Plays and poems. With the corrections and illus. by various commentators: comprehending a life of the poet, and an enlarged history of the stage

THE

PLAYS AND POEMS

OF

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE,

WITH THE

CORRECTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

OF

VARIOUS COMMENTATORS:

COMPREHENDING

% Hifc of tjjc Poet,

AND

AN ENLARGED HISTORY OF THE STAGE,

I '■-

THE LAf E -EDMOND MALONE.

WITtl A NEW GLOSSARIJL INDEX.

TH2 <I>T2En2 TPAMMATETS HN, TON KAAAMON
AHOBPEXilN EI2 NOTN. Vet. Auct. apud Suidam.

VOL. XVIII.

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HENRY VI. PART I.

HENRY VI. PART II.

HENRY VI. PART III.

MR. MALONE'S DISSERTATION.

li^C

KING HENRY VI

PART I.

VOL. XVIII.

B

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

J. HE historical transactions contained in this play, take in the
compass of above thiry years. I must observe, however, that our
author, in the three parts of Heary VI. has not been very precise
to the date and disposition of his facts ; but shuffled them, back-
wards and forwards, out of time. For instance, the Lord Talbot
is killed at the end of the fourth Act of this play, who in reality
did not fall till the 13th of July, 14.53: and the Second Part of
Henry VI. opens with the marriage of the king, which was so-
lemnized eight years before Talbot's death, in the year l-i^S.
Again, in the Second Part, dame Eleanor Cobham is introduced
to insult Queen Margaret ; though her penance and banishment
for sorcery happened three years before that princess came over to
England. I could point out many other transgressions against
history, as far as the order nf time is concerned. Indeed, though
there are several master-strokes in these three plays, which in-
contestably betray the workmanship of Shakspeare ; yet I am
almost doubtful, whether they were entirely of his writing. And
unless they were wrote by him very early, I should rather imagine
them to have been brought to him as a director of the stage ;
and so have received some finishing beauties at his hand. An
accurate observer will easily see, the diction of them is more ob-
solete, and the numbers more mean and prosaical, than in the
generality of his genuine compositions. Theobald.

Having given my opinion very fully relative to these plays at
the end of The Third Part of King Henry VI. it is here only
necessary to apprise the reader what my hypothesis is, that he
may be the better enabled, as he proceeds, to judge concerning
its probability. Like many others, I was long struck with the
many evident SJtnksperiatiisms in these plays, which appeared to
me to carry such decisive weight, that I could scarcely bring my-
self to examine with attention any of the arguments that have
been urged against his being the author of them. I am now
surprised, (and my readers perhaps may say the same thing of
themselves,) that 1 should never have adverted to a very striking
circumstance which distinguishes this Jirst part from the other
parts of King Henry VI. This circumstance is, that none of
these Shaksperian passages are to be found here, though several
are scattered through the two other parts. I am therefore deci-
sively of opinion that this play was not written by Shakspeare.
riie reasons on which that opinion is founded, are stated at large

B 2

4, PRELIMINARY REMARKS. -

in the Dissertation above referred to. But I would here request
the reader to attend particularly to the versification of this piece,
(of which almost every line has a pause at the end,) which is so
different from that of Shakspeare's undoubted plays, and of the
greater part of the two succeeding pieces as altered by him, and
so exactly corresponds with that of the tragedies written by others
before and about the time of his first commencing author, that
this alone might decide the question, without taking into the ac-
count the numerous classical allusions which are found in this
first part. The reader will be enabled to judge how far this argu-
ment deserves attention, from the several extracts from those an-
cient pieces which he will find in the Essay on this subject.

With respect to the second and third parts of King Henry VI.
or, as they were originally called. The Contention of the Two
famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, they stand, in my appre-
hension, on a very different ground from that of this first part, or,
as I believe it was anciently called. The Play of King Henry VI.
— The Contention, &c. printed in two parts, in quarto, the
first part in ISS*, and the second in 1595, was, I conceive,
the produrtion of some playwright who preceded, or was con-
temporary with Shakspeare ; and out of that piece he formed
the two plays which are now denominated the Second smA Third
Parts of King Henry VI. ; as, out of the old plays of King
John and The Taming of the Shrew, he formed two new plays
with the same titles. For the reasons on which this opinion is
formed, I must again refer to my Essay on this subject.

This old play of King Henry VI. now before us, or as our au-
thor's editors have called it, the First Part of King Henry VI. I
suppose, to have been written in 1589, or before. See An At-
tempt to ascertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, vol. ii. The
disposition of facts in these three plays, not always corresponding
with the dates, which Mr. Theobald mentions, and the want of
uniformity and consistency in the series of events exhibited, may
perhaps be in some measure accounted for by the hypothesis now
stated. As to our author's having accepted these pieces as a Di-
rector oi\\\e stage, he had, I fear, no pretension to such a situa-
tion at so early a period. Malone.

The chief argument on which the first paragraph of the foregoing
note depends, is not, in my opinion, conclusive. This historical
play might have been one of our author's earliest dramatick
efforts : and almost every young poet begins his career by imita-
tion. Shakspeare, therefore, till he felt his own strength, per-
haps servilely conformed to the style anddmanner of his predeces-
sors. Thus, the captive eaglet describe by Rowe :
" — — a while endures his cage and chains,
" And like a prisoner with the clown remains :
" But when his plumes shoot forth, his pinions swell,
" He quits the rustick and his homely cell.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 5

" Breaks from his bonds, and in the face of day
" Full in the sun's bright beams he soars away."
What further remarks I may offer on this subject, will appear
in the form of notes to Mr. Malone's Essay, from which I do
not wantonly differ, — though hardily, I confess, as far as my
sentiments may seem to militate against those of Dr. Farmer.

SxEEVENSt

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

King Henry the Sixth.

Duke of Gloster, Uncle to the King, and Protector.

Duke of Bedford, Uncle to the King, and Regent of France.

Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, great Uncle to the
King.

Henry Beaufort, great Uncle to the King, Bishop of Win-
chester, and afterwards Cardinal.

John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset ; afterwards, Duke.

Richard Plantagenet, eldest Son of Richard late Earl
of Cambridge ; afterwards Duke of York.

Earl of Warwick.

Earl of Salisbury.

Eakl of Suffolk.

Lord Talbot, afterwards Earl of Shrewsbury:

John Talbot, his Son.

Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March.

Mortimer's Keeper, and a Lawyer.

Sir John Fastolfe.

Sir William Lucy.

Sir William Glansdale.

Sir Thomas Gargrave.

Mayor of London. Woodville, Lieutenant of the Tower.

Vernon, of the White Rose, or York Faction.

Basset, of the Red Rose, or Lancaster Faction.

Charles, Dauphin, and afterwards King of France.

Reignier, Duke of Anjou, and titular King of Naples.

Duke of Burgundy.

Duke of ALEN90N.

Governor of Paris,

Bastard of Orleans.

Master Gunner of Orleans, and his Son.

General of the French Forces in Bourdeaux.

A French Sergeant.

A Porter.

An old Shepherd, Father to Joan la Pucelle.

Margaret, Daughter to Reignier; afterwards married to

King Henry.
Countess of Auvergne.
Joan la Pucelle, commonly called Joan of Arc.

Fiends appearing to La Pucelle, Lords, Warders of the
Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and several
Attendants both on the English and French.

SCENE, partly in England, and partly in France.

FIRST PART OF

KING HENRY VI.

ACT I. SCENE I.
Westminster Abbey.

Dead march. Corpse of King Henry the Fifth
discovered, lying in state; attended on by the
Dukes of Bedford, Gloster, and Exeter ; the
Earl of Wartvick^, the Bishop of IFinchester,
Heralds, S^^c.

Bed. Hung be the heavens with black ^ yield day
to night !
Comets, importing change of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses '^ in the sky ;

I — ea7-l o/Warwick ;] The Earl of JVanvick who makes
his appearance in the first scene of this play is Richard Beau-
champ, who is a character in King Henry V. The Earl who ap-
pears in the subsequent part of it, is Richard Nevil, son to the
Earl of Salisbury, who became possessed of the title in right of
his wife, Anne, sister of Henry Beauchamp^ Duke of Warwick,
on the death of Anne his only child in H'ig. Richard, the father
of this Henry, was appointed governor to the king, on the demise
of Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, and died in 1439. There
is no reason to think that the author meant to confound the two
characters. Ritson.

^ Hung be the heavens with black,] Alluding to our ancient
stage-practice when a tragedy was to be expected. So, in Sid-
ney's Arcadia, book ii. : "There arose, even with the sunne, a
vaile of darke cloudes before his face, which shortly had blacked
over all the face of heaven, preparing (as it were) a mournfull
stage for a tragedie to be played on." See also Mr. Malone's
Historical Account of the English Stage. Steevens.

3 Brandish your crystal tresses — ] Crystal is an epithet re-

8 FIRST PART OF act i.

And with them scourge the bad revolting stars.
That have consented ^ unto Henry's death I

peatedly bestowed on comets by our ancient writers. So, in a
Sonnet, by Lord Sterline, 1604? :

" When as those chrystal comets whiles appear."
Spenser, in his Faiiy Queen, book i. c. x. applies it to a lady's
face :

" Like sunny beams threw from her chrystal face."
Again, in an ancient song entitled The falling out of Lovers is
the renewing of Love :

" You chrystal planets shine all clear
" And light a lover's way."
" There is also a xvhite comet with silver haires," says Pliny, as
translated by P. Holland, 1601. Steevens.

4 That have consented — ] If this expression means no
more than that the stars gave a bare consent, or agreed to let
King Henry die, it does no great honour to its author. I believe
to consent, in this instance, means to act in concert. Conceiitus,
Lat. Thus Erato the muse, applauding the song of Apollo, in
Lyly's Midas, 1592, cries out : " O sweet coH5f Hi .'" i.e. sweet
union of sounds. Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. iv. c. ii. :
" Such musick his wise words with time consented.'"
Again, in his translation of Virgil's Culex :

" Chaunted their sundry notes with sweet concent."
Again, in Chapman's version of the 24th book of Homer's
Odyssey :

" • all the sacred nine
" Of deathless muses, paid thee dues divine :
" By varied turns their heavenly voices venting ;
" All in deep passion for thy death consenting."
Consented, or as it should be spelt, concented, means, have
throxvn themselves into a malignant configuration, to promote the
death of Henry. Spenser, in more than one instance, spells this
word as it appears in the text of Shakspeare, as does Ben Jonson,
in his Epithalamion on Mr. Weston. The following lines,

" shall we curse the planets of mishap,

" That plotted thufi," &c.
seem to countenance my explanation ; and Falstaff says of

Shallow's servants, that " they flock together in consent, like

so many wild geese." See also Tully de Natura Deorum, lib. ii.
ch. xlvi. : " Nolo in stellarum ratione multus vobis videri, maxi-
mique earum quae errare dicuntu''. Quarum tantus est concentus
ex dissimilibus motibus," &c.

Milton uses the word, and with the same meaning, in his,
Penseroso :

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 9

King Henry the fifth \ too famous to live long*' !
England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.

Glo. England ne'er had a king, until his time.
Virtue he had, deserving to command :
His brandish'd sword did blind men with his

beams;
His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings ^ ;
His sparkling eyes replete with wrathful fire,
More dazzled and drove back his enemies,
Than mid-day sun, fierce bent against their faces.
What should 1 say ? his deeds exceed all speech :

" Whose power hath a true consent
" With planet, or with element." Steevens.
Steevens is right in his explanation of the word consented. So,
in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, the Merchant says to
Merrythought :

" ■ too late, I well perceive,

" Thou art consenting to my daughter's loss."
and in The Chances, Antonio, speaking of the wench who robbed
him, says :

" And also the fiddler who was conse7iting with her."
meaning the fiddler that was her accomplice.

The word appears to be used in the same sense in the fifth
scene of this Act, where Talbot says to his troops :
" You all consented unto Salisbury's death,
" For none would strike a stroke in his revenge."

M. Mason.
Consent, in all the books of the age of Elizabeth, and long
afterwards, is the usual spelling of the word concent. See vol. xi.
p. 92, n. 3. In other places I have adopted the modern and
more proper spelling ; but, in the present instance, I apprehend,
the word was used in its ordinary sense. In the second Act,
Talbot, reproaching the soldiery, uses the same expression,
certainly without any idea of a malignant configuration :

" You all consented unto Salisbury's death." Malone,
5 Henry the fifth,] Old copy, redundantly, — " King Henry,"
&C. Steevens.

^ — too famous to live long !] So, in King Richard III. :
" So wise so young, they say, do ne'er live long."

Steevens.
7 His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings ;] So, in
Troilus and Cressida :

" The dragon twig of night overspreads the earth."

Steevens.

10 FIRST PART OF act i.

He ne'er lift up his hand, but conquered.

ExE. We mourn in black ; Why mourn we not
in blood ?
Henry is dead, and never shall revive :
Upon a wooden coffin we attend ;
And death's dishonourable victory
We with our stately presence glorify.
Like captives bound to a triumphant car.
What ? shall we curse the planets of mishap.
That plotted thus our glory's overthrow ?
Or shall we think the subtle-witted French ^
Conjurers and sorcerers, that, afraid of him,
By magick verses have contriv'd his end ?

fViN. He was a king bless d of the King of
kings.
Unto the French the dreadful judgment day
So dreadful will not be, as was his sight.
The battles of the Lord of hosts he fought :
The church's prayers made him so prosperous.

Glo. The church ! where is it ? Had not church-
men pray'd.
His thread of life had not so soon decay'd :
None do you like but an effeminate prince,
Whom, like a school-boy, you may over-awe.

Win. Gloster, whate'er we like, thou art pro-
tector ;
And lookest to command the prince, and realm.
Thy wife is proud ; she holdeth thee in awe.
More than God, or religious churchmen, may.

^ — the subtle-witted French, &c.] There was a notion pre-
valent a long time, that life might be taken away by metrical
charms. As superstition grew weaker, these charms were ima-
gined only to have power on irrational animals. In our author's
time it was supposed that the Irish could kill rats by a song.

Johnson.

So, in Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, \5S^ : " The
Irishmen addict themselves, &c. yea they will not sticke to
affirnic that they can rime cither man or beast to death."

Steevens.

SCI. KING HENRY VI. 11

Glo. Name not religion, for thou lovst the flesh;
And ne'er throughout the year to church thou go'st,
Except it be to pray against thy foes.

Bed. Cease, cease these jars, and rest your minds
in peace !
Let's to the altar : — Heralds, wait on us : —
Instead of gold, we'll offer up our arms ;
Since arms avail not, now that Henry's dead. —
Posterity, await for wretched years,
When at their mothers' moisten' d eyes° babes shall

suck ;
Our isle be made a nourish of salt tears ',

9 — MOIST eyes — ] Thus the second folio. The first, redun-
dantly,— moistened. Steevkns.

I Our isle be made a nourish of salt tears,] Mr. Pope — nia-
rish. All the old copies read, a nourish : and considering it is
said in the line immediately preceding, that babes shall suck at
their mothers' moist eyes, it seems very probable that our author
wrote, a nourice, i. e. that the ivhole isle should be one common
nurse, or nourislier, of tears : and those be the nourishment of its
miserable issue. Theobald.

Was there ever such nonsense ! But he did not knov/ that ma-
risk is an old word for mnrsli or fen ; and therefore very judiciously
thus corrected by Mr. Pope. Warburton.

We should certainly read — marish. So, in The Spanish Tra-
gedy :

' " Made mountains marsh, with spring-tides of my tears."

RiTSON.

I have been informed, that what we call at present a stew, in
which fish are preserved alive, was anciently called a nourish.
Nourice, however, Fr. a nurse, was anciently spelt many difterent
ways, among which nourish was one. So, in Syr Eglamour of
Artois, bl. 1. no date :

*' Of that chylde she was blyth,
" After noryshes she sent belive."
A nourish therefore in this passage of our author may signify a
nurse, as it apparently does in The Tragedies of John Bochas, by
Lydgate, b. i. c. xii. :

" Athenes whan it was in his floures

" Was called nourish of philosophers wise."

'. Jubae tellus generat, leonum

Arida nutrix. Steevens.

12 FIRST PART OF act i.

And none but women left to wail the dead. —
Henry the fifth ! thy ghost I invocate ;
Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils !
Combat with adverse planets in the heavens !
A far more glorious star thy soul will make.
Than Julius Caesar, or bright ^

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My honourable lords, health to you all !
Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,
Of loss, of slaughter, and discomfiture :
Guienne, Champaigne, Rheims, Orleans '\

Spenser, in his Ruins of Time, uses nourice as an English
word :

" Chaucer, the nourice of antiquity." Malone.

" Than Julius Ceesar, or bright — ] I can't guess the occasion
of the hemistich and imperfect sense in this place ; 'tis not impos-
sible it might have been filled up with — Francis Drake, though
that were a terrible anachronism (as bad as Hector's quoting
Aristotle in Troilus and Cressida) ; yet perhaps at the time that
brave Englishman was in his glory, to an English-hearted audience,
and pronounced by some favourite actor, the thing might be po-
pular, though not judicious ; and, therefore, by some critick in fa-
vour of the author, afterwards struck out. But this is a mere
slight conjecture. Pope.

To confute the slight conjecture of Pope, a whole page of ve-
hement opposition is annexed to this passage by Theobald. Sir
Thomas Hanmerhas stopped at Ccesar — perhaps more judiciously.
It might, however, have been written — or bright Berenice.

Johnson.

Pope's conjecture is confirmed by this peculiar circumstance,
that two blazing stars (the Ju/imn sidiis) are part of the arms of
the Drake family. It is well known that families and arms were
much more attended to in Shakspeare's time, than they are at this
day. M. Mason.

This blank undoubtedly arose from the transcriber's or compo-
sitor's not being able to make out the name. So, in a subsequent
passage the word Nero was omitted for the same reason. See the
Dissertation at the end of the third part of King Henry VI.

Malone.

3 Guienne, Champaigne, Rheims, Orleans,] This verse might
be completed [as Mr. Capell observes] by the insertion oi Roiien

sc. I. KING IIENUY VI. 13

Paris, Gaysors, Poictiers, are all quite lost.

Bed. What say st thou, man, before dead Henry's
corse ?

Speak softly ; or the loss of those great towns

Will make him burst his lead, and rise from death.
Glo. Is Paris lost ? is Roiien yielded up ?

If Henry were recall'd to life again.

These news would cause him once more yield the
ghost.
Exi:. How were they lost ? what treachery was

us'd ?
Mess. No treachery ; but want of men and mo-
ney.

Among the soldiers this is muttered, —

That here you maintain several factions ;

And, whilst a field should be despatch'd and fought.

You are disputing of your generals.

One would have ling'ring wars, with little cost ;

Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings ;

A third thinks *, without expence at all,

By guileful fair words peace may be obtain'd.

Awake, awake, Enghsh nobiHty !

Let not sloth dim your honours, new-begot :

Cropp'd are the flower-de-luces in your arms ;

Of England's coat one half is cut away.

ExE. Were our tears wanting to this funeral.

These tidings would call forth her flowing tides \
Bed. Me they concern ; regent I am of France : —

Give me my steeled coat. 111 fight for France. —

Away with these disgraceful wailing robes !

among the places lost, as Gloster in his next speech infers that it
had been mentioned with the rest. Steevens.

4 A third man thinks,] Thus the second folio. The first omits
the word— maw, and consequently leaves the verse imperfect.

Steevens.

5 — HER flowing tides.] i. e. England's flowing tides.

Malone.

14 FIRST PART OF act i.

Wounds I will lend the French, instead of eyes.
To weep their intermissive miseries*'.

Enter another Messem^er.

2 Mess. Lords, view these letters, full of bad
mischance,
France is revolted from the English quite ;
Except some petty towns of no import :
The Dauphin Charles is crowned king in Rheims ;
The bastard of Orleans with him is join'd ;
Reignier, duke of Anjou, doth take his part ;
The duke of Alenqon flieth to his side.

ExE. The Dauphin crowned king ! all fly to him !
O, whither shall we fly from this reproach ?

Glo. We will not fly, but to our enemies'
throats : —
Bedford, if thou be slack, Fll fight it out.

Bed. Gloster, why doubt st thou of my forward-
ness?
An army have I muster'd in my thoughts.
Wherewith already France is over-run.

Enter a third Messeno-er.

3 Mess. My gracious lords, — to add to your la-
ments.
Wherewith you now bedew king Henry's hearse, —
I must inform you of a dismal fight.
Betwixt the stout lord Talbot and the French.

fViy. What ! wherein Talbot overcame ? is't so ?

3 Mess. O, no ; wherein lord Talbot was o'er-
thrown :
The circumstance Fll tell you more at large.
The tenth of August last, this dreadful lord,

" — their intermissivc miseries.] i. e. their miseries, which
have had only a short intermission from Henrv the Fifth's death
to my comini^ amongst them. \Vakbukton. '

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 15

Retiring from the siege of Orleans,

Having full scarce six thousand in his troop \

By three and twenty thousand of the French

Was round encompassed and set upon :

No leisure had he to enrank his men ;

He wanted pikes to set before his archers ;

Instead whereof, sharp stakes, pluck'd out of hedges,

They pitched in the ground confusedly,

To keep the horsemen off from breaking in.

More than three hours the fight continued ;

Where valiant Talbot, above human thought.

Enacted wonders ^ with his sword and lance.

Hundreds he sent to hell, and none durst stand him ;

Here, there, and every where, enrag'd he slew ^ :

The French exclaim'd. The devil was in arms ;

All the whole army stood agaz'd on him :

His soldiers, spying his undaunted spirit,

A Talbot ! a Talbot ! cried out amain,

And rush'd into the bowels of the battle \

Here had the conquest fully been seal'd up,

If sir John Fastolfe ^ had not play'd the coward ;

7 Having full scarce, &c.] The modern editors read — scarce
Jidl, but, I think, unnecessarily. So, in The Tempest :

■" — — Prospero, master of difull poor cell." Steevens.

^ above human thought.

Enacted WONDERS — ] So, in King Richard III. :

" The king enacts more ivoiiders than a man." Steevens.
9 — he SLEW :] I suspect the author wrote Jiew. Malone.
• And rush'd into the bowels of the battle.] Again, in the
fifth Act of this play :

" So, rushing in the boivels of the French."
The same phrase had occurred in the first part of Jeronimo,
1605:

" Meet, Don Andrea ! yes, in the battle's bowels."

Steevens.
^ If sir John Fastolfe, &c.] Mr. Pope has taken notice, " That
Falstaff is here introduced again, who was dead in Henry V. The
occasion whereof is, that this play was written before King
Henry IV. or King Henry V." But it is the historical Sir .John
Fastolfe (for so he is called in both our Chroniclers) that is here
mentioned ; who was a lieutenant general, deputy regent to the

IG FIRST PART OF act i.

He being in the vaward, (plac'd behind "^^
With purpose to relieve and follow them,)
Cowardly fled, not having struck one stroke.
Hence grew the general wreck and massacre ;
Enclosed were they with their enemies :
A base Walloon, to win the Dauphin's grace.
Thrust Talbot with a spear into the back ;

duke of Bedford in Nor.nandy, and a knight of the garter; and
not the comick character afterwards introduced by our author,
and which was a creature merely of his own brain. Nor when he
named him Fahtaff do 1 believe he had any intention of throw-
ing a slur on the memory of this renowned old warrior.

Theobald.
Mr. Theobald might have seen his notion contradicted in the
very line he quotes from. Fasto/fe, whether truly or not, is said
by Hall and Holinshed to have been degraded for cowardice. Dr.
Heylin, in his Saint George for England, tells us, that " he was
afterwards, upon good reason bv him alledged in his defence, re-
stored to his honour." — " This Sir John Fastolfe," continues he,
" was, without doubt, a valiant and wise captain, notwithstanding
the stage hath made merry with him." Farmer.

See vol xvi. p. 410; and Oldys's Life of Sir John Fastolfe in
the General Dictionary. Malone.

In the 18th Song of Drayton's Polyolbion is the following cha-
racter of this Sir John Fastolph :

" Strong Fastolph with this man compare we justly may;
" By Salsbury who oft being seriously imploy'd
" In many a brave attempt the general foe annoy'd ;
" With excellent successe in Main and Anjou fought,
" And many a bulwarke there into our keeping brought ;
" And chosen to go forth with Vadamont in waiTC,
" Most resolutely tooke proud Renate duke of Barre."

Steevens.
For an account of this Sir John Fastolfe, see Anstis's Treatise
on the Order of the Garter ; Parkins's Supplement to Blomfield's
History of Norfolk ; Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannica ; or Capel's
notes, vol. ii. p. 221 ; and Sir John Fenn's Collection of the Paston
Letters. Reed.

3 He being in the vaward, (plac'd behind,] Some of the edi-
tors seem to have considered this as a contradiction in terms, and
have proposed to read — the rearxvard, — but without necessity.
Some part of the van must have been behind the foremost line of
it. We often say the back front of a house. Steevens.

When an army is attacked in the rear, the van becomes the
rear in its turn, and of course the reserve. M. Mason.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 17

Whom all France, with their chief assembled

strength,
Durst not presume to look once in the face.

Bed. Is Talbot slain ? then I will slay myself,
For living idly here, in pomp and ease,
Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid.
Unto his dastard foe-men is betray'd.

3 Mess. O no, he lives ; but is took prisoner,
And lord Scales with him, and lord Hungerford :
Most of the rest slaughter'd, or took, likewise.

Bed. His ransom there is none but I shall pay :
I'll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne,
His crown shall be the ransom of my friend;
Four of their lords I'll change for one of ours. —
Farewell, my masters ; to my task will I ;
Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make,
To keep our great Saint George's feast withal :
Ten thousand soldiers with me 1 will take.
Whose bloody deeds shall make all Europe quake.

3 Mess. So you had need; for Orleans is be-
sieg'd ;
The English army is grown weak and faint :
The earl of Salisbury craveth supply,
And hardly keeps his men from mutiny.
Since they, so few, watch such a multitude.

ExE. Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry
sworn ;
Either to quell the Dauphin utterly.
Or bring him in obedience to your yoke.

Bed. I do remember it ; and here take leave,
To go about my preparation. \_E.vit.

Glo. ril to the Tower, with all the haste I can.
To view the artillery and munition ;
And then I will proclaim young Henry king. {^E.vit.

Exe. To Eltham will I, where the young king is.
Being ordain'd his special governor ;
And for his safety there I'll best devise. [E.vit.

VOL. xviii. c

18 FIRST PART OF act i.

If IN. Each hath his place and function to at-
tend :
I am left out ; for me nothing remains.
But long I will not be Jack-out-of-office ;
The king from Eltham I intend to send,
And sit at chiefest stern of pubHc weal*.

\_E.vit. Scene closes.

SCENE II.
France. Before Orleans.

Enter Charles, with his Forces ; Alexcon,
Reigxier, and Others.

Char. Mars his true moving \ even as in the
heavens,

* The king from Eltham I intend to send,
And sit at cliiefest stern of public weal.] The King was not
at this time so much in the power of the Cardinal, that he could
send him where he pleased. I have therefore no doubt but that
there is an error in this passage, and that it should be read thus :
" The king from Eltham I intend to steal,
" And sit at chiefest stern of publick weal."
This slight alteration preserves the sense, and the rhyme also,
with which many scenes in this play conclude. The King's per-
son, as ajjpears from the speech immediately preceding this of
Winchester, was under the care of the Duke of Exeter, not of the
Cardinal :

" Exe. To Eltham will I, where the young king is,
" Being ordain'd his special governor." M. Mason.
The second charge in the Articles of Acusation preferred by the
Duke of Gloster against the Bishop, (Hall's Chron. Henry VI.
f. 12, b.) countenances this conjecture. Malone.

The disagreeable clash of the words — intend and send, seems
indeed to confirm the propriety of Mr. M. Mason's emendation.

Steevsns.
5 Mars his true moving, &c.] So, Nash, in one of his prefaces
before Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is Up, 1596 : " You areas ignorant
in the true movings of my muse, as the astronomers are in the
true movings of Mars, which to this day they could never attain
to.' Steevens.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 19

So in the earth, to this day is not known :

Late did he shine upon the English side :

Now we are victors upon us he smiles.

What towns of any moment, but we have ?

At pleasure here we lie, near Orleans;

Otherwhiles, the famish'd English, like pale ghosts,

Faintly besiege us one hour in a month.

Alen. They want their porridge, and their fat
bull-beeves :
Either they must be dieted like mules.
And have their provender tyed to their mouths.
Or piteous they will look, like drowned mice.

Reig. Let's raise the siege; Why live we idly
here ?
Talbot is taken, whom we wont to fear:
Remaineth none but mad-brain'd Salisbury ;
And he may well in fretting spend his gall.
Nor men, nor money, hath he to make war.

Char. Sound, sound alarum ; we will rush on
them.
Now for the honour of the forlorn French : —
Him I forgive my death, that killeth me.
When he sees me go back one foot, or fly.

\Eoceunt.

Alarums; Excursions; afterwards a Retreat.

Re-enter Charles^ Alencon, Reignier, and

Others.

Char. Who ever saw the like ? what men have
IP-
Dogs ! cowards ! dastards ! — I would ne'er have fled.
But that they left me 'midst my enemies.

Reig. Salisbury is a desperate homicide ;
He fighteth as one weary of his life.
The other lords, like lions wanting food,

c 2

20 FIRST PART OF ^ct i.

Do rush upon us as their hungry prey^.

Alex. Froissard, a countryman of ours, records,
England all Olivers and Rowlands bred '',
During the time Edward the third did reign.
More truly now may this be verified ;
For none but Samsons, and Goliasses,
It sendeth forth to skirmish. One to ten !
Lean raw-bon'd rascals ! who would e'er suppose
They had such courage and audacity ?

Char. Let's leave this town ; for they are hair-
brain'd slaves.
And hunger will enforce them to be more eager ^:
Of old I know them ; rather with their teeth
The walls they'll tear down, than forsake the siege.

Reig. I think, by some odd gimmals ^ or device,

^ — as their hungry pvey.] I believe it should be read :
" as their hungred prey." Johnson.

I adhere to the old reading, which appears to signify — * the
prey for which they are hungry.' Steevens.

7 England all Olivers and Rowlands bred,] These were two
of the most famous in the list of Charlemagne's twelve peers ;
and their exploits are rendered so ridiculously and equally extra-
vagant by the old romancers, that from thence arose that saying
amongst our plain and sensible ancestors, of ' giving one a Row-
land for his Oliver,' to signify the matching one incredible lie with
another. Warbukton.

Rather, to oppose one hero to another ; i. e. " to give a person
as good a one as he brings." Steevens,

The old copy has — breed. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. Malone.

^ And hunger will enforce them to be more eager :] The pre-
position to should be omitted, as injurious to the measure, and
imnecessary in the old elliptical mode of writing. So, Act IV.
So. I. of this play :

" Let me persuade you take a better course."
i. e. to take, &.c. The error pointed out, occurs again in p. 30:
" Piel'd priest, dost thou command me to be shut out ? "

Steevens.

9 — gimmals-—] A gimmnl is a piece of jointed work,
where one piece moves within another, whence it is taken at
large for an engine. It is now by the vulgar called a gimcrack.

Johnson.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 21

Their arms are set, like clocks \ still to strike on ;
Else ne'er could they hold out so, as they do.
By my consent, we'll e'en let them alone.
Alen. Be it so.

Enter the Bastard of Orleans.

Bast. Where's the prince Dauphin .^ I have news

for him.
Char. Bastard of Orleans '\ thrice welcome to us.

In the inventory of the jewels, &c. belonging to Salisbury
cathedral, taken in 1536, 28th of Henry VIII. is " A faire chest
with gimmals and key." Again : '• Three other chests with
gimmals of silver and gilt." Again, in The Vow-breaker, or
The faire Maide of Clifton, 1636 :

" My actes are like the motionall gymmals
" Fixt in a watch."
See also King Henry V. Act IV. Sc. II. Steevens.
' Their arms are set, like clocks,] Perhaps our author was
thinking of the clocks in which figures in the shape of men
struck the hours. Of these there were many in his time.

Malone.
To go like clockwork, is still a phrase in common use, to ex-
press a regular and constant motion. Steevens.

^ Bastard of Orleans,] That this in former times was not a
term of reproach, see Bishop Hurd's Letters on Chivalry and
Romance, in the third volume of his Dialogues, p. 233, who
observing on circumstances of agreement between the heroick
and Gothick manners, says, that " Bastardy was in credit with
both," One of William the Conqueror's charters begins, " Ego
Gulielmus cognomento Bastardus." And in the reign of Ed-
ward I. John Earl Warren and Surrey being called before the
King's Justices to show by what title he held his lands, " produxit
in medium gladium antiquum evaginatum — et ait, Ecce Domini
mei, ecce warrantum meum ! Antecessores mei cum Willo Bas-
tardo venientes conquesti sunt terras suas," &c. Dzigd. Qrig.
Jurid. p. 13. Dugd. Bar. of Erigl. vol. i. Blount 9.

*' Le Bastarde de Savoy," is inscribed over the head of one of
the figures in a curious picture of the Battle of Pavja, in the
Ashmolean Museum. In Fenn's Paston Letters, vol. iii. p. 72-3,
in the articles of impeachment against the Duke of Suffolk, we
read of the " Erie of Danas, bastard of Orlyaunce — ."

Vaillant.
Bastardy was reckoned no disgrace among the ancients. See

22 FIRST PART OF act i.

Bast. Methinks, your looks are sad, your cheer
appall d ^ ;
Hath the late overthrow wrought this offence ?
Be not dismay'd, for succour is at hand :
A holy maid hither with me I bring,
Which, by a vision sent to her from heaven.
Ordained is to raise this tedious siege,
And drive the English forth the bounds of France.
The spirit of deep prophecy she hath,
Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome * ;
What's past and what's to come, she can descry.
Speak, shall I call her in ? Believe my words %
For they are certain and unfallible.

Char. Go, call her in : \_E.vit Bastard.^ But,
first, to try her skill,
Reignier, stand thou as Dauphin in my place :

the eighth Iliad, in which the illegitimacy of Teucer is mentioned
as a panegyrick upon him, ver. 284 :

Kaj (TE, voSov OTrp eOVT«, XOp.ia<TUTO Ci3 Ivi o'lTta.

Steeveks.
Mr. Steevens's quotation rather tends to overthrow the position
which it is brought to support : voSov HEP sovra. means although
he was a bastard. Yet he might have produced the authority
of Eustathius in favour of his explanation of the passage in
Homer. See Potter's Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 377, edit. 1715,
where this topick is fully discussed. Boswell.

3 — your CHEER appall'd ;] Cheer in jollitt/, gaiety.

M. Mason.
Cheer, rather signifies — countenance. So, in A Midsummer-
Night's Dream :

" All fancy-sick she is, and pale of cheer."
See vol. V. p. 265, n. 2. Steevens.

4 — NINE SIBYLS of old Rome ;] There were no nine sibyls
of Rome ; but he confounds things, and mistakes this for the nine
books of Sibylline oracles, brought to one of the Tarquins.

Warburton.
^ — Believe my words,] It should be read :

" Believe ^er words." Johnson.

I perceive no need of change. The Bastard calls upon the
Dauphin to believe the extraordinary account he has just given
of the prophetick spirit and prowess of the Maid of Orleans.

Malone.

sc. II. KING HENRY VL 23

Question her proudly, let thy looks be stern : —
By this means shall we sound what skill she hath.

\Retires.

Enter La Pucelle, Bastai^d of Orleans, and

Others.

Reig. Fair maid, is't thou wilt do these wond'rous
feats ?

Puc. Reignier, is't thou that thinkest to beguile
me ? —
Where is the Dauphin ? — come, come from behind :
I know thee well, though never seen before.
Be not amaz'd, there's nothing hid from me :
In private will I talk with thee apart ; —
Stand back, you lords, and give us leave a while.

Reig. She takes upon her bravely at first dash.

Puc. Dauphin, I am by birth a shepherd's daugh-
ter,
My wit untrain'd in any kind of art.
Heaven and our Lady gracious, hath it pleas'd
To shine on my contemptible estate ^ :
Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs,
And to sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks,
God's mother deigned to appear to me :
And, in a vision full of majesty ^
Will'd me to leave my base vocation.
And free my country from calamity :
Her aid she promis'd, and assur'd success :
In complete glory she reveal'd herself;
And, whereas I was black and swart before.
With those clear rays which she infus'd on me,

^ To shine on my contemptible estate:] So, in Daniel's Com-
plaint of Rosamond, 1594-:

" . tliy kimg, &c.

" Lightens forth gloiy on thy dark estate." Steevens.
7 — a VISION full of MAJESTY,] So, in The Tcmpest :
" This is a most majestick vision — ." Steevens.

24 FIRST PART OF act i.

That beauty am I bless'd with, which you may see^.

Ask me what question thou canst possible.

And I will answer unpremeditated :

My courage try by combat, if thou dar'st.

And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.

Resolve on this'^ : Thou shalt be fortunate.

If thou receive me for thy warlike mate.

Char. Thou hast astonish'd me with thy high
terms ;

Only this proof I'll of thy valour make, —

In single combat thou shalt buckle with me ;

And, if thou vanquishest, thy words are true ;

Otherwise, I renounce all confidence.

Puc. I am prepar'd: here is my keen-edg'd
sword,

Deck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side^ ;

The which at Touraine, in Saint Katharine's church-
yard,

Out of a great deal of old iron I chose forth ^.

8 — which you see.] Thus the second folio. The first, in-
judiciously as well as redundantly, — which you may .see.

Steevens.

9 Resolve on this :] i. e. be firmlv persuaded of it. So, in
King Heniy \T. Part III :

" I am 7-esoIv'd

" That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue."

Steevens.
' Deck'd with five flower-de-luces, &c.] Old copy-^'ne/
but we should read, according to Holinshed,—;^w flower-de-luces.
" — in a secret place there among old iron, appointed she hir
sword to be sought out and brought her, that with Jive floure-de-
lices was graven on both sides," &c. Steevens.

The same mistake having happened in A Midsummer-Night's
Dream, and in other places, I have not hesitated to reform the
text, according to Mr. Steevens's suggestion. In The MSS. of
the age of Queen Elizabeth, u and n are undistinguishable.

Malone,
* Out of a deal of old iron, &c.] The old copv yet more re-
dundantly—Out of a .^rra;t deal, &c. I have no "doubt but the
original line stood, elliptically, thus :

" Out a deal of old iron I chose forth."

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 25

Char. Then come o' God's name, I fear no wo-
man.
Puc. And, while I live, I'll ne'er fly from a man.

[They fight.
Char. Stay, stay, thy hands ; thou art an Ama-
zon,
And lightest with the sword of Deborah.

