their father's death. JOHNS. P. 345. 1. 2. Is by the ftern lord Clifford done to death,] Done to death, for killed, was a common expreffion long before Shakespeare's time. Thus Chaucer, And feide, that if ye done us both to dien. GRAY. L. 28. Like the night-owl's lazy flight,] The image is not very congruous to the fubject, nor was it neceffary to the comparison, which is happily enough compleated by the thresher. JOHNS. 1. -- P. 347. 5. The eafy melting King, like wax,] So again in this play, of the lady Gray, As red as fire, nay, then her wax muft melt. JOHNS. P. 348. 1. 1. Why then it forts,] Why then as they fhould be. things are JOHNS. L. 22.] And harmless pity must be laid afide,] This reading, I don't know for what reafon, was introduc'd by Mr. Rowe, and follow'd by Mr. Pope: but all the old books have it rightly, barmful: meaning, that the King's lenity and pity were prejudicial to his interest. THEOB. P. 350. 1. 1. That things ill got bad ever bad fuccefs ] The Oxford editor is fcandalized at the harshness of this maxim, and therefore foftens it thus, That things ill-gotten have had bad fuccefs. L. 2. And happy always was it for that fon, WARB.* Whofe father for his boarding went to hell.] Mr. Rowe and Mr. Pope in this pointing have erred with fome of the old impreffions, and quite fubverted the poets meaning. They make the King affert a fentiment, which he, in fact is calling in queftion. I have reftor'd the true pointing from the old quarto, which Mr. Pope would have us believe he had collated. The King would argue thus; "Tho' 'tis a "general faying, that the fon is happy, whofe miferly fa"ther goes to the devil; yet is every fuch fon, without ex"ception, happy, in having had fuch a parfimonious fa"ther." THEOB.* L. 27. Darraign,] That is, range your hoft, put your hofts in order. But ftint I woll of Thefeus alite, And speke of Palamon, and of Arcite, JOHNS. That everich fhould a hundred knights bring, Skelton ufes the word in the fame fenfe. the duke of Albany' Works, p. 83. Thou durft not felde derayne, Nor a battayle mayntaine, For you ran home agayne. Speaking of GRAY. P. 352. 1. 24. ·I am refolv'd,] It is my firm perfuafion; I am no longer in doubt. JOHNS. P. 353. 1. 11. To let thy tongue detect,] To fhew thy meannefs of birth by the indecency of language with which thou raileft at my deformity. JOHNS. L. 12. A wifp of straw,] I fuppofe for an inftrument of correction that might difgrace but not hurt. JOHNS. L. 13. To make this shameless callat know herself,] Shakefpeare ufes the word callat likewife in the Winter's Tale, act ii. fc. iii. Leonatus of Paulina. A callat Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat Her husband, and now beats me. Callat, a lewd woman, a drab, perhaps fo called from the French calote, which was a fort of head-drefs, worn by country girls. See Gloffary to Urry's Chaucer. A cold old knave cuckolde himself winyng, to the Remedy of Love, 308. Chaucer's Prologue So Skelton, in his Elinour Rumming, works, p. 133. Then Elinour faid, ye callettes, I fhall break your palettes. And again, p. 136. She was a cumlye callet. Gammar. Vengeance on thofe callets whofe confcience is fo large. Gammar Gurton's Needle, act iii. fc. iii. Old Plays, published 1744, vol. i, p. 154. A cart for a callet, Id. ib. I have tane difguis'd. Ben Johnson's Volpone, act iv. fc. iii. L. 31. We faw our fun-fhine made thy fpring, GRAY.* And that thy fummer bred us no increase.] When we faw that by favouring thee we made thee grow in fortune, but that we received no advantage from thy fortune flourishing by our favour, we then resolved to destroy thee, and determine to try fome other means, though our first efforts have failed. JOHNS. P. 355.1. 