Puc. Christ's mother helps me, else I were too

weak.
Char. Whoe'er helps thee, 'tis thou that must
help me :
Impatiently I burn with thy desire^ ;
My heart and hands thou hast at once subdu'd.
Excellent Pucelle, if thy name be so,
Let me thy servant, and not sovereign, be ;
Tis the French Dauphin sueth to thee thus.
Puc. I must not yield to any rites of love.
For my profession's sacred from above :
When I have chased all thy foes from hence,
Then will I think upon a recompense.

Char. Mean time look gracious on thy prostrate

thrall.
Reig. My lord, methinks, is very long in talk.
Alen. Doubtless he shrives this woman to her
smock;
Else ne'er could he so long protract his speech.
Reig. Shall we disturb, him, since he keeps no

mean .^
Alen. He may mean more than we poor men
do know :

The phrase of hospitals is still an out door, not an out of door
patient. Steevens.

3 Impatiently I burn with thy desire ;] The amorous consti-
tution of the Dauphin has been mentioned in the preceding play :
" Doing is activity, and he will still be doing."

Collins.
The Dauphin in the preceding play is John, the elder brother
of the present speaker. He died in lilS, the year after the
battle of Agincourt. Ritson.

26 FIRST PART OF act i.

These women are shrewd tempters with their
tongues.

Rejg. My lord, where are you ? what devise you
on ?
Shall we give over Orleans, or no ?

Phc. Why, no, I say, distrustful recreants !
Fight till the last gasp ; I will be your guard.

Char. What she says, Fll confirm ; we'll fight it
out.

Puc. Assign'd am I to be the English scourge.
This night the siege assuredly Fll raise :
Expect Saint Martin's summer'*, halcyon days.
Since I have entered into these wars.
Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself.
Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to nought'.

^ Expect St. Martin's summer,] That is, expect prosperity
after mis/brtune, lil<e fair weather at Marllemas, after winter has
begun. .Johnson.

i Glory is like a circle in the water.
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,

Till, Vjy broad spreading, it disperse to nought.] So, in
Nosce Teipsum, a poem by Sir John Davies, ISiJi) :
" As when a stone is into water cast,
" One circle doth another circle make,
" Till the last circle reach the bank at last."
The same image, without the particular apjdication, may be
found in Silius Italicus, lib. xiii. :

Sic ubi perrumyjsit stagnantem calculus undam,
Exiguos format per prima volumina gyros,
Mox tremulum vibrans motu gliscente liquorem
Multiplicat crebros sinuati gurgitis orbes ;
Donee postremo laxatis circulus oris,
Contingat gcminas patulo curvamine ripas. Malonk.
This was a favourite simile with Pope. It is to be found also
in Ariosto's Orlando Furio.so, book viii. st. 63, of Sir John Har-
rington's translation :

" As circles in a water cleare are spread,
*' When sunne doth shine by day, and moone by night,
" Succeeding one another in a ranke,
" Till all by one and one do touch the bankc."
I meet with it again in Chapman's Epistle Dcdicatoric, pre-
fixed to his version of the Iliad :

sc. Ji. KING HEXRY VI. 27;

With Henry's death, the Enghsh circle ends ;
Dispersed are the glories it included.
Now am I like that proud insulting ship,
Which Caesar and his fortune bare at once ^

Char. Was IMahomet inspired with a dove " ?
Thou with an eagle art inspired then.
Helen, the mother of great Constantine,
Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters ''j were like thee.
Bright star of \''enus, fall n down on the earth.
How may I reverently worship thee enough'' ?

Alex. Leave off delays, and let us raise the
siege.

■ As in a spring.

" The plyant water, movd with any thing
" Let fall into it, puts her motion out
" In perfect circles, that move round about
" The gentle fountaine, one another raysing."
And the same image is much expanded by Sylvester, the trans-
lator of Du Bartas, 3d part of 2d day of 2d week.

Holt White.
^ — like that proud insulting ship,
Which Caesar and his fortune bare at once.] This alludes to
a passage in Plutarch's Life of .Julius Csesar, thus translated by
Sir Thomas North : " ('ssar hearing that, straight discovered
himselfe unto the maister of the pynnace, who at the first was
amazed when he saw him ; but Csesar, &c. said unto him. Good
fellow, be of good cheere, &c. and fear not, for thou hast Ccesar
and /lis fortune icith ihcc." Steevens.

" M'as ^LvHOiMET inspired with a dove ?] Mahomet had a
dove, " which he used to feed with wheat out of his ear; which
dove, when it was hungry, lighted on Maliomet's shoulder, and
thrust its bill in to find its breakfast ; Mahomet persuading the
rude and simple Arabians, that it was the Holy Ghost that gave
him advice." See Sir M'altcr Raleigh's History of the ^V'orld,
book i. part i. ch. vi. Life of Mahomet, by Dr. Prideaux.

Gkj;y.
^ Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters,] Meaning the four daugh-
ters of Phili]) mentioned in the Acts. Hanmf.u.

9 How may I reverently worship thee enough ?] Perhaps
this unmctrical line originally ran thus :

" How may I reverence, worship thee enough ? "
The climax rises properly, from reverence, to tvorship.

Steevens.

28 FIRST PART OF act i.

Reig. Woman, do what thou canst to save our
honours ;
Drive them from Orleans, and be immortaliz'd.
Char. Presently we'll try: — Come, let's away
about it :
No prophet will I trust, if she prove false.

\_Ej:eunt.

SCENE III.

London. Hill before the Tower.

Enter, at the Gates, the Duke of Gloster, with
his Serving-men, in blue Coats.

Glo. I am come to survey the Tower this day ;
Since Henry's death, I fear, there is conveyance \ —
Where be these warders, that they wait not here ?
Open the gates ; Gloster it is that calls.

\_Servants knock.
1 Ward. [JVithin?^ Who is there that knocks so
imperiously ?

1 Serf. It is the noble duke of Gloster.

2 Ward. \Within7\ Whoe'er he be, you may

not be let in.
1 Serv. Answer you so the lord protector, vil-
lains ?
1 Ward. [^fFithin.'] The Lord protect him ! so
we answer him :
We do no otherwise than we are will'd.

Glo. Who willed you ? or whose will stands but
mine ?
There's none protector of the realm, but I . —

* — there is CONVEYANCE.] ConveT/ance means thrff.

Hanmer.
So Pistol, in The Merry Wives of Windsor : " Convey the
wise it call : Steal.' foh ; a fico for the phrase." Steevens.

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 29

Break up the gates ^, I'll be your warrantize :
Shall I be flouted thus by dunghill grooms ?

Servants rush at the Tower Gates. Enter, to the
Gates, IVooDviLLE, the Lieutenant.

Wood. [JVithin^ What noise is this ? what

traitors have we here ?
Glo. Lieutenant, is it you, whose voice I hear ?
Open the gates ; here's Gloster that would enter.
Wood. \JVithin?\^ Have patience, noble duke;
I may not open ;
The cardinal of Winchester forbids :
From him I have express commandement.
That thou, nor none of thine, shall be let in.

Glo. Faint-hearted Woodville, prizest him, 'fore
me ?
Arrogant Winchester ? that haughty prelate.
Whom Henry, our late sovereign, ne'er could brook ?
Thou art no friend to God, or to the king :
Open the gates, or I'll shut thee out shortly.

1 Serv. Open the gates unto the lord protector;
Or we'll burst them open, if that you come not
quickly,

^ Break up the gates,] I suppose to break up the gate is to
force up the portcullis, or by the application of petards to blow
up the gates themselves. Steevens.

To break up in Shakspeare's age was the same as to hreak
open. Thus, in our translation of the Bible : •' They have broken
up, and have passed through the crate."' Micah, ii. 13. So^
again, in St. Matthew, xxiv. 43 : "He would have watched, and
would not have suffered his house to be broken up." Whalley.

Some one has proposed to read —

" Break ope the gates ,"^

but the old copy is right. So Hall, Henry VI. folio 78, b :
" The lusty Kentishmen hopyng on more friends, brake up the
gaytes of the King's Bench and Marshalsea," &c.

See also Florios Italian Dictionary, 1.598 : " Bottura. A bur-
glarie, or breaking up of a house." Malone.

30 FIRST PART OF act i.

Enter IVinchester^ attended by a Train of Ser-
vants in Tawny Coats ^.

IP IN. How now, ambitious Humphry ? what

means this "* ?
Glo. Peel'd priest^, dost thou command me to

be shut out ?

3 — Tatvni/ Coats.'] It appears from the following passage in
a comedy called, A Maidenhead Well Lost, 163i, that a tnxvny
coat was the dress of a summoner, i. e. an apparitor, an officer
whose business it was to summon offenders to an ecclesiastical
court :

" Tho I was never a tavony-coat, I have play'd the summoner' s
part."

These are the proper attendants therefore on the Bishop of
Winchester. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 822 : " — and by the
way the bishop of London met him, attended on by a goodly
company of gentlemen in tawny-coats," &c.

Tavony was likewise a colour worn for mourning, as well as
Hack ; and was therefore the suitable and sober habit of any
person employed in an ecclesiastical court :

" A croune of bayes shall that man weare

" That triumphs over me ;
" For hlacke and iaxvnie will I weare,
" Whiche mournyn^ colojirs be."
The Complaint of a Lover vvearyng Zi/rtc^e andtatvnie ; by E. O.
[i. e. the Earl of Oxford.] Paradise of Dainty Devises, 1576.

Steevens.

4 How now, ambitious Humphrey ? what means this ?J The
first folio has it — -umplieir. The traces of the letters, and the
word being printed in Italicks, convince me that the Duke's
christian name lurked under this corruption, Theobald.

5 Piel'd priest,] Alluding to his shaven crown. Pope.

In Skinner (to whose Dictionary I was directed by Mr. Ed-
wards) I find that it means more : PiWd or peetd garlic/c, cut
pellis, vel pili omnes ex morbo aliquo, prcesertim e lue venerea^
dejiuxerunt.

In Ben Jonsons Bartholomew Fair, the following instance
occurs :

" I'll see them p — 'd first, and pil'd and AowhXe pil'd."

Steevens.

In Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 364-, Robert Baldocke,
bishop of London, is called a peetd priest, pilide clerk, seemingly

sc. HI. KING HENRY VI. 31

IFiN. I do, thou most usurping proditor.
And not protector of the king or realm.

Glo. Stand back, thou manifest conspirator.
Thou, that contriv'dst to murder our dead lord ;
Thou that giv'st whores indulgences to sin ^ :
I'll canvas thee in thy broad cardinal's hat '',

in allusion to his shaven crown alone. So, bald-head was a term
of scorn and mockery. Tollet.

The old copy has — piel'd priest. Piel'd and pil'd were only
the old spelling of peel'd. So, in our poet's Rape of Lucrece,
4to. 1594. :

" His leaves will wither, and his sap decay,
" So must my soul, her bark being pil'd away."

See also Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: " Pelare. To pill
or pluck, as they do the feathers of fowle ; to pull off" the hair
or skin." M alone.

^ Thou, that giv'st whores indulgences to sin :] The public
stews were formerly under the district of the bishop of Winchester.

Pope.

There is now extant an old manuscript (formerly the office-
book of the court-leet held under the jurisdiction of the bishop
of Winchester in Southwark,) in which are mentioned the several
fees arising from the brothel-houses allowed to be kept in the
bishop's manor, with the customs and regulations of them. One
of the articles is :

" De his, qui custodiunt mulieres habentes nefandam infirmi-
tatera."

" Item. That no stewholder keep any woman within his house,
that hath any sickness of brenning, but that she be put out upon
pain of making a fyne unto the lord of C shillings." Upton.

7 I'll CANVAS thee in thy broad cardinal's hat,] This means,
I believe — " I'll tumble thee into thy great hat, and shake thee,
as bran and meal are shaken in a sieve."

So, Sir W. D'Avenant, in The Cruel Brother, 1630:
" I'll sift and winnow him in an old hat."

To canvas was anciently used for to sift. So, in Hans Beerpot's
invisible Comedy, 1618:

" We'll canvas him.'

" 1 am too big ."

Again, in The Epistle Dedicatory to Have With You to Saffron
Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, &c. 1596 : " — canvaze
him and his angell brother Gabriell, in ten sheets of paper," &c.

Steevens.

Again, in The Second Part of King Henry IV. Dol Tearsheet

32 FIRST PART OF act i.

If thou proceed in this thy insolence.

Win, Nay, stand thou back, I will not budge a
foot ;
This be Damascus, be thou cursed Cain ^,
To slay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt.

Glo. I will not slay thee, but Fll drive thee back :
Thy scarlet robes, as a child's bearing-cloth
I'll use, to carry thee out of this place.

W IN. Do what thou dar'st ; I beard thee to thy

face.
Glo. What.P am I dar'd, and bearded to my
face .^ —
Draw, men, for all this privileged place ;
Blue-coats to tawny-coats. Priest, beware your
beard;

\Gloster and his Men attack the Bishop.
I mean to tug it, and to cuff you soundly :
Under my feet I stamp thy cardinal's hat ;
In spite of pope or dignities of church.
Here by the cheeks Fll drag thee up and down.
Win. Gloster, thou'lt answer this before the
pope.

says to FalstafF — " If thou dost, I'll canvas thee between a pair of
sheets." M. Mason.

Probably from the materials of which the bottom of a sieve is
made. Perhaps, however, in the passage before us Gloster means,
that he will toss the cardinal in a sheet, even while he was in-
vested with the peculiar badge of his ecclesiastical dignity. —
Coarse sheets were formerly termed canvass sheets. See vol. xvii.
p. 92, n. 7, Malone.

^ This be Damascus, be thou cursed Cain,] About four miles
from Damascus is a high hill, reported to be the same on which
Cain slew his brother Abel. Maundrel's Travels, p. 131. Pope.

Sir John Maundeville says : " And in that place where Damascus
was founded, Kaym sloughe Abel his brother." Maimdevilles
Travels, edit. 1725, p. 148. Reed.

" Damascus is as moche to saye as shedynge of blood. For
there Chaym slowe Abeil, and hidde hym in the sonde." Poly-
chro)iicon, fo. xii. Ritson.

sc. III. KING HENRY VT. 33

Glo. Winchester goose'' ! I cry — a rope ! a rope M —
Now beat them hence, Why do you let them stay ? —
Thee I'll chase hence, thou wolf in sheep's array. —
Out, tawny coats I — out, scarlet hypocrite '^ !

Here a great Tumult. In the midst of it. Enter
the Mayor of London ■^, and Officers.

May. Fye, lords ! that you, being supreme ma-
gistrates,
Thus contumeliously should break the peace !
Glo. Peace, mayor ; thou know'st little of my
wrongs :
Here's Beaufort, that regards nor God nor king.
Hath here distrain'd the Tower to his use.

Win. Here's Gloster too, a foe to citizens^;
One that still motions war and never peace,
,0'ercharging your free purses with large fines;
That seeks to overthrow rehgion,
Because he is protector of the realm ;
And would have armour here out of the Tower,
To crown himself king, and suppress the prince.
Glo. I will not answer thee with words, but
blows. \_Here they skirmish again.

May. Nought rests for me, in this tumultuous
strife,

9 — Winchester goose,] A strumpet, or the consequences of
her love, was a Winchester goose. Johnson.

* — a rope! a rope!] See The Comedy of Errors, vol. iv.
p. 238, n. 7. Malone.

^ — out, SCARLET hypocrite !] Thus, in King Henry VIII.
the Earl of Surrey, with a similar allusion to Cardinal Wolsey's
habit, calls him — " scarlet sin." Steevens.

3 — the Mayor of London,'] I learn from Mr. Pennant's
London, that this Mayor was John Coventry, an opulent mercer,
from whom is descended the present Earl of Coventry.

Steevens.

4 Here's Gloster too, &c.] Thus the second folio. The first
folio, with less spirit of reciprocation, and feebler metre, — Here
is Gloster, &c. Steevens.

VOL. XVIII. D

34 FIRST PART OF act i.

But to make open proclamation : —
Come, officer ; as loud as e'er thou can'st.

Off. All manner of men, assembled here in arms
this day, against God's peace and the kings, ive
charge and command you, in his highness' name,
to repair to your several dzrelling-places ; andtiot
to wear, handle, or use, any szvord, weapon, or
dagger, lienceforzvard, upon pain of death.

Glo. Cardinal, I'll be no breaker of the law :
But we shall meet, and break our minds at large.

JViN. Gloster, we'll meet ; to thy dear cost, be
sure : ^
Thy heart- blood I will have for this day's work.

May. I'll call for clubs, if you will not away ^' : —
This cardinal is more haughty than the devil.

Glo. Mayor, farewell : thou dost but what thou
may'st.

Win. Abominable Gloster ! guard thy head ;
For I intend to have it, ere long. \_E.veunt.

May. See the coast clear d, and then we will de-
part.—
Good God! that nobles should such stomachs" bear!
I myself fight not once in forty year ^ [E.veunt.

5 Gloster, we'll meet ; to thy dear cost, be sure :] Thus the
second folio. The first omits the epither — dear. Steevens.

^ I'll call for CLUBS, if you will not away :] This was an
outcry for assistance, on any riot or quarrel in the streets. It
hath been explained before. VVhalley.

So, in King Henry VIII. : " — and hit that woman, who cried
out, clubs!" Steevens.

That is, for peace-officers armed with clubs or staves. In
affrays, it was customary in this author's time to cull out clubs,
clubs I Sec As You Like It, vol. vi. p. 490, n. 3. Malone.

7 — stomachs — ] Stomach is pride, a haughty spirit of re-
sentment. So, in King Henry VIII. :

" he was a man

" Of an unbounded stomach •." Steevens.

5

sc. IF. KING HENRY VI. 35

SCENE IV.
France. Before Orleans.

Enter, on the Walls, the Master -Gunner and his

Son.
M. Gu]sr. Sirrah, thou know'st how Orleans is be-
sieg d ;
And how the English have the suburbs won.

Son. Father, I know ; and oft have shot at them,
Howe'er, unfortunate, I miss'd my aim.

M. Gun. But now thou shalt not. Be thou ruVd
by me :
Chief master-gunner am I of this town ;

^ — THAT nobles should such stomachs bear !
I myself fight not once in forty year.] Old copy — these
nobles. Corrected by Mr. Rovve. Malone.

The Mayor of London was not brought in to be laughed at, as
is plain by his manner of interfering in the quarrel, where he all
along preserves a sufficient dignity. In the line preceding these,
he directs his Officer, to whom without doubt these two lines
should be given. They suit his character, and are very expressive
of the pacific temper of the city guards. Warburton.

I see no reason for this change. The Mayor speaks first as a
magistrate, and afterwards as a citizen. Johnson.

Notwithstanding Warburton's note in support of the dignity of
the Mayor, Shakspeare certainly meant to represent him as a poor,
well-meaning, simple man, for that is the character he invariably
gives to his Mayors. The Mayor of London, in Richard IIL is
just of the same stamp. And so is the Mayor of York, in the
Third Part of this play, where he refuses to admit Edward as
King, but lets him into the city as Duke of York, on which
Gloster says —

" A wise stout captain ! and persuaded soon.

" Hast. The good old man would fain that all were well."

Such are all Shakspeare's Mayors. M. Mason.

Such seems to have been the general representation of mayors
on our ancient stage. Kempe, in The Return from Parnassus,
describes himself as being accustomed to play a foolish mayor.

Malone.
D 2

36 FIRST PART OF act /.

Something I must do to procure me grace.

The prince's espials ^ have informed me,

How the Enghsh, in the suburbs close intrench'd.

Wont, through a secret grate of iron bars

In yonder tower, to overpeer the city ' ;

And thence discover, how, with most advantage.

They may vex us, with shot, or with assault.

To intercept this inconvenience,

A piece of ordnance 'gainst it I have plac'd;

And fully even these three days have I watch'd.

If I could see them.

Now, do thou watch, for I can stay no longer ^.

9 The prince's espials — ] Espials are spies. So, in Chaucer's
Freres Tale :

" For subtilly he had his espinille." Steevens.

The word is often used by Hall and Holinshed. Malone.

' Wont, through a secret grate of iron bars, 8iC.] Old copy
— tveni. See the notes that follow Dr. Johnson's. Steevens.

That is, the English ' went not through a secret grate,' but
• went to over-peer the city through a secret grate xvhich is in
yonder tower.' I did not know till of late that this passage had
been thought difficult, Johnson.

1 believe, instead of ivent, we should read — wont. The third
person plural of the old verb wont. The English — xvont, that is,

are accustomed to over-peer the citi/. The word is used very

frequently by Spenser, and several times by Milton. Tykwhitt.

The emendation proposed by Mr. Tyrvvhitt is fully supported by
the passage in Hall's Chronicle, on which this speech is formed.

So, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584 :

" the usual time is nie,

" When wont the dames of fate and destinie

" In robes of chearfull colour to repair ." Malone,

2 — Now, BOY, do thou watch.

For I can stay no longer.] The first folio reads :
" And even these three days have I watcht
" If I could see them. Now do thou watch,
" For I can stay no longer." Steevens.
Part of this line being in the old copy, by a mistake of the
transcriber, connected with the preceding hemistich, the editor of
the second folio supplied the metre by adding the word — boi/, in
which he has been followed in all the subsequent editions.

Malone.

sc. /r. KING HENRY VI. 37

If thou spy'st any, run and bring me word;

And thou shalt find me at the governor's. [^E.rit.

Son. Father, I warrant you ; take you no care ;
I'll never trouble you, if I may spy them.

Enter in an upper Chamber of a Tower, the Lords
Salisbury atid Talbot^, Sir William Glans-
DALE, Sir Thomas Gargrave, and Others.

Sal. Talbot, my life, my joy, again return'd !
How wert thou handled, being prisoner ?
Or by what means got'st thou to be releas'd ?
Discourse, I pr'ythee, on this turret's top.

Tal. The duke of Bedford had a prisoner.
Called — the brave lord Ponton de Santrailes;
For him I was exchang'd and ransomed.
But with a baser man of arms by far,
Once, in contempt, they would have barter'd me :
Which I, disdaining, scorn'd ; and craved death
Rather than I would be so vile-esteem'd^.

As I cannot but entertain a more favourable opinion than Mr.
Malone of the numerous emendations that appear in the second
folio, I have again adopted its regulation in the present instance.
This folio likewise supplied the woxA—Jidlij . Steevens.

3 — Talbot,'] Though the three parts of King Henry VI. are
deservedly numbered among the feeblest performances of Shak-
speare, this first of them appears to have been received with the
greatest applause. So, in Pierce Penniless's Supplication to the
Devil, by Nash, 1592 : " How would it have joyed brave Talbot
(the terror of the French,) to thinke that after he had lien two
hundred years in his tombe, he should triumpli againe on the
stage, and have his bones new embalmed with the teares of ten
thousand spectators at least (at several times,) who in the trage-
dian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh
bleeding?" Steevens.

4 — so pil'd esteem'd.] Thus the old copy. Some of the
modern editors read, but without authority — " so w7e-esteem'd."
— Sopill'd, may mean — so pillagd, so strifp'd of honours ; but I
suspect a corruption, which Mr, M. Mason would remedy, by
reading either vile or f/Z-esteemed.

It is possible, however, that Shakspeare might have written —

38 FIRST PART OF avt i.

In fine, redeem'd I was as I desir'd.

But, O ! the treacherous Fastolfe wounds my heart !

Whom with my bare fists I would execute,

If I now had him brought into my power.

Sal. Yet tell'st thou not, how thou wert enter-

tain'd.
Tal. With scoffs, and scorns, and contumelious

taunts.
In open market-place produc'd they me,
To be a publick spectacle to all ;
Here, said they, is the terror of the French,

Philistin\l; i. e. treated as contumeliously as Samson was by the
Fhilislines. — Both Samson and Talbot had been prisoners, and
were alike insulted by their captors.

Our author has jocularly formed more than one verb from a
proper name ; as for instance, from Aufidius, in Coriolanus :
" — I would not have been fio Jidi.us'd for all the chests in Corioli."
Again, in King Henry V. Pistol says to his prisoner : " Master
Fer? VWfer him," &c. Again, in Hamlet, from Herod, we have
the verb " oui-herod."

Shakspeare, therefore, in the present instance, might have
taken a similar liberty. — To fall into the hands of the Philistines
has long been a cant phrase, expressive of danger incurred, whe-
ther from enemies, association with hard drinkers, gamesters, or
a less welcome acquaintance with the harpies of the law.

Talbot's idea would be sufficiently expressed by the term — Phi-
listin'd, which (as the play before us appears to have been copied
by the ear,) was more liable to corruption than a common verb.

I may add, that perhaps no word will be found nearer to the
sound and traces of the letters, mpil-esteem'd, than Phiiistin'd.

Philistine, in the age of Shakspeare, was always accented on the
first syllable, and therefore is not injurious to the line in which I
have hesitatingly proposed to insert it.

I cannot, however, help smiling at my own conjecture ; and
should it excite the same sensation in the reader who journeys
through the barren desert of our accumulated notes on this play,
like Addison's traveller, when he discovers a cheerful spring amid
the wilds of sand, let him —

. " — — bless his stars, and think it luxury." Steevens.

I think vile-esteem' d was the author's word. We meet with it
again in his 121st Sonnet :

" 'Tis better to be vile than vile-esteem' d." Malone.

sc.ir. KING HENRY VI. 39

The scare-crow that affrights our children so \

Then broke I from the officers that led me ;

And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground,

To hurl at the beholders of my shame.

My grisly countenance made others fly ;

None durst come near for fear of sudden death.

In iron walls they deem'd me not secure ;

So great fear of my name 'mongst them was spread,

That they suppos'd, I could rend bars of steel.

And spurn in pieces posts of adamant :

Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had,

That walk'd about me every minute -while ;

And if I did but stir out of my bed,

Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.

Sal. I grieve to hear what torments you endur'd ;
But we will be reveng'd sufficiently.
Now it is supper-time in Orleans :
Here thorough this grate, I count each one ^,
And view the Frenchmen how they fortify ;
Let us look in, the sight will much delight thee. —
Sir Thomas Gargrave, and sir William Glansdale,
Let me have your express opinions.
Where is best place to make our battery next.

Gar. I think, at the north gate ; for there stand
lords.

s — the TERROR of the French,
The scare-crow that affrights our children so.] From Hall's
Chronicle : " This man [TalbotJ was to the French people a very
scourge and a daily terror, insomuch that as his person was fear-
ful, and terrible to his adversaries present, so his name and fume
was spiteful and dreadful to the common people absent ; insomuch
that women in France to feare their yong children, would crye,
the Talbot commeth, the Talbot commeth." The same thing is
said of King Richard I. when he was in the Holy Land. See
Camden's Remaines, 4to. 1614, p. 267. Malone.

<5 Here, through this grate, I can count every one,] Thus
the second folio. The first, very harshly and unmetrically, reads :
" Here, thorough this grate, I count each one."

Steevens.

40 FIRST PART OF act i.

Gljn. And I, here, at the bulwark of the bridge.
Tal. For aught I see, this city must be famish'd.
Or with light skirmishes enfeebled'',

\8hot from the Town. Salisbury and Sir

ThO. GARGRAVEJaU.

Sal. O Lord, have mercy on us, wretched sinners !

Gar. O Lord, have mercy on me, woeful man !

Tal. What chance is this, that suddenly hath
cross'd us ? —
Speak, Salisbury ; at least, if thou canst speak ;
How far'st thou, mirror of all martial men ?
One of thy eyes, and thy cheek's side struck off ^! —
Accursed tower ! accursed fatal hand,
That hath contriv'd this woeful tragedy !
In thirteen battles Salisbury o'ercame ;
Henry the fifth he first train'd to the wars ;
Whilst any trump did sound, or drum struck up.
His sword did ne'er leave striking in the field. —
Yet liv'st thou, Salisbury ? though thy speech doth

fail.
One eye thou hast, to look to heaven for grace ^ :
The sun with one eye vieweth all the world. —
Heaven, be thou gracious to none alive,
If Salisbury wants mercy at thy hands ! —
Bear hence his body, I will help to bury it. —
Sir Thomas Gargrave, hast thou any life ?
Speak unto Talbot ; nay, look up to him.

' — enfeebled.] This word is here used as a quadrisyllable
[as Mr. Capell has observed]. Malone.

^ — thy cheek's side struck off!] Camden says, in his Re-
maines, that the French scarce knew the use of great ordnance,
till the siege of Mans in 1455, when a breach was made in the
walls of that town by the English, under the conduct of this earl
of Salisbury ; and that he was the first English gentleman that
was slain by a cannon-ball. Malone.

9 One eye thou hast, &c.] A similar thought occurs in King
Lear :

my lord, you have one eye left^

k« '

ro see some mischief on him." Steeyens.

sc. IV. KING HENRY VI. 41

Salisbury, cheer thy spirit with this comfort ;

Thou shalt not die, whiles ■

He beckons with his hand, and smiles on me ;
As who should say, When I am dead and gone.
Remember to avens:e me on the French. —
Plantagenet, I will ; and like thee, Nero \
Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn :
Wretched shall France be only in my name.

[Thunder heard; afterivards an Alarum.
What stir is this ? What tumult's in the heavens ?
Whence cometh this alarum, and the noise ?

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My lord, my lord, the French have ga-
ther'd head :
The Dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle join'd, —
A holy prophetess, new risen up, —
Is come with a great power to raise the siege.

\_Salisbury groans.
Tal« Hear, hear, how dying Salisbury doth
groan !
It irks his heart, he cannot be reveng'd. —
Frenchmen, I'll be a Salisbury to you : —
Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish ^,

' — and LIKE THEE, Nero,] The first folio reads :

" Plantagenet, I will; and like thee — ." Steevens.

In the old copy, the word Nero is wanting, owing probably to
the transcriber's not being able to make out the name. The
editor of the second folio, with his usual freedom, altered the line
thus :

" and Nero-like tmll — ." Malone.

I am content to read with the second folio (not conceiving the
emendation in it to be an arbitrary one,) and omit only the need-
less repetition of the word — ikUI. Surely there is some absurdity
in making Talbot address Plantagenet, and invoke Nero, in the
same line. Steevens.

^ Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish,] Pusscl means
a dirty -wench or a drab, from puzza, i.e. malus fietor, says Min-

42 FIRST PART OF act j.

Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse "s heels.
And make a quagmh-e of your mingled brains. —
Convey me Salisbury into his tent,
And then we'll try what these dastard Frenchmen
dare '\ \_Exeunt, bearing out the Bodies.

sheu. In a translation from Steevens's Apology for Herodotus, in
1607, p. 98, we read — " Some filthy queans, especially owr puz-
zles of Paris, use this other theft." Tollet.

So, Stubbs, in his Anatomic of Abuses, 1595 : " No nor yet
any droye nor piizzel in the country but will carry a nosegay in
her hand,"

Again, in Ben Jonson's Commendatory Verses, prefixed to the
works of Beaumont and Fletcher:

" Lady or Pusill, that wears mask or fan."
As for the conceit, miserable as it is, it may be countenanced
by that of James I. who looking at the statue of Sir Thomas
Bodley in the library at Oxford. " Pii Thomae Godly nomine in-
signivit, eoque potius nomine quam Bodly, deinceps merito nomi-
nandum esse censuit." See Rex Platonicus, &c. edit, quint.
Oxon. 1635, p. 187.

It should be remembered, that in Shakspeare's time the word
dauphin was always written dolphin. Steevens.

There are frequent references to Pucelle's name in this play:

" I 'scar'd the dauphin and his trull."
Again :

" Scoff on, vile fiend, and shameless courtezan ! '^

Malone.
3 And then we'll try what these dastard Frenchmen dare.]
Perhaps the conjunction — and, or the demonstrative pronoun —
these, for the sake of metre, should be omitted at the beginning
of this line, which, in my opinion, however, originally ran thus :
" Then try we what these dastard Frenchmen dare."

Steevens.

AC. r. KING HENRY VI. 43

SCENE V.
The Same. Before one of the Gates.

Alarum. Skifinishings . Tjlbot purmeth the Dau-
phin, and driveth him in : then enter Joan la
PucELLE, driuing Englishmen before her. Then
enter Talbot.

Tal. Where is my strength, my valour, and my
force ?

Our EngHsh troops retire, I cannot stay them ;

A woman, clad in armour, chaseth them.

Enter La Pucelle.

Here, here she comes : I'll have a bout with

thee ;
Devil, or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee :
Blood will I draw on thee "*, thou art a witch.
And straightway give thy soul to him thou serv'st.

Puc. Come, come, 'tis only I that must disgrace
thee. [Theyjight.

Tal. Heavens, can you suffer hell so to prevail ?
My breast I'll burst with straining of my courage.
And from my shoulders crack my arms asunder.
But I will chastise this high-minded strumpet.

Puc. Talbot, farewell ; thy hour is not yet come :
I must go victual Orleans forthwith.
O'ertake me, if thou canst; I scorn thy strength.
Go, go, cheer up thy hunger-starved ^ men ;
Help Salisbury to make his testament :

4 Blood will I draw on thee,] The superstition of those
times taught that he that could draw the witch's blood, was free
from her power. Johnson.

5 — HUNGER-starved — ] The same epithet is, I think, used
by Shakspeare, [Henry VI. P. III. Act I. Sc. IV.] The old copy
has — A?<»^ry-starved. Corrected by Mr. Rowe, Malone.

Why not hungry, starved, without the hyphen? Boswell.

44 FIRST PART OF act i.

This day is ours, as many more shall be.

\FucELLE enters the Town, with Soldiers.
Tal. My thoughts are whirled like a potter's

wheel ^ ;
I know not where I am, nor what I do :
A witch, by fear \ not force, hke Hannibal,
Drives back our troops, and conquers as she lists :
So bees with smoke, and doves with noisome

stench.
Are from their hives, and houses, driven away.
They call'd us, for our fierceness, English dogs ;
Now, like to whelps, we crying run away.

\_A short Alarum.
Hark, countrymen ! either renew the fight.
Or tear the lions out of England's coat ;
Renounce your soil, give sheep in lions' stead :
Sheep run not half so timorous ^ from the wolf.
Or horse, or oxen, from the leopard,
As you fly from your oft-subdued slaves.

[Alarum. Another skirmish.
It will not be : — Retire into your trenches :
You all consented unto Salisbury's death.
For none would strike a stroke in his revenge. —
Pucelle is entered into Orleans,
In spite of us, or aught that we could do.
O, would 1 were to die with vSalisbury I
The shame hereof will make me hide my head.

[Alarum. Retreat. E.veuut Talbot and
his Forces, 8^c.

^ —LIKE A potter's wheel;] This idea might have been

caught from Psahn Ixxxiii. 13: " Make them like unto a

iv/ieel, and as the stubble before the wind." Steevens.

7 — by fear, &c.] See Hannibal's stratagem to escape by
fixing bundles of lighted twigs on the horns of oxen, recorded in
Livy, lib. xxii. c. xvi. Holt White.

* — so TiMOKous — ] Old copy — treacherous. Corrected by
Mr. Pope. Malone.

sc. Fj. KING HENRY VI. 45

SCENE VI.

The Same.

Enter, on the Walls, Pucelle, Charles, Reignieii,
Alencon, and Soldiers.

Puc. Advance our waving colours on the walls ;
Rescu'd is Orleans from the English ^ : —
Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform'd her word.

Ch.ir. Divinest creature, Astrsea's daughter.
How shall I honour th ee for this success .^
Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens \

9 — from the English WOLVES, &c.] Thus the second folio.
The first omits the word — voolves. Steevens.

The editor of the second folio^ not perceiving that Eiiglish was
used as a trisyllable, arbitrarily reads — English ivolves ; in which
he has been followed by all the subsequent editors. So, in the
next line but one, he reads — bright Astrcea, not observing that
Astrcea, by a licentious pronunciation, was used by the author
of this play, as if written Astercca. So monstrozis is made a tri-
syllable ; — monsterous. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's note, Two Gentlemen
of Verona, vol. iv. p. 31, and p. 137. Malone.

Here again I must follow the second folio, to which we are
indebted for former and numerous emendations received even by
Mr. Malone.

Shakspeare has frequently the same image. So, the French in
King Henry V. speaking of the English : " They will eat like
tvolves, and fight like devils."

If Pucelle, by this term, does not allude to the hunger or
fierceness of the English, she refers to the ivolves by which their
kingdom was formerly infested. So, in King Henry IV. Part II.:
" Peopled with ivolves, thy old inhabitants."

As no example of the proper name — Astrcea, pronounced as a
quadrisyllable, is given by Mr. Malone, or has occurred to me, I
also think myself authorized to receive — bright, the necessary
epithet supplied by the second folio. Steevens.

' — like Adonis' gardens,] It may not be impertinent to take
notice of a dispute between four criticks, of very different orders,
upon this very important point of the " gardens of Adonis." Mil-
ton had said :

4G FIRST PART OF act i.

That one day bloom'd, and fruitful were the next. —
France, triumph in thy glorious prophetess ! —

" Spot more delicious than those gardens feign'd,

" Or of reviv'd Adonis, or ."

which Dr. Bentley pronounces spurious; " for that the Kyitcoi
ASwvjS'oj, the gardens of Adonis, so frequently mentioned by
Greek writers, Plato, Plutarch, &c. were nothing but portable
earthen pots, with some lettice or fennel growing in them. On
his yearly festival every woman carried one of thera for Adonis's
worship ; because Venus had once laid him in a lettice bed. The
next day tliey were thrown away," &c. To this Dr. Pearce re-
plies, " That this account of the gardens of Adonis is right, and
yet Milton may be defended for what he says of them : for why
(says he) did the Grecians on Adonis' festival carry these small
gardens about in honour of him ? It was, because they had a tra-
dition, that, when he was alive, he delighted in gardens, and had
a magnificent one : for proof of this we have Pliny's words, xix. 4 :
* Antiquitas nihil prius mirata est quam Hesperidum liortos, ac
regum Adonidis et Alcinoi.' " One would now think the question
well decided : but Mr. Theobald comes, and will needs be Dr.
Bentley's second. " A learned and reverend gentleman (says he)
having attempted to impeach Dr. Bentley of error, for maintain-
ing that there never was existent any magnificent or spacious
gardens of Adonis, an opinion in which it has been my fortune
to second the Doctor, I thought myself concerned, in some
part, to weigh those authorities alledged by the objector," &c.
The reader sees that Mr. Theobald mistakes the very question in
dispute between these two truly learned men, which was not whe-
ther Adonis' gardens were ever existent, but whether there was
a tradition of any celebrated gardens cultivated by Adonis. For
this would sufficiently justify Milton's mention of them, together
with the gardens of Alcinous, confessed by the poet himself to
be fabulous. But hear their own words. " There was no such
garden (says Dr. Bentley) ever existent, or never feignd." He
adds the latter part, as knowing that that would justify the poet ;
audit is on that assertion only that his adversary Dr. Pearce joins
issue with him. " Why (says he) did they carry the small earthen
gardens ? It was because they had a tradition, that when alive he
delighted in gardens." Mr. Theobald, therefore, mistaking the
question, it is no wonder that all lie says, in his long note at the
end of his fourth volume, is nothing to the purpose ; it being
to show that Dr. Pearce's quotations from Pliny and others, do
not prove the real existence of the gardens. After these, comes
the Oxford editor ; and he jxonounccs in favour of Dr. Bentley,
against Dr. Pearce, in these words, " The gardens of Adonis

sc. ri. KING HENRY VI. 47

Recover'd is the town of Orleans :

More blessed hap did ne'er befall our state.

Rejg. Why ring not out the bells aloud through-
out the town - ?
Dauphin, command the citizens make bonfires.
And feast and banquet in the open streets,
To celebrate the joy that God hath given us.

Alen. All France will be replete with mirth and

joy,

When they shall hear how we have play'd the men.
Char. 'Tis Joan, not we, by whom the day is
won ;
For which, I will divide my crown with her :
And all the priests and friars in my realm
Shall, in procession, sing her endless praise.
A statelier pyramis to her 111 rear,
Than Rhodope's '\ or Memphis', ever was :

were never represented under any local description." But whe-
ther this was said at hazard, or to contradict Dr. Pearce, or to
rectify Mr. Theobald's mistake of the question, it is so obscurely
expressed, that one can hardly determine. Warburton.

The proverb alluded to, seem always to have been used in a
bad sense, for things which make a fair show for a few days and
then wither away: but the author of this play, desirous of making
a shew of his learning, without considering its propriety, has
made the Dauphin apply it as an encomium. There is a very
good account of it in Erasmus's Adagia. Blakeway.

^ Whv ring not out the bells throughout the town ?] The old
copv, unnecessarily as well as redundantly, reads—
" Why ring not out the bells aloud,'' &c.

Bnt if the bells rang out, they must have rang aloud; for to ring
out, as I am informed, is a technical term with that signification.
The disagreeable jingle, however, of out and ivithout, induces me
to suppose the line originally stood thus :

" Why ring not bells aloud throughout the town?"

Steevens.

3 Than Rhodope's,] Rhodope was a famous strumpet, who
acquired great riches by her trade. The least but most finished
of the Egyptian pyramids (says Pliny, in the 36th book of his
Natural History, ch. xii.) was built by her. She is said afterwards
to have married Psammetichus, King of Egypt.

Rhodope is mentioned in the play of The Costly Whore, 1633 :

48 FIRST PART OF act i.

In memory of her, when she is dead,
Her ashes, in an urn more precious
Than the rich-jewel'd coffer of Darius ^

a base Rhodope,

" Whose body is as common as the sea
" In the receipt of every lustful spring."

I would read [as Mr. Capell has proposed] :

" Than Rhodope's of Memphis ever was." Steevens.

The brother of Sappho was in love with Rhodope, and pur-
chased her freedom (for she was a slave in the same house with
iEsop the fabulist) at a great price. Rhodope was of Thrace,
not of Memphis. Memphis, a city of Egypt, was celebrated
for its pyramids :

*' Barbara Pyramidum sileat miracula Memphis.'"

Mart. De spectaculis Libel. Ep. I. Malone.

The question, I apprehend, is not where Rhodope was born,
but where she obtained celebrity. Her Thracian birth-place
would not have rescued her from oblivion. Steevens

The emendation proposed by Mr. Steevens must be adopted.
The meaning is— not that Rhodope herself was of Memphis, but
—that her j:iyramis was there. I will rear to her, says the
Dauphin, a pyramid more stately than that of Memphis, which
was called Rhodope's. Pliny says the pyramids were six miles
from that city ; and that " the fairest and most commended for
workmanship was built at the cost and charges oi one Rhodope, a
verie strumpet." Ritson.

4 — coffer of Darius,] \Vhen Alexander the Great took the
city of Gaza, the metropolis of Syria, amidst the other spoils and
wealth of Darius treasured up there, he found an exceeding rich
and beautiful little chest or casket, and asked those about him
what they thought fittest to be laid up in it. When they had
severally delivered their opinions, he told them, he esteemed
nothing so worthy to be preserved in it as Homer's Iliad. Vide
Plutarchum in Vita Alexandri Magni. Theobald.

The very vi'ords of the text are found in Puttenham's Arte of
English Poesie, 1589 : " In what price the noble poems of Homer
were holden with Alexander the Great, insomuch as everie night
they were layd under his pillow, and by day were carried in
the rich jexvel coffer of Darius, lately before vanquished by him in
battaile." Malone.

I believe, we should read with Puttenham, "jewel-coffer,"
and not, as in the text, " jewel' d-co^'er." The jeivel-coffer of
Darius was, I suppose, the cabinet in which he kept his gems.

To a jeivelled coffer (i. e. a coffer ornamented with jeivels) the
epithet rich would have been superfluous.

ACTti. KING HENRY VL 49

Transported shall be at high festivals
Before the kings and queens of France ^.
No longer on Saint Dennis will we cry,
But Joan la Pucelle shall be France's saint.
Come in ; and let us banquet royally,
After this golden day of victory.

[Flourish. Exeunt,

ACT IL SCENE I.

The Same.

Enter to the Gates, a French Sergeant, aiid Two

Sentinels.

Serg. Sirs, take your places, and be vigilant :
If any noise, or soldier, you perceive.
Near to the walls, by some apparent sign.
Let us have knowledge at the court of guard ^.

1 Sent. Sergeant, you shall. [E.vit Sergeant. ~\
Thus are poor servitors
(When others sleep upon their quiet beds,)
Constrain'd to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.

Enter Talbot, Bedford, Burgundy, and Forces,
zvith scaling Ladders, their Drums beating a dead
march.

Tal. Lord regent, — and redoubted Burgundy, —

My conjecture, however, deserves not much attention; be-
cause Pliny, lib. ii. ch. 29, informs us, that this casket, when
found, was full of precious oils, and was decorated with gems of
great value. Steevens.

5 Before the kings and queens of France.] Sir Thomas Han-
mer supplies the obvious defect in this line, by reading —
" Ever before the kings," &c. Steevens.

^ court of guard,] The same phrase occurs again in

Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, &c. and is equivalent to the
modern term — guard-room. Steevens.
VOL. XVIII. E

50 FIRST PART OF act lU

By whose approach, the regions of Artois,
Walloon and Picardy, are friends to us, —
This happy night the Frenchmen are secure.
Having all day carous'd and banqueted :
Embrace we then this opportunity ;
As fitting best to quittance their deceit,
Contriv'd by art, and baleful sorcery.

Bed. Coward of France ! — how much he wrongs
his fame.
Despairing of his own arm's fortitude,
To join with witches, and the help of hell.

BvR. Traitors have never other company. —
But what's that Pucelle, whom they term so pure ^

Tal. a maid, they say.

Bed. a maid ! and be so martial !

Bur. Pray God, she prove not masculine ere
long;
If underneath the standard of the French,
She carry armour, as she hath begun.

Tal. Well, let them practise and converse with
spirits :
God is our fortress; in whose conquering name.
Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.

Bed. Ascend, brave Talbot ; we will follow thee.

Tal. Not altogether: better far, I guess,
That we do make our entrance several ways ;
That, if it chance the one of us do fail.
The other yet may rise against their force.

Bed. Agreed ; I'll to yon corner.

Bur. And I to this.

Tal. And here will Talbot mount, or make his
grave. —
Now, Salisbury ! for thee, and for the right
Of English Henry, shall, this night appear
How much in duty I am bound to both.

\The English scale the fValls, cjying St. George!
a Talbot ! and all enter by the Town.

sc. I KING HENRY VI. 51

Sent. \JVithmr\^ Arm, arm! the enemy doth
make assault !

The French leap o'ver the TValls in their Shirts.
Enter, several ways, Bastard, Alencon, Reig-
NiER, half ready, and half unready.

Alex. How now, my lords ? what, all unready

so^?
Bast. Unready? ay, and glad we'scap'd so well.
Reig. 'Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our
beds,
Hearing alarums at our chamber doors ^.

Alen. Of all exploits, since first I follow'd arms.
Ne'er heard I of a warlike enterprize
More venturous, or desperate than this.

Bast. I think, this Talbot be a fiend of hell.
Reig. If not of hell, the heavens, sure, favour

him,
Alen. Here cometh Charles ; I marvel, how he
sped.

1 — UNREADY SO?] Unready was the current word in those
times for undressed. Johnson.

So, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1638 : " Enter Sixtus and
Lucrece unready."

Again, in The Two Maids of More-clacke, 1609 :

" Enter James unreadi/ in his night-cap, garterless," &c.
Again, in A Match at Midnight, 1633, is this stage-direction :

" He makes himself unready."
*' Why what do you mean ? you will not be so uncivil as to ww-
brace you here ?

Again, in Monsieur D'Olive, 1606 :

" You are not going to bed, I see you are not yet unready."
Again, in Heywood's Golden Age, 1611 :
" Here Jupiter puts out the lights, and makes himself un-
ready."

Unready is equivalent to the old French word — di-pret.

Steevens.
^ Hearing alarums at our chamber doors.] So, in King Lear:
" Or, at the chamber door I'll beat the drum — ."

Steevens.
E 2

52 FIRST PART OF act u.

Enter Charles and La Pucelle.

Bast. Tut! holy Joan was his defensive cjuard.

Char. Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame ?
Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal.
Make us partakers of a little gain,
That now our loss might be ten times so much ?

Puc. Wherefore is Charles impatient with his
friend ?
At all times will you have my power alike ?
Sleeping or waking, must I still prevail.
Or will you blame and lay the fault on me ? —
Improvident soldiers ! had your watch been good,
This sudden mischief never could have falFn .

Char. Duke of Alen9on, this was your default ;
That, being captain of the watch to-night.
Did look no better to that weighty charge.

Alen. Had all your quarters been as safely kept.
As that whereof I had the government,
We had not been thus shamefully surpriz'd.

Bast. Mine was secure.

Reig. And so was mine, my lord.

Char. And, for myself, most part of all this
night,
Within her quarter, and mine own precinct,
I was employed in passing to and fro.
About relieving of the sentinels :
Then how, or which way, should they first break in ?

Pic. Question, my lords, no further of the case,
How, or which way; "tis sure, they found some

place
But weakly guarded, where the breach was made.
And now there rests no other shift but this, —
To gather our soldiers, scatter d and dispers'd.
And lay new platforms'^ to endamage them.

9 — platforms — ] i. e. plans, schemes. Steevens.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 53

Alarum. Enter an English Soldier, crying, a Tal-
bot ! a Talbot ^ / They fly, leaving their Clothes
behind.

Sold. I'll be so bold to take what they have left.
The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword ;
For I have loaden me with many spoils.
Using no other weapon but his name. [Exit.

• Enter an English Soldier crying, a Talbot ! a Talbot !]
And afterwards :

" The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword."

Here a popular tradition, exclusive of any chronicle-evidence,
was in Shakspeare's mind. Edward Kerke, the old commentator
on Spenser's Pastorals, first published in 1579, observes in his
notes on June, that Lord Talbot's " noblenesse bred such a ter-
rour in the hearts of the French, that oftimes greate armies were
defaited and put to flight, at the ojily hearing of his name: inso-
much that the French women, to aft'ray their children, would tell
them that the Talbot coyneth." See also Sc. III. T. Warton.

The same is said in Drayton's Miseries of Queen Margaret, of
Lord Warwick :

" And still so fearful was great IVanvick's name,
*' That being once cry'd on, put them oft to flight,
" On the king's army till at length they light."

Steevens.

In a note on a former passage, p. 39, n. 5, I have quoted a pas-
sage from Hall's Chronicle, which probably furnished the author
of this play with this circumstance. It is not mentioned by
Holinshed, (Shakspeare's historian,) and is one of the numerous
proofs that have convinced me that this play was not the produc-
tion of our author. See the Essay at the end of The Third Part
of King Henry VI. It is surely more probable that the writer of
this play should have taken this circumstance from the Chronicle
which furnished him with this plot, than from the Comment on
Spenser's Pastorals. Malone.

This is one of the floating atoms of intelligence which might
have been orally circulated, and consequently have reached our
author through other channels, than those of Spenser's annotator,
or our English Chronicler. Steevens.

54 FIRST PART OF ^cr ii

SCENE II.

Orleans. Within the Town.

Enter Talbot, Bedford, Burgundy, a Captain,

a fid Others,

Bed. The day begins to break, and night is fled.
Whose pitchy mantle over-veil'd the earth.
Here sound retreat, and cease our hot pursuit.

[Retreat sounded.

Tal. Bring forth the body of old Salisbury;
And here advance it in the market-place.
The middle centre of this cursed town. —
Now have I paid my vow unto his soul '" ;
For every drop of blood was drawn from him,
There hath at least five Frenchmen died to-night.
And, that hereafter ages may behold
What ruin happened in revenge of him.
Within their chiefest temple I'll erect
A tomb, wherein his corpse shall be interr'd ;
Upon the which, that every one may read.
Shall be engrav'd the sack of Orleans ;
The treacherous manner of his mournful death.
And what a terror he had been to France.
But, lords, in all our bloody massacre,
I muse, we met not with the Dauphins grace ;
His new-come champion, virtuous Joan of Arc ;
Nor any of his false confederates.

Bed. 'Tis thought, lord Talbot, when the fight
began,
Rous'd on the sudden from their drowsy beds

^ Now have I paid my vow unto his soul ; &c.] So, in the old
spurious play of King John :

" Thus hath king Richard's son ])erform'd his vow,

" And ofter'd Austria's blood for sacrifice

" Unto his father's ever-living soul." Steevens.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 55^

They did, amongst the troops of armed men,
Leap o'er the walls for refuge in the field.

Bur. Myself (as far as I could well discern,
For smoke, and dusky vapours of the night,)
Am sure, I scar'd the Dauphin, and his trull ;
When arm in arm they both came swiftly running,
Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves.
That could not live asunder day or night.
After that things are set in order here.
We'll follow them with all the power we have.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. All hail, my lords ! which of this princely
train
Call ye the warlike Talbot, for his acts
So much applauded through the realm of France ?

Tal. Here is the Talbot ; who would speak with
him ?

Mess. The virtuous lady, countess of Auvergne,
With modesty admixing thy renown,
By me entreats, good lord, thou would'st vouchsafe
To visit her poor castle where she lies ^ ;
That she may boast she hath beheld the man
Whose glory fills the world with loud report.

Bur. Is it even so ? Nay, then, I see, our wars
Will turn unto a peaceful comick sport.
When ladies crave to be encounter'd with. —
You may not, my lord, despise her gentle suit.

Tal. Ne'er trust me then ; for when a world of
men
Could not prevail with all their oratory,
Yet hath a woman's kindness over-rul'd : —
And therefore tell her, I return great thanks :
And in submission will attend on her. —
Will not your honours bear me company ?

I — where she lies ;] i. e. where she dxvells. Malone,

56 FIRST PART OF act ij.

Bed. No, truly ; it is more than manners will :
And I have heard it said, — Unbidden guests
Are often welcomest when they are gone.

Tal. Well then, alone, since there's no remedy,
I mean to prove this lady's courtesy.
Come hither, captain. \lVhispers^ — You perceive
my mind.
Cjpt. I do, my lord ; and mean accordingly.

[Ed'cunt.

SCENE III,
Auvergne. Court of the Castle.

Enter the Countess and her Porter.

Count. Porter, remember what I gave in charge ;
And, when you have done so, bring the keys to me,

Port. Madam, I will. \Ea:it.

Count. The plot is laid : if all things fall out
right,
I shall as famous be by this exploit.
As Scythian Thomyris by Cyrus' death.
Great is the rumour of this dreadful knight.
And his achievements of no less account :
Fain would mine eyes be witness with mine ears,
To give their censure ^ of these rare reports.

Enter Messenger and Talbot.
Mess. Madam,
According as your ladyship desir'd.
By message crav'd, so is lord Talbot come.

Count. And he is welcome. What ! is this the
man?

4 — their censure—] i. e. their opinion. So, in King
Richard III. :

" And give your censures in this weighty business."

Steevens.

sc. HI. KING HENRY VI. 57

Mess. Madam, it is.

Count. Is this the scourge of France ?

Is this the Talbot, so much fear'd abroad.
That with his name the mothers still their babes ^ ?
I see report is fabulous and false :
I thought, I should have seen some Hercules,
A second Hector, for his grim aspect,
And large proportion of his strong-knit limbs.
Alas ! this is a child, a silly dwarf:
It cannot be, this weak and writhled ^ shrimp
Should strike such terror to his enemies.

T^iL. Madam, I have been bold to trouble you :
But, since your ladyship is not at leisure,
I'll sort some other time to visit you.

Count. What means he now ? — Go ask him,
whither he goes.

Mess. Stay, my lord Talbot ; for my lady craves
To know the cause of your abrupt departure.

T.^L. Marry, for that she's in a wrong belief,
I go to certify her, Talbot's here.

Re-enter Porter, with Keys.

Count. If thou be he, then art thou prisoner.
Tal. Prisoner ! to whom ?

Count. To me, blood-thirsty lord ;

And for that cause I train'd thee to my house.

5 That with his name the mothers still their babes ?] Dryden
has transplanted this idea into his Don Sebastian, King of Portu-
gal:

" Nor shall Sebastian's formidable name
" Be longer us'd, to lull the crying babe." Steevens.
^ — writhled — ] i. e. wrinkled. The word is used by Spenr
ser. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads — torizled, which has been fol-
lowed in subsequent editions. Malone.

The instance from Spenser, is the following :

" Her ivrithled skin, as rough as maple rind."
Again, in Marston's fourth Satire, b. i. :

" Cold, vorithled eld, his lives-wet almost spent."

Steevens.

68 FIRST PART OF act n.

Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me.
For in my gallery thy picture hangs :
But now the substance shall endure the like ;
And I will chain these legs and arms of thine,
That hast by tyranny, these many years.
Wasted our country, slain our citizens,
And sent our sons and husbands captivate \

Tal. Ha, ha, ha !

GouNT. Laughest thou, wretch ; thy mirth shall
turn to moan.

Tal. I laugh to see your ladyship so fond^
To think that you have aught but Talbot's shadow.
Whereon to practise your severity.

Count. Why, art not thou the man ?

Tal. I am indeed.

Count. Then have I substance too.

Tal. No, no, I am but shadow of myself ^ :
You are deceiv'd, my substance is not here ;
For what you see, is but the smallest part
And least proportion of humanity :
I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here.
It is of such a spacious lofty pitch.
Your roof were not sufficient to contain it.

Count. This is a riddling merchant for the
nonce ' ;
He will be here, and yet he is not here :
How can these contrarieties agree ?

7 — captivate.] So, in Solyman and Persida ;
" If not destroy'd and bound, and captivate,
" \^ captivate, then forc'd from holy ftiith." Steevens.
^ — so FOND,] i. e. so foolish. So, in King Henry IV.
Part II. :

" Fondly brought here, and foolishly sent hence."

Steevens.
9 — I am but SHADOW of myself :] So, in King Henry VIII. :

" I am \\\^. shadoiv of poor Buckingham.'"' Steevens.
> This is a riddling merchant, &c.] So, in Romeo and Juliet:

" What saucv merchant was this ? "
See a note on this passage, vol. vi. p. 108, n 7 Steevens.

sc.ur. KING HENRY VI. 59

Tal. That will I show you presently '\

He winds a Horn. Drums heard; then a Peal of
Ordnance. The Gates being forced, enter Sol-
diers.

How say you, madam ? are you now persuaded.
That Talbot is but shadow of himself?
These are his substance, sinews, arms, and strength.
With which he yoketh your rebellious necks ;
Razeth your cities, and subverts your towns.
And in a moment makes them desolate.

Count. Victorious Talbot ! pardon my abuse :
I find, thou art no less than fame hath bruited '\ ^
And more than may be gather'd by thy shape.
Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath ;
For I am sorry, that with reverence
I did not entertain thee as thou art.

Tal. Be not dismay'd fair lady ; nor misconstrue
The mind of Talbot, as you did mistake
The outward composition of his body.
What you have done hath not offended me :
No other satisfaction do I crave,
But only (with your patience,) that we may
Tatse of your wine, and see what cates you have ;
For soldiers' stomachs always serve them well.

Count. With all my heart; and think me ho-
noured
To feast so great a warrior in my house. \^Ej:eimt.

* That will I show you presently.] The deficient foot in this
line may properly be supplied, by reading :

'• That, madam, will I show you presently." Steevens.
3 — bruited,] To bruit is to proclaim tvith noise, to announce
loudly. So, in Macbeth :

" one of greatest note

*' Seems bruited.'" Steevens.

60 FIRST PART OF act ii.

SCENE IV.

London. The Temple Garden.

Enter the Earls of Somerset, Suffolk, and JVar-
tfick; Richard Plantagenet, Vernon, and
another Lawyer *.

Plan. Great lords, and gentlemen, what means
this silence .^
Dare no man answer in a case of truth .^

SvF. Within the Temple hall we were too loud ;
The garden here is more convenient.

Plan. Then say at once, if 1 maintain'd the
truth ;
Or, else, was wrangling Somerset in the error ^ ?

SuF. 'Faith, I have been a truant in the law;
And never yet could frame my will to it ;
And, therefore, frame the law unto my will.

Sou. Judge you, my lord of Warwick, then be-
tween us.
War. Between two hawks, which flies the higher
pitch.
Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth.
Between two blades, which bears the better temper.
Between two horses, which doth bear him best ^,

4 — and ANOTHER 'Lawyer'^ Read — a lawyer. This lawyer
was probably Roger Nevyle, who was afterward hanged. See W.
Wyrcester, p. 478. Ritson.

5 Or, else, was wrangling Somerset in the error ?] So all the
editions. There is apparently a want of opposition between the
two questions. I once read :

" Or else was wrangling Somerset i' tk right ? "

Johnson.
Sir T. Hanmer would read :

" And was not ." Steevens,

* — BEAR HIM best,] i. e. regulate his motions most adroitly.
So, in Romeo and Juliet :

" He hears him like a portly gentleman." Steevens.

sc. IF. KING HENRY VI. 61

Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye,
I have, perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment :
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law.
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.

Plan. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance :
The truth appears so naked on my side,
That any purblind eye may find it out.

SoM. And on my side it is so well apparelFd,
So clear, so shining, and so evident,
That it will glimmer through a Wind man's eye.

Plan. Since you are tongue-ty'd, and so loath
to speak.
In dumb significants ^ proclaim your thoughts :
Let him, that is a true-born gentleman.
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth.
From off this brier pluck a white rose with me ^

7 In dumb significants — ] I suspect, we should read — sig-
nificance. MaLONE. "'

I believe the old reading is the true one. So, in Love's La-
bour's Lost : " Bear this significa7it [i. e. a letter] to the country
maid, Jaquenetta," Steevens.

* From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.] This is
given as the original of the two badges of the houses of York
and Lancaster, whether truly or not, is no great matter. But
the proverbial expression of saying a thing under the rose, I am
persuaded came from thence. When the nation had ranged itself
into two great factions, under the ivhite and red rose, and were
perpetually plotting and counterplotting against one another,
then, when a matter of faction was communicated by either party
to his friend in the same quarrel, it was natural for him to add,
that he said it under the rose ; meaning that, as it concerned the
faction, it was religiously to be kept secret. Warburton.

This is ingenious ! What pity, that it is not learned too !

The rose (as the fables say) was the symbol of silence, and con-
secrated by Cupid to Harpocrates, to conceal the lewd pranks of
his mother. So common a book as Lloyd's Dictionary might
have instructed Dr. Warburton in this : " Huic Harpocrati Cu-
pido Veneris filius parentis suee rosam dedit in munus, ut scilicet
si quid licentius dictum, vel actum sit in convivio, sciant tacenda
esse omnia. Atque idcirco veteres ad finem convivii sub rasa,
Anglice under the rose, transacta esse omnia ante digressum con-

62 FIRST PART OF act ii.

SoM. Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer.
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.

JK-jR. I love no colours ^ ; and, without all colour
Of base insinuating flattery,
1 pluck this white rose, with Plantagenet.

SuF. I pluck this red rose, with young Somerset;
And say withal, I think he held the right.

Ver. Stay, lords, and gentlemen ; and pluck no
more,
Till you conclude — that he, upon whose side
The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree.
Shall yield the other in the right opinion.

^0.17. Good master Vernon, it is well objected ^ ;
If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.

Plan. And I.

Ver. Then, for the truth and plainness of the case.

testabantr.r ; cujus formae vis eadem esset, atque ista, MicrM/xva-
/xova avfjLTroTav. Probant banc rem versus qui reperiuntur in mar-
more :

Est rosa flos Veneris, cujus quo furta laterent

Harpocrati matris dona dicavit Amor.
Inde rosam mensis hospes suspendit amicis,

Convivae ut sub ea dicta tacenda sciant. Upton,
9 I love no colours ;] Colours is here used ambiguously for
tints and deceits. Johnson.

So, in Love's Labour's Lost : " — I do fear colourable colours."

Steevens.
' — well objected j] Properly thrown in our way, justly pro-
posed. Johnson.

So, in Goulart's Admirable Histories, 4to. 1607: " And be-
cause Sathan transfigures himselfe into an angell of light, I ob-
jected many and sundry questions unto him." Again, in Chap-
man's version of the 21st bool< of Homer's Odyssey :
*' Excites Penelope t' object the prize,
" (The bow and bright steeles) to the woers' strength."
Again, in his version of the seventeenth Iliad :
" Objecting his all-dazeling shield," &c.
Again, in the twentieth Iliad :

" his worst shall be withstood,

" With .sole objection of myselfe." ■ Steevens.

C

sc. IF. KING HENRY VI. r 63

I pluck this pale, and maiden blossom here.
Giving my verdict on the white rose side.

SoM. Prick not your finger as you pluck it oif ;
Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red.
And fall on my side so against your will.

Fer. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed.
Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt,
And keep me on the side where still I am.

SoM. Well, well, come on : Who else ?

Latv. Unless my study and my books be false,
The argument you held, was wrong in you ;

\To Somerset.
In sign whereof, I pluck a white rose too.

Plan. Now, Somerset, where is your argument ?

SoM. Here, in my scabbard ; meditating that.
Shall die your white rose in a bloody red.

Plan. Mean time, your cheeks do counterfeit our
roses ;
For pale they look with fear, as witnessing
The truth on our side.

SoM. No, Plantagenet,

'Tis not for fear; but anger, — that thy cheeks^
Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses ;
And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.

Plan. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset ?

SoM. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet ?

Plan. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his
truth ;
Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.

SoM. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding-
roses,
That shall maintain what I have said is true.
Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.

Plan. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand,

^ — but anger, — that thy cheeks, &c.] i. e. it is not ^r fear
that my cheeks look pale, but for anger; anger product»d15y this
circumstance, namely, that ///^cheeks blush, he. Malone.

64 FIRST PART OF act ii.

I scorn thee and thy faction ^ peevish boy.

SuF. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.

Flan. Proud Poole, I will ; and scorn both him
and thee.

SvF. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat*

SoM. Away, away, good William De-la-Poole !
We grac^ the yeoman, by conversing with him.

War. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him,
Somerset ;
His grandfather was Lionel, duke of Clarence ^
Third son to the third Edward king of England ;

3 I scorn thee and thy fashion,] So the old copies read, and
rightly. Mr, Theobald altered it to faction, not considering that
hy fashion is meant the badge of the red rose, which Somerset said
he and his friends would be distinguished by. But Mr. Theobald
asks, " li faction was not the true reading, why should Suffolk
immediately reply —

" Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet."

Why ? because Plantagenet had called Somerset, with whom
Suffolk sided, peevish hoy. Warbukton.

Mr. Theobald, with great probability, reads— faction. Planta-
genet afterward uses the same word :

this pale and angry rose —

" Will I for ever, and my faction, wear."

In King Henry V. we have pation for paction. We should un-
doubtedly read— and thy faction. The old spelling of this word
wafifaccion, and hence fas/iion easily crept into the text.

So, in Hall's Chronicle, Edward IV. fol. xxii. : " — whom we
ought to beleve to be sent from God, and of hym onely to bee pro-
vided a kynge, for to extinguish both the faccions and partes [i. e.
parties] of Kyng Henry the VI. and of Kyng Edward the fourth."

Malone.

Ah fashion might have been meant to convey the meaning as-
signed to it by Dr. W^arburton, I have left the' text as I found it,
allowing at the same time the merit of the emendation offered by
Mr. Theobald, and countenanced by Mr. Malone. Steevens.

4 His grandfather was Lionel, diike of Clarence,] The author
mistakes. Plantagenet's paternal grandfather was Edmund of
Langley, Duke of York. His maternal grandfather was Roger
Mortimer, Earl of March, who was the son of Philippa the daugh-
ter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. The duke therefore was his
maternal great great grandflxther. See vol. xvi. p. 220, n. 5.

Malone.

»

sc. ir. KING HENRY VI. 65

Spring crestless yeomen ^ from so deep a root ?

Pl^n. He bears him on the place's privilege ^
Or durst not, for his craven heart, say thus^

SoM. By him that made me, I'll maintain my
words
On any plot of ground in Christendom :
Was not thy father, Richard, earl of Cambridge,
For treason executed in our late king's days ^ ?
And, by his treason, stand'st not thou attainted.
Corrupted, and exempt ^ from ancient gentry ?
His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood ;
And, till thou be restor'd, thou art a yeoman.

Pl^iw. My father was attached, not attainted ;
Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor ;
And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
Were growing time once ripen'd^ to my will.
For your partaker Poole \ and you yourself.

5 Spring crestless yeomen — ] i. e. those who have no right to
arras. Warburton.

^ He bears him on the place's privilege,] The Temple, being
a religious house, was an asylum, a place of exemption, from vio-
lence, revenge, and bloodshed. Johnson.

It does not appear that the Temple had any peculiar privilege
at this time, being then, as it is at present, the residence of law-
students. The author might, indeed, imagine it to have derived
some such privilege from its former inhabitants, the Knights Tem-
plars, or Knights Hospitalers, both religious orders : or blows
might have been prohibited by the regulations of the Society : or
what is equally probable, he might have neither known nor cared
any thing about the matter. Ritson.

7 For treason executed in our late king's days ?] This unme-
trical line may be somewhat harmonized by adopting a practice
common to our author, and reading — execute instead of executed.
Thus, in King Henry V. we have create instead of created, and con-
taminate \nstead o{ contaminated. Steevens.

^ Corrupted, and exempt — ] Exempt iox excluded.

Warburton.

9 — TIME once ripen'd — ] So, in The Merchant of Venice :
" — — stay the very riping of the time." Steevens.

' For your partaker Poole,] Partaker, in ancient language,
signifies one who fakes part with another, an accomplice, a confe-

voT,. xvni, F

66 FIRST PART OF ^ct ii.

I'll note you in my book of memory-,
To scourge you for this apprehension ^ :
Look to it well ; and say you are well warn'd.

SoM. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still :
And know us, by these colours, for thy foes ;
For these my friends, in spite of thee, shall wear.

Plan. And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose.
As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate ^,
Will I for ever, and my faction, wear ;
Until it wither with me to my grave,
Or flourish to the height of my degree.

derate. So, in Psalm 1, : " When thou savvest a thief thou didst
consent unto him, and hast been partaker with the adulterers."
Again, in Marlow's translation of the first book ofLucan, 1600:
" Each side had great partakers : Caesar's cause

" The Gods abetted ; "

Again, in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, lib. ii. : " — his obse-
quies being no more solemnized by the teares of his partakers,
than the bloud of his enemies." Steevens.

^ I'll note you in my book of memory,] So, in Hamlet :

" the table of my memory.''

Again :

" shall live

" Within the book and volume of my brain.'" Steevens.

3 To scourge you for this apprehension :] Though this word
possesses all the copies, I am persuaded it did not come from the
author. I have ventured to read — reprehension : and Plantagenet
means, that Somerset had reprehended ov \-e\)XOVic\\Gd. him with his
f:ither the Earl of Cambridge's treason. Theobald.

Apprehension, i. e. opinion. Warburton.
So, in Much Ado About Nothing :

" how long have you profess'd ap2)rehension? "

Steevens.

4 — this pale and angry rose.

As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,] So, in Romeo
and Juliet :

" Either my eye-sight fails, or thou look'' st pale. —
" And, trust me, love, in mine eye so do you :
" Dry sorrow drinks our blood." Steevens.
A badge is called a cognisance a cognoscendo, because by it such
persons as do wear it upon their sleeves, their shoulders, or in
their hats, are manifestly known whose servants they are. In
heraldry the cognisance is seated v.pon the most eminent part of
the helmet. Tollet.

sc. IV. KING HENRY VI. 67

SuF. Go forward, and be chok'd with thy ambi-
tion !
And so farewell, until I meet thee next. \Exit

SoM. Have with thee, Poole. — Farewell, ambi-
tious Richard. [^E.vit.
^ Plan. How I am brav'd, and must perforce en-
dure it !
JV^R. This blot, that they object against your
house,
Shall be wip'd out ^ in the next parliament,
Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloster :
And, if thou be not then created York,
I will not live to be accounted Warwick.
Mean time, in signal of my love to thee,
Against proud Somerset, and William Poole,
Will I upon thy party wear this rose :
And here I prophecy, — This brawl to-day.
Grown to this faction, in the Temple garden.
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

Plan. Good master Vernon, I am bound to you,
That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.
PIer. In your behalf still will I wear the same.
Latt. And so will I.
Plan. Thanks, gentle sir^.
Come, let us four to dinner : I dare say.
This quarrel will drink blood another day.

[Ea^eunt.

^ Shall be wip'd out — ] Old copy— uiAzp'^. Corrected by the
editor of the second folio. Malone.

^ — gentle sir.] The latter word, which yet does notcotn
plete the metre, was added by the editor of the second folio.

Malone.
Perhaps the line had originally this conclusion :

" Thanks, gentle sir ; thanks both." Steevens.

9.

68 FIRST PART OF act u.

SCENE V.

The Same. A Room in the Tower.

Enta^ Mortimer'^ , brought in a Chair by Two

Keepers.

MoR. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,

7 Enter Mortimer,] Mr. Edwards, in his MS. notes, ob-
serves, that Shakspeafe has varied from the truth of history, to
introduce this scene between Mortimer and Richard Plantagenet,
Edmund Mortimer served under Henry V. in l^SS, and died un-
confined in Ireland in 1424. Holinshed savs, that Mortimer was
one of the mourners at the funeral of Henry V.

His uncle. Sir John Mortimer, was indeed prisoner in the
Tower, and was executed not long before the Earl of March's
death, being charged with an attempt to make his escape in order
to stir up an insurrection in W'ales. Steevens.

A Remarher on this note [the author of the next] seems to think
that he has totally overturned it, by quoting the following passage
from Hall's Chronicle: " During whiche parliament [held in the
third year of Henry VI, 14'25,] came to London Peter Duke of
Quimber, — whiche of the Duke of Exeter, &c. was highly fested — .
During whych season Edmond Mortymer, the last Erie of Marche
of that name, (whiche long tyme had bene restrayned from hys
liberty and finally waxed lame,) disceased without yssue, whose
inheritance descended to Lord Richard Plantagenet," &c. as if a
circumstance which Hall mentioned to mark the time of Mortimer's
death, necessarily explained the place where it happened also.
The fact is, that tliis Edmund Mortimer did not die in London,
but at Trim in Ireland. He did not however die in confinement
(as Sandford has erroneously asserted in his Genealogical His-
tory. See King Henry IV. Part I, vol. xvi. p. 220, n. 5.) ; and
whether he ever was confined, (except by Owen Glendower,) may
be doubted, notwithstanding the assertion of Hall. Hardyng,
who lived at the time, says he was treated with the greatest kind-
ness and care both by Henry W. (to whom he was a ward,) and
by his son Henry V. See his Chronicle, 1453, fol. 229. He
was certainly at liberty in the year 1415, having a few days before
King Henry sailed from Southampton, divulged to him in that
to>vn tiie traiterous intentions of his brother-in-law Richard Earl

s€. y. KING HENRY VI. 69

Let dying Mortimer here rest himself ^ —
Even like a man new haled from the rack,

of Cambridge, by which he probably conciliated the friendship of
the young king. He at that time received a general pardon from
Henry, and was employed by him in a naval enterprize. At the
coronation of Queen Katharine he attended and held the sceptre.

Soon after the accession of King Henry VI. he was constituted
by the English Regency chief governor of Ireland, an office which
he executed by a deputy of his own appointment. In the latter
end of the year H2i, he went himself to that country, to protect
the great inheritance which he derived from his grandmother
Philippa, (daughter to Lionel Duke of Clarence,) from the in-
cursions of some Irish chieftains, who were aided by a body of
Scottish rovers ; but soon after his arrival died of the plague in
his castle at Trim, in January 14'2i-5.

This Edmond Mortimer was, I believe, confounded by the
author of this play, and by the old historians, with his kinsman,
who was perhaps about thirty years old at his death. Edmond
Mortimer was born in December 1392, and consequently at the
time of his death was thirty-two years old.

This family had great possessions in Ireland, in consequence of
the marriage of Lionel Duke of Clarence with the daughter of
the Earl of Ulster, about 1353, and were long connected with that
country. Lionel was for some time Viceroy of Ireland, and was
created by his father Edward III. Duke of Clarence, in consequence
of possessing the honour of Clare, in the county of Thomond.
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, who married Philippa the
duke's only daughter, succeeded him in the government of Ire-
land, and died in his office, at St. Dominick's Abbey, near Cork,
in December 1381, His son, Roger Mortimer, was twice Vice-
gerent of Ireland, and was slain at a place called Kenles, in
Ossory, in 1398. Edmund his son, the Mortimer of this play,
was, as has been already mentioned. Chief Governor of Ireland,
in the years 1423, and 1424, and died there in 1425. His
nephew and heir, Richard Duke of York, (the Plantagenet of this
play,) was in 1449 constituted Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for ten
years, with extraordinary powers ; and his son George Duke of
Clarence (who was afterwards murdered in the Tower) was born
in the Castle of Dublin, in 1450. This prince filled the same
office which so many of his ancestors had possessed, being con-
stituted Chief Governor of Ireland for life, by his brother King
Edward IV. in the third year of his reign.

Perhaps I have been mistaken in one assertion which I have
jtnade in the former part of this note ; Mortimer probably did not

70 FIRST PART OF act ji.

So fare my limbs with long imprisonment :
And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death ^,

take his title of Clarence from his great Irish possessions, (as I
have suggested) but rather from his wife's mother, Elizabeth le
Clare, third daughter of Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloster, and
sister to Gilbert de Clare, the last (of that name) Earl of Gloster,
who founded Clare Hall in Cambridge.