5. Thy Brother's Blood the thirsty Earth bath drunk,] This paffage, from the variation of the copies, gave me no little perplexity. The old 4to applies the defcription to the death of Salisbury, Warwick's father. But this was a notorious deviation from the truth of history. For the earl of Salisbury in the battle at Wakefield, wherein Richard duke of York loft his life, was taken prifoner, beheaded at Pomfret, and his head, together with the duke of York's, fix'd over York-gates. Then, the only brother of Warwick, introduc'd in this play, is the marquess of Montacute; (or Mountague, as he is call'd by our author:) but he does not dye, till ten years after, in the battle at Barnet; where Warwick likewife was kill'd. The truth is, the brother here mention'd, is no person in the drama: and his death is only an incidental piece of hiftory. Confulting the chronicles, upon this action at Ferribridge, I find him to have been a natural fon of Salisbury, (in that refpect, a brother to Warwick ;) and esteem'd a valiant young gentleTHEOB. man. P. 357. 1. 21. methinks it were a happy life] This fpeech is mournful and foft, exquifitely fuited to the character of the king, and makes a pleafing interchange, by affording, amidst the tumult and horror of the battle, as unexpected glimpse of rural innocence and pastoral tranquillity. JOHNS. P. 358. fc. vii. These two horrible incidents are selected to fhow the innumerable calamities of civil war. JOHNS. P. 359. 1. 17. And let our hearts and eyes like civil war, Be blind with tears, and break o'er-charg'd with grief.] The meaning is here inaccurately expreffed. The king intends to say that the state of their hearts and eyes fhall be like that of the kingdom in a civil war, all fhall be destroyed by power formed within themselves. JOHNS. L. 29. What fratagems, -] Stratagem seems to ftand here only for an event of war, or may intend fnares and surprises. JOHNS. P. 360. 1. 1. O boy! thy father gave thee life too foon,] Because had he been born later he would not now have been of years to engage in this quarrel. JOHNS. And bath bereft thee of thy life too late] i. e. he should have done it by not bringing thee into being, to make both father and fon thus miferable. This is the fenfe, fuch as it is, of the two lines, however an indifferent fense was better than none, as it is brought to by the Oxford editor by reading the lines thus, O boy! thy father gave thee life too late, WARB. Ibid.] I rather think the meaning of the line, And bath bereft thee of thy life too late, to be this. Thy father expofed thee to danger by giving thee life too foon, and hath bereft thee of life by living himself too long. JOHNS. Ibid.] Dr. Warburton's interpretation is ftrange indeed! He fhould have taken away life, before be bad given it !" The father, having killed his fon, is lamenting those times of mifery and confufion, occafioned by the civil war : the general purport of these lines, therefore, feems to be no more than this; that, in fuch difaftrous times, a fhort life is the most defirable; and, the fooner one is out of them, the better. There is a paffage much of the fame caft, in Tarquin and Lucrece. Stanz. 258. O! quoth Lucretius, I did give that life; Which the too early and too late hath spilled. CAN.* L. 27. And fo obfequious will thy father be,] Obfequious is here careful of obfequies, or of funeral rites. JOHNS. L. 29. As Priam was for all] I having but one fon, will grieve as much for that one, as Priam, who had many, could grieve for many. JOHNS. P. 361. fc. ix. Enter Clifford wounded.] In the 1ft quarto, there is this circumftance added; Enter Clifford wounded, with an arrow in his neck. The players, in their edition, had reafon to make a retrenchment of this; for, no doubt, 'twas a point of ridicule to fee an actor come upon the ftage to die, with an arrow fixt in his neck. And this paffage I find rallied by Beaumont and Fletcher in their knight of the Burning Peftle. For Ralph, the grocer's prentice, is there introduc'd, with a forked arrow through his head; and makes a long burlesque harangue in a bantering imitation of Clifford's fpeech here. Take a fhort fample of his last dying words. Farewel, all you good boys in merry London, |