The error concerning Edmund Mortimer, brother-in-law to
Richard Earl of Cambridge, having been " kept in captivity
untill he died," seems to have arisen from the legend of Richard
Plantagenet, Duke of Yorke, in The Mirrour for Magistrates,
1575, where the following lines are found :

" His cursed son ensued his cruel path,
" And kept my guiltless cousin strait in durance,
" For whom my father hard entreated hath,
" But living hopeless of his life's assurance,
" He thought it best by politick prncurance
" To slay the king, and so restore his friend ;
*' Which brought himself to an infamous end.
" So when king Henry, of that name the lift,
" Had tane my father in his conspiracie,
" He, from Sir Edmund all the blame to shift,
" Was faine to say, the French king Charles, his ally,
" Had hired him this traiterous act to try ;
" For which condemned shortly he was slain :
" In helping right this was my father's gain." Malone.
It is objected that Shakspeare has varied from the truth of
history, to introduce this scene between Mortimer and Richard
Plantagenet; as the former served under Henry V. in 142'i, and
died uncon fined m Ireland, in J^^t. In the third year of Henry
the Sixth, \¥25, and during the time that Peter Duke of Coimbra
was entertained in London, " Edmonde Mortimer (says Hall)
the last erle of Marche of that name (which lon^r tyme had bene
restraynedfrom hys lihertij, and fynally waxed lamej disceased
without yssue, whose inheritance descended to lord Richard Plan-
tagenet," &c. Holinshed has the same words ; and these autho-
rities, though the fact be otherwise, are sufficient to prove that
Shakspeare, or whoever was the author of the play, did not in-
tentionally vary from the truth of history to introduce the present
scene. The historian does not, indeed, expressly say that the
Earl of March died in the Tower; but one cannot reasonably
suppose that he meant to relate an event which he knew had hap-
pened to a.Jree man in Ireland, as happening to a prisoner during

sc. r. KING HENRY VI. 71

Nestor-like aged, in an age of care,
Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.
These eyes, — like lamps whose wasting oil is
spent \ —

the time that a particular person was in London. But, where-
ever he meant to lay the scene of Mortimer's death, it is clear
that the author of this play understood him as representing it to
have happened in a London prison ; an idea, if indeed his words
will bear any other construction, a preceding passage may serve
to corroborate : " The erle of March (he has observed) was ever
kepte in the courte under such a keper that he could nether doo
or attempte any thyng agaynste the kyng vvythout his knowledge,
and dyed without issue." I am aware, and could easily show,
that some of the most interesting events, not only in the Chro-
nicles of Hall and Holinshed, but in the Histories of Rapin,
Hume, and Smollet, are perfectly fabulous and unfounded, wliich
are nevertheless constantly cited and regarded as incontrovertible
facts. But, if modern writers, standing, as it were, upon the
shoulders of their predecessors, and possessing innumerable
other advantages, are not always to be depended on, what allow-
ances ought we not to make for those who had neither Rymer,
nor Dugdale, nor Sandford to consult, who could have no access
to the treasuries of Cotton or Harley, nor were permitted the
inspection of a public record? If this were the case with
the historian, what can be expected from the dramatist ?
He naturally took {or fact what he found in history, and is by
no means answerable for the misinformation of his authority,

RiTSON.

^ Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.] I know not whether
Milton did not take from this hint the lines with which he opens
his tragedy. Johnson.

Rather from the beginning of the last scene of the third Act of
the Fhoenissce of Euripides :

Tiresias. 'HyS 7ra^oj5=, ^uydlep, cog rvi^'ha ttcSj

'0<p9aXjy.oj tl av, vcivCa.Ta.i(nv ciarpov cac.
Asuf) slg TO Kivpov ttsSov (%voj TiOeia £ff.ov, &c.

Steevens,
9 — PURSUIVANTS of death,] Pursuivants. The heralds
that, forerunning death, proclaim its approach. Johnson.

I — like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,] So, in King
Richard II. :

" My oil-dry'd lamp, and time-bewastcd light — ."

Steevens.

72 FIRST PART OF act ii.

Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent ^ :

Weak shoulders, overborne with burd'ning grief;

And pithless arms '', like to a wither'd vine

That droops his sapless branches to the ground : —

Yet are these feet — whose strengthless stay is numb.

Unable to support this lump of clay, —

Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,

As witting I no other comfort have. —

But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come ?

1 Keep. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will
come :
We sent unto the Temple, to his chamber ;
And answer was return'd that he will come.

MoR. Enough : my soul shall then be satisfied. —
Poor gentleman ! his wrong doth equal mine.
Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign,
(Before whose glory I was great in arms,)
This loathsome sequestration have I had ^ ;
And even since then hath Richard been obscur'd.
Deprived of honour and inheritance :
But now, the arbitrator of despairs,
Just death, kind umpire of men's miseries

,o 5

* - — as drawing to their exigent :] Exigent, end.

Johnson.
So, in Doctor Dodypoll, a comedy, 1600 :

" Hath driven her to some desperate exigent." Steevens.
3 And PITHLESS arms,] Pith was used for ntarroiv, and figu-
ratively, for strength. Johnson.

In the first of these senses it is used in Othello :

" For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith — ."
And, figuratively, in Hamlet :

" And enterprizes of great pith and moment — ."

Steevens.

* Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign, —

This loathsome sequestration have I had ;] Here again, the
author certainly is mistaken. See p. 68, n, 7. Malone.
s — the ARBITRATOR of dcspairs,

Just death, kind umpire of men's miseries ;] That is, he
that terminates or concludes misery. The expression is harsh and
forced. Johnson.

sc. r. KING HENRY VI. 73

With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence ;
I would, his troubles likewise were expir'd.
That so he might recover what was lost.

Enter Riciurd Flantagenet.

1 Keep. My lord, your loving nephew now is

come.
MoR. Richard Plantagenet, my friend .^ Is he

come ?
Flan. Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly us'd,
Youi* nephew, late-despised ^ Richard, comes.

MoR. Direct mine arms, I may embrace his neck.
And in his bosom spend my latter gasp :
O, tell me, when my lips do touch his cheeks.
That I may kindly give one fainting kiss. —
And now declare, sweet stem from York's gi-eat

stock.
Why didst thou say — of late thou wert despis'd ?
Plan. First, lean thine aged back against mine
arm ;
And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease ^

The same idea is expressed with greater propriety in Romeo and
Juliet :

" 'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
" Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that," &.c.

Steevens.

6 — late-despised—] i. e. lately despised. M. Mason.

7 — I'll tell thee mv disease.] Disease seems to be here un-
easiness, or discontent. Johnson.

It is so used by other ancient writers, and by Shakspeare in
Coriolanus. Thus likewise, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. iii.

C V, I

" But labour'd long in that deep ford with vain disease.''
That to disease is to disturb, may be known from the following
passages in Chapman's version of the Iliad and Odyssey :

" But brother, hye thee to the ships, and Idomen disease.'*
i. e. wake him. B. vi. edit. 1598. Again, Odyss. book vi. :

«« with which he declin'd

•' The eyes of any waker when he pleas'd,
•' And any sleeper, when he wish'd, diseasd."

74 FIRST PART OF act ii.

This day, in argument upon a case,

Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me :

Among which terms he used his lavish tongue,

And did upbraid me with my father's death ;

Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,

Else with the like I had requited him :

Therefore, good uncle, for my father's sake.

In honour of a true Plantagenet,

And for alliance' sake, declare the cause

My father, earl of Cambridge, lost his head.

MoR. That cause, fair nephew, that imprisoned
me.
And hath detain'd me, all my flow'ring youth.
Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine.
Was cursed instrument of his decease.

Plan. Discover more at large what cause that
was;
For I am ignorant, and cannot guess.

MoR. I will ; if that my fading breath permit.
And death approach not ere my tale be done.
Henry the fourth, grandfather to this king,
Depos'd his nephew Richard ^; Edward's son.

Again, in tlie ancient metrical history of The Battle of Flod-
don :

" He thought the Scots might him disease

" With constituted captains meet." Steevens.

8 — his NEPHEW llichard ;] Thus the old copy. Modern
editors read — " his cousin,"' but without necessity. Nephexv has
sometimes the power of the Latin nepos, and is used with great
laxity among our ancient English writers. Thus in Othello, lago
tells Brabantio~he shall "have his iiepheivs (i. e. the children of
his own daughter) neigh to him." Steeven?.

It would be surely better to read cousin, the meaning which
nepheiv ought to have in this place. Mr. Steevens only proves
that the word ncplieivs is sometimes used for graiul-c/iih/ren, which
is very certain. Both uncle and nephew might, however, formerly
signify cousin. See the Menegiana, vol. ii. p. 193. In The
Second Part of the Troublesome Raigne of King John, Prince
Henry calls his cousin the Bastard, " uncle:' Ritson.

,sc. y. KING HENRY VI. 75

The first-begotten, and the lawful heir

Of Edward king, the third of that descent :

During whose reign, the Percies of the north,

Finding his usurpation most unjust,

Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne :

The reason mov'd these warlike lords to this.

Was — for that (young king Richard ^ thus remov'd.

Leaving no heir begotten of his body,)

I was the next by birth and parentage ;

For by my mother I derived am

From Lionel Duke of Clarence, the third son ^

To king Edward the third, whereas he,

From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree.

Being but fourth of that heroick line.

But mark ; as, in this haughty great attempt ^,

They laboured to plant the rightful heir,

I lost my liberty, and they their lives.

Long after this, when Henry the fifth, —

Succeeding his father Bolingbroke, did reign.

Thy father, earl of Cambridge, then deriv'd

From famous Edmund Langley, duke of York,

Marrying my sister, that thy mother was,

Again, in pity of my hard distress.

Levied an army'^; weening to redeem,

I believe the mistake here arose from the author's ignorance ;
and that he conceived Richard to be Henry's nephew. Malone.
9 — young KING Richard — ] Thus the second folio. The
first omits — king, which is necessary to the metre. Steevens.

' — THE third son — ] The article — the, which is necessary to
the metre, is omitted in the first folio, but found in the second.

Steevens.
^ — in this HAUGHTY great attempt,] HaugJiti/i% Jngh.

Johnson.

So, in the fourth Act :

" Valiant and virtuous, full oi haughty courage."

Steevens.
3 Levied an army ;] Here is again another f;ilsificution of his-
tory. Cambridge levied no army, but was apprehended at South-
ampton^ the night before Henry sailed from that town for France^

76 FIRST PART OF act n.

And have install'd me in, the diadem :
But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl ;
And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,
In whom the title rested, were suppress'd.

Flan. Of which, my lord, your honour is the
last.

MoR. True ; and thou seest, that I no issue
have ;
And that my fainting words do warrant death :
Thou art my heir ; the rest, I wish thee gather ^ :
But yet be wary in thy studious care.

Plan. Thy grave admonishments prevail with
me :
But yet, methinks, my father's execution
Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.

MoR. With silence, nephew, be thou politick ;
Strong-fixed is the house of Lancaster,
And, like a mountain, not to be remov'd ^.
But now thy uncle is removing hence ;
As princes do their courts, when they are cloy'd
With long continuance in a settled place.

Plan. O, uncle, 'would some part of my young
years
Might but redeem the passage of your age ^ ! '

on the information of this very Edmund Mortimer, Earl of
March. Malone.

^ Thou art my heir ; the rest, I wish thee gather :] The sense
is — I acknowledge thee to be my heir ; the consequences which
may be collected from thence, I recommend it to thee to draw.

Heath,
s And, like a mountain, not to be remov'd.] Thus Milton, Par.
Lost, book iv. :

" Like TenerifF or Atlas, unremov'd." Steevens,
^ O, uncle, 'would some part of my young years
Might but redeem, &c.] This thought has some resemblance
to that of the following lines, which are supposed to be addressed
by a married lady, who died very young, to her husband. The
inscription is, I think, in the church of Trent :
Immatura peri ; sed tu diuturnior annos
Vive mcos, conjux optinic, vive tuos. Malone.

sc. F. KING HENRY VI. 77

MoR. Thou dost then wrong me ; as the slaugh-

t'rer doth,
Which giveth many wounds, when one will kill \
Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good ;
Only, give order for my funeral ;
And so farewell ; and fair be all thy hopes ^ !
And prosperous be thy life, in peace, and war !

[Dies.
Plan. And peace, no war, befal thy parting

soul !
In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,
And like a hermit overpass'd thy days. —
Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast ;
And what I do imagine, let that rest. —
Keepers, convey him hence ; and I myself

This superstition is very ancient. Some traces of it may be
found in the traditions of the Rabbins ; it is enlarged upon in the
Alcestes of Euripides ; and such offers ridiculed by Juvenal,
Sat. xii. Dion Cassius in Vit. Hadrian, fol. edit. Hamburgh,
vol. ii. p. 1160, insinuates, "That Hadrian sacrificed his favourite
Antinous with this design." See Reimari Annotat. in loc : " De
nostris annis, tibi Jupiter augeat annos," said the Romans to Au-
gustus. See Lister's Journey to Paris, p. 221. Vaillant.
V — as the slaught'rer doth.
Which giveth many vi'ounds, when one will kill.] The same
thought occurs in Hamlet :

" Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
" Gives me superfluous death." Steevens.
^ — and fair be all thy hopes !] Mortimer knew Plantage-
tiet's hopes were fair, but that the establishment of the Lancas-
trian line disappointed them : sure, he would wish, that his
nephew's fair hopes might have a fair issue. I am persuaded the
poet wrote :

" — — and fair hefal thy hopes ! " Theobald.
This emendation is received by Sir Thomas Hanmer and Dr.
Warburton. 1 do not see how the readings differ in sense. Fair
is liickij, or prosperous. So we say, ^.Jair wind, andya/r fortune.

Johnson.
Theobald's amendment is unnecessary, and proceeded from his
confounding Plantagenet's hopes with his pretensions. His^^re-
tensions were well founded, but his hopes were not. M. MAso^f.

78 FIRST PART OF act ii.

Will see his burial better than his life. —

\E):cunt Keepers, bearing out Mortimer.
Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,
Chok'd with ambition ^ of the meaner sort : —
And, for those wrongs, those bitter injuries,
Which Somerset hath offerd to my house, —
I doubt not, but with honour to redress :
And therefore haste I to the parliament ;
Either to be restored to my blood.
Or make my ill ^ the advantage of my good.

[Exit.

9 Chok'd with ambition of the meaner sort :] So, in the pre-
ceding scene :

" Go forward, and be chok'd tvith thy ambition."

Steevens.
We are to understand the speaker as reflecting- on the ill for-
tune of Mortimer, in being always made a tool of by the Percies
of the North in their rebellious intrigues ; rather than in asserting
his claim to the crown, in support of his own princely ambition.

Warburtox.
It rather means, ' oppressed by those whose right to the crown
was not so good as his own.' Boswell.
' Or make my ill — ] In former editions :

" Or make my will th' advantage of my good."
So all the printed copies ; but with very little regard to the
poet's meaning. I read :

" Or make my ill th' advantage of my good."
Thus we recover the antithesis of the expression, Theobald.
Ml/ ill, is mi/ ill usage. Malone.

This sentiment resembles another of Falstaff, in The Second
Part of King Henry IV. ; " I will turn diseases to commodity."

Steevens.

ACT 111. KING HENRY VI. 79

ACT III. SCENE I.

The Same. The Parliament-House ^.

Flourish. Enter King Henry, Exeter, Gloster,
Wartfick, Somerset, and Suffolk; the Bishop
of Winchester, Richard Plantagenet, and
Others. Gloster offers to put up a Bill ; JViyi-
Chester snatches it, and tears it.

Win. Com'st thou with deep premeditated lines.
With written pamphlets studiously devis'd,
Humphrey of Gloster ? if thou canst accuse.
Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge.
Do it without invention suddenly ;
As I with sudden and extemporal speech
Purpose to answer what thou canst object.

Glo. Presumptuous priest ! this place commands
my patience,
Or thou should'st find thou hast dishonoured me.
Think not, although in wi-iting I preferr'd
The manner of thy vile outrageous crimes.
That therefore I have forg'd, or am not able
Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen :
No, prelate ; such is thy audacious wickedness.
Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks.
As very infants prattle of thy pride.
Thou art a most pernicious usurer ;
Froward by nature, enemy to peace ;

^ The Parliament-House.] This parliament was held in 1426,
at Leicester, though the author of this play has represented it to
have been held in London. King Henry was now in the fifth year
of his age. In the first parliament which was held at London
shortly after his father's death, his mother Queen Katharine
brought the young King from Windsor to the metropolis, and sat
on the throne of the parliament-house with the infant in her lap.

Malone.

80 FIRST PART OF act iii.

Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems
A man of thy profession, and degree ;
And for thy treachery, What's more manifest ?
In that thou laid'st a trap to take my life,
As well at London bridge, as at the Tower ?
Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,
The king, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt
From envious malice of thy swelling heart.

JViN. Gloster, I do defy thee. — Lords, vouch-
safe
To give me hearing what I shall reply.
If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse *,
As he will have me, How am I so poor ?
Or how haps it, I seek not to advance
Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling ?
And for dissention, Who preferreth peace
More than I do, — except I be provok'd ?
No, my good lords, it is not that offends ;
It is not that, that hath incens'd the duke :
It is, because no one should sway but he ;
No one, but he, should be about the king ;
And that engenders thunder in his breast.
And makes him roar these accusations forth.
But he shall know, I am as good

Glo. As good ?

Thou bastard of my grandfather ^ ! —

IViN. Ay, lordly sir ; For what are you, I pray,
But one imperious in another's throne ?

Glo. Am I not the protector^, saucy priest .^

* If I WERE covetous, ambitious, or perverse,] I suppose this
redundant line originally stood —

" ^r6?re / covetous, ambitious," &c. Steevens.
5 Tiiou bastard of my grandfather,] The Bishop of Winches-
ter was an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster,
by Katharine Swynford, whom the Duke afterwards married.

Malone.
^ — THE protector,] I have added the axl\c\e— the, for the
sake of metre, Steevens.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 81

^iN, And am I not a prelate of the church ?

Glo. Yes^ as an outlaw in a castle keeps,
And useth it to patronage his theft.

IViN. Unreverent Gloster !

Glo. Thou art reverent

Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life.

fViN. Rome shall remedy this ^

IVyiR. Roam thither then^.

SoM. My lord, it were your duty to forbear^.

IV^R. Ay, see the bishop be not overborne.

So3/. Methinks, my lord should be religious.
And know the office that belongs to such.

fV^R. Methinks, his lordship should be humbler;
It fitteth not a prelate so to plead.

SoM. Yes, when his holy state is touch'd so near.

IF^R. State holy, or unhallow'd, what of that ?
Is not his grace protector to the king ?

Flan. Plantagenet, I see, must hold his tongue ;
Lest it be said, Speak, sirrah, wJien you should ;
Must your bold verdict enter talk zvith lords ?

1 This Rome shall remedy.] The old copy, unmetrically —
" Rome shall remedy this."
The transposition is Sir Thomas Hanmer's. Steevens.

^ Roam thither then.] Roam to Rome. To roam is supposed
to be derived from the cant of vagabonds, who often pretended a
pilgrimage to Rome. Johnson.

The jingle between roam and Rume'x?, common to other writers.

So, in Nash's Lenten Stuff, &c. 1599: " three hundred

thousand people roamed to Rome for purgatorie pills," &c.

Steevens.
Our author seems to have pronounced this word differently.
See Julius Csesar :

" Now is it Rome indeed and room enough." Boswell.
9 Som. My lord, it were your duty to forbear, &c.] This line,
in the old copy, is joined to the former hemistich spoken by War-
wick, The modern editors have very properly given it to Somer-
set, for whom it seems to have been designed.

" Ay, see the bishop be not overborne,"
was as erroneously given in the next speech to Somerset, instead
of Warwick, to whom it has been since restored. Steevens.
The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. Malone.
VOL. XVIII. G

82 FIRST PART OF act in.

Else would I have a fling at Winchester. \^Aside,
K. Hen. Uncles of Gloster, and of Winchester,

The special watchmen of our English weal ;

I would prevail, if prayers might prevail.

To join your hearts in love and amity.

O, what a scandal is it to our crown,

That two such noble peers as ye, should jar I

Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell.

Civil dissention is a viperous worm,

That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth. —
\A Noise xvithin ; Down with the tawny coats !

What tumult's this ?

War. An uproar, I dare warrant.

Begun through malice of the bishop's men.

\_A Noise again ; Stones ! Stones !

Enter the Mayor of London, attended.

May. O, my good lords, — and virtuous Henry, —
Pity the city of London, pity us !
The bishop and the duke of Gloster's men.
Forbidden late to carry any weapon,
Have fill'd their pockets full of pebble-stones ;
And, banding themselves in contrary parts.
Do pelt so fast at one another's pate,
That many have their giddy brains knock'd out :
Our windows are broke down in every street.
And we, for fear, compell'd to shut our shops.

Enter, skirmisJiing, the Retainers of Gloster and
Winchester, with bloody pates.

K. Hen. We charge you, on allegiance to our-
self.
To hold your slaught'ring hands, and keep the

peace.
Pray, uncle Gloster, mitigate this strife.

1 Serf. Nay, if we be
Forbidden stones, we'll fall to it with our teeth.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 83

2 Serv. Do what ye dare, we are as resolute.

\_Skirmish again.
Glo. You of my household, leave this peevish
broil.
And set this unaccustom'd fight ^ aside.

1 Serv. My lord, we know your grace to be a
man
Just and upright ; and, for your royal birth,
Inferior to none, but to his majesty^ :
And, ere that we will suffer such a prince.
So kind a father of the commonweal.
To be disgraced by a inkhorn mate ^,
We, and our wives, and our children, all will fight.
And have our bodies slaughter'd by thy foes.

3 Serf. Ay, and the very parings of our nails
Shall pitch a field, when we are dead.

[Skirmish again.
Glo. Stay, stay, I say * !

And, if you love me, as you say you do,

' — unaccustom'd fight — ] Unaccustom'd IS unseemly, in-
decent. Johnson,

The same epithet occurs again in Romeo and Juliet, where it
seems to mean — " such as is uncommon, not in familiar use : "
" Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram."

Steevens.
* — but his majesty :] Old copy, redundantly —

" but to his majesty."

Perhaps the line originally ran thus :

" To none inferior, but his majesty." Steevens.
3 — an inkhorn mate,] h bookman. Johnson.
~It was a term of reproach at the time towards men of learning
or men affecting to be learned. George Pettie in his Introduction
to Guazzo's Civil Conversation, 1586, speaking of those he calls
nice travellers, says, " if one chance to derive anie word from the
Latine, which is insolent to their ears, (as perchance they will
take that phrase to be) they forthwith make a jest at it, and tearme
it an Inkhorne tearme." Reed.

4 Stay, stay, I say !] Perhaps the words — / say, should be
omitted, as they only serve to disorder the metre, and create a
disagreeable repetition of the word — say, in the next line.

Steevens.

G 21

84 FIRST PART OF act hi.

Let me persuade you to forbear a while.

K. Hen. O, how this discord doth afflict my
soul ! —
Can you, my lord of Winchester, behold
My sighs and tears, and will not once relent ?
Who should be pitiful, if you be not ?
Or who should study to prefer a peace,
If holy churchmen take delight in broils ?

War. Yield, my lord protector ^ ! — yield, Win-
chester ; —
Except you mean, with obstinate repulse,
To slay your sovereign, and destroy the realm.
You see what mischief, and what murder too.
Hath been enacted through your enmity ;
Then be at peace, except ye thirst for blood .

IP IN. He shall submit, or I will never yield.

Glo. Compassion on the king commands me
stoop ;
Or, I would see his heart out, ere the priest
Should ever get that privilege of me.

TVar. Behold, my lord of Winchester, the duke
Hath banish'd moody discontented fury,
As by his smoothed brows it doth appear :
Why look you still so stern, and tragical ?

Glo. Here, Winchester, I offer thee my hand.

K. Hen. Fye, uncle Beaufort ! I have heard you
preach.
That malice was a great and grievous sin :
And will not you maintain the thing you teach.
But prove a chief offender in the same ?

fVjR. Sweet king! — the bishop hath a kindly
gird °. —

5 My lord protector, yield ;] Old copy — " Yield, my lord pro-
tector." This judicious transposition was made by Sir T. Hanmer,

Steevens.

^ — hath a kindly gird.] i. e. feels an emotion of kind re-
morse. JoHNSOIf.

A kindly gird is a gentle ox friendly reproof. Falstaff observes.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 85

For shame, my lord of Winchester ! relent ;
What, shall a child instruct you what to do ?

IViN. Well, duke of Gloster, I will yield to thee ;
Love for thy love, and hand for hand I give.

Glo. Ay ; but I fear me, with a hollow heart. —
See here, my friends, and loving countrymen ;
This token serveth for a flag of truce,
Betwixt ourselves, and all our followers :
So help me God, as I dissemble not !

fFiN. So help me God, as I intend it not !

[Aside.

K. Hen. O loving uncle, kind duke of Gloster \
How joyful am I made by this contract ! —
Away, my masters ! trouble us no more ;
But join in friendship, as your lords have done.

1 Serf. Content; 111 to the surgeon's.

2 Serf. And so will I.

3 Serv. And I will see what physick the tavern

affords. \_E.veunt Servants, Mayor, 8^c.
War. Accept this scroll, most gracious sove-
reign ;
Which in the right of Richard Plantagenet
We do exhibit to your majesty.

Glo. Well urg'd, my lord of Warwick \ — for,
sweet prince,

that " men of all sorts take a pride to gird at him : " and, in The
Taming of the Shrew, Baptista says : " Tranio hits vou now : " to
which Lucentio answers :

" 1 thank thee for that gird, good Tranio." Steevens.

The word g'ij-ii does not here signify reproof, as Steevens sup-
poses, but a twitch, a. pang, di yearning of kindness. M. Mason.

I wish Mr. M. Mason had produced any example of gird used
in the sense for which he contends, I cannot supply one for him,
or I most readily would. Steevens.

Mr. Malone in a note on a passage in Coriolanus, vol. xiv. p. 21,
n. 2, says, that to gird means to pluck, or tvoinge, and informs us
that Cotgrave makes ^^r^ and toiwo^e synonymous. M. Mason.

But nothing is said of 2i yearning of kindness. Boswell.

7 — kind duke of Gloster.] For the sake of metre, I could
wish to read —

" — — most kind duke," &c. Steevens.

86 FIRST PART OF act iii.

An if your grace mark every circumstance,
You have great reason to do Richard right ;
Especially, for those occasions
At Eltham-place I told your majesty.

K. Hen. And those occasions, uncle, were of
force :
Therefore, my loving lords, our pleasure is.
That Richard be restored to his blood.

War. Let Richard be restored to his blood ;
So shall his father's wrongs be recompens'd.

PViN. As will the rest, so willeth Winchester.

K. Hen. If Richard will be true, not that alone ^
But all the whole inheritance I give,
That doth belong unto the house of York,
From whence you spring by lineal descent.

Plan. Thy humble servant vows obedience.
And humble service, till the point of death.

K. Hen. Stoop then, and set your knee against
my foot ;
And, in reguerdon ^ of that duty done,
I girt thee with the valiant sword of York :
Rise, Richard, like a true Plantagenet ;
And rise created princely duke of York.

Plan. And so thrive Richard, as thy foes may
fall !
And as my duty springs so perish they
That grudge one thought against your majesty,

All. Welcome, high prince, the mighty duke of
York !

SoM. Perish, base prince, ignoble duke of York !

[Aside.

Glo. Now will it best avail your majesty,

^ — that alone,] By a mistake probably of the transcriber,
the old copy reads — " that «// alone." The correction was made
by the editor of the second folio. Malone.

9 — reguerdon — ] Recompence, return. Johnson.

It is perhaps a corruption of — regardum, middle Latin. See
vol. iv. p. 333, n. 5. Steevens.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 87

To cross the seas, and to be crown'd in France :
The presence of a king engenders love
Amongst his subjects, and his loyal friends;
As it disanimates his enemies.

X. Hen. When Gloster says the word, king
Henry goes ;
For friendly counsel cuts off many foes.
Glo. Your ships already are in readiness.

\_E.vennt all but Exeter.
ExE. Ay, we may march in England, or in France,
Not seeing what is likely to ensue ;
This late dissention, grown betwixt the peers,
Burns under feigned ashes of forg'd love \
And will at last break out into a flame :
As fester'd members rot but by degrees.
Till bones, and flesh, and sinews, fall away.
So will this base and envious discord breed ^.
And now I fear that fatal prophecy,
Which, in the time of Henry, nam'd the fifth.
Was in the mouth of every sucking babe, —
That Henry, born at Monmouth, should win all ;
And Henry, born at Windsor, should lose all :
Which is so plain, that Exeter doth wish
His days may finish ere that hapless time ^. \_Exit.

' Burns under feigned ashes of forg'd love,]

Ignes suppositos cineri doloso. Hor. Malone.
^ So will this base and envious discord breed.] That is, so will
the malignity of this discord propagate itself, and advance.

Johnson,
3 His days may finish, &c.] The Duke of Exeter died shortly
after the meeting of this parliament, and the Earl of Warwick
was ajipointed governor or tutor to the King in his room.

Malone.

88 FIRST PART OF ^cr in.

SCENE II.

France. Before Roiien.

Enter La Pucelle disguised, and Soldiers dressed
like Countrymen, xvith Sacks upon their Backs.

Puc. These are the city gates, the gates of

Roiien ^
Through which our policy must make 9, breach :
Take heed, be wary how you place your words ;
Talk like the vulgar sort of market-men,
That come to gather money for their corn.
If we have entrance, (as, I hope, we shall,)
And that we find the slothful watch but weak,
I'll by a sign give notice to our friends,
That Charles the Dauphin may encounter them.
1 Sold. Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the

city \
And we be lords and rulers over Roiien ;
Therefore we'll knock. [^Knocks,

Guard. [Within.] Qui est la^?

4 — the gates of Roiien,'] Here, and throughout the play, in
the old copy, we have Roan, which was the old spelling oi Rouen.
The word, consequently, is used as a monosyllable. See the
next page, 1. 4, and last line but one. Malone.

I do not perceive the necessity of considering Rouen here as a
monosyllable. Would not the verse have been sufficiently regu-
lar, had the scene been in England, and authorized Shakspeare to
write (with a dissyllabical termination, familiar to the drama)—
" These are the city gates, the gates of Londoii ? "

Steevens.

If the verse elsewhere requires it to be a monosyllable, and if it
was spelt as such, I think my position is sufficiently certain.

Malone.

^ Our SACKS shall be a mean to sack the city,] Falstaff has
the same quibble, showing his bottle of sack : " Here's that will
sack a city." Steevens.

^ Qui EST 1^ ?] Old copy — C/ie la. For the emendation I ani
answerable. Malone.

Late editions — Qui va la? Steevens^

sc, II. KING HENRY VI. 89

Puc. Paisans, pauvres gens de France :
Poor market-folks, that come to sell their corn.
Glurd. Enter, go in ; the market-bell is rung.

[Opens the gates.

Puc. Now, Roiien, I'll shake thy bulwarks to the

ground. [Pucelle, ^c. enter the City.

Enter Charles, Bastard of Orleans, Alencon,

and Forces.

Char. Saint Dennis bless this happy stratagem !
And once again we'll sleep secure in Roiien.

Bast. Here enter'd Pucelle, and her practis-
ants ^ ;
Now she is there, how will she specify
Where is ^ the best and safest passage in ?

Alen. By thrusting out a torch from yonder
tower ;
Which, once discerned, shows, that her meaning

is,—
No way to that^ for weakness, which she enter'd.

Enter La Pucelle on a Battlement : holding out a

Torch burning.

Puc. Behold, this is the happy wedding torch.
That joineth Roiien unto her countrymen j
But burning fatal to the Talbotites.

7 Here enter'd Pucelle, and her practisants :] Practice, in
the language of that time, was treachery, and perhaps in the softer
sense stratagem. Practisants are therefore confederates in strata-
gems. Johnson.

So, in the Induction to The Taming of The Shrew :

" Sirs, I will practice on this drunken man." Steevens.
^ Where is — ] Old copy — Here is. Corrected by Mr. Rowe.

Malone.
9 No way to that,] That is, «o ivay equal to that, no way so
fit as that. Johnson.

So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

" There is no woe to his correction." Steevens.

90 FIRST PART OF act in.

Bast. See, noble Charles ! the beacon of our
friend,
The burning torch in yonder turret stands.

Char. Now shine it like a comet of revenge,
A prophet to the fall of all our foes !

Alen. Defer no time, Delays have dangerous
ends;
Enter, and cry — The Dauphin! — presently.
And then do execution on the watch. [They enter.

Alarums. Enter Talbot, and certain English.

Tal. France, thou shalt rue this treason with
thy tears \
If Talbot but survive thy treachery. —
Pucelle, that witch, that damned sorceress.
Hath wrought this hellish mischief unawares.
That hardly we escap'd the pride of France '^.

[Ea:eunt to the Town.

' France, thou shalt rue this, &c.] So, in King John :

" France, thou shalt rue this hour," &c. Steevens,
- That hardly we escap'd the pride of France.] PnWe signifies
the haughty j}orver. The same speaker says afterwards, Act IV.
Sc. VI. : ■

" And from the pride of Gallia rescu'd thee."
One would think this plain enough. But what won't a puzzling
critick obscure ! Mr. Theobald savs — Pride of France is an absurd
and unmeaning expression, and therefore alters it to prize of
France ; and in this is followed by the Oxford editor.

Warburton.
Dr. Warburton, I believe, has rightly explained the force of the
word — pride, which indeed is asunfamiliarly used by Chapman, in
his version of the tenth Iliad :

" And therefore will not tempt his fate, nor ours, with further
pride."
Again, in the eleventh Iliad :

" he died

" Far from his newly-married wife, in aid of (orei^n pride."
Our author, however, in King Henry V. has the same phrase :
" — — could entertain
" With half their forces the full pride of France."

Steevens.

sc. jj. KING HENRY VI. 91

Alarum: Ej^cursions. Enter, from the Tozv?j,
Bedford, brought in sick, in a Chair, ivith Tal-
bot, Burgundy, and the English Forces. Then,
enter on the J Vails, La Pucelle, Charles, Bas-
tard, Alencon^, and Others.

Puc. Good morrow, gallants ! want ye corn for
bread ?
I think, the duke of Burgundy will fast.
Before he'll buy again at such a rate :
'Twas full of darnel '* ; Do you like the taste ?
Bur. Scoff on, vile fiend, and shameless courte-
zan !
I trust, ere long, to choke thee with thine own.
And make thee curse the harvest of that corn.
Char. Your grace may starve, perhaps, before

that time.
Bed. O, let no words, but deeds, revenge this
treason !

3 — Alengon,'] Alengon Sir T. Hanmer has replaced here, in-
stead of Reignier, because Alengon, not Reignier, appears in the
ensuing scene. Johnson.

4 — darnel ;] So, in King Lear :

" Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
" In our sustaining corn."

" Darnel (jays Gerard) hurteth the eyes, and maketh them dim,
if it happen either in come for breade, ordrinke." Hence the old
proverb — LoJio victitare, applied to such as were dim-sighted.
Thus also, Ovid, Fast. i. 691 :

Et careant loliis ocidos vitiantibus agri.

Pucelle means to intimate, that the corn she carried with her,
had produced the same effect on the guards of Rouen ; otherwise
they would have seen through her disguise, and defeated her stra-
tagem, Steevens.

Darnel is the lolium temidentum, so called, because when the
seeds happen to be ground with corn, the bread made of this mix-
ture always occasions giddiness and sickness in those who eat it.
It resembles wheat in its appearance, whence Dr. Campbell is of
opinion, that it was the ^i^avtu of St. Matth. xiii. 25, improperly
rendered tares in our authorized version. Blakeway.

92 FIRST PART OF act iii.

Puc. What will you do, good grey-beard ? break
a lance.
And run a tilt at death within a chair ?

Tal. Foul fiend of France, and hag of all de-
spite,
Encompass'd with thy lustful paramours !
Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age.
And twit with cowardice a man half dead ?
Damsel, I'll have a bout with you again.
Or else let Talbot perish with this shame.

Puc. Are you so hot, sir ? — Yet, Pucelle, hold
thy peace ;
If Talbot do but thunder, rain will follow. —

[Talbot, and the rest, consult together.
God speed the parliament ! who shall be the
speaker ?
Tal. Dare ye come forth, and meet us in the

field ?
Puc. Belike, your lordship takes us then for fools.
To try if that our own be ours, or no.

Tal. I speak not to that railing Hecate,
But unto thee, Alen9on, and the rest ;
Will ye, like soldiers, come and fight it out ?
Alen. Signior, no.

Tal. Signior, hang ! — base muleteers of France !
Like peasant foot-boys do they keep the walls,
And dare not take up arms like gentlemen.

Puc. Captains, away : let's get us from the walls j
For Talbot means no goodness, by his looks. —
God be wi' you, my lord ! we came, but to tell

you ^
That we are here.

\_Exeiint La Pucelle, S^c.from the Walls.
Tal. And there will we be too, ere it be long,

5 — we came, sir, but to tell you — ] The word — sir, which is
wanting in the first folio, was judiciously supplied by the second.

Steevens.

sc. IT. KING HENRY VI. 93

Or else reproach be Talbot's greatest fame ! —

Vow, Burgundy, by honour of thy house,

(Prick'd on by publick wrongs, sustain'd in France,)

Either to get the town again, or die ;

And I, — as sure as Enghsh Henry lives.

And as his father here was conqueror ;

As sure as in this late -betrayed town

Great Coeur-de-lion's heart was buried ;

So sure I swear, to get the town, or die.

Bur. My vows are equal partners with thy vows.

T^L. But, ere we go, regard this dying prince,
The valiant duke of Bedford : — Come, my lord,
We will bestow you in some better place.
Fitter for sickness, and for crazy age.

Bed. Lord Talbot, do not so dishonour me :
Here will I sit before the walls of Roiien,
And will be partner of your weal, or woe,

Bur. Courageous Bedford, let us now persuade
you.

Bed. Not to be gone from hence : for once I read.
That stout Pendragon, in his litter ^ sick,

^ — once I read.
That stout Pendragon, in his litter, &c.] This hero was
Uther Pendragon, brother to Aurelius, and father to King Ar-
thur.

Shakspeare has imputed to Pendragon an exploit of Aurelius,
who, says Holinshed, " even sicke of a flixe as he was, caused
himselfe to be carried forth in a litter : with whose presence his
people were so incouraged, that encountering with the Saxons they
wan the victorie." Hist, of Scotland, p. 99.

Harding, however, in his Chronicle (as I learn from Dr. Grey)
gives the following account of Uther Pendragon :
" For which the king ordain'd a horse-litter
" To bear him so then unto Verolame,
" Where Ocea lay, and Oysa also in fear,
'•' That saint Albones now hight of noble fame,
" Bet down the walles ; but to him forth they came,
" Where in battayle Ocea and Oysa were slayn.
" The fielde he had, and thereof was full fayne."

Steevens.

94 FIRST PART OF act in.

Came to the field, and vanquished his foes:
Methinks, I should revive the soldiers' hearts.
Because I ever found them as myself.

Tal. Undaunted spirit in a dying breast ! —
Then be it so : — Heavens keep old Bedford

safe ! —
And now no more ado, brave Burgundy,
But gather we our forces out of hand,
And set upon our boasting enemy.

\_Exeunt Burgundy, Talbot, and Forces,
leaving Bedford, and Others.

Alarum : Excursions. Enter Sir John Fastolfe^

and a Captain.

Cap. Whither away, sir John Fastolfe, in such

haste ?
Fast. Whither away .^ to save myself by flight "^ ;
We are like to have the overthrow again.

Cap. What ! will you fly, and leave lord Talbot.^
Fast. Ay,

All the Talbots in the world, to save my life. [^E.vit.
Cap. Cowardly knight ! ill fortune follow thee !

\_E.vit.

Retreat : Excursions. Enter, from the Tozon, La
PucELLE, Alen^on, Charles, 8^c, and Exeunt,

Bed. Now, quiet soul, depart when heaven please.
For I have seen our enemies' overthrow.

7 — save myself by flight ;] I have no doubt that it vras the
exaggerated representation of Sir John Fastolfe's coivardice which
the author of this play has given, that induced Shakspeare to give
the name of Falstaff to his knight. Sir John Fastolfe did indeed
fly at the battle of Pataij in the year 14'29 ; and is reproached
by Talbot in a subsequent scene, for his conduct on that occasion ;
but no historian has said that he fled before Rouen. Malone.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 95

What is the trust or strength of foolish man ?
They, that of late were daring with their scoffs.
Are glad and fain by flight to save themselves.

[Dies^, and is carried off in his Chair.

Alarum. Enter Tjlbot^ Burgundy, amd Others.

Tal. Lost, and recover'd in a day again !
This is a double honour, Burgundy :
Yet, heavens have glory for this victory !

Bur. Warlike and martial Talbot, Burgundy
Enshrines thee in his heart ; and there erects
Thy noble deeds, as valour's monument.

Tal. Thanks, gentle duke. But where is Pu-
celle now .^
I think her old familiar is asleep :
Now Where's the Bastard's braves, and Charles his

gleeks ?
What, all a-mort ^ ^ Roiien hangs her head for

grief.
That such a valiant company are fled.
Now will we take some order ' in the town,
Placing therein some expert officers;
And then depart to Paris to the king;
For there young Harry, with his nobles, lies.

Bur. What wills lord Talbot, pleaseth Bur-
gundy.

Tal. But yet, before we go, let's not forget
The noble duke of Bedford, late deceas'd,
But see his exequies fulfill'd in Roiien ;

^ Dies, &c.] The Duke of Bedford died at Rouen in Septem-
ber, 1435, but not in any action before that town. Malone.

9 What, ALL A-MORT?] i. e, quite dispirited; a frequent Gal-
licism. So, in The Taming of the Shrew :

" What, sweeting ! all a-mort'? '' Steevens.
' — TAKE some ORDER — ] i. e. make some necessaiy dispo-
tions. So, in The Comedy of Errors:

" Whilst to take order for the wrong I went."
See also Othello, Sc. ult. Steevens.

96 FIRST PART OF act in.

A braver soldier never couched lance "^j

A gentler heart did never sway in court:

But kings, and mightiest potentates, must die ;

For that's the end of human misery. \_E.veunt.

SCENE IIL

The Same. The Plains near the City.

Enter Charles^ the Bastard, Alen^on, La Pu'

CELLE, and Forces.

Puc. Dismay not, princes, at this accident,
Nor grieve that Roiien is so recovered :
Care is no cure, but rather corrosive ^,
For things that are not to be remedied.
Let frantick Talbot triumph for a while,
And like a peacock sweep along his tail ;
We'll pull his plumes, and take away his train.
If Dauphin, and the rest, will be but rul'd.

Char. We have been guided by thee hitherto,
And of thy cunning had no diffidence ;
One sudden foil shall never breed distrust.

Bast. Search out thy wit for secret policies,
And we will make thee famous through the world.

Alen. We'll set thy statue in some holy place,
And have thee reverenc'd like a blessed saint ;
Employ thee then, sweet virgin, for our good.

Puc. Then thus it must be ; this doth Joan devise :

* A braver soldier never couched lance,] So, in a subsequent
scene, p. 102 :

" A stouter champion never handled sword."
The same phrase is expressed with more animation in the Third
Part of this play :

" braver men

" Ne'er spur'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound."

Steevens.
3 — corrosive.] Should we not read a corrosive? Boswell.

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 97

By fair persuasions, mix'd with sugar'd words,
We will entice the duke of Burgundy
To leave the Talbot, and to follow us.

Char. Ay, marry, sweeting, if we could do that,
France were no place for Henry's warriors ;
Nor should that nation boast it so with us.
But be extirped from our provinces ^.

Alen. For ever should they be expuls'd from
France ^,
And not have title to an earldom here.

Fvc. Your honours shall perceive how I will
work.
To bring this matter to the wished end.

\I)rums heard.
Hark ! by the sound of drum, you may perceive
Their powers are marching unto Paris-ward.

An English March. Enter, and pass over at a dis-
tance, Talbot and his Forces.

There goes the Talbot, with his colours spread ;
And all the troops of English after him.

A French March. Enter the Duke of Burgundy

and Forces.

Now, in the rearward, comes the duke, and his ;
Fortune, in favour, makes him lag behind.
Summon a parley, we will talk with him.

\_A Parley sounded.

4 But be EXTIRPED froiti our provinces.] To extirp is to root
out. So, in Lord Sterline's Darius, 1603 :

*' The world shall gather to extirp our name."

Steevens.

5 — expuls'd from France,] i. e. expelled. So, in Ben
Jonson's Sejanus :

" The expulsed Apicata finds them there."
Again, in Drayton's Muses Elizium :

" And if you expulse them there,

" They'll hang upon your braided hair." Steevens.
V(3I.. XVI II. H

98 FIRST PART OF act in.

Char, a parley with the duke of Burgundy.

Bun. Who craves a parley with the Burgundy ?

Puc. The princely Charles of France, thy coun-
tryman.

Bur. What say'st thou, Charles ? for I am march-
ing hence.

Char. Speak, Pucelle; and enchant him with
thy words.

Puc. Brave Burgundy, undoubted hope of France !
Stay, let thy humble handmaid speak to thee.

Bur. Speak on ; but be not over-tedious.

Puc. Look on thy country, look on fertile France,
And see the cities and the towns defac'd
By wasting ruin of the cruel foe!
As looks the mother on her lowly babe ^,
When death doth close his tender dying eyes,
See, see, the pining malady of France ;
Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds.
Which thou thyself hast given her woful breast !
O, turn thy edged sword another way ;
Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help !
One drop'of blood, drawn from thy country's bosom.
Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign

gore ;
Return thee, therefore, with a flood of tears.
And wash away thy country's stained spots !

Bur. Either she hath bewitch'd me with her
words.
Or nature makes me suddenly relent.

Puc. Besides, all French and France exclaims on
thee,

^ As looks the mother on her lowly babe,] It is plain Shak-
speare wrote — loveli/ babe, it answering to fertile France above,
which this domestic image is brought to illustrate. Warburton.

The alteration is easy and probable, but perhaps the poet by
lorvlt/ babe meant the babe lying low in death. Loxvly answers
as well to towns defaced and wasting ruin, as lovely io fertile.

Johnson.

sc. ///. KING HENRY VI. 99

Doubting thy birth and lawful progeny.
Who join'st thou with, but with a lordly nation,
That will not trust thee, but for profit's sake ?
When Talbot hath set footing once in France,
And fashion'd thee that instrument of ill,
Who then, but English Henry, will be lord,
And thou be thrust out, like a fugitive ?
Call we to mind, — and mark but this, for proof; —
Was not the duke of Orleans thy foe ?
And was he not in England prisoner ?
But, when they heard he was thine enemy.
They set him free \ without his ransom paid.
In spite of Burgundy, and all his friends.
See then ! thou fight'st against thy countrymen.
And join'st with them will be thy slaughter-men.
Come, come, return ; return, thou wand'ring lord ;
Charles, and the rest, will take thee in their arms.
Bur. I am vanquished; these haughty words of
hers
Have batter'd me like roaring cannon-shot ^,

' They set him free, &c.] A mistake : The Duke was not
liberated till nfter Burgundy's decline to the French interest ;
which did not happen, by the way, till some years after the exe-
cution of this very Joan la Pucelle ; nor was that during the re-
gency of York, but of Bedford. Ritson.
8 — these HAUGHTY words of hers
Have batter'd me like roaring cannon-shot,] How these
lines came hither I know not ; there was nothing in the speech
of Joan haughty or violent, it was all soft entreaty and mild ex-
postulation. Johnson.

Haus,hty does not mean violent in this place, but elevated,
hiqh-spirifed. It is used in a similar sense, in two other passages
in this very play. In a preceding scene Mortimer says :
" But mark ; as in this haughty, great attempt,
" They laboured to plant the rightful heir — ."
And again, in the next scene, Talbot says :

" Knights of the Garter were of noble birth,
" Valiant, and virtuous ; full of haughty courage."
At first interview with Joan, the Dauphin says :

" Thou hast astonish'd me with thy high terms ; "

H 2

TOO FIRST PART OF act iji.

And made me almost yield upon my knees. —
Forgive me, country, and sweet countrymen !
And, lords, accept this hearty kind embrace :
My forces and my power of men are yours ; —
So, farewell, Talbot : FlI no longer trust thee.
Puc. Done like a Frenchman ; turn, and turn

again ^ !
Char. Welcome, brave duke ! thy friendship

makes us fresh.
Bast. And doth beget new courage in our

breasts.
Alen. Pucelle hath bravely played her part in
this.
And doth deserve a coronet of gold.

Char. Now let us on, my lords,' and join our
powers ;
And seek how we may prejudice the foe. [Exeunt.

meaning, by her hicrh terms, what Burgundy here calls her
haucfldy words, M. Mason.

That haughty signifies elevated or exalted, may be ascertained
by the following passage in a very scarce book entitled, A Courtlie
Controversie of Cupid's Cautels, &c. Translated out of French,
by H. W. [Henry VVotton] Gentleman, 4-to. 1578, p. 235 :

" Among which troupe of base degree, God forbid I should
place you deare lady Parthenia, for both the haughtie bloud
whereof you are extraught, and also the graces wherewith the
heauens with contention have enobled you, worthily deserueth
your person should be preferred of all men, among the most ex-
cellent Princesses." Steevens.

9 Done, like a Frenchman ; turn, and turn again!] The in-
constancy of the French was always the subject of satire. I have
read a dissertation written to prove that the index of the wind
upon our steeples was made in form of a cock, to ridicule the
French for their frequent changes. Johnson.

So afterwards :

" In France, amongst ajickle xuavering nation."

Malone.

In Othello we have the same phrase :

" Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on,
" A7}d turn again." Steevens.

sc.iv. KING HENRY VI. 101

SCENE IV.
Paris. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King Henry, Gloster, and other Lords,

Vernon, Basset, 8^c. To them Talbot, and

some of his Officers.

Tal. My gracious prince, — and honourable
peers, —
Hearing of your arrival in this realm,
I have a while given truce unto my wars.
To do my duty to my sovereign :
In sign whereof, this arm — that hath reclaim'd
To your obedience fifty fortresses,
Twelve cities, and seven walled towns of strength,
Beside five hundred prisoners of esteem, —
Lets fall his sword before your highness' feet ;
And, with submissive loyalty of heart,
Ascribes the glory of his conquest got,
First to my God, and next unto your grace.

K, Hen. Is this the lord Talbot, uncle Gloster \
That hath so long been resident in France ?

Glo. Yes, if it please your majesty, my liege.

K. Hen. Welcome, brave captain, and victorious
lord !
When I was young, (as yet 1 am not old,)
I do remember how my father said ',
A stouter champion never handled sword.

' Is this the lord Talbot, uncle Gloster,] Sir Thomas Hanmer
supplies the apparent deficiency, by reading —
" Is this ihefam'd lord Talbot," &c.
So, in Troilus and Cressida :

*' My vjeWfam'tl lord of Troy — ." Steevens.
* I do remember how my father said,] The author of this play
was not a very correct historian. Henry was but nine months
old when his father died, and never even saw him. Malone.

102 FIRST PART OF .icr iii,

Long since we were resolved of your truth ^,
Your faithful service, and your toil in war ;
Yet never have you tasted our reward,
Or been reguerdon'd'* with so much as thanks.
Because till now we never saw your face :
Therefore, stand up ; and, for these good deserts.
We here create you earl of Shrewsbury ;
And in our coronation take your place.

\_Ej:eunt King Henry, Gloster, Talbot,
and Nobles.

Ver. Now, sir, to you, that were so hot at sea.
Disgracing of these colours that I wear ^
In honour of my noble lord of York, —
Dar'st thou maintain the former words tiiou spak'st ?

Bas. Yes, sir; as well as you dare patronage
The envious barking of your saucy tongue
Against my lord, the duke of Somerset.

Ver. Sirrah, thy lord I honour as he is.

Bas. Why, what is he .^ as good a man as York.

Ver. Hark ye ; not so : in witness, take ye that.

\_Styikes him^

Bas. Villain, thou know'st, the law of arms is
such.
That, who so draws a sword, 'tis present death ^;

3 — RESOLVED of youf truth,] i. e. confirmed in opinion of
it. So, in the Third Part of this play:

I am resolv'd

" That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue."

Steevens.
4 Or been reguerdon'd — ] i. e. rewarded. The word was
obsolete even in the time of Shakspcare. Chaucer uses it in the
Boke of Boethius. Steevens.

^ — these COLOURS that I wear — ] This was the badge of a
rose, and not an officer's scarf. So, in Love's Labour's Lost,
Act III. Scene the last :

*' And wear his colours Hke a tumbler's hoop." Tollet.
^ That, WHO so draws a sword, 'tis present death ;] Shakspeare
wrote :

" draws a suoord i' th' presence 't's death ; "

j. e. in the court, or in the presence chamber, Warburton.

sc. IF. KING HENRY VI. 1U3

Or else this blow should broach thy dearest blood.
But I'll unto his majesty, and crave
I may have liberty to venge this wrong;
When thou shalt see, I'll meet thee to thy cost.
JKer. Well, miscreant, I'll be there as soon as
you;
And, after, meet you sooner than you would.

\_Ej:eu?it.

This reading cannot be right, because, as Mr, Edwards ob-
served, it cannot be pronounced. It is, however, a good com-
ment, as it shows the author's meaning. Johnson.

I believe the line should be written as it is in the folio :

" That, tvho so draws a sword ,"

i. e. (as Dr. Warburton has observed,) with a menace in the
court, or in the presence chamber.

Johnson, in his collection of Ecclesiastical Laws, has preserved
the following, which was made by Ina, king of the West Saxons,
693: " If any one fight in the king's house, let him forfeit all his
estate, and let the king deem whether he shall live or not." I
am told that there are many other ancient canons to the same
purpose. Grey. Steevens.

Sir William Blackstone observes that, " by the ancient \-a\v be-
fore the Conquest, fighting in the kinv's palace, or before the
king's judges, was punished with death. So too, in the old
Gothic constitution, there were many places privileged by law,
' quibus major reverentia et securitas debetur, ut templa et judi-

cia qusesancta habebantur, arces et aula legis, — denique locus

quilibet presente aut adventante rege.' And at present with us,
by the Stat. 33 Hen. VIII. c. xii. malicious striking in the king's
palace, wherein his royal person resides, whereby blood is drawn,
is punishable by perpetual imprisonment and fine, at the king's
pleasure, and also with loss of the offender's right hand, the so-
lemn execution of which sentence is prescribed in the statute at
length." Commentaries, vol. iv. p. IS-i. " By the ancient
common law, also before the Conquest, striking in the king's
court of justice, or drawing a sword therein, was a capital felony."
Ibid. p. 125. Reed.

104 FIRST PART OF ^ct ir.

ACT IV, SCENE I,

The Same. A Room of State.

Enter King Henry, Gloster, Exeter, York, Suf'
FOLK, Somerset, Winchester, Warwick, Tal-
bot, the Governour of Paris, and Others.

Glo. Lord bishop, set the cro\vn upon his head.
Win. God save king Henry, of that name the

sixth !
Glo. Now, governour of Paris, take your oath, —

\Governour kneels^
That you elect no other king but him ;
Esteem none friends, but such as are his friends ;
And none your foes, but such as shall pretend "^
Malicious practices against his state :
This shall ye do, so help you righteous God !

\_Ej:eunt Gov. and his Train.

Enter Sir John Fastolfe.

Fast. My gracious sovereign, as I rode from
Calais,
To haste unto your coronation,
A letter was deliver'd to my hands,
Writ to your grace from the duke of Burgundy.

Tal. Shame to the duke of Burgundy, and thee !
I vow'd, base knight, when I did meet thee next.
To tear the garter from thy craven's leg^,

[Plucking it off.

7 — such as shall pretend — ] To pretend is to design, to
intend. Johnson.

So, in Macbeth :

" What good couhl ihey pretend? " Steevens.

^ To tear the garter from thy ckaven's leg,] Thus the old
copy. Steevens.

The last line should run thus :

sc. 1. KING HENRY VI. 105

(Which I have done) because unworthily
Thou wast installed in that high degree. —
Pardon me, princely Henry, and the rest :
This dastard, at the battle of Patay ^,
When but in all I was six thousand strong,
And that the French were almost ten to one, —
Before we met, or that a stroke was given.
Like to a trusty squire, did run away ;
In which assault we lost twelve hundred men ;
Myself, and divers gentlemen beside,
Were there surpriz'd, and taken prisoners.
Then judge, great lords, if I have done amiss ;
Or whether that such cowards ought to wear
This ornament of knighthood, yea, or no.

Glo. To say the truth, this fact was infamous,
And ill beseeming any common man ;
Much more a knight, a captain, and a leader.

Tal. When first this order was ordain'd, my
lords,

" from thy craven leg."

i. e. thy mean, dastardly leg. Whalley.

To take the epithet expressing cowardice from the person, and
to apply it to his leg, is surely no very obvious improvement.

BOSWELC.

9 — at the battle of Patay,] The old copy has — Poietiers.
The error was pointed out by Mr. Steevens. Malone.

The battle of Poietiers was fought in the year 1357, the 31st of
King Edward III. and the scene now lies in the 7th year of the
reign of King Henry VI. viz. HSS. This blunder may be justly
imputed to the players or transcribers ; nor can we very well
justify ourselves for permitting it to continue so long, as it was too
glaring to have escaped an attentive reader. The action of which
Shakspeare is now speaking, happened (according to Holinshed)
" neere unto a village in Beausse called Patfiie," which we
should read, instead of Poietiers. " From this battell departed
without anie stroke striken. Sir John Fastnlfe, the same yeere by
his valiantnesse elected into the order of the garter. But for
doubt of misdealing at this brunt, the duke of Bedford tooke from
him the image of St. George and his garter," &c. Holinshed,
vol. ii. p. 601. Monstrelet, the French historian, also bears wil-
]iess to this degradation of Sir John Fastolfe. Steevens.

106 FIRST PART OF act if.

Knights of the garter were of noble birth ;
Valiant and virtuous, full of haughty courage \
Such as were grown to credit by the wars ;
Not fearing death, nor shrinking for distress.
But always resolute in most extremes ^.
He then, that is not furnish'd in this sort,
Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight,
Profaning this most honourable order ;
And should (if I were worthy to be judge,)
Be quite degraded, like a hedge-born swain
That doth presume to boast of gentle blood.

K, Hen. Stain to thy countrymen ! thou hear'st
thy doom :
Be packing therefore, thou that wast a knight ;
Henceforth we banish thee, on pain of death. —

\_Exit Fastolfe.
And now, my lord protector, view the letter
Sent from our uncle duke of Burgundy.

Glo. What means his grace, that he hath chang'd
his style .^ \Viexving the superscription.
No more but, plain and bluntly, — To the king ?
Hath he forgot, he is his sovereign ?
Or doth this churlish superscription
Pretend some alteration in good will ^ ?
What's here ? — / have upon especial cause, —

[Reads.

Mov^d with compassion of my country's wreck.

Together with the pitiful complaints

* — HAUGHTY courage,] Haughty is here in its original
sense for /i/^A. Johnson.

^ — in MOST extremes.] i. e. in greatest extremities. So,
Spenser :

they all repair'd, both most and least."

See vol. xi. p. 258, n. 9. Steevens.

3 Pretend some alteration in good will ?] Thus the old copy.
To pretend seems to be here used in its Latin sense, i. e. to hold
out, io stretch forxjonrd . It may mean, however, as in other places,
to design. Modern editors xfdA— portend . Steevens.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 107

Of such as your oppression feeds upon, —
Forsake?! your pernicious faction.
And Join'd xoitk Charles, the rightful king of
France.

0 monstrous treachery ! Can this be so ;
That in alliance, amity, and oaths,

There should be found such false dissembling guile ?
K. Hen. What ! doth my uncle Burgundy re-
volt?
Glo. He doth, my lord; and is become your foe.
K. Hen. Is that the worst, this letter doth con-
tain?
Glo. It is the worst, and all, my lord, he writes.
K. Hen. Why then, lord Talbot there shall talk
with him.
And give him chastisement for this abuse : —
How say you, my lord "* ? are you not content ?
Tal. Content, my liege ? Yes, but that I am
prevented^,

1 should have begg'd I might have been employ'd.

K. Hen. Then gather strength, and march unto
him straight :
Let him perceive, how ill we brook his treason ;
And what offence it is, to flout his friends.

TjiL. I go, my lord ; in heart desiring still.
You may behold confusion of your foes. [_Eiit.

4 My lord, how say you ?] Old copy —

" How say you, my lord ? "
The transposition is SirT. Hanmer's. Steevens.
•5 — I am PREVENTED,] Prevented is here, anticipated ; a
Latinism. Malone.

So, in our Liturgy : " Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings."
Prior is, perhaps, the last English poet who used this verb in
its obsolete sense :

" Else had I come, preventing Sheba's queen,
•' To see the comeliest of the sons of men."

Solomon, book ii. Steevens.

108 FIRST PART OF act if.

Enter Vernon and Basset,

Ver. Grant me the combat, gracious sovereign !

Bas. And me, my lord, grant me the combat too !

York. This is my servant; Hear him, noble
prince !

SoM. And this is mine; Sweet Henry, favour
him!

K, Hen. Be patient, lords; and give them leave
to speak. —
Say, gentlemen. What makes you thus exclaim ?
And wherefore crave you combat ? or with whom ?

Fer. With him, my lord ; for he hath done me
wrong.

Bas. And I with him ; for he hath done me
wrong.

K. Hen. What is that wrong whereof you both
complain ?
First let me know, and then I'll answer you.

Bas. Crossing the sea from England into France,
This fellow here, with envious carping tongue.
Upbraided me about the rose I wear ;
Saying — the sanguine colour of the leaves
Did represent my master's blushing cheeks.
When stubbornly he did repugn the truth ^,
About a certain question in the law,
Argu'd betwixt the duke of York and him ;
With other vile and ignominious terms ;
In confutation of which rude reproach.
And in defence of my lord's worthiness,
I crave the benefit of law of arms.

Ver. And that is my petition, noble lord:
For though he seem, with forged quaint conceit,

^ — did REPUGN the truth,] To repugn is to resist. The word
IS used by Chaucer. Steevens.

It is found inBuUokars English Expositor, 8vo. 1616.

Malone.

sc. J, KING HENRY VI. 109

To set a gloss upon his bold intent,
Yet know, my lord, I was provok'd by him ;
And he first took exceptions at this badge,
Pronouncing — that the paleness of this flower
Bewray'd the faintness of my master's heart.

York. Will not this malice, Somerset, be left ?

SoM. Your private grudge, my lord of York, will
out.
Though ne'er so cunningly you smother it.

K. Hen. Good Lord ! what madness rules in
brainsick men ;
When, for so slight and frivolous a cause,
Such factious emulations shall arise ! —
Good cousins both, of York and Somerset,
Quiet yourselves, I pray, and be at peace.

York. Let this dissention first be tried by fight.
And then your highness shall command a peace.

SoM. The quarrel toucheth none but us alone ;
Betwixt ourselves let us decide it then.

York. There is my pledge; accept it, Somerset.

Ver. Nay, let it rest where it began at first,

Bas. Confirm it so, mine honourable lord.

Glo. Confirm it so ? Confounded be your strife !
And perish ye, with your audacious prate !
Presumptuous vassals ! are you not asham'd.
With this immodest clamorous outrage
To trouble and disturb the king and us ?
And you, my lords, — methinks, you do not well,
To bear with their perverse objections ;
Much less, to take occasion from their mouths
To raise a mutiny betwixt yourselves ;
Let me persuade you take a better course.

ExE. It grieves his highness; — Good my lords;
be friends.

K. Hen. Come hither, you that would be com-
batants :
Henceforth, I charge you, as you love our favour.

110 FIRST PART OF act ir.

Quite to forget this quarrel, and the cause. —

And you. my lords, — remember where we are ;

In France, amongst a fickle wavering nation :

If they perceive dissention in our looks,

And that within ourselves we disagree,

How will their grudging stomachs be provok'd

To wilful disobedience, and rebel ?

Beside, What infamy will there arise,

When foreign princes shall be certified.

That, for a toy, a thing of no regard.

King Henry's peers, and chief nobility,

Destroy'd themselves, and lost the realm of France ?

O, think upon the conquest of my father;

My tender years ; and let us not forego

That for a trifle, that was bought with blood!

Let me be umpire in this doubtful strife.

I see no reason, if I wear this rose,

{Putting on a red Rose.
That any one should therefore be suspicious
I more incline to Somerset, than York :
Both are my kinsmen, and I love them both :
As well they may upbraid me with my crown,
Because, forsooth, the king of Scots is crowned.
But your discretions better can persuade.
Than I am able to instruct or teach :
And therefore, as we hither came in peace.
So let us still continue peace and love. —
Cousin of York, we institute your grace
To be our regent in these parts of France : —
And good my lord of Somerset, unite
Your troops of horsemen with his bands of foot ; —
And, like true subjects, sons of your progenitors,
Go cheerfully together, and digest
Your angry choler on your enemies.
Ourself, my lord protector, and the rest.
After some respite, will return to Calais ;
From thence to England ; where I hope ere long

SCI. KING HENRY VI. Ill

To be presented, by your victories,

With Charles, Alengon, and that traitorous rout.

[Flourish. Exeunt King Henry, Glo. Som.
Win. Suf. and Basset.
IVar. My lord of York, I promise you, the king
Prettily, methought, did play the orator.

York. And so he did ; but yet I like it not,
In that he wears the badge of Somerset.

War. Tush ! that was but his fancy, blame him
not ;
I dare presume, sweet prince, he thought no harm.
York. And, if I wist, he did '', — But let it rest ;

7 And, if I WIST, he did, — ] In former editions:

" And, if I rush, he did ."

By the pointing reformed, and a single letter expunged, I have
restored the text to its purity :

" And, if I xms, he did ."

Warwick had said, the King- meant no harm in wearing
Somerset's rose: York testily replies, "Nay, if I know any thing,
he did think harm." Theobald.

This is followed by the succeeding editors, and is indeed plau-
sible enough ; but perhaps this speech may become sufficiently
intelligible without any change, only supposing it broken :

" And if 1 vVish he did ."

or, perhaps :

" And if he did 1 wish ." Johnson.

I read — I tvist, the pret. of the old obsolete verb I vols, which is
used by Shakspeare in The Merchant of Venice :
" There be fools alive, I wis,
" Silver'd o'er, and so was this." Steevens.
York says, he is not pleased that the King should prefer the red
rose, the badge of Somerset, his enemy ; Warwick desires him
not to be offended at it, as he dares say the King meant no harm.
To which York, yet unsatisfied, hastily adds, in a menacing tone,
—If I thought he did ; — but he instantly checks his threat with,
let it rest. It is an example of a rhetorical figure, which our au-
thor has elsewhere used. Thus, in Coriolanus :

" An 'twere to give again — But 'tis no matter."
Mr. Steevens is too familiar with Virgil, not to recollect his —

Quos ego — sed motos preestat componere fluctus.
The author of the Revisal understood this passage in the same
manner. Ritson.

112 FIRST PART OF act if.

Other affairs must now be managed.

[^E.veunt York, JVartfick, and Vernon.
ExE. Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy
voice :
For, had the passions of thy heart burst out,
I fear, we should have seen decipher'd there
More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils.
Than yet can be imagin'd or suppos'd.
But howsoe'er, no simple man that sees
This jarring discord of nobility.
This should'ring of each other in the court.
This factious bandying of their favourites,
But that it doth presage some ill event ^.
'Tis much ^, when scepters are in children's hands ;
But more, when envy breeds unkind division ^ ;
There comes the ruin, there begin's confusion.

[^Ejcit.

^ — it doth presage some ill event,] That is, it doth presage
to him that sees this discord, &c. that some ill event will happen.

Malone.

9 'Tis MUCH,] In our author's time this phrase meant — 'Tis
strange, or wonderful. This meaning being included in the word
viuch, the word strange is perhaps understood in the next line :
*' But more strange," &c. The construction, however, may be,
' But 'tis much more, when,' &c. Malone.

'Tis much, is a colloquial phrase; and the meaning of it, in
many instances, can be gathered only from the tenor of the speech
in which it occurs. On the present occasion, I believe, it signi-
fies— 'Tis an alarming circumstance, a thing of great consequence,
or of much weight. Steevens.

I learn from Mr. Wilbraham's Glossary, that much still bears, in
Cheshire, the meaning ascribed to it by Mr. Malone : " Much, s. a
wonder, an extraordinary thing." Yet, I think, in the present in-
stance, Mr. Steevens is right. Boswell.

• — when ENVY breeds unkind division ;] Envy in old Eng-
lish writers frequently means enmity. Unkind is unnaticral. See
vol. vi. p. 411, n. 8. Malone.

sen. KING HENRY VT. 113

SCENE II.
France. Before Bourdeaux.

Enter Talbot, with his Forces.

Tal. Go to the gates of Bourdeaux, trumpeter,
Summon their general unto the wall.

Trumpet sounds a Parley. Enter, on the JValls,
the General of the French Forces, and Others.

English John Talbot, captains, calls you forth.
Servant in arms to Harry king of England ;
And thus he would, — Open your city gates.
Be humble to us ; call my sovereign yours.
And do him homage as obedient subjects.
And I'll withdraw me and my bloody power :
But, if you frown upon this proffer'd peace.
You tempt the fury of my three attendants.
Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire ^ ;
Who, in a moment, even with the earth
Shall lay your stately and air-braving towers,
If you forsake the offer of their love ^.

^ Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire;] The
author of this play followed Hall's Chronicle : " The Goddesse of
warre, called Bellona — hath these three hand mnides ever of ne-
cessitie attendyng on her ; Bloud, Fire, and Fanmie ; whiche
thre damosels be of that force and strength that every one of them
alone is able and sufficient to torment and afflict a proud prince ;
and they all joyned together are of puissance to destroy the most
populous countrey and most richest region of the world."

Malone.

It may as probably be asserted that our author followed Holin-
shed, from whom I have already quoted a part of this passage in
a note on the first Chorus to King Henry V. See Holinshed,
p. 567. Steevens.

If the author of this play in general followed Hall, it is most
probable that he followed him here also. Malone.

3 — the offer of their love.] Thus the old editions. Sir T.
Hanmer altered it to our. .Johnson.

VOL. XVIII. I

114 FIRST PART OF act ir.

Gen. Thou ominous and fearful owl of death.
Our nation's terror, and their bloody scourge !
The period of thy tyranny approacheth.
On us thou canst not enter, but by death :
For, I protest, we are well fortified.
And strong enough to issue out and fight :
If thou retire, the Dauphin, well appointed,
Stands with the snares of war to tangle thee :
On either hand thee there are squadrons pitch'd, •
To wall thee from the liberty of flight ;
And no way canst thou turn thee for redress.
But death doth front thee with apparent spoil.
And pale destruction meets thee in the face.
Ten thousand French have ta'en the sacrament.
To rive their dangerous artillery ^
Upon no Christian soul but English Talbot.
Lo ! there thou stand'st, a breathing valiant man,

'' Their love " may mean, the peaceable demeanour of my
three attendants; their forbearing to injure you. But the ex-
pression is harsh. Malone.

There is much such another line in King Henry VIII, :

" If you omit the offer of the time."
I believe the reading of Sir T. Hanmer should be adopted.

Steevens.
4 To RIVE their dangerous artillery — ] I do not understand
the phrase — to rive artillery; perhaps it might be to drive ; we
say to drive a blow, and to drive at a man, when we mean to ex-
press furious assault. Johnson.

To rive seems to be used, with some deviation from its common
meaning, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV. Sc. II. :

" The soul and body rive not more at parting/'

Steevens.
Rive their artillery seems to mean, charge their artillery so
much as to endanger'their bursting. So, in Troilus and Cressida,
Ajax bids the trumpeter blow so loud, as to crack his lungs and
split his brazen pipe. Tollet.

To rive their artillery means only to Jire their artillery. To
rive is to burst ; and a cannon, when fired, has so much the ap-
pearance of bursting, that, in the language of poetry, it may be
well said to burst. We say, a cloud bursts, when it thunders,

M. Mason.

.9C. IT. KING HENRY VI. 1 15

Of an invincible unconquer'd spirit :

This is the latest glory of thy praise,

That I, thy enemy, due thee withal ^ ;

For ere the glass, that now begins to run,

Finish the process of his sandy hour,

These eyes, that see thee now well coloured,

Shall see thee wither'd, bloody, pale, and dead.

\Drum afar off.
Hark ! hark ! the Dauphin's drum, a warning bell.
Sings heavy musick to thy timorous soul ;
And mine shall ring thy dire departure out.

\_Exeunt General, S^c.jrom the Walls.
T^L. He fables not^, I hear the enemy; —
Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their

wings. —
O, negligent and heedless discipline !
How are we park'd, and bounded in a pale ;
A little herd of England's timorous deer,
Maz'd with a yelping kennel of French curs !

5 — DUE thee withal ;] To due is to endue, to deck, to grace.

Johnson.
Johnson says in his Dictionaiy, that to due is to pay as due ;
and quotes this passage as an example. Possibly that may be the
true meaning of it. M. Mason.

It means, I think, to honour by giving thee thy due, thy merited
elogium. Due was substituted for deiv, the reading of the old
copy, by Mr, Theobald. Deiv was sometimes the old spelling of
due, as Hetv was of Hugh. Malone.

The old copy reads — " deiv thee withal ; " and perhaps rightly.
The dew of praise is an expression I have met with in other poetS;
Shakspeare uses the same verb in Macbeth :

" To dew the sovereign flow'r, and drown the weeds."
Again, in The Second Part of King Henry VI. :

" ■ give me thy hand,

" That I may deiv it with my mournful tears." Steevens.
^ He FABLES not,] This expression Milton has borrowed in his
Masque at Ludlow Castle :

" She fables not, I feel that I do fear ."

It occurs again in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1.599 :

" good father, Jable not with him." Steevens.

I 2

116 FIRST PART OF ^ct if.

If we be English deer, be then in blood " :
Not rascal -like ^, to fall down with a pinch ;
But rather moody-mad, and desperate stags.
Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel ^,
And make the cowards stand aloof at bay :
Sell every man his hfe as dear as mine,
And they shall find dear deer of us ', my friends. —
God, and Saint George! Talbot, and England's

right !
Prosper our colours in this dangerous fight !

SCENE III.

Plains in Gascony.

Enter York, xvith Forces ; to him, a Messe?iger.

York. Are not the speedy scouts return'd again,
That dogg'd the mighty army of the Dauphin ?
Mess. They are return'd, my lord ; and give it
out.

7 — be then in blood :] Be in high spirits, be of true mettle.

Johnson.
This was a phrase of the forest. See Love's Labour's Lost,
vol. iv. p. 352, n. 3 :

" The deer was, as you know, in sanguis, blood."
Again, in BuUokar's English Expositor, 1616: "Tenderlings.
The soft tops of a deere's horns, when they are in blood."

Malone.
* Not RASCAL-Iike,] A rfl^caZ deer is the term of chase for leati
j)oor deer. Johnson.

See vol. xvii. p. 73, n. 4. Steevens.

9 — with heads of steel,] Continuing the image of the deer,
he supposes the lances to be their horns. Johnson.

I — DEAR DEER of US,] Thc samc quibble occurs in King
Henry IV. Part L :

" Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-dav,

*

•' Though many dearer," &c. Steevens.

sc. in. KING HENRY VI. 117

That he is march'd to Bourdeaux with his power,
To fight with Talbot : As he march'd along,
By your espials were discovered
Two mightier troops than that the Dauphin led ;
Which join'd with him, and made their march for
Bourdeaux.
York. A plague upon that villain Somerset ;
That thus delays my promised supply
Of horsemen, that were levied for this siege !
Renowned Talbot doth expect my aid ;
And I am lowted '^ by a traitor villain.
And cannot help the noble chevalier :
God comfort him in this necessity !

^ And I am lowted — ] To loixit may signify to depress, to
loiver, to dishonour ; but I do not remember it so used. We may
read — And I a.mJloided; 1 am mocked, and treated with contempt.

Johnson.
To lout, in Chaucer, signifies to submit. To submit is to let
down. So, Dryden :

" Sometime the hill submits itself a while
" In small descents," &c.
To lotit and underlout, in Gawin Douglas's version of the iEneid,
signifies to be subdued, vanquished. Steevens.

I believe the meaning is : I am treated with contempt like a
lowt, or low country fellow. Malone.

Mr. Malone's explanation of the word — loxvted, is strongly coun-
tenanced by the following passage in an ancient libel upon priests,
in titled, I playne Piers which cannot flatter, a Ploweman Men me
call, &c. :

" No christen booke
" Maye thou on looke,

" Yf thou be an Englishe strunt ;
" Thus dothe alyens us lowtte
" By that ye spreade aboute,

" After that old sorte and wonte."
Again, in the last poem in a collection called The Phoenix Nest,
4°. 1593 :

" So love was louted."
i. e. baffled. Again, in Arthur Hall's translation of the first book
of Homer, 4°. 1581 :

" You wel shal know of al these folke I wil not be the lout."
Agamemnon is the speaker. Steevens.

1.18 FIRST PART OF act if.

If he miscarry, farewell wars in France.

Enter Sir William Lucy^.

Lucy. Thou princely leader of our English

strength.
Never so needful on the earth of France,
Spur to the rescue of the noble Talbot ;
Who now is girdled with a waist of iron "*,
And hemm'd about with grim destruction :
To Bourdeaux, warlike duke! to Bourdeaux, York!
Else, farewell Talbot, France, and England's ho-
nour.
York. O God ! that Somerset — who in proud

heart
Doth stop my cornets — were in Talbot's place !
So should we save a valiant gentleman.
By forfeiting a traitor and a coward.
Mad ire, and wrathful fury, makes me weep,
That thus we die, while remiss traitors sleep.

Lucy. O, send some succour to the distress'd

lord!
York. He dies, we lose ; I break my warlike

word :
We mourn, France smiles; we lose, they daily get;
All 'long of this vile traitor Somerset.

Lucy. Then, God take mercy on brave Talbot's

soul!
And on his son, young John ; whom, two hours

since.
I met in travel toward his warlike father !
This seven years did not Talbot see his son ;

3 Enter Sir William Lucj/.'] In the old copy we have only—
Enter a Messenger. But it appears from the subsequent scene
that the messenger was Sir William Lucy. Mai.one.

4 — GIRDLED with a WAIST of iron,] So, in King John :

" — — those sleeping stones,

" That as a ivaist do girdle you about ." Steevens.

sc. ir. KING HENRY VI. 119

And now they meet where both their lives are
done ^.

York, Alas ! what joy shall noble Talbot have.
To bid his young son welcome to his grave ?
Away ! vexation almost stops my breath,
That sunder'd friends greet in the hour of death. —
Lucy, farewell : no more my fortune can.
But curse the cause I cannot aid the man. —
Maine, Blois, Poictiers, and Tours, are won away,
'Long all of Somerset, and his delay. \_Ed'it.

Lucy. Thus, while the vulture ^ of sedition
Feeds in the bosom of such great commanders.
Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss
The conquest of our scarce-cold conqueror.
That ever-living man of memory,
Henry the fifth : — Whiles they each other cross.
Lives, honours, lands, and all, hurry to loss. [E:vit,

SCENE IV.

Other Plains of Gascony.

Enter Somerset^ with his Forces; an Officer of
Talbot s with him.

SoM. It is too late ; I cannot send them now :
This expedition was by York, and Talbot,
Too rashly plotted ; all our general force
Might with a sally of the very town
Be buckled with : the over-daring Talbot
Hath sullied all his gloss of former honour ^,

5 — are done.] i. e. expended, consumed. The word is yet
used in this sense in the Western counties, Malone.

<5 — the VULTURE — ] Alluding to the tale of Prometheus.

Johnson.

7 — all his GLOSS of former honour,] Our author very fre-
quently employs this phrase. So, in Much Ado About Nothing :

120 FIRST PART OF act jr.

By this unheedful, desperate, wild adventure :
York set him on to fight, and die in shame,
That, Talbot dead, great York might bear the
name.
Off. Here is sir WilHam Lucy, who with me
Set from our o'er-match'd forces forth for aid.

Enter Sir William Lucy.

SoM. How now, sir WilHam ? whither were you
sent ?

Lucy, Whither, my lord ? from bought and sold
lord Talbot ' ;
Who, ring'd about ^ with bold adversity.
Cries out for noble York and Somerset,
To beat assailing death from his weak legions ^
And whiles the honourable captain there
Drops bloody sweat from his war-wearied limbs.
And, in advantage ling'ring ', looks for rescue,
You, his false hopes, the trust of England's honour,
Keep off aloof with worthless emulation ^.

" — the new glnss of your marriage." It occurs also in Love's
Labour's Lost, and in Macbeth, &c. Steevens.

^ — from bought and sold Lord Talbot ;] i. e. from one ut-
terly ruined by the treacherous practices of others. So, in King
Richard III. :

" Jocky of Norfolk, be not too bold,

" For Dickon thy master is bought and sold.''

The expression appears to have been proverbial. See vol. xv.
p. 356, n. 4. Malone.

9 — ring'd about — ] P^nvironed, encircled. Johnson.

So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream :

" Eiuings the barky fingers of the elm." Steevens.

' — his weak legions.] Old copy — regions. Corrected by
Mr. Rowe. Malone.

* — in ADVANTAGE ling'ring,] Protracting his resistance by
the advantage of a strong post. Johnson.

Or, perhaps, endeavouring by every means that he can, with
advantage to himself, to linger out the action, &c. Malone.

3 — worthless emulation.] In this line, emulation signifies
merely rivalry, not struggle for superior excellence. Johnson.

sc. jr. KING HENRY VI. 121

Let not your private discord keep away
The levied succours that should lend him aid,
While he, renowned noble gentleman,
Yields ^ up his life unto a world of odds :
Orleans the Bastard, Charles, Burgundy ^
Alen9on, Reignier, compass him about.
And Talbot perisheth by your default.

SoM. York set him on, York should have sent

him aid.
Lucy. And York as fast upon your grace ex-
claims ;
Swearing that you withhold his levied host,
Collected for this expedition.

SoM. York Hes ; he might have sent and had the
horse :
I owe him little duty, and less love ;
And take foul scorn, to fawn on him by sending.
Lucy. The fraud of England, not the force of
France,
Hath now entrapp'd the noble-minded Talbot !
Never to England shall he bear his life :
But dies, betray'd to fortune by your strife.

SoM. Come, go ; I will despatch the horsemen
straight :
Within six hours they will be at his aid.

Lucy. Too late comes rescue ; he is ta'en, or
slain :
For fly he could not, if he would have fled ;
And fly would Talbot never, though he might.

So Ulysses, in Troilus and Cressida, says that the Grecian

chiefs were —

" grown to an envious fever

" Of pale and bloodless emulation:' M. Mason.
4 Yields — ] Thus the second folio : the first— i/ield.

Steevens.

5 AND Burgundy,] And, which is necessary to the metre,

is wanting in tlie first folio, but is supplied by the second.

Steevens.

122 FIRST PART OF ^ct ir.

SoM. If he be dead, brave Talbot then adieu !
Lucy. His fame lives in the world, his shame in
you. \_E.veunt.

SCENE V.

The English Camp near Bourdeaux.

Enter Talbot and John his Son.

Tal. O young John Talbot ! I did send for thee.
To tutor thee in stratagems of war ;
That Talbot's name might be in thee reviv'd.
When sapless age, and weak unable limbs,
Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.
But, — O malignant and ill-boding stars ! —
Now thou art come unto a feast of death ®,
A terrible and unavoided '' danger :
Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse ;
And ril direct thee how thoushalt escape
By sudden flight : come, dally not, begone.

John. Is my name Talbot ^ and am I your son ?
And shall I fly ? O, if you love my mother.
Dishonour not her honourable name.
To make a bastard, and a slave of me :
The world will say — He is not Talbot's blood.
That basely fled, when noble Talbot stood ^.

^ — a FEAST of DEATH,] To a field where death will hQ feasted
with shiughter. Johnson.

So, in King Richard II :

" '\\{\% feast of battle, with mine adversary." Steevens.

7 — unavoided — ] for unavoidable. Malone.

So, in King Richard II. : .

" And unavoided is the danger now." Steevens.

^ — noble Talbot stood.] For what reason this scene is written
in rhyme, I cannot guess. If Shakspeare had not in other plays
mingled his rhymes and blank verses in the same manner, I should
have suspected that this dialogue had been a part of some other
poem which was never finished, and that being loath to throw his
labour away, he inserted it here. Johnson.

sc. F. KING HENRY VI. 123

T^L. Fly, to revenge my death, if I be slain.

John. He, that flies so, will ne'er return again.

TyiL. If we both stay, we both are sure to die.

John. Then let me stay; and father, do you
fly:
Your loss is great, so your regard ^ should be ;
My worth unknown, no loss is known in me.
Upon my death the French can little boast ;
In yours they will, in you all hopes are lost.
Flight cannot stain the honour you have won ;
But mine it will, that no exploit have done :
You fled for vantage every one will swear ;
But, if I bow, they'll say — it was for fear.
There is no hope that ever I will stay,
If, the first hour, I shrink, and run away.
Here, on my knee, I beg mortality.
Rather than life preserv'd with infamy.

Tal. Shall all thy mother's hopes lie in one
tomb ?

John. Ay, rather than I'll shame my mother's
womb.

Tal. Upon my blessing I command thee go.

John. To fight I will, but not to fly the foe.

Tal. Part of thy father may be sav'd in thee.

John. No part of him, but will be shame in me.

Tal. Thou never had'st renown, nor canst not
lose it.

John. Yes, your renowned name ; Shall flight
abuse it ?

Tal. Thy father's charge shall clear thee from
that stain.

John. You cannot witness for me, being slain.

This practice was cornmon to all his contemporaries. See the
Essay on Shakspeare's Versification. Boswell.
9 — your regard — ] Your care of your own safety.

Johnson.

124 FIRST PART OF act iv.

If death be so apparent, then both fly.

Tal. And leave my followers here, to fight, and
die?
My age was never tainted with such shame.

John. And shall my youth be guilty of such
blame ?
No more can I be sever'd from your side.
Than can yourself yourself in twain divide :
Stay, go, do what you will, the like do I ;
For live 1 will not, if my father die.

Tal. Then here I take my leave of thee, fair son.
Born to eclipse ^ thy life this afternoon.
Come, side by side together live and die ;
And soul with soul from France to heaven fly.

[Exeunt,

SCENE VI.

A Field of Battle.

Alarum : Ei'cursions, wherein Talbot s Son is
hemmed about, and Talbot rescues him.

Tal, Saint George and victory ! fight, soldiers,
fight:
The regent hath with Talbot broke his word.
And left us to the rage of France his sword.
Where is John Talbot .^ — pause, and take thy

breath ;
I gave thee life, and rescu'd thee from death.
John. O twice my father ! twice am I thy son ' :

^ fair SON,

Born to ECLIPSE, &c.] An apparent quibble between son and
sun. So, in King Richard III. :

" And turns the sun to shade ; — alas, alas ! —
" Witness my sow, novo in the shade o/ death." Steevens.
^ O twice my father ! twice am I thy son :] A French epigram,
on a child, who being shipwrecked with his father saved his life by

sc. VI. KING HENRY VI. 12

o

The life, thou gav'st me first, was lost and done ^ ;
Till with thy warlike sword, despite of fate,
To my determin'd time^ thou gav'st new date.
Tal. When from the Dauphin's crest thy sword
struck fire^.
It warm'd thy father's heart with proud desire
Of bold-fac'd victory. Then leaden age,
Quicken'd with youthful spleen, and warlike rage.
Beat down Alen9on, Orleans, Burgundy,
Aud from the pride of GaUia rescu'd thee.
The ireful bastard Orleans — that drew blood
From thee, my boy ; and had the maidenhood
Of thy first fight — I soon encountered ;
And, interchanging blows, I quickly shed
Some of his bastard blood ; and, in disgrace.
Bespoke him thus : Contaminated, base,
And misbegotten blood I spill of thine.
Mean and right poor ; for that pure blood of mine.
Which thou did'stforcejrom Talbot, my brave boy : —
Here, purposing the Bastard to destroy,

getting on his parent's dead body, turns on the same thought.
After describing the wreck, it concludes thus :

aprez mi lie efforts,

J'apper^us prez de moi flotter des membres morts ;

Helas ! c'etoit mon pere.

Je le connus, je I'embrassai,
Et sur lui jusq' au port heureusement pousse,

Des ondes et vents j'evitai la furie.

Que ce pere doit nVetre cher.

Qui m'a deuxjbis donne la vie,

line fois sur la terre, et I'autre sur la mer ! Malone.

3 — and DONB ;] See p. 119, n. 5. Malone.

4 To my determin'd time — ] i.e. ended. So, in King
Henry IV. Part II. :

" Till his friend sickness hath determind me."

Steevens.
The word is still used in that sense by legal conveyancers.

Malone.
i When from the Dauphin's crest thy sword struck fire,] So,
in Drayton's Mortimeriados, 1596 :

" Made_^/Y' to fly from Hertford's burgonet." Steevens.

126 FIRST PART OF act ir.

Came in strong rescue. Speak, thy father's care;

Art not thou weary, John ? How dost thou fare ?

Wilt thou yet leave the battle, boy, and fly,

Now thou art seal'd the son of chivalry ?

Fly, to revenge my death, when I am dead ;

The help of one stands me in little stead.

O, too much folly is it, well I wot.

To hazard all our lives in one small boat.

If 1 to-day die not with Frenchmen's rage,

To-morrow I shall die with mickle age :

By me they nothing gain, an if I stay,

'Tis but the short'ning of my life one day ^ :

In thee thy mother dies, our household's name,

My death's revenge, thy youth, and England's fame:

All these, and more, we hazard by thy stay ;

All these are sav'd, if thou wilt fly away.

John, The sword of Orleans hath not made me

smart,
These words of yours draw life-blood from my

heart " :
On that advantage, bought with such a shame,
(To save a paltry life, and slay bright fame ^)

^ 'Tis but the short'ning of my life one day :] The structure of
this line very much resembles that of another, in King Henry IV.
Part II. :

" to say,

" Heaven shorten Harry's happy life one day."

Steevens.
7 The sword of Orleans hath not made me smart,
These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart :]

" Are there not poisons, racks, and flames, and sivords ?
" That Emma thus must die by Henry sivords?" Prior.

Malone.
So, in this play. Part III. :

" Ah, kill me with thy tueapon, not with twrds."

Steevens.
* On that advantage, bought with such a shame,
(To save a paltry life, and slay bright fame,)] This passage
seems to lie obscure and disjointed. Neither the grammar is to
be justified; nor is the sentiment better. I have ventured at a

sc. n. KING HENRY VI. ,127

Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,

The coward horse, that bears me, fall and die !

And like me to the peasant boys of France ^;

To be shame's scorn, and subject of mischance !

Surely, by all the glory you have won,

An if I fly, I am not Talbot's son :

Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot ;

If son to Talbot, die at Talbots foot.

slight alteration, which departs so little from the reading which
has obtained, but so much raises the sense, as well as takes away
the obscurity, that I am willing to think it restores the author's
meaning :

" Old on that vantage ." Theobald.

Sir T. Hanmer reads :

" O tvhat advantage ,"

which I have followed, though Mr. Theobald's conjecture may be
well enough admitted. Johnson.

I have no doubt but the old reading is right, and the amend-
ment unnecessary; the passage being better as it stood originally,
if pointed thus :

" On that advantage, bought with such a shame,
'^ (To save a paltry life, and slay bright fame,)
" Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,
" The coward horse, that bears me, fall and die ! "
The dividing the sentence into two distinct parts, occasioned
the obscurity of it, which this method of printing removes.

M. Mason.
The sense is — Before young Talbot fly from his father, (in
order to save his life while he destroys his character,) on, or for
the sake of, the advantages you mention, namely, preserving our
household's name, &c. may my coward horse drop down dead !

Malone.
9 And LIKE me to the peasant boys of France ;] To li/i-e one
to the peasants, is, to compare, to level hi] comparison ; the line
is therefore intelligible enough by itself, but in this sense it wants
connection. Sir T. Hanmer reads, — And leave me, which makes
a clear sense and just consequence. But as change is not to be
allowed without necessity, I have suffered like to stand, because I
suppose the author meant the same as make like, or reduce to a
level with. Johnson.

So, in King Henry IV. Part II. : '•' -*- when the Prince broke
thy head for liking his father to a singing man,'" &c. Steevens.

128 FIRST PART OF ^ct iv.

Tal. Then follow thou thy desperate sh-e of
Crete,
Thou Icarus^ ; thy life to me is sweet:
If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father's side ;
And, commendable prov'd, let's die in pride.

\_Exeunt.

SCENE VII.

Another Part of the Same.

Alarum : Excursions. Enter Talbot tvounded,
supported by a Servant.

Tal. Where is my other life ? — mine own is
gone ; —
O, Where's young Talbot .^ where is valiant John.^ —
Triumphant death, smear'd with captivity '" !
Young Talbot's valour makes me smile at thee : —
When he perceiv'd me shrink, and on my knee.
His bloody sword he brandish'd over me,
And, hke a hungry lion, did commence
Rough deeds of rage, and stern impatience ;
But when my angry guardant stood alone,

' — thy desperate sire of Crete,
Thou Icarus ;] So, in the Third Part of this play :
" What a peevish fool was that of Crete? "

Again :

" I, Daedalus ; my poor boy, Icarus — ." Steevens,

^ Triumphant death, smear'd with captivity !] That is, death
stained and dishonoured with captivity. Johnson.

Death stained by my being made a captive and dying in cap-
tivity. The author, when he first addresses death, and uses the
epithet Iriumfhnnt, considers him as a person who had triumphed
over him by plunging his dart in his breast. In the latter part
of the line, if Dr. Johnson has rightly explained it, death must
have its ordinary signification. " I think light of my death,
though rendered disgraceful by captivity," &c. Perhaps, how-
ever, the construction intended by the poet was — Young Talbot's
valour makes mc, smeared with captivity, smile, &c. If so,
tliere should be a comma after captivity. j\1alone.

sc. I'll. KING HENRY VI. 129

Tend'ring my ruin '^, and assail'd of none,
Dizzy-ey'd fury, and great rage of heart,
Suddenly made him from my side to start
Into the clust'ring battle of the French :
And in that sea of blood my boy did drench
His overmounting spirit ; and there died
My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.

Enter Soldiers, bearing the Body of J oh x Talbot* ^
Serv. O my dear lord ! lo, where your son is

borne !
Tal. Thou antick death', which laugh'stus here
to scorn.
Anon, from thy insulting tyranny.
Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,

3 Tend'ring my ruin,] Watching me with tenderness in my

fall. JOHXSON.

I would rather read —

" Tending my ruin," &c. Tyrwhitt.
I adhere to the old reading. So, in Hamlet, Polonius says to
Ophelia :

" — — Tender yourself more dearly." Steevens.
Again, in King Henry VI. Part H. :

" I tender so the safety of my liege." Malone.

4 —the Body of John Talbot.'] ' This John Talbot was the
eldest son of the first Earl by his second wife, and was Viscount
Lisle, when he was killed with his father, in endeavouring to
relieve Chatillon, after the battle of Bourdeaux, in the year HoS.
He was created Viscount Lisle in 1451. John, the Earl's eldest
son by his first wife, was slain at the battle of Northampton, in
1460. Malone.

3 Thou antick death,] The /oo.', or antkh of the play, made
sport by mocking the graver personages. Johnson.
In King Richard II. we have the same image :

" within the hollow crown

" That rounds the mortal temples of a king _

" Keeps death his court : and there the antick sits

" Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp."

Steevens.
It is not improbable that Shakspeare borrowed this idea from
one of the cuts to that most exquisite w^ork called Imagines Mortis,
commonly ascribed to the pencil of Holbein, but without any
authority. See the Tth print. Douck.
VOL. XVIII. K

130 FIRST PART OF act if.

Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky^

In thy despite, shall 'scape mortality. —

O thou whose wounds become hard-favour'd death.

Speak to thy father, ere thou yield thy breath :

Brave death by speaking, whether he will, or no ;

Imagine him a Frenchman, and thy foe. —

Poor boy! he smiles, methinks: as who should

say-
Had death been French, then death had died to-
day.
Come, come, and lay him in his father's arms ;
My spirit can no longer bear these harms.
Soldiers, adieu ! I have what I would have.
Now my old arms are young John Talbot's grave.

IDies.

uilarums. Exeunt Soldiers and Servant, leaning
the tzvo Bodies. Enter Charles, Alen^on, Bur-
gundy, Bastard, La Pucelle, and Forces.

Char. Had York and Somerset brought rescue in.
We should have found a bloody day of this.

" —winged through the lither sky,] Lither is JlexiMe or
yielding. In much the same sense Milton says :

" He with broad sails

" Winnow'd the buxom air."
That is, the obsequious air. Johnson.
Lither is the comparative of the adjective lithe.
So, in Lyly's Endymion, 1591 :

" to breed numbness or litherness."

Litherness is limberness, or yielding xveakness.
Again, in Look About You, 1600 :

" I'll bring his lither legs in better frame."
Milton might have borrowed the expression from Spenser or
Gower, who uses it in the Prologue to his Confessio Amantis :
" That unto him whiche the head is,
" The membres buxom shall bowe."
In the old service of matrimony, the wife was enjoined to be
buxom both at bed and board. Buxom, therefore, anciently sig-
nified obedient or yielding. Stubbs, in his Anatomie of Abuses,

1595, uses the word in the same sense : " are so buxome to

their shameless desires/' &c. Steevens.

sc. VII. KING HENRY VI. 13,1

Bast. How the young whelp of Talbot's, raging-
wood \
Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen's blood ^!

Puc. Once I encounter'd him, and thus I said,
Thoii 7naiden youth be vancjuislid by a maid:
But — with a proud, majestical high scorn, —
He answer'd thus ; Young Talbot was not born
To be the pillage of a giglot xveiich ^ ;
So, rushing in the bowels of the French \
He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.

Bur. Doubtless, he would have made a noble
knight :
See, where he lies inhersed in the arms
Of the most bloody nurser of his harms.

Bast. Hew them to pieces, hack their bones
asunder ;
Whose life was England's glory, Gallia's wonder.

Char. O, no ; forbear : for that which we have fled
During the life, let us not wrong it dead.

7 — raging-wooD,] That is, raging wmt/. So, in I ley wood's
Dialogues, containing a number of ett'ectual Proverbs, 1562 :
" She was, as they say, horn-iuoof/."
Again, in The Longer thou livestthe more Fool thou art, 1570 :

•' He will fight as he were tvood." Steevens.
^ — in Frenchman's blood !] The return of rhyme where
youngTalbot is again mentioned, and in no other place, strengthens
the suspicion that these verses were originally part of some other
work, and were copied here only to save the trouble of composing
new. Johnson.

9 — of a GIGLOT wench .•] Giglot is a tvanton, or a strumpet.

Johnson.
The word is used by Gascoigne and other authors, though now
quite obsolete.

So, in the play of Orlando Furioso, 1594 :

" Whose choice is like that Greekish ^/V/of ^ love,
" That left her lord, prince Menelaus."
See vol. ix. p. 197, n. 7. Steevens.

' — in the bowels of the French,] So, in the first part of
Jeronimo, 1605 :

" Meet, Don Andrea ! yes, in the battle's botoels."

Steevens.
K 2

132 FIRST PART OF act jy.

Enter Sir IVilliam Lucy, attended ; a French

Herald preceding.
Lucy. Herald,
Conduct me to the Dauphin's tent; to know
Who hath obtain'd - the glory of the day.

Char. On what submissive message art thou

sent ?
Lucy. Submission, Dauphin? 'tis a mere French
word ;
We English warriors wot not what it means.
I come to know what prisoners, thou hast ta'en,
And to survey the bodies of the dead.

Char. For prisoners, ask'st thou .^ hell our prison
is.
But tell me whom thou seek'st.

Lucy. Where is the great Alcides ^ of the field.
Valiant lord Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury ?
Created, for his rare success in arms,
Great earl of Washford \ Waterford, and Valence ;

* Herald,
Conduct me to the Dauphin's tent ; to know
Mlio hath obtain'd — ] Lucy's message implied that he knew
who had obtained the victory : therefore Sir T. Hanmer reads :

" Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin's tent." .Tohnsok.

3 Where is the great Alcides — ] Old copy — But where's.
Corrected by Mr. Rowe. The compositor probably caught the
word but from the preceding line. INIalone.

4 Great earl of Washford,] It appears from Camden's Bri-
tannia and Holinshed's Chronicle of Ireland, that Wexford was
anciently called JVejjsford. In Crompton's Mansion of Mag-
nanimitie it is written as here, JVnshfoi-d. This long list of titles
is taken from tlie epitaph formerly fixed on Lord Talbot's tomb in
Rolien in Normandv. Where this author found it, 1 have not
been able to ascertain, for it is not in the common historians. The
oldest book in which I have met with it is the tract above men-
tioned, which was printed in 1599, posterior to the date of this
play. Numerous as this list is, the epitaph has one more, which,
I suppose, was only rejected because it would not easily fall into
the verse, " Lord Love^oft of Worsop." It concludes as here,—
" Lord Falconbridge, Knight of the noble order of St. George,

sc. VII. KING HENRY VI. 133

Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,
Lord Strange of Blackmere, lord Verdun of Alton,
Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, lord Furnival of Shef-
field,
The thrice victorious lord of Falconbridge ;
Knight of the noble order of Saint George,
Worthy Saint Michael, and the golden fleece ;
Great mareshal to Henry the sixth,
Of all his wars within the realm of France ?

Fuc. Here is a silly stately style indeed !
The Turk, that two and fifty kingdoms hath ^,
Writes not so tedious a style as this. —
Him, that thou magnifiest with all these titles,
Stinking, and fly-blown, lies here at our feet.

Lucy. Is Talbot slain ; the Frenchmen's only
scourge.
Your kingdom's terrour and black Nemesis ?
O, were mine eye-balls into bullets turn'd.
That I, in rage, might shoot them at your faces I
O, that I could but call these dead to life !
It were enough to fright the realm of France :
Were but his picture left among you here.
It would amaze ^ the proudest of you all.
Give me their bodies ; that I may bear them hence.
And give them burial as beseems their worth.

Puc. 1 think, this upstart is old Talbot's ghost,
He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit.

St. Michael, and the golden fleece, Great Marshall to King
Henry VI. of his realm in France, who died in the battle of
Bourdeaux, 1453." Malone.

^ The Turk, &c.] Alluding- probably to the ostentatious letter
of Sultan Solyman the Magnificent, to the Emperor Ferdinand,
1562; in which all the Grand Seignor's titles are enumerated.
See Knolles's History of the Turks, 5th edit. p. 789. Grey.

^ — amaze — ] i. e. (as in other instances) confound, throw
into consternation. So, in Cymbeline :

" I am amazd with matter ." Steevens.

1^4 FIRST PART OF act v.

For God's sake, let him have 'em " ; to keep them

here,
They would but stink, and putrefy the air.
Char. Go, take their bodies hence,
Lucy. V\\ bear them hence :

But from their ashes shall be rear'd
A phoenix ^ that shall make all France afeard.

Char. So we be rid of them, do with em what
thou wilt ■'.
And now to Paris, in this conquering vein ;
All will be ours, now bloody Talbot's slain.

\_E^veunt.

ACT V. SCENE I.^

London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King HENRYy Gloster, and Exeter.

K. Hex. Have you perus'd the letters from the
pope,

7 — let him have 'em;] Old copy — have /«'»?. So, a little
lower, — do with him. Tlie first emendiition was made by Mr.
Theobald ; the other by the editor of the second folio. Malone.
s But from their ashes shall be rear'd
A phoenix, &c.] The defect in the metre shows that some
word of two syllables was inadvertently omitted ; probably an epi-
thet to ashes. Malonk.

So, in the Third Part of this play :

" My ashes, as the phoenix, shall bring forth
" A bird that will revenge upon you all."
Sir Thomas Hanmer, with great probability, reads :

" But from their ashes, Dauphin," &c. Steevens.
■? So we be rid of them, do with 'em what thou wilt.] I sup-
pose, for the sake of metre, the useless words — uith 'cm should be
omitted. Steevens.

* Act V. Scene i.] In the original copy, the transcriber or

sc. I. KING HENRY VT. 135

The emperor, and the earl of Armagnac ?

Glo. I have, my lord ; and their intent is this,-—
They humbly sue unto your excellence.
To have a godly peace concluded of.
Between the realms of England and of France.

K. Hen. How doth your grace affect their mo-
tion ?

Glo. Well, my good lord ; and as the only means
To stop effusion of our Christian blood.
And 'stablish quietness on every side.

K. Hen. Ay, marry, uncle ; for I always thought.
It was both impious and unnatural,
That such immanity' and bloody strife
Should reign among professors of one faith.

Glo. Beside, my lord, — the sooner to effect.
And surer bind, this knot of amity, —
The earl of Armagnac — near knit to Charles,
A man of great authority in France, —
Proffers his only daughter to your grace
In marriage, with a large and sumptuous dowry.

K. Hen. Marriage, uncle I alas ! my years are
young ■' ;
And fitter is my study and my books.
Than wanton daUiance with a paramour.
Yet, call the ambassadors ; and, as you please.
So let them have their answers every one :
I shall be well content with any choice.
Tends to God's glory, and my country's weal.

printer forgot to mark the commencement of the fifth Act ; and
has by mistake called this scene, Scene II. The editor of the se-
cond folio made a very absurd regulation by making the Act be-
gin in the middle of the preceding scene, (where the Dauphin, &c,
enter, and take notice of the dead bodies of Talbot and his son,)
which was inadvertently followed in subsequent editions.

Malone.

* — immanity — ] i. e. barbarity, savageness. Steevens.

3 — my years are young;] His majesty, however, was twentv-
four vears old. Malone.

136 FIRST PART OF act r.

Enter a Legate, and Tzvo Ambassadors, xvith ff m-
CHESTER, in a Cardinals Habit.

ExE. What I is my lord of Winchester install'd.
And call'd unto a cardinars degree ^ !
Then, I perceive that will be verified,
Henry the fifth did sometime prophecy, —
If once he come to be a cardinal.
He II make his cap co-equal ivith the croitm,

K. Hex. My lords ambassadors, your several suits
Have been consider'd and debated on.
Your purpose is both good and reasonable :
And, therefore, are we certainly resolv d.
To draw conditions of a friendly peace ;
Which, by my lord of Winchester, v/e mean
Shall be transported presently to France.

Glo. And for the proffer of my lord your mas-
ter,—
I have inform'd his highness so at large.
As — liking cf the lady's virtuous gifts,
Her beauty, and the value of her dower, —
He doth intend she shall be England's queen.

K. Hex. In argument and proof of which con-
tract.
Bear her this jewel, [To the Amb.'] pledge of my
affection.

* What I is my lord of Winchester installM,
And call'd unto a cardinal's degree I] This, (as Mr. Edwards
has observed in his MS. notes.) argues a great forgetfulness in
the poet. In the first .\ct Gloster says :

" I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinals hat : "
And it is strange that the Duke of Exeter should not know of his
advancement. Steevens.

It sliould seem from the stage-direction prefixed to this scene,
and from the conversation between the Legate and Winchester,
that the author meant it to be understood that the bishop had ob-
tained his cardinal's hat only just before his present entry. The
inaccuracy, therefore, was in making Gloster address him by that
title in the beginning of the play. He in fact obtained it in the
fifth vear of Henry's reign. Malone.

sen. KING HENRY VI. 137

And so, my lord protector, see them guarded, "
And safely brought to Dover; where, inshipp'd.
Commit them to the fortune of the sea.

[_E.vei(nt King Henry and Train ; Gloster,
Exeter, and Ambassadoi^s.

Wix. Stay, my lord legate ; you shall first re-
ceive
The sum of money, which I promised
Should be deliver'd to his holiness
For clothing me in these grave ornaments.

Leg. I will attend upon your lordship's leisure.

JVix. Now, Winchester will not submit, I trow.
Or be inferior to the proudest peer.
Humphrey of Gioster, thou shalt well perceive.
That, neither in birth % or for authority,
The bishop will be overborne by thee :
I'll either make thee stoop, and bend thy knee,
Or sack this country with a mutiny. \_E.vcunt.

SCENE II.

France. Plains in Anjou.

Enter Charles, BrRGUxny, Alexcox, La Pccelle,
and Forces, marching.

Char. These news, my lords, may cheer our
drooping spirits :
'Tis said, the stout Parisians do revolt,
And turn again unto the warlike French.

Alex. Then march to Paris, royal Charles of
France,
And keep not back your powers in dalliance.

Puc. Peace be amongst them, if they turn to us ;

5 That, neither i.v birth,] I would read— /or birth. That is,
thou shalt not rule me, though thy birth is legitimate, and thy au-
thority supreme. Johnson.

138 FIRST PART OF act r.

Else, ruin combat with their palaces !

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. Success unto our valiant general,
And happiness to his accomplices !

Char. What tidings send our scouts ? I pr'ythee,
speak.

Mess. The English army, that divided was
Into two parties ^, is now conjoin d in one ;
And means to give you battle presently.

Char. Somewhat too sudden, sirs, the warning is;
But we will presently provide for them.

Bur. I trust, the ghost of Talbot is not there ;
Now he is gone, my lord, you need not fear.

Puc. Of all base passions, fear is most accurs'd :—
Command the conquest, Charles, it shall be thine ;
Let Henry fret, and all the world repine.

Char. Then on, my lords ; And France be for-
tunate ! \_Exeunt.

SCENE III.
The Same. Before Anglers.

Alarums: Excursions . Enter La Pucelle.

Puc. The regent conquers, and the Frenchmen
fly—
Now help, ye charming spells, and periapts ^ ;

^ — parts,] Old copies — parties. Steevens.

7 — ye charming spells, and periapts ;] Charms sowed up.
Ezek. xiii. IS : " Woe to them that sow pillows to all arm-holes,
to hunt souls." Pope.

Periapts were worn about the neck as preservatives from disease
or^danger. Of these, the first chapter of St. John's Gospel was
deemed the most efficacious.

Whoever is desirous to know more about them, may consult
Reginald Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584, p. 230, &c.

Stbevens.

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 139

And ye choice spirits that admonish me.

And give me signs of future accidents ! [Thunder.

You speedy helpers, that are substitutes

Under the lordly monarch of the north **,

Appear, and aid me in this enterprize !

Enter Fiends.

This speedy quicl^ appearance argues proof

Of your accustom'd diligence to me.

Now, ye familiar spirits, that are cull'd

Out of the powerful regions under earth ^,

Help me this once, that France may get the field.

[Theij zvalk about, and speak not,
O, hold me not with silence over-long !

The following story, which is related in Wits, Fits, and Fancies,
1595, proves what Mr. Steevens has asserted : " A cardinal seeing
a priest carrying a cudgel under his gown, reprimanded him. His
excuse was, that he only carried it to defend himself against the
dogs of the town. Wherefore, I pray you, replied the cardinal,
serves St. John's Gospel ? Alas, my lord, said the priest, these
curs understand no Latin." Malone.

^ — monarch of the north,] The north was always supposed
to be the particular habitation of bad spirits. Milton, therefore,
assembles the rebel angels in the north. Johnson.

The boast of Lucifer in the xivth chapter of Isaiah is said to be,
that he "will sit upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides
of the wor/A." Steevens.

9 Out of the powerful REGIONS under earth,] I believe Shak-
speare wrote — legions. Warburton.

" The regions under earth " are 'the infernal regions.' Whence
else should the sorceress have selected or summoned her fiends ?

Steevens.

In a former passage, regio7is seems to have been printed instead
of legions ; at least all the editors from the time of Mr. Rowe have
there substituted the latter word instead of the former. See
p. 120, n. 1. The word cull'd, and the e\)'\thet potveyyul, which is
applicable to the fiends themselves, but not to their place of resi-
dence, show that it has an equal title to a place in the text here.
So, in The Tempest :

" But one Jiend at a time,

" I'll fight their legions o'er." Malone.

140 FIRST PART OF ^ct v.

Where ^ I was wont to feed you with my blood,

I'll lop a member oif, and give it you.

In earnest of a further benefit ;

So you do condescend to help me now. —

[Theij hang their heads.
No hope to have redress ? — My body shall
Pay recompense, if you will grant my suit.

\_They shake their heads.
Cannot my body, nor blood-sacrifice,
Entreat you to your wonted furtherance ?
Then take my soul ; my body, soul, and all.
Before that England give the French the foil.

[They depart.
See! they forsake me. Now the time is come.
That France must vail her lofty-plumed crest ^
And let her head fall into England's lap.
My ancient incantations are too weak.
And hell too strong for me to buckle with :
Now, France, thy glory droopeth to the dust.

\_Exit.

Alarums. Enter French and English, fightingy
La Pucelle and YoiiKjight liand to hand. La
PucELLE is taken. The Frenclijiy.

York. Damsel of France, I think, I have you
fast:
Unchain your spirits now with spelHng charms.
And try if they can gain your liberty. —
A goodly prize, fit for the devil's grace !
See, how the ugly witch doth bend her brows.
As if, with Circe, she would change my shape ^.

' Where — ] i. e. ivhereas. So, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre :
" Where now you're both a father and a son." Steevens.

* — VAIL her lofty-plumed crest,] i. e. lower it. So, in The
Merchant of Venice :

" Vailii/ir her high top lower than her ribs."

See vol. V. p. 9, n. 1. Steevens.

3 As if, with CiKCE, &c.] So, in The Comedy of Errors :

" I think, you all have drank of Circe's cup." Steevens.

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 141

Puc. Chang'd to a worser shape thou canst not

be.
York. O, Charles the Dauphin is a proper man ;
No shape but his can please your dainty eye.

Puc. A plaguing mischief light on Charles, and
thee !
And may ye both be suddenly surpriz'd
By bloody hands, in sleeping on your beds !

York. Fell, banning hag'*! enchantress, hold

thy tongue.
Puc. I pr'ythee, give me leave to curse a while.
York. Curse, miscreant, w^hen thou comest to
the stake. \_Exeimt.

Alarums. Enter Suffolk, leading in Lady

Margaret.

SuF. Be what thou wilt, thou art my prisoner.

\_Gazes on her.

0 fairest beauty, do not fear, nor fly ;

For I will touch thee but with reverent hands.
And lay them gently on thy tender side.

1 kiss these fingers \_Kissing her hand.^ for eternal

peace ^ :

"^ Fell, BANNING hag !] To ban is to curse. So, in The Jew of
Malta, 1633 :

" I 6an their souls to everlasting pains." Steevens.
5 I kiss these fingers for eternal peace :] In the old copy these
lines are thus arranged and pointed :

" For I will touch thee but with reverent hands,
" I kiss these fingers for eternal peace,
" And lay them gently on thy tender side."
By which Suffolk is made to kiss his own fingers, a symbol of peace
of which^ there is, I believe, no example. The transposition was
made, I think, rightly, by Mr. Capell. In the old edition, as here,
there is only a comma after " hands," which seems to counte-
nance the regulation now made. To obtain something like sense,
the modern editors were obliged to put a full point at the end of
that line.

In confirmation of the transposition here made, let it be remem-

142 FIRST PART OF ^ctv.

Who art thou ? say, that I may honour thee.

Mar. Margaret my name ; and daughter to a
king,
The king of Naples, whosoe'er thou art.

SuF. An earl I am, and Suffolk am I call'd.
Be not offended, nature's miracle.
Thou art allotted to be ta'en by me :
So doth the swan her downy cygnets save,
Keeping them prisoners underneath her wings''.
Yet, if this servile usage once offend.
Go, and be free again as Suffolk's friend.

[She turns away as going,
O, stay ! — I have no power to let her pass ;
My hand would free her, but my heart says — no ^.
As plays the sun upon the glassy streams ^,

bered that two lines are in like manner misplaced in Troilus and
Cressida, Act I. fol. 1623 :

" Or like a star dis-orb'd ; nay, if we talk of reason,
" And fly like a cliidden Mercury from Jove."
Again, in King Richard III. Act IV. Sc. IV. :

" That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,
" That excellent grand tyrant of the earth." Malone.
7 — HER wings] Old copy — his. This manifest error I only
mention, because it supports a note in vol. vi. p. 506, n. 4, and
justifies the change there made. Her was formerly spelt Jiir ;
hence it was often confounded with his. Malone.

^ My hand would free her, but my heart says — no.] Thus,
in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :

" my heart accords thereto,

" And yet a thousand times it anstvers — no." Steevens.
9 As plays the sun upon the glassy streams, &c.] This com-
parison, made between things which seem sufficiently unlike, is
intended to express the softness and delicacy of Lady Margaret's
beauty, which delighted, but did not dazzle ; which was bright,
but gave no pain by its lustre. Johnson.
Thus, Tasso :

Qual raggio in onda, le scintilla un riso

Negli umidi occhi tremulo . Henley.

Sidney, in his Astrophel and Stella, serves to support Dr. John-
son's explanation :

" Lest if no vaile these brave gleames did disguise,
** They, sun-like, should more dazle than delight."

sc.iii. KING HENRY VI. 143

Twinkling another counterfeited beam.
So seems this gorgeous beauty to mine eyes.
Fain would I woo her, yet I dare not speak :
I'll call for pen and ink, and write my mind :
Fye, De la Poole ! disable not thyself ^ ;
Hast not a tongue ? is she not here thy prisoner ^ ?
Wilt thou be daunted at a woman's sight ?
Ay ; beauty's princely majesty is such,
Confounds the tongue, and makes the senses
rough ^.

Mar. Say, earl of Suffolk, — if thy name be so, —
What ransom must I pay before I pass ?
For, I perceive, I am thy prisoner.

SuF. How canst thou tell, she will deny thy suit
Before thou make a trial of her love ? [Aside.

Mar. Why speak'st thou not? what ransom
must I pay ?

SuF. She's beautiful ; and therefore to be woo'd :
She is a woman ; therefore to be won '*. \_Aside.

Mar. Wilt thou accept of ransom, yea, or no ?

SvF. Fond man ! remember, that thou hast a
wife;
Then how can Margaret be thy paramour ? [Aside.

Mar. I were best leave him, for he will not hear.

* — disable not thyself;] Do not represent thyself so weak.
To disable the judgment of another was, in that age, the same as
to destroy its credit or authority. Johnson.

So, in As You Like it. Act V. : " If again, it was not well cut,
he disabled my judgment .'' Steevens.

^ Hast not a tongue? is she not here thy prisoner ?] The
words — thy prisoner, which are wanting in the first folio, are found
in the second. Steevens.

3 — and makes the senses rough.] The meaning of this word
is not very obvious. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads — crouch.

Malone.

"* She is a woman ; therefore to be won.] This seems to be a
proverbial line, and occurs in Greene's Planetomachia, 1585.

Steevens.

144 FIRST PART OF act v.

SuF. There all is marr'd ; there lies a cooling
card '.

Mar. He talks at random ; sure, the man is mad,

SuF. And yet a dispensation may be had.

Mar. And yet I would that you would answer me.

SuF. I'll win this lady Margaret. For whom ?
Why, for my king : Tush ! that's a wooden thing ®.

Mar. He talks of wood : It is some carpenter.

SuF. Yet so my fancy ' may be satisfied,
And peace estabhshed between these realms.
But there remains a scruple in that too :
For though her father be the king of Naples,
Duke of Anjou and Maine, yet is he poor.
And our nobility will scorn the match. [^^side.

Mar. Hear ye, captain ? Are you not at leisure ?

SuF. It shall be so, disdain they ne'er so much :
Henry is youthful, and will quickly yield. —
Madam, I have a secret to reveal.

Mar. What though I be enthrall'd ? he seems a
knight.
And will not any way dishonour me. [Aside.

5 — a cooLixG CARD.] So, in Marius and Sylla, 1594':

" rU have a present cooling card for you." Steevens.
^ — a WOODEN thing.] Is an aukward business, an undertak-
ing not likely to succeed.

So, in Lyly's Galathea, 1592 : " Would I were out of these
woods, for I shall have but wooden luck."
Again, in Sidney's Astrophel and Stella:

" Or, seeing, have so ivoodden wits as not that worth to
know."
Again, in The Knave of Spades, &c. no date :

" To make an end of that same tvooden phrase."

Steevens.
Again, in Bacon's Essays, 1628 : " It is sport to see a bold fel-
low out of countenance, for that puts his face into a most shrunken
and wooden posture. Malone.

7 — my fancy — ] i.e. my love. So, in A Midsummer-
Night's Dream :

" Fair Helena in fan a/ following me."
See vol. V p. 301, n. 7. Steevens.

sc. in. KING HENHY VI. 145

SuF. Lady, vouchsafe to listen what I say.

Mar. Perhaps, I shall be rescu'd by the French ;
And then I need not crave his courtesy. [Aside.

SuF. Sweet madam, give me hearing in a cause —

Mar. Tush ! women have been captivate ere now.

[Aside.

SuF. Lady, wherefore talk you so ?

Mar. I cry you mercy, 'tis but quid for quo.

SuF. Say, gentle princess, would you not suppose
Your bondage happy, to be made a queen ?

Mar. To be a queen in bondage, is more vile.
Than is a slave in base servility ;
For princes should be free.

SuF. And so shall you.

If happy England's royal king be free.

Mar. Why, what concerns his freedom unto me ?

SuF. I'll undertake to make thee Henry's queen;
To put a golden scepter in thy hand,
And set a precious crown upon thy head,
If thou wilt condescend to be my — ^

Mar. What ?

SuF. His love.

Mar. I am unworthy to be Henry's wife.

SuF. No, gentle madam ; I unworthy am
To woo so fair a dame to be his wife.
And have no portion in the choice myself.
How say you, madam ; are you so content ?

Mar. An if my father please, I am content.

SuF. Then call our captains, and our colours,
forth :

^ If thou wilt condescend to be my — ] I have little doubt
that the words — be my, are an interpolation, and that the passage
originally stood thus :

" If thou wilt condescend to — —

What?

His love."
Both sense and measure are then complete. Steevens.
VOL. XVIII. L

146 FIRST PART OF act v.

And, madam, at your father's castle walls
We'll crave a parley, to confer with him.

[Troops come forward.

A Parky sounded. Enter Reignier, on the

Walls.
SuF. See, Reignier, see, thy daughter prisoner.

Reig. To whom ?

SuF. To me.

Reig. Suffolk, what remedy ?

I am a soldier ; and unapt to weep,
Or to exclaim on fortune's fickleness.

SuF. Yes, there is remedy enough, my lord :
Consent, (and, for thy honour, give consent,)
Thy daughter shall be wedded to my king ;
Whom I with pain have woo'd and won thereto ;
And this her easy-held imprisonment
Hath gain'd thy daughter princely liberty.

Reig. Speaks Suffolk as he thinks ?

SuF. Fair Margaret knows,

That Suffolk doth not flatter, face, or feign ^

Reig. Upon thy princely warrant, I descend,
To give thee answer of thy just demand.

\_E.vit, from the JValls.

SuF. And here I will expect thy coming.

Trumpets sounded. Enter Reignier, below.

Reig. Welcome, brave earl, into our territories ;
Command in Anjou what your honour pleases.

SuF. Thanks, Reignier, happy for so sweet a
child.
Fit to be made companion with a king :

9 — FACE, or feign,] " To face (says Dr. Johnson) is to carry
a false appearance ; to play the hypocrite." Hence the name of
one of the characters in Ben Jonson's Alchymist. Malone.

So, in The Taming of the Shrew :

" Yet have Ifaced it with a card of ten." Steevens.

sc. ///. KING HENRY VI. 147

What answer makes your grace unto my suit ?

Reig. Since thou dost deign to woo her little
worth \
To be the princely bride of such a lord ;
Upon condition I may quietly
Enjoy mine own, the county Maine ^, and Anjou,
Free from oppression, or the stroke of war.
My daughter shall be Henry's, if he please.

SuF. That is her ransom, I deliver her ;
And those two counties, I will undertake.
Your grace shall well and quietly enjoy.

Reig. And I again, — in Henry's royal name.
As deputy unto that gracious king,
Give thee her hand, for sign of plighted faith.

SuF. Reignier of France, I give thee kingly
thanks.
Because this is in traffick of a king :
And yet, methinks, I could be well content
To be mine own attorney in this case. \^^si(le.

I'll over then to England with this news.
And make this marriage to be solemniz'd ;
So, farewell, Reignier ! Set this diamond safe
In golden palaces, as it becomes.

Reig. I do embrace thee, as I would embrace
The Christian prince, king Henry, were he here.

Mar. Farewell, my lord ! Good wishes, praise,
and prayers.
Shall Suffolk ever have of Margaret. [Going.

' Since thou dost deign to woo her little worth, &c.] " To
woo her little worth" may mean 'to court her small share of
merit.' But perhaps the passage should be pointed thus :
" Since thou dost deign to woo her, little worth
" To be the princely bride of such a lord ; "
i. e. little deserving to be the wife of such a prince. Malone.

^ — the COUNTY Maine,] Maine is called a county both by
Hall and Holinshed. The old copy erroneously reads — country.

Malone.

1.2

148 FIRST PART OF jct r.

SuF. Farewell, sweet madam ! But hark you,
Margaret ;
No princely commendations to my king ?

M.^R. Such commendations as become a maid,
A virgin, and his servant, say to him.

SuF. Words sweetly plac'd, and modestly ^ di-
rected.
But, madam, I must trouble you again, —
No loving token to his majesty ?

M.jn. Yes, my good lord ; a pure unspotted heart.
Never yet taint with love, I send the king.

SuF. And this withal. [Kisses her.

Mar. That for thyself ; — I will not so presume.
To send such peevish tokens ^ to a king.

\_Exeunt Reignier and Margaret.

SuF. O, wertthou for myself ! — But, Suffolk, stay ;
Thou may'st not wander in that labyrinth ;
There Minotaurs, and ugly treasons, lurk.
Solicit Henry with her wond'rous praise :
Bethink thee on her virtues that surmount ;
Mad, natural graces ^ that extinguish art ;

3 — modestly — ] Old copy — modestij. Corrected by the edi-
tor of the second folio. Malone.

4 To send such peevish tokens — ] Peevish, for childish.

Warburton.
See a note on Cymbeline, vol. xiii. p, 49, n.9 : " He's strange
and peevish." Steevens.

5 Mad, natural graces — ] So the old copy. The modern edi-
tors have been content to read—he?- natural graces. By the word
mad, however, I believe the poet only meant xvi/d or uncultivated.
In the former of these significations he appears to have used it in
Othello :

" — - he she lov'd prov'd mad."
Which Dr, Johnson has properly interpreted. We call a v.ild
girl, to this day, a mad-cap.

In Macer's Herball, practysyd by Doctor Linacre ; Translated
out of Laten into Englyshe, &c. bl. 1. no date, the epithet mad
seems also to be used in an uncommon sense : " The vertue of
this herbe [lactuca leporica] is thus : yf a hare eat of this herbe
in somer whan he is mad, he shall be hole."

sc, /r. KING HENRY VI. 149

Repeat their semblance often on the seas,
That, when thou com'st to kneel at Henry's feet,
Thou may'st bereave him of his wits with wonder.

SCENE IV.
Camp of the Duke of York, in Anjou.

Enter York, Jf^RTncK, and Others.

York. Bring forth that sorceress, condemn'd to
burn.

Enter La Pucelle, guarded, and a Shepherd.

Shep. Ah, Joan ! this kills thy father's heart ^
out-right !
Have I sought every country far and near.
And, now it is my chance to find thee out,
Must I behold thy timeless^ cruel death ?

Mad, in some of the ancient books of gardening, is used as an
epithet to plants which grow rampant and wild. Steevens.

In The Two Noble Kinsmen, 1634', mad is used in the same
manner as in the text :

" Is it not mad lodging in these wild woods here ? "
Again, in Nashe's Have With You to Saffron Walden, 1596 :
" — with manie more madde tricks of youth never plaid before."

Malone.
It is possible that Steevens may be right in asserting that the
word rnad, may have been used to express ivild ; but I believe it
was never used as descriptive of excellence, or as applicable to
grace. The passage is in truth erroneous, as is also the amend-
ment of former editors. That which I should propose is, to read
ajid, instead of mad, words that might easily have been mistaken
for each other :

" Bethink thee of her virtues that surmount,
" And natural graces, that extinguish art."
That is, think of her virtues that surmount art, and of her natural
graces that extinguish it. M. Mason.

^ — KILLS thy father's heart — ] This phrase occurs likewise
in King Henry V. and The Winter's Tale. Steevens.

7 — timeless — ] \^ untimely. So, in Drayton's Legend of
Robert Duke of Normandy :

" Thy strength was buried in his timeless death."

Steevens.

150 FIRST PART OF act v.

Ah, Joan, sweet daughter Joan, I'll die with thee !

Pz7c. Decrepit miser ^ I base ignoble wretch !
I am descended of a gentler blood ;
Thou art no father, nor no friend, of mine.

Shep. Out, out ! — My lords, an please you, 'tis
not so;
I did beget her, all the parish knows :
Her mother liveth yet, can testify.
She was the first fruit of my bachelorship.

War, Graceless ! wilt thou deny thy parentage ?

York. This argues what her kind of life hath
been ;
Wicked and vile ; and so her death concludes ^.

Shep. Fye, Joan ! that thou wilt be so obstacle^!

^ Decrepit miser !] Miser has no relation to avarice in this
passage, but simply means a miserable creature. So, in the inter-
lude of Jacob and Esau, 1568 :

" But as for these misers within my father's tent — ."
Again, in Lord Sterline's tragedy of Croesus, 1601 :
" Or think'st thou me of judgement too remiss,

" A yniser that in miserie remains,
" The bastard child of fortune, barr'd from bliss,

" Whom heaven doth hate, and all the world disdains ?"
Again, in Holinshed, p. 760, where he is speaking of the death
of Richard III. : " And so this miser, at the same verie point, had
like chance and fortune," &c. Again, p. 951, among the last
words of Lord Cromwell : " — for if I should so doo, I were a very
wretch and a miser." Again, ibid. : " — and so patiently suffered
the stroke of the ax, by a ragged and butcherlie miser, which ill-
favouredlie performed the office." Steevens.
9 This argues what her kind of life hath been ;
Wicked and vile ; and so her death concludes.] So, in this
play, Part II. Act III. Sc. III. :

" So bad a death argues a monstrous life." Steevens.
1 — that thou wilt be so obstacle !] A vulgar corruption of
obstinate, which I think has oddly lasted since our author's time
till now. Johnson.

The same corruption may be met with in Gower, and other wri-
ters. Thus, in Chapman's May-Day, 1611 :
" An obstacle young thing it is."
Again, in The Tragedy of Hoffman, 1631 :

" Be not obstacle, old duke." Steevens.

sc.iF, KING HENRY VI. 151

God knows, thou art a collop of my flesh ^ ;
And for thy sake have I shed many a tear :
Deny me not, I pr'ythee, gentle Joan.

Puc. Peasant, avaunt ! — You have suborn'd this
man,
Of purpose to obscure my noble birth.

Shep. 'Tis true, I gave a noble ^ to the priest.
The morn that I was wedded to her mother. —
Kneel down and take my blessing, good my girl.
Wilt thou not stoop ? Now cursed be the time
Of thy nativity ! I would, the milk
Thy mother gave thee, when thou suck'dst her

breast.
Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake !
Or else, when thou didst keep my lambs a-field,
I wish some ravenous wolf had eaten thee !
Dost thou deny thy father, cursed drab ?
O, burn her, burn her; hanging is too good.

\^E.vit.

York. Take her away; for she hath liv'd too
long.
To fill the world with vicious qualities.

Puc. First, let me tell you whom you have con-
demn'd ;
Not me * begotten of a shepherd swain.
But issu'd from the progeny of kings ;
Virtuous, and holy ; chosen from above,

^ — a collop of my flesh ;] So, in The History of Morindos
and Miracola, 1609, quarto, bl. 1. : " — yet being his second selfe,
a collop of his ownjlesh," &c. Ritson.
So, inThe Winter's Tale, vol. xiv. p. 250 :

" Most dearest ! my collop" Malone.
3 ■ my noble birth.

Shep. 'Tis true, I gave a noble — ] This passage seems to
corroborate an explanation, somewhat far-fetched, which I have
given in King Henry IV. of the iiobleman and royal man.

Johnson.
■* Not ME — ] I believe the author wrote — Not one. Malone

152 FIRST PART OF act v.

By inspiration of celestial grace.

To work exceeding miracles on earth.

I never had to do with wicked spirits :

But you, — that are polluted with your lusts,

Stain'd with the guiltless blood of innocents,

Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices, —

Because you want the grace that others have.

You judge it straight a thing impossible

To compass wonders, but by help of devils.

No, misconceived ^ ! Joan of Arc hath been

A virgin from her tender infancy.

Chaste and immaculate in very thought ;

Whose maiden blood, thus rigorously effus'd.

Will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven.

York. Ay, ay; — away with her to execution.

War. And hark ye, sirs ; because she is a maid.
Spare for no fagots, let there be enough :
Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake.
That so her torture may be shortened.

Fuc. Will nothing turn your unrelenting hearts ? —
Then, Joan, discover thine infirmity ;
That warranteth by law to be thy privilege ®. —
I am with child, ye bloody homicides :
Murder not then the fruit within my womb.
Although ye hale me to a violent death.

York. Now heaven forefend ! the holy maid with
child ?

IVar. The greatest miracle that e'er ye wrought :
Is all your strict preciseness come to this ?

York. She and the Dauphin have been jug-
gling :
I did imagine what would be her refuge.

5 No, misconceived !] i. e. No, ye misconceivers, ye who mis-
take me and my qualities. Steevens.

^ That warranteth by law to be thy privilege.] The useless
words — to be, which spoil the measure, are an evident interpola-
tion. Steevens.

sc. IF. KING HENRY VI. 153

J^AR. Well, go to ; we will have no bastards
live ;
Especially, since Charles must father it.

Puc. You are deceiv'd; my child is none of his;
It was Alen9on, that enjoy'd my love.

York. Alen9on ! that notorious MachiaveF !
It dies, an if it had a thousand lives.

Puc. O, give me leave, I have deluded you ;
'Twas neither Charles, nor yet the duke I nam'd,
But Reignier, king of Naples, that prevail'd.

JVar. a married man ! that's most intolerable.

York. Why, here's a girl ! I think, she knows
not well.
There were so many, whom she may accuse.

JKiR. It's sign, she hath been liberal and free.

York. And, yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure. —
Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat, and thee :
Use no entreaty, for it is in vain.

Puc. Then lead me hence ; — with whom I leave
my curse :
May never glorious sun reflex his beams
Upon the country where you make abode !
But darkness and the gloomy shade of death
Environ you ; till mischief, and despair,

7 Alen^on ! that notorious Machiavel !] Machiavel being
mentioned somewhat before his time, this line is by some of the
editors given to the players, and ejected from the text.

Johnson.
The character of Machiavel seems to have made so very deep
an impression on the draraatick writers of this age, that he is
many times as prematurely spoken of. So, in The Valiant Welch-
man, 1615, one of the characters bids Caradoc, i. e. Caractacus,

" . read Machiavel :

" Princes that would aspire, must mock at hell."
Again :

" my brain

" Italianates ray barren faculties

" To Machiavclian blackness." Steevens.

154 FIRST PART OF m;t f.

Drive you to break your necks, or hang yourselves ^ !

[^E.vit, guarded.
York. Break thou in pieces, and consume to
; ashes.

Thou foul accursed minister of hell !

Enter Cardinal Beaufort, attended.

Car. Lord regent, I do greet your excellence
With letters of commission from the king.
For know, my lords, the states of Christendom,
Mov'd with remorse ^ of these outrageous broils.
Have earnestly implor'd a general peace
Betwixt our nation and the aspiring French ;
And here at hand the Dauphin, and his train,
Approacheth, to confer about some matter.

York. Is all our travail turn'd to this effect ?
After the slaughter of so many peers.
So many captains, gentlemen, and soldiers.
That in this quarrel have been overthrown.
And sold their bodies for their country's benefit.
Shall we at last conclude effeminate peace ?
Have we not lost most part of all the towns.
By treason, falsehood, and by treachery,
Our great progenitors had conquered ? —
O, Warwick, Warwick ! I foresee with grief
The utter loss of all the realm of France.

War. Be patient, York : if we conclude a peace.
It shall be with such strict and severe covenants,

9 — till mischief, and despair,
Drive you to break your necks, or hang yourselves !] Per-
haps Shakspeare intended to remark, in this execration, the fre-
quency of suicide among the English, which has been commonly
imputed to the gloominess of their air. Johnson.

' — remorse—] i. e. compassion, pity. So, in Measure for
Measure :

" If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse
" As mine is to him." Steevens.

sc. ir. KING HENRY VI. 155

As little shall the Frenchmen gain thereby.

Enter Charles, attended; Alencon, Bastardy
Reignier, and Others.

Char, Since, lords of England, it is thus agreed.
That peaceful truce shall be proclaim'd in France,
We come to be informed by yourselves
What the conditions of that league must be.

York. Speak, Winchester; for boiling choler
chokes
The hollow passage of my poison'd voice '^,
By sight of these our baleful enemies ^.

Win. Charles, and the rest, it is enacted thus :
That — in regard king Henry gives consent,
Of mere compassion, and of lenity.
To ease your country of distressful war.
And suffer you to breathe in fruitful peace, —
You shall become true liegemen to his crown :
And, Charles, upon condition thou wilt swear
To pay him tribute, and submit thyself.
Thou shalt be plac'd as viceroy under him.
And still enjoy thy regal dignity.

Alen. Must he be then as shadow of himself ?
Adorn his temples with a coronet ^ ;

* — poison'd voice,] Poison'd voice agrees well enough with
baneful enemies, or with baleful, if it can be used in the same
sense. The modern editors read — prison\l voice . Johnson.
Pmo^V/ was introduced by Mr. Pope. Malone.
3 — BALEFUL enemies.] Baleful is sorrowful ; I therefore ra-
ther imagine that we should read — baneful, hurtful, or mischievous.

Johnson.
Baleful had anciently the same meaning as baneful. It is an
epithet very frequently bestowed on poisonous plants and reptiles.
So, in Romeo and Juliet :

" With baleful weeds, and precious-juiced flowers."

Steevens.
^ — with a CORONET ;] Coronet is here used for a croivn.

Johnson.
So, in King Lear, vol. x. p. 15 :

156 FIRST PART OF .4ct r.

And yet, in substance and authority.
Retain but privilege of a private man ?
This proffer is absurd and reasonless.

Char. 'Tis known, already that I am possess'd
With more than half the Gallian territories.
And therein reverenc'd for their lawful king :
Shall 1, for lucre of the rest unvanquish'd.
Detract so much from that prerogative.
As to be call'd but viceroy of the whole ?
No, lord ambassador ; I'll rather keep
That which I have, than, coveting for more,
Be cast from possibility of all.

York. Insulting Charles ! hast thou by secret
means
Used intercession to obtain a league ;
And, now the matter grows to compromise,
Stand'st thou aloof upon comparison ^ ?
Either accept the title thou usurp'st.
Of benefit ^ proceeding from our king,
And not of any challenge of desert.
Or we will plague thee with incessant wars.

Reig. My lord, you do not well in obstinacy
To cavil in the course of this contract :
If once it be neglected, ten to one.
We shall not find like opportunity.

Alen. To say the truth, it is your policy.
To save your subjects from such massacre.
And ruthless slaughters, as are daily seen

■ which to confirm,

" This coronet part between you."
These are the words of Lear, when he gives up his croiKti to
Cornwall and Albany. Steevens.

^ — upon comparison ?] Do you stand to compare your pre-
sent state, a state which you have neither right or power to main-
tain, with the terms which we offer? Johnson.
^ — accept the title thou usurp'st,
Of BENEFIT — ] Benefit is here a term of law. Be content
to live as the beneficiary of our king. Johnson.

sc. r. KING HENRY VI. 157

By our proceeding in hostility :

And therefore take this compact of a truce,

Although you break it when your pleasure serves.

[^side, to Charles.
War. How say'st thou, Charles ? shall our condi-
tion stand ?
Char. It shall ; only reserv'd, you claim no in-
terest
In any of our towns of garrison.

I ork. Then swear allegiance to his majesty ;
As thou art knight, never to disobey,
Nor be rebellious to the crown of England.
Thou, nor thy nobles, to the crown of England, —

\_Charles, and the rest, give tokens of fealty.
So, now dismiss your army when ye please ;
Hang up your ensigns, let your drums be still.
For here we entertain a solemn peace. [^E.veimt.

vSCENE V.

London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King Henry, in conference with Suffolk;
Gloster and Exeter folloxoing.

K. Hen. Your wondrous rare description, noble
earl.
Of beauteous Margaret hath astonish'd me :
Her virtues, graced with external gifts.
Do breed love's settled passions in my heart:
And like as rigour in tempestuous gusts
Provokes the mightiest hulk against the tide ;
So am I driven \ by breath of her renown,
Either to suffer shipwreck, or arrive

7 So am I driven,] This simile is somewhat obscure ; he seems
to mean, that as a ship is driven against the tide by the wind, so
he is driven by love against the current of his interest.

Johnson.

158 FIRST PART OF act r.

Where I may have fruition of her love.

SuF. Tush ! my good lord ! this superficial tale
Is but a preface of her worthy praise :
The chief perfections of that lovely dame,
(Had I sufficient skill to utter them,)
Would make a volume of enticing lines.
Able to ravish any dull conceit.
And, which is more, she is not so divine.
So full replete vvith choice of all delights.
But, with as humble lowliness of mind.
She is content to be at your command ;
Command, I mean, of virtuous chaste intents,
To love and honour Henry as her lord.

K. IlE.y. And otherwise will Henry ne'er pre-
sume.
Therefore, my lord protector, give consent.
That Margaret maybe England's royal queen.

Glo. So should 1 give consent to flatter sin.
You know, my lord, your highness is betroth'd
Unto another lady of esteem ;
How shall we then dispense with that contract,
And not deface your honour with reproach ?

SuF. As doth a ruler with unlawful oaths :
Or one, that, at a triumph ^ having vow'd
To try his strength, forsaketh yet the lists
By reason of his adversary's odds :
A poor earl's daughter is unequal odds,
And therefore may be broke without offence.

Glo. Why, what, I pray, is Margaret more than
that ?

^ — at a triumph — ] That is, at the sports at which a triumph
is celebrated. Johnson.

A triumph, in the age of Shakspeare, signified a public exhibi-
tion, such as a mask, a revel, &c. Thus, in King Richard II. :
" What news from Oxford ? hold those justs and triumphs ? "

Steevens.
See A Midsummer-Night's Dream, vol. v. p. 17G, n.5.

Malone.

6

sc. V. KING HENRY VI. 159

Her father is no better than an earl,
Although in glorious titles he excel.

SuF. Yes, my good lord ^, her father is a king,
The king of Naples and Jerusalem ;
And of such great authority in France,
As his alliance will confirm our peace.
And keep the Frenchmen in allegiance.

Glo. And so the earl of Armagnac may do.
Because he is near kinsman unto Charles.

ExE. Beside, his wealth doth warrant liberal
dower ;
While Reignier sooner will receive, than give.

SuF. A dower, my lords ! disgrace not so your
king,
That he should be so abject, base, and poor.
To choose for wealth, and not for perfect love.
Henry is able to enrich his queen.
And not to seek a queen to make him rich :
So worthless peasants bargain for their wives.
As market-men for oxen, sheep, or horse.
Marriage is a matter of more worth.
Than to be dealt in by attorneyship ^ ;
Not whom we will, but whom his grace affects.
Must be companion of his nuptial bed :
And therefore, lords, since he affects her most.
It most - of all these reasons bindeth us.
In our opinions she should be preferred.

9 — my GOOD lord,] Good, which is not in the old copy, was
added for the sake of the metre, in the second folio. Malone.

' — by attorneyship ;] By the intervention of another man's
choice ; or the discretional agency of another. Johnson.

This is a phrase of which Shakspeare is peculiarly fond. It oc-
curs twice in King Richard III. :

" Be the attorneij of my love to her."
Again :

" I, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother."

Steevens.
^ It most — ] The word It, which is wanting in the old copy,
was inserted bv Mr. Rowe, Malone.

160 FIRST PART OF act v.

For what is wedlock forced, but a hell.
An age of discord and continual strife ?
Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss ^,
And is a pattern of celestial peace.
Whom should we match, with Henry, being a king,
But Margaret, that is daughter to a king?
Her peerless feature, joined with her birth.
Approves her fit for none, but for a king :
Her vahant courage and undaunted spirit,
(More than in women commonly is seen,)
Will answer our hope in issue of a king'^ ;
For Henry, son unto a conqueror.
Is likely to beget more conquerors.
If with a lady of so high resolve.
As is fair Margaret, he be link'd in love.
Then yield, my lords ; and here conclude with me.
That Margaret shall be queen, and none but she.
K. Hen. Whether it be through force of your
report,
My noble lord of Suffolk ; or for that
My tender youth was never yet attaint
With any passion of inflaming love,
I cannot tell ; but this I am assur'd,
I feel such sharp dissention in my breast,

3 Whereas the contrary bringeth forth bliss,] The word —
forth, which is not in the first folio, was supplied, I think, unne-
cessarily, by the second. Contrary was, I believe, used by the
author as a quadrisyllable, as if it were written conterary ; accord-
ing to which pronunciation the metre is not defective :
" Whereas the conterary bringeth bliss."

In the same manner Shakspeare frequently uses Henry as a tri-
syllable, and hour six\i\ Jire as dissyllables. See vol. iv. p. 31, and
p. 137. Malone.

I have little confidence in this remark. Such a pronunciation
of the word contrary is, perhaps, without example. Hour and
jire were anciently written as dissyllables, viz. hoxver—jier.

Steevens.

* Will answer our hope in issue of a king ;] The useless word
— -ojir, which destroys the harmony of this line, I suppose ought to
be omitted. Steevens.

sc. V. KING HENRY VI. 161

Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear.
As I am sick with working of my thoughts ^.
Take, therefore, shipping; post, my lord, to

France :
Agree to any covenants : and procure
That lady Margaret do vouchsafe to come
To cross the seas to England, and be crown'd;
King Henry's faithful and anointed queen i
For your expences and sufficient charge.
Among the people gather up a tenth.
Be gone, I say ; for, till you do return,
I rest perplexed with a thousand cares. —
And you, good uncle, banish all offence :
If you do censure me by what you were ®,
Not what you are, I know it will excuse
This sudden execution of my will.
And so conduct me, where from company
I may revolve and ruminate my griefs \^Eant,

Glo. Ay, grief, I fear me, both at first and last.

l^E.reimt Gloster and Exeter,

Sue. Thus Suffolk hath prevail'd : and thus he
goes.
As did the youthful Paris once to Greece ;
With hope to find the like event in love.
But prosper better than the Trojan did.
Margaret shall now be queen, and rule the king ;
But I will rule both her, the king, and realm.

lEa^t ^

•5 As I am sick with working of my thoughts.] So, in
Shakspeare's King Henry V. :

" Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege,"

Malonb-
^ If you do CENSURE me, &c.] To censure is here simply to
nidge. " If in judging me you consider the past frailties of your
own youth." Johnson.

7 — ruminate my grief.] Grief in the first line is taken ge-
nerally iov pain or tmeasiness ; in the second specially iov sorrffu}.

Johnson,
* \Exit^ Of this play there is no copy earlier than that of the
VOL. XVIII. M

♦4162 FIRST PART OF K. HENRY VI. act v.

folio in 1623, though the two succeeding parts are extant in two
editions in quarto. That the second and third parts were pub-
lished without the first, may be admitted as no weak proof that
'' the copies were surreptitiously obtained, and that the printer of
that time gave the publick those plays, not such as the author de-
signed, but such as they could get them. That this play was
written before the two others is indubitably collected from the se-
ries of events ; that it was written and played before Henry the
Fifth is apparent, because in the epilogue there is mention made
of this play, and not of the other parts :

" Henry the sixth in swaddling bands crown'd king,
" Whose state so many had the managing,
" That they lost France, and made his England bleed :
" Which oft our stage hath shown."

France is lost in this play. The two following contain, as the
old title imports, the contention of the houses of York and Lan-
ca.ster.

The second and third parts of Henry VI. were printed in 1600.
When Henry V. was written, we know not, but it was printed like-
wise in 1600, and therefore before the publication of the first and
second parts. The first part of Henry VI. had been often shot»n
on the stage, and would certainly have appeared in its place, had
the author been the publisher. Johnson.

That the second and third parts (as they are now called) were
printed without the first, is a proof, in my apprehension, that they
'were not written by the author of the first : and the title of The
'Contention of the Houses of York and Lancaster, being affixed to
the tv/o pieces which were printed in quarto, is a proof that
they were a distinct vvork, commencing where the other ended,
but' not written at the same time ; and that this play was never
known by the name of The First Part of King Henry VI. till
Heminge and Condell gave it that title in their volume, to distin-
guish it from the two subsequent plays ; which being altered by
Shakspeare, assumed the new titles of The Second and Third
Parts of King Henry VI. that they might not be confounded with
the original pieces on which they were formed. This first part
was, I conceive, originally called The Historical Play of King
Henry VI. See the Essay at the end of these contested pieces.

Malone.

KING HENRY VI.

PART II.

M 2

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

This and The Third Part of King Henry VI. contain that trou-
blesome period of this prince's reign which took in the whole con-
tention betwixt the houses of York and Lancaster : and under that
title were these two plays first acted and published. The present
scene opens with King Henry's marriage, which was in the twenty-
third year of his reign [A. D. 14-^5 :] and closes with the first bat-
tle fought at St. Alban's, and won by the York faction, in the thirty-
third year of his reign [A. D. 1455] : so that it comprizes the his-
tory and transactions of ten years. Theobald.

This play was altered by Crowne, and acted in the year 1681.

Steevens.

In a note prefixed to the preceding play, I have briefly stated my
opinion concerning the drama now before us, and that which fol-
lows it ; to which the original editors of Shakspeare's works in folio
have given the titles of The Second and Third Parts of King
Henry VI.

The Contention of the Two Famous Houses of Yorke and Lan-
caster in two parts, was published in quarto, the first part in 1594,
the second in 1595, and both were reprinted in 1600. On these
two plays, which I believe to have been written by some preceding
author, before the year 1590, Shakspeare formed, as I conceive,
this and the following drama ; altering, retrenching, or amplifying,
as he thought proper. The reasons on which this hypothesis is
founded, I shall subjoin at large at the end of The Third Part of
King Henry VI. At present it is only necessary to apprize the
reader of the method observed in the printing of these plays. All
the lines printed in the usual manner, are found in the original
quarto plays (or at least vvith such minute variations as are not
worth noticing): and those, I conceive, Shakspeare adopted as he
found them. The lines to which inverted commas are prefixed,
were, if my hypothesis be well founded, retouched, and greatly im-
proved by him ; and those with asterisks were his own original
production ; the embroidery with whicli he ornamented the coarse
stuff that had been aukwardly made up for the stage by some of
his contemporaries. The speeches which he new-modelled, he
improved, sometimes by amplification, and sometimes by retrench-
ment.

Dr. Johnson observes very justly, p. 167, that these two parts were
T\otwntten\\\thouta dependance on the first. Undoubtedly not; the
old play of King Henry VI. (or, as it is now called, The First Part,)
certainly had been exhibited before these were written in antf

PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 165

form. But it does not follow from this concession, either that
The Contention of the Two Houses, &c. in two parts, was written
by the author of the former play, or that Shakspeare was the
author of these two pieces as they originally appeared.

M ALONE.

As Mr. Malone varied in his opinion as to the period at which
these plays were altered by Shakspeare, I have reserved what is
said upon that topic for the conclusion of his Dissertation, as the
reader will there find the reasons upon which his first conjecture
was founded, and will from thence be better able to judge how
far his departure from it was an improvement. Boswell.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

King Henry the Sixth :

Humphrey, Duke of Gloster, his Uncle.

Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, great
Uncle to the King.

Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York.

Eda\^ard and Richard, his Sons.

Duke of Somerset,

Duke of Suffolk,

Duke of Buckingham, }>of the Kings Party.

Lord Clifford, I

Young Clifford, his Son, J

Earl of Salisbury, ") ^ ,, ^r ^ t^

Earl of Warwick, | °^ ^^^ ^^^^ Faction.

Lord Scales, Governour of the Tower. Lord Say.

Sir Humphrey Stafford, and his Brother.

Sir John Stanley.

A Sea-captain, Master, and Master's Mate and
Walter Whitmore.

Two Gentlemen, Prisoners with Suffolk.

A Herald. Vaux.

Hume and Southwell, Two Priests.

BoLTNGBROKE, a Conjurer. A Spirit raised by him.

Thojnias Horner, an Armourer. Peter, his Man.

Clerk of Chatham. Mayor of Saint Alban's.

SiMPcox, an Impostor. Two Murderers.

Jack Cade, a Rebel :

George, John, Dick, Smith, the Weaver, Mi-
chael, &c. his Followers.

Alexander Iden, a Kentish Gentleman.

Margaret, Queen to King Henry.

Eleanor, Duchess of Gloster.

Margery Jourdain, a Witch. Wife to Simpcox.

Lords, Ladies, and Attendants ; Petitioners, Alder-
men, a Beadle, Sheriff', and Officers; Citizens,
Prentices, Falconers, Guards, Soldiers, Messen-
gers, &c.

SCENE, dispersedly in various Parts of England,

i»

SECOND PART OF ''^'

KING HENRY VI. *

5J

ACT I. SCENE I.

London. A Room of State in the Palace.

Flourish of Trumpets : then Hautboys. Enter, on\
one sick. King Henry, Duke of Gloster, Salis- '
BURY, TKiRTricK, and Cardinal Beaufort; on the '
other. Queen Margaret, led in by Suffolk; York,
Somerset, Buckingham, and Others, folloiving.

SuF. As by your high "^ imperial majesty
I had in charge at my depart for France,
As procurator to your excellence ^
To marry princess Margaret for your grace ;
So, in the famous ancient city. Tours, — ^

' As by your high, &c.] Vide Hall's Chronicle, fol. QQ, year
23, init. Pope.

It is apparent that this play begins where the former ends, and
continues the series of transactions of which it presupposes the
first part already known. This is a sufficient proof that the second
and third parts were not written without dependance on the first,
though they were printed as containing a complete period of his-
tory. Johnson.

* As procurator to your excellence, &,c.] So, in Holinshed,
p. 625 : " The marquesse of Suftblk, as procurator to King Hen-
rie, espoused the said ladie in the church of Saint Martins. At
the which marriage were present the father and mother of th€;
bride ; the French king himself that was uncle to the husband,
and the French queen also that was aunt to the wife. There were
also the dukes of Orleance, of Calabre, of Alanson, and of
Britaine, seaven earles, twelve barons, twenty bishops," &c. ,:

Steevens.

This passage Holinshed transcribed verbatim from Hall. ♦

Malone. ;

168 SECOND PART OF act i.

In presence of the kings of France and Sicil,

The dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretaigne, and

Alen9on,
' Seven earls, twelve barons, twenty reverend bi-
shops,—

* I have performed my task, and was espous'd :
' And humbly now upon my bended knee,

In sight of England and her lordly -j- peers.
Deliver up my title in the queen
To your most gracious hands, that are ^ the sub-
stance
Of that great shadow I did represent ;
The happiest gift that ever marquess gave.
The fairest queen that ever king receiv'd.

* K. Hex. Suffolk, arise. — Welcome, queen Mar-

garet :
' I can express no kinder sign of love,

* Than this kind kiss. — O Lord, that lends me life,

* Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness !

* For thou hast given me, in this beauteous face,

* A world of earthly blessings to my soul,

* If sympathy of love unite our thoughts.

* Q. M.^R. Great king of England, and my gra-

cious lord ;
'' The mutual conference '* that my mind hath had —
' By day, by night ; waking, and in my dreams ;
' In courtly company, or at my beads, —
' With you mine alder-liefest sovereign ^,

t Quarto, royal.

3— that arc — ] i.e. to the gracious hands of you, my so-
vereign, who are, &c. In the old play the lino stands :
" Unto your gracious excellence that are,' &c.

Malone.
* The mutual conference — ] I am the bolder to address you,
having already familiarized you to my imagination. Johnson,

5 — mine ALDER-LIEFEST sovereign,] Alder-lievest is an old
English word given to him to whom the speaker is supremely at-
tached : lievest being the superlative of the comparative hvar.

SCI. KING HENRY VI. 169

' Makes me the bolder to salute my king

* With ruder terms ; such as my wit affords,

* And over-joy of heart doth minister.

* X. Hen. Her sight did ravish : but her grace
in speech,

* Her words y-clad with wisdom's majesty,

* Makes me, from wondering fall to weeping joys ^ ;

* Such is the fulness of my heart's content.

' Lords, with one cheerful voice welcome my love.

rather, from lief. So, Hall in his Chronicle, Henry VI. folio 12 :
" Ryght hyghe and mighty prince, and my ryght noble, and,
after one, levest lord." Warburton.

Alder-Iiefest is a corruption of the German word aJer-Iicbste,
beloved above all things, dearest of all.

The word is used by Chaucer ; and is put by Marston into the
mouth of his Dutch courtesan :

" O mine alder-liefcst love."
Again :

"■ pretty sweetheart of mine alder-liefest affection. "
Again, in Gascoigne :

" and to mine alder-Iievest lord I must indite."

See Mr. Tyrwhitt's (ilossary to Chaucer. Leve or lej'e. Sax.
dear ; Alder or Allcr, gen. ca. pi. of all. Steevens.

^ Makes me, from wondering, fall to weeping joys;] This
xveeping joy, of which there is no trace in the original play,
Shakspeare was extremely fond of; having introduced it in Much
Ado About Nothing, King Richard II. Macbeth, and King Lear.
This and the preceding speech stand thus in the original play in
<]uarto. I transcribe them, that the reader may be the better
able to judge concerning my hypothesis ; and shall quote a few
other passages for the same purpose. To exhibit all the speeches
that Shakspeare has altered, would be almost to print the two
plays twice :

" Queen. The excessive love I bear unto your grace,
" Forbids me to be lavish of my tongue,
" Lest I should speake more than beseems a woman.
" Let this suffice ; my bliss is in your liking ;
" And nothing can make poor Margaret miserable
" Unless the frowne of mightie England's king.

" Eng. King. Herlookes did wound, but now her speech
doth pierce.
" Lovely queen Margaret, sit down by my side ;
^' And uncle Gloster, and you lordly peeres,
*' With one voice welcome my beloved queen." Malone.

170 SECOND PART OF .vtr/.

All. Long live queen Margaret, England's hap-
piness !

Q. Mar. We thank you all. {Flourish.

SuF. My lord protector, so it please your grace.
Here are the articles of contracted peace,
Between our sovereign, and the French king Charles,

* For eighteen months concluded by consent.

Glo. \_Reads?\^ Imprimis, It is agreed heticeen
the French king, Charles, and JVilliayn de la Poole,
marquess of Suffolk, ambassador for Henry king of
England, — that the said Henry shall espouse the
lady Margaret, daughter unto Reigtiier king of Na-
ples, Sicilia, and Jerusalem ; and crown her queen of

England ere the thirtieth of May next ensuing.

Item, — That the dutchy of Anjou and the county of
Maine^, shall be released and aeUvered to the king
her father

* K. Hex. Uncle, how now ?

' Glo. Pardon me, gracious lord ;

' Some sudden qualm hath struck me at the heart,

* And dimmd mine eyes, that I can read no further.

K. Hen. Uncle of Winchester, I pray, read on.

JVix. Item, — It is further agreed between them,
— that the dutchies of Anjou and Maine shall be re-
leased and deircei^ed over to the king her father ;
and she sent over of the king of England's ozvn pro-
per cost and charges, without having dowry.

^ — and the county (/ Maine,'] So the chronicles; yet
when the Cardinal afterwards reads this article, he says : " It is
further agreed— that the dutchies of Anjoy and Maine shall be
released and delivered over;' 8ic. But the words in the instru-
ment could not thus vary, whilst it was passing- from the hands
of the Duke to those of the Cardinal. For the inaccuracy Shak-
speare must answer, the author of the original play not 'having
been guilty of it. This kind of inaccuracy is, I believe, peculiar
to our poet ; for I have never met with any thing similar in any
other writer. He has again fallen into the same impropriety in
All's Well That Ends Well. Malowe.

sc. J. KING HENRY VI. 171

K. Hen. They please us well. — Lord marquess,
kneel down ;
We here create thee the first duke of vSuffolk,
And girt thee with the sword. —
Cousin of York, we here discharge your grace
From being regent in the parts of France,
Till term of eighteen months be full expir'd. —
Thanks, uncle Winchester, Gloster, York, and Buck-
ingham,
Somerset, Salisbury, and Warwick ;
We thank you all for this great favour done.
In entertainment to my princely queen.
Come, let us in ; and with all speed provide
To see her coronation be perform'd.

[^E^veunt King, Queen, and Suffolk.

Glo. Brave peers of England, pillars of the state,

* To you duke Humphrey must unload his grief,

* Your grief, the common grief of all the land.

* What ! did my brother Henry spend his youth,

* His valour, coin, and people, in the wars ?

* Did he so often lodge in open field,

* In winter s cold, and summer's parching heat,

* To conquer France, his true inheritance ?

* And did my brother Bedford toil his wits,

* To keep by policy what Henry got ?

* Have you yourselves, Somerset, Buckingham,

* Brave York, Salisbury, and victorious Warwick,

* Receiv'd deep scars in France and Normandy ?

* Or hath my uncle Beaufort, and myself,

* With all the learned council of the realm,

* Studied so long, sat in the council-house,

* Early and late, debating to and fro

* How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe ?

* And hath his highness in his infancy

* Been crown'd ^ in Paris, in despite of foes ?

* And shall these labours, and these honours, die ?

' Been crown'd — ] The word Been was supplied by Mr.
-Steevens. Malone.

172 SECOND PART OF act i.

' Shall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance,

* Your deeds of war, and all our counsel, die ?

* O peers of England, shameful is this league !

* Fatal this marriage, cancelling your fame ;

* Blotting your names from books of memory:

* Razing the characters of your renown ;

* Defacing monuments of conquer'd France;

* Undoing all, as all had never been !

* Car. Nephew, what means this passionate dis-

course ?

* This peroration with such circumstance ^ ?

* For France, 'tis ours ; and we will keep it still.

* Glo. Ay, uncle, we v/ill keep it, if we can ;

* But now it is impossible we should ;
Suffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roast,

* Hath given the dutchies of Anjou and Maine

* Unto the poor king Reignier, whose large style

* Agrees not with the leanness of his purse '\

* Sal. Now, by the death of him that died for

all,

* These counties were the keys of Normandy : —
But wherefore weeps Warwick, my valiant son ?

' War. For grief, that they are past recovery :

* For, were there hope to conquer them again,

' My sword should shed hot blood, mine eyes no

tears.
' Anjou and Maine ! myself did win them both ;

* Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer :

* And are the cities ', that I got with wounds,

^ This peroration wiili such circumstance ?] This speech
crouded with so m:iny instances of aggravation. Johnson.

"^ whose large style

Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.] So Holinshed :
" King Keigncr hir father, for all his long stile, had too short a
purscio send his daughter honourably to the king hir spowse."

Malonk.

' And are the cities, &c.] The indignation of Warwick is na-
tural, and I wish it had been better expressed ; there is a kind of
jingle intended in tvouiids and iion/s. Johnson.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 173

* Deliver'd up again with peaceful words ?

* Mort Dieu !

* York. For Suftblk's duke — may he be suffocate,

* That dims the honour of this warlike isle I

* France should have torn and rent my very heart,

* Before I would have yielded to this league.

* I never read but England's kings have had

* Large sums of gold, and dowries, with their wives:

* And our king Henry gives away his own,

* To match with her that brings no vantages.

* Glo. a proper jest, and never heard before,

* That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth,

* For costs and charges in transporting her !

* She should have staid in France, and starv'd in

France,

* Before

* C^iR. My lord of Gloster, now you grow too

hot;

* It was the pleasure of my lord the king.

* Glo. My lord of Winchester, I know your

mind ;

* 'Tis not my speeches that you do mislike,

* But 'tis my presence that doth trouble you.

* Rancour will out ; Proud prelate, in thy face
' I see thy fury : if I longer stay,

* We shall begin our ancient bickerings ". —

*

In the old play the jingle is different. "And must that then
which we won with our swords, be given away with ivords ? "

Malo^^e.
- — bickerings.] To bicker is to skirmish. In the ancient
metrical romance of (iuy Earl of Warwick, bl. 1. no date, the
heroes consult whether they should bicker on the walls, or descend
to battle on the plain. Again, in the genuine ballad of Chevy-
Chace :

" Bomen bickarle upon the bent
" With their browd aras cleare."
Again, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 9 :

" From bickering with his folk to keep us Britains back."
Again, in The Spanish Masquerade, by Greene, 1589 : " — sun-

174 SECOND PART OF ^cT i.

Lordings, farewell ; and say, when I am gone,

I prophesied — France will be lost ere long. \^Exit,

Car. So, there goes our protector in a rage.
Tis known to yon, he is mine enemy :

* Nay, more, an enemy unto you all ;

* And no great friend, I fear me, to the king.

* Consider, lords, he is the next of blood,

* And heir apparent to the English crown ;

* Had Henry got an empire by his marriage,

* And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west ^
*■ There's reason he should be displeas'd at it.

* Look to it, lords ; let not his smoothing words

* Bewitch your hearts ; be wise, and circumspect.

* What though the common people favour him,

* Calling him — Humphrey the good Duke ofGloster;
' Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voice —

* Jesu maintain your royal e.vcellence !

* With — God presej^ve the good duke Humphrey !
' I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,

* He will be found a dangerous protector.

* Buck. "Why should he then protect our sove-
reign,

* He being of age to govern of himself .? —

* Cousin of Somerset, join you with me,

* And all together — with the duke of Suffolk, —

' We'll quickly hoise duke Humphrey from his seat.

dry times bickered with our men, and gave them the foyle.'*
Again, in Holinshed, p. 537 : " At another bickering also it
chanced that the Englishmen had the upper hand." Again,
p. 572 : " At first there was a sharp bickering betwixt them, but
in the end victorie remained with the Englishmen." Levi piigna
congredior, is the expression by which Barrett in his Alvearie, or
Quadruple Dictionary, 1580, explains the word to bicker.

Steevens.

3 And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west,] Certainly Shak-
speare wrote — east. Warburton.

There are wealthy kingdoms in the xvest as well as in the east^
and the western kingdoms were more likely to be in the thought
of the speaker. Johnson.

,sc. I, KING HENRY VI. 173

* C.iR. This weighty business will not brook de-

lay;

* I'll to the duke of Suffolk presently. \Exit^

* SoM. Cousin of Buckingham, though Hum-

phrey's pride,

* And greatness of his place be grief to us,
' Yet let us watch the haughty cardinal ;

* His insolence is more intolerable

* Than all the princes in the land beside ;

* If Gloster be displac'd, he'll be protector.

Buck. Or thou, or I, Somerset will be protector,

* Despight duke Humphrey, or the cardinal.

\_Ei'eimt Buckingham and Somerset*
Sal. Pride went before, ambition follows him *.

* While these do labour for their own preferment,

* Behoves it us to labour for the realm.

* I never saw but Humphrey duke of Gloster

* Did bear him like a noble gentleman.

* Oft have I seen the haughty cardinal —

* More like a soldier, than a man o' the church,

* As stout, and proud, as he were lord of all, —

* Swear like a ruffian, and demean himself

* Unlike the ruler of a common-weal. —

' Warwick, my son, the comfort of my age !

* Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy house-keeping,

* Hath won the greatest favour of the commons,

* Excepting none but good duke Humphrey. —

* And, brother York ^, thy acts in Ireland,

* Pride went before, ambition follows him.] Perhaps in this
line there is somewhat of proverbial ity. Thus, in A. of Wyn-
town's Cvonykil, book viii. ch. xxvii. v. 177 :

'* Awld men in thare prowerbe sayis,
" Pn/de gays befor, and schame alwayis
" FoUowi/s," &c. Steevens.
So, in Proverbs, xvi. 18 : " Pride goeth before destruction,
and an haughty spirit before a fall." Harris.

5 And, brother York,] Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York,
married Cicely, the daughter of Ralf Nevil, Earl of Westmore-
land, by Joan, daughter to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster,

176 SECOND PART OF act u

* In bringing them to civil discipline ^ ;

* Thy late exploits, done in the heart of France,

* When thou wert regent for our sovereign,

* Have made thee fear'd, and honour'd, of the peo-

ple:—
' Join we together, for the publick good ;

* In what we can to bridle and suppress

* The pride of Suffolk, and the cardinal,

* With Somerset's and Buckingham's ambition ;

* And, as we may, cherish duke Humphrey's deeds',

* While they do tend the profit of the land '.

* JVar. So God help Warwick, as he loves the

land,

* And common profit of his country !

* York. And so says York, for he hath greatest

cause.
' Sal. Then let's make haste away, and look
unto the main ^.

by his third wife, dame Catharine Swinford. Richard Nevil,
Earl of Salisbury, was son to the Earl of Westmoreland by a
second wife. He married Alice, the only daughter of Thomas
Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, who was killed at the siege of
Orleans [See this play, Part I. Act I. Sc. III.] ; and in conse-
quence of that alliance obtained the title of Salisbury in 14-28.
His eldest son Richard, having married the sister and heir of
Henry Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, was created Earl of War-
wick in 1419. Malone.

6 — to civil discipline;] This is an anachronism. The pre-
sent scene is in H^S, but Richard Duke of York was not viceroy
of Ireland till \\\Q. Malone.

7 — THE profit of the land.] I think we might read, more
clearly — to profit of the land — i.e. to profit themselves by it;
unless 'tend be written for attend, as in King Richard II. :

" They tend the crowne, yet still with me they stay."

Steevens.

Perhaps tend has here the same meaning as tender in the sub-
sequent scene :

" I tender so the safety of my liege."

Or it may have been put for intend ; while they have the ad-
vantage of the commonwealth as their object. Malone.

' Then let's, &c.] The quarto — without such redundancy—

sc. 7. KING HENRY VI. 177

fV^R. Unto the main ! O father, Maine is lost ;

* That Maine, which by main force Warwick did win,

* And would have kept, so long as breath did last :
Main chance, father, you meant ; but I meant

Maine ;
Which I will win from France, or else be slain.

\_Exeunt Wartfick and Salisbury,
York. Anjou and Maine are given to the French.

* Paris is lost ; the state of Normandy

^ Stands on a tickle point ^, now they are gone :

* Suffolk concluded on the articles ;

* The peers agreed ; and Henry was well pleas'd,

* To change two dukedoms for a duke's fair daugh-

ter.

* I cannot blame them all ; What is't to them,
^ 'Tis thine they give away, and not their own.

* Pirates may take cheap pennyworths of their

pillage,

* And purchase friends, and give to courtezans,

* Still revelling, like lords, till all be gone :

* While as the silly owner of the goods

* Weeps over them, and wrings his hapless hands,

* And shakes his head, and trembling stands aloof,

* While all is shard, and all is borne away ;

* Ready to starve, and dare not touch his own.

* So York must sit, and fret, and bite his tongue,

* While his own lands are bargain'd for, and sold.

" Come, sonnes, away, and looke unto the maine."

Steevens.
g — on a TICKLE point,] Tickle is very frequently used for
ticklish by poets contemporary with Shakspeare. So, Heyvvood in
his Epigrams on Proverbs, 1562:

" Time is tickell, we may matche time in this,
" For be even as tickell as time is."
Again, in Jeronymo, 1605 :

" Now stands our fortune on a tickle point."
Again, in Soliman and Perseda, 1599 :

" The rest by turning of my tickle wheel." Steevens.
VOL. XVIII. N

178 SECOND PART OF act i.

* Methinks, the realms of England, France, and

Ireland,

* Bear that proportion to my flesh and blood,

* As did the fatal brand Althea burn'd,

* Unto the prince's heart of Calydon \
Anjoii and Maine, both given unto the French !
Cold news for me ; for 1 had hope of France,
Even as I have of fertile England's soil.

A day will come, when York shall claim his own ;
And therefore I will take the Nevils' parts.
And make a show of love to proud duke Hum-
phrey,
And, when I spy advantage, claim the crown.
For that's the golden mark I seek to hit :
Nor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right.
Nor hold the scepter in his childish fist.
Nor wear the diadem upon his head.
Whose church-like humours fit not for a crown.
Then, York, be still awhile, till time do serve :
Watch thou, and wake, when others be asleep.
To pry into the secrets of the state ;
Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love.
With his new bride, and England s dear-bought

queen.
And Humphrey with the peers be fall'n at jars :
Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,
With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfum'd ;
And in my standard bear the arms of York,
To grapple with the house of Lancaster ;
And, force perforce, I'll make him yield the crown.
Whose bookish rule hath pull'd fair England down.

' — the prince's heart of Calydon.] Meleager. Steevens.

According to the fable, Meleager's life was to continue only
so long as a certain firebrand should last. His mother Althea
having thrown it into the fire, he expired in great torments.

Malone.

sc. n. KING HENRY VI. 179

SCENE II.

The Same. A Room in the Duke of Glosteh's

House.

Enter Gloster and the Duchess.

DucH. Why droops my lord, hke over-ripen'd
corn,
Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load ?

* Why doth the great duke Humphrey knit his

brows,

* As frowning at the favours of the world ?

* Why are thine eyes fix'd to the sullen earth,

* Gazing on that which seems to dim thy sight ?
' What see'st thou there ? king Henry's diadem,

* Enchas'd with all the honours of the world ?

* If so, gaze on, and grovel on thy face,

* Until thy head be circled with the same.

* Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold : —

* What, is't too short ? I'll lengthen it with mine :

* And, having both together heav'd it up,

* We'll both together Hft our heads to heaven ;

* And never more abase our sight so low,

* As to vouchsafe one glance unto the ground.

' Glo. O Nell, sweet Nell, if thou dost love thy
lord,

* Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts ' :

* And may that thought, when I imagine ill

* Against my king and nephew, virtuous Henry,

* Be my last breathing in this mortal world !

* My troublous dream this night doth make me sad.

* Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts :] So, in King-
Henry VIII. :

" Cromwell, I charge i\\eejiing aivai/ nmbition."

Steevens.

N 2

180 SECOND PART OF act u

* DucH. What dream'd my lord? tell me, and

I'll requite it
' With sweet rehearsal of my morning's dream.
' Glo. Methought, this staff, mine office -badge

in court,
' Was broke in twain ; by whom, I have forgot,
' But, as I think, it was by the cardinal ;

* And on the pieces of the broken wand

* Were plac'd the heads of Edmond duke of Somer-

set,

* And William de la Poole first duke of Suffolk.

* This was my dream ; what it doth bode, God

knows.

* DucH. Tut, this was nothing but an argument.
That he that breaks a stick of Gloster's grove,

' Shall lose his head for his presumption.

* But list to me, my Humphrey, my sweet duke ;
' Methought, I sat in seat of majesty,

* In the cathedral church of Westminster,

* And in that chair where kings and queens are

crown'd ;
' Where Henry, and dame Margaret, kneeVd to
me,

* And on my head did set the diadem.

* Glo. Nay, Eleanor, then must I chide out-

right :

* Presumptuous dame, ill-nurtur'd Eleanor ^ !
Art thou not second woman in the realm -j- ;
And the protector's wife, belov'd of him ?

* Hast thou not worldly pleasure at command,

t Quarto, this land.

3 — ill-nurtur'd Eleanor !] Ill-nurtur'd, is ill-educated.
So, in Venus and Adonis :

" Were I hard-favour'd, foul, or wrinkled-old,
" III nurtufd, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice."

Malone.

sc.ji. KING HENRY VI. 181

* Above the reach or compass of thy thought ?
And wilt thou still be hammering treachery,

* To tumble down thy husband, and thyself,

* From top of honour to disgrace's feet ?
Away from me, and let me hear no more.

* DucH. What, what, my lord ! are you so cho-

lerick

* With Eleanor, for telling but her dream ?

* Next time I'll keep my dreams unto myself,

* And not be check'd.

* Glo. Nay, be not angry, I am pleased again*.

Enter a Messenger.

* Mess. My lord protector, 'tis his highness' plea-

sure,

* You do prepare to ride unto Saint Alban's,

* Whereas the king and queen do mean to hawk ^

Glo. I go. — Come, Nell, thou wilt ride with us ?

* DucH. Yes, good my lord, I'll follow presently.

\_E.i'eunt Gloster and Messenger.

4 Nay, be not angry, &c.] Instead of this line, we h&ve these
two in the old phiy :

" Nay, Nell, I'll give no credit to a dream ;

" But I would have thee to think on no such things."

Malone.
^ Whereas the king and queen do mean to hawk.] Whereas
is the same as ivhere ; and seems to be brought into use only on
account of its being a dissyllable. So, in The Tryal of Treasure.

1567:

" Whereas she is resident, I must needes be."
Again, in Daniel's Tragedy of Cleopatra, 1594- :

" That I should pass tvhereas Octavia stands

*' To view my misery," &c.
Again, in Marius and Sylla, 1594? :

" But see ichereas Lucretius is return'd.

" Welcome, brave Roman ! "
The word is several times used in this piece, as well as in some
others ; and always with the same sense.

Again, in the 51st Sonnet of Lord Sterline, 1604 :

" I dream'd the nymph, that o'er my fancy reigns,

" Came to a part ivhcreas I puus'd ulone." Steevens.

'182 SECOND PART OF act i.

* Follow I must, I cannot go before,

* While Gloster bears this base and humble mind.

* Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,

* I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks,

* And smooth my way upon their headless necks :

* And, being a woman, I will not be slack

* To play my part in fortune's pageant.

* Where are you there .^ Sir John ^ ! nay, fear not,

man,

* We are alone ; here's none but thee, and 1.

Enter Hume.

Hume. Jesu preserve your royal majesty !

^ DucH. What say'st thou, majesty ! I am but

grace .
Hume. But, by the grace of God, and Hume's

advice,

* Your grace's title shall be multiplied.

* DucH. What say'st thou, man ? hast thou as yet
conferr'd
' With Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch ^;

* And Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer ?

* And will they undertake to do me good ?

^ — Sir John !] A title frequently bestowed on the cler<^y.
See notes on The Merry Wives of Windsor, vol, v. p. 7, and p. 210.

Steevf-;ns.

7 With Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch,] It appears
from Rymer's Foedera, vol. x. p. 505, that in the tenth year of
King Henry the Sixth, Margery Jourdcmayn, John Virley clerk,
and friar John Asliwell were, on the ninth of May 14r53, brought
from Windsor by the constable of the castle, to which they had
been committed for sorcery, before the council at Westminster,
and afterwards, by an order of council, delivered into the custody
of the lord chancellor. The same day it was ordered by the lords
of council that whenever the said Virley and Ashwell should find
security for their good behaviour they should be set at liberty, :ind
in like manner that Jourdemayn should be discharged on her hus-
band's finding security. This woman was afterwards burned in
Smithficld, as stated in the play, and also in the chronicles.

DuUCE,

*6'. 11. KING HENRY VI. 183

* Hume. This they have promised, — to show your

highness
' A spirit rais'd from depth of under ground,

* That shall make answer to such questions,

* As by your grace shall be propounded him.

* DucH. It is enough ^ ; I'll think upon the ques-

tions :

* When from Saint Alban's we do make return,

* We'll see these things effected to the full.

* Here, Hume, take this reward; make merry, man,

* With thy confederates in this weighty cause.

[^Ejcit Duchess.

* Hume. Hume must make merry with the du-

chess' gold ;

* Marry, and shall. But how now, Sir John Hume.'^

* Seal up your lips, and give no words but — mum !

* The business asketh silent secrecy.

* Dame Eleanor gives gold, to bring the witch :

* Gold cannot come amiss, were she a devil.

* Yet have I gold, flies from another coast :

* I dare not say, from the rich cardinal,

' And from the great and new-made duke of Suf-
folk ;

* Yet I do find it so : for, to be plain,

^ Duck. It is enough ; &c.] This speech stands thus in the old
quarto :

" Elean. Thanks, good sif John,
" Some two days hence, I guess, will fit our time
" Then see that they be here.
" For now the king is riding to St. Albans,
" And all the dukes and earls along with him,
" When they be gone, then safely may they come,
" And on the backside of mine orchard here
" There cast their spells in silence of the night,
" And so resolve us of the thing we wish :— —
" Till when, drink that for my sake, and so farewell."

Steevens.
Here we have a speech of ten lines, with different versification,
and different circumstances, from those of thejfere which are found
in the folio. What imperfect transcript (for such the quarto has
been called) ever produced such a variation ? Malone.

184 SECOND PART OF act i.

* They, knowing dame Eleanor's aspiring humour,

* Have hired me to undermine the duchess,

* And buz these conjurations in her brain.

* They say, A crafty knave does need no broker^;

* Yet am 1 Suffolk and the cardinal's broker.

* Hume, if you take not heed, you shall go near

* To call them both — a pair of crafty knaves.

* Well, so it stands : And thus, I fear, at last,

* Hume's knavery will be the duchess' wreck ;

* And her attainture will be Humphrey's fall :

* Sort how it will ^, I shall have gold for all.

\Exit.

SCENE in.

The Same. A Room in the Palace.

Enter Peter, and Others, with Petitions.

* 1 Pet. My masters, let's stand close ; my lord

* protector will come this way by and by, and then

* we may deliver our supplications in the quill \

^ — A crafty knave does need no broker ;] This is a proverbial
sentence. See Ray's Collection. Steevens.

It is found also in A Knacke to Knowe a Knave, 1594? :

" ' Some will say

" A crafty knave needs no broker,

" But here is a craftie knave and a broker to." Boswell.
9 Sort how it will,] Let the issue be what it will. Johnson.
See vol. V. p. ^Sl, n. 1.

This whole speech is very different in the original play. In-
stead of the last couplet we find these lines :

" But whist. Sir John ; no more of that I trow,

" For fear you lose your head, before you go." Malone.

* — in THE quill.] In quill is Sir Thomas Hanmer's reading;
the rest have — in the quill. Johnson.

Perhaps our supplications in the quill, or in quill, means no
more than our tvritten or pemid supplications. We still say, a
drawing in chalk, for a drawing executed by the use of chalk.

Steevens.

" In the quill " may mean, ' with great exactness and obser-
vance of form,' or with the utmost punctilio of ceremony. The
phrase seems to be taken from part of the dress of our ancestors,
whose rufts were quilled. While these were worO;, it might be the

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 185

' 2 Pet. Marry, the Lord protect him, for he's a

* good man ! Jesu bless him !

Enter Suffolk and Queen Mjrgaret.

* 1 Pet. Here 'a comes, methinks, and the queen

* with him : I'll be the first, sure.

' 2 Pet. Come back, fool; this is the duke of

* Suffolk, and not my lord protector.

* SuF. How now, fellow? would'st any thing with me. ^

* 1 Pet. I pray, my lord, pardon me ! I took ye

* for my lord protector.

* Q. Mar. [Reading the superscription.] To my

* lord protector! are your supplications to his lord-

* ship ? Let me see them : What is thine ?

* 1 Pet. Mine is, an't please your grace, against

* John Goodman, my lord cardinal's man, for keep-

* ing my house, and lands, and wife and all, from me.

* SuF. Thy wife too ? that is some wrong, in-

* deed ^— What's your's .?— What's here ! [Reads:\

vogue to say, such a thing is in the quill, i. e. in the reigning mode
of taste. ToLLET.

To this observation I may add, that after printing began, the si-
milar phrase of a thing being in print was used to express the same
circumstance of exactness. " AH this, (declares one of the quib-
bling servants in The Two Gentlemen of Verona,) I say in print,
for in print I found it." Steevens.

In quill may be supposed to have been a phrase formerly in
use, and the same with the French en qiiille, which is said of a
man, when he stands upright upon his feet without stirring from
the place. The proper sense of quille in French is a nine-pin, and,
in some parts of England, nine-pins are still called cayls, which
word is used in the statute 33 Henry VIII. c. 9. Q.uelle in the
old British language also signifies any piece of wood set upright,

Hawkins.

' Thy wife too ? that is some wrong, indeed.] This ivrang
seems to have been sometimes practised in our author's time.
Among the Lansdowne MSS. we meet with the following singular
petition. " Julius Borgarucius to the Lord Treasurer, in Latin,
complaining that the Master of the Rolls keeps his wife from him
in his own house, and wishes he may not teach her to be a Pa-
pist" BoSWELL.

186 SECOND PART OF act i.

* Against the duke of 8i(jf oik, for enclosing the com-

* mons of Melford. — How now, sir knave ?

' 2 Pet. Alas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of

* our whole township.

* Peter. [Presenting his petition.'] Against my

* master, Thomas Horner, for saying. That the duke

* of York was rightful heir to the crown.

' Q. M^H. What say'st thou ? Did the duke of

* York say, he was rightful heir to the crown.

* Pet. That my master was ^ ? No, forsooth :

* my master said. That he was ; and that the king

* was an usurper*.

* SuF. Who is there ? [Enter Servants.] — Take

* this fellow in, and send for his master with a pur-

* suivant presently : — we'll hear more of your matter

* before the king. [E.veinit Servants ivith Peter.

' Q. Mar. And as for you, that love to be protected

* Under the wings of our protector's grace,

* Begin your suits anew, and sue to him.

[Tears the Petition.

* Away, base cullions ! — Suffolk, let them go.

* The quarto reads :

" an usurer.

" Queen. An usurper, thou vvould'st say.
" Peter. Ay — an usurper."

3 That my master was ?] The old copy— that mv mistress
was? The present emendation was supplied by Mr. Tyrwhitt,
and has the concurrence of Mr. M. Mason. Steevens.

The folio reads — That my mistress was ; which has been fol-
lowed in all subsequent editions. But the context shows clearly
that it was a misprint for tiiaster. Peter supposes that the Queen
had asked, whether the duke of York had said that his 7nastcr (for
so he understands the pronoun he in her speech) was rightful heir
to the crown. " That my master was heir to the crown ! (he re-
plies.) No, the reverse is the case. My master said, that the
duke of York was heir to the crown." In The Taming- of the
Shrew, mistress and master are frequently confounded. The mis-
take arose from these words being formerly abbreviated in MSS. ;
and an M. stood for either one or the other. See vol. v. p. 396,
n. 1. Malone.

sc. in. KING HENRY VI. 187

* ^LL. Come, let's be gone.

\^E.veii}2t Petitioners.

* Q. M.m. My lord of Suffolk, say, is this the

guise,

* Is this the fashion in the court of England ?

* Is this the government of Britain's isle,

* And this the royalty of Albion's king ?

* What, shall king Henry be a pupil still,

* Under the surly Gloster's governance ?

* Am I a queen in title and in style,

* And must be made a subject to a duke ?

* I tell thee, Poole, when in the city Tours

* Thou ran'st a tilt in honour of my love,

* And stol'st away the ladies' hearts of France ;

* I thought king Henry had resembled thee,

* In courage, courtship, and proportion:

* But all his mind is bent to holiness,

* To number Ave-Maries on his beads :

* His champions are — the prophets and apostles ;

* His weapons, holy saws of sacred writ ;

* His study is his tilt-yard, and his loves

* Are brazen images of canoniz'd saints.

* I would, the college of cardinals

* Would choose him pope, and carry him to Rome,
^ And set the triple crown upon his head ;

* That were a state fit for his hoHness.

* SuF. Madam, be patient : as I was cause

* Your highness came to England, so will I

* In England work your grace's full content.

* Q. M^R. Beside the haught protector, have we

Beaufort,

* The imperious churchman ; Somerset, Bucking-

ham,

* And grumbling York : and not the least of these,

* But can do more in England than the king.

* SuF. And he of these, that can do most of all,

* Cannot do more in England than the Nevils :

188 SECOND PART OF ^ict i.

* Salisbury, and Warwick, are no simple peers.

* Q. Mar. Not all these lords do vex me half so

much,
' As that proud dame, the lord protector's wife,

* She sweeps it through the court with troops of

ladies,
' More Hke an empress than duke Humphrey's wife :
Strangers in court do take her for the queen :

* She bears a duke's revenues on her back \
^ And in her heart she scorns our poverty :

* Shall I not live to be aveng'd on her ?

* Contemptuous base-born callat as she is,

* She vaunted 'mongst her minions t'other day,

* The very train of her worst wearing-gown

* Was better worth than all my father's lands,

* Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms " for his daughter.

* Sue. Madam, myself have Hm'd a bush for her^;

* And plac'd a quire of such enticing birds,

* That she will Hght to listen to the lays,

* And never mount to trouble you again.

* So, let her rest: And, madam, list to me;

* For I am bold to counsel you in this.

* Although we fancy not the cardinal,

* Yet must we join with him, and with the lords,

* Till we have brought duke Humphrey in disgrace.

* As for the duke of York, — this late complaint ^

3 She bears a duke's revenues, &c.] See King- Henry VIII.
Act I. Sc. I. vol, xix. Malone.

4 — two dukedoms — ] The duchies of Anjou and Maine, which
Heniy surrendered to Reignier, on his marriage with Margaret.
See Sc. I. p. 170. Malone.

5 — lim'p a bush for her ;] So, in Arden of Feversham, 1592 :

" Lime your twigs to catch this weary bird."
Again, in The Tragedy of Mariam, 1612 :

" A crimson hush that ever limes the soul." Steevens.
In the original play in quarto :

" I have set lime-twigs that will entangle them."

Malone.
^ -- this late complaint — ] That is, The complaint of Peter

sc.iii. KING HENRY VI. 189

* Will make but little for his benefit :

* So, one by one, we'll weed them all at last,

* And you yourself shall steer the happy helm.

Enter King Henry, York, and Somerset, con-
versing with him ; Duke and Duchess o/Gloster,
Cardinal Beaufort, Buckingham, Salisbury,
and Wartfick.

* K. Hen. For my part, noble lords, I care not

which ;

* Or Somerset, or York, all's one to me.

* York. If York have ill demean'd himself in

France,

* Then let him be denay'd^ the regentship.

' SoM. If Somerset be unworthy of the place,

* Let York be regent, I will yield to him.

' JVar. Whether your grace be worthy, yea, or
no,

* Dispute not that : York is the worthier.

* Car. Ambitious Warwick, let thy betters speak .
JVar. The cardinal's not my better in the field.

* Buck. All in this presence are thy betters, War-

wick.
JVar. Warwick may live to be the best of all.

* Sal. Peace, son ; and show some reason,

Buckingham,
* Why Somerset should be preferr'd in this.

* Q. Mar. Because the king, forsooth, will have

it so.

* Glo. Madam, the king is old enough himself

the armourer's man against his master, for saying that York was
the rightful king. Johnson.

7 — be denay'd — ] Thus the old copy, I have noted the
word only to observe, that denay is frequently used instead of
deny, among the old writers.

So, in Twelfth-Night :

" My love can give no place, bide no denay." Steevens.

190 SECOND PART OF act i.

' To give his censure ^ : these are no women's mat-
ters.
Q. Mar. If he be old enough, what needs your
grace

* To be protector of his excellence ?

' Glo. Madam, I am protector of the realm ;

* And, at his pleasure, will resign my place.

SuF. Resign it then, and leave thine insolence.

* Since thou wert king, (as who is king, but thou .^)

* The commonwealth hath daily run to wreck :

* The Dauphin hath prevaild beyond the seas ;

* And all the peers and nobles of the realm

* Have been as bondmen to thy sovereignty.

* Car. The commons hast thou rack'd ; the

clergy's bags

* Are lank and lean with thy extortions.

* SoM. Thy sumptuous buildings, and thy wife's

attire,

* Have cost a mass of publick treasury.

* Buck. Thy cruelty in execution,

* Upon offenders, hath exceeded law,

* And left thee to the mercy of the law.

* Q. Mar. Thy sale of offices, and towns in

France, —

* If they were known, as the suspect is great, —

* Would make thee quickly hop without thy head.

\_E.vit Gloster. The Queen drops her Fan.

^ — his censure :] Through all these plays censure is used in
an indifferent sense, simply for judgment or opinion. Johnson.
So, in King Richard III. :

" To give your censures in this weighty business."
In other plays I have adduced repeated instances to show the
word was used by all contemporary writers. Steevens.

Johnson's remark is generally true, but surely it is not used in
an indifferent sense in Othello, vol. ix. p. 496 :

" To you, lord governor,

" Remains the censjire of this hellish villain.'" Boswell.

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 191

' Give me my fan ^ : What, minion ! can you not ?
[Gives the Duchess a box on the ear.

* I cry you mercy, madam ; Was it you ?

* DucH. Was't I ? yea, I it was, proud French-

woman :

* Could I come near your beauty with my nails,
I'd set my ten commandments in your face \

K. Hen. Sweet aunt, be quiet ; 'twas against her
will.

* DucH. Against her will ! Good king, look to't

in time ;

* She'll hamper thee, and dandle thee like a baby :

* Though in this place most master wear no breeches,
She shall not strike dame Eleanor unreveng'd.

\_E.vit Duchess".

* Buck. Lord Cardinal, I will follow Eleanor,

* And listen after Humphrey, how he proceeds :

* She's tickled now '^ ; her fume needs no spurs,

9 Give me my fan :] In the original play the Queen drops not
njan, but a glove :

" Give me my glove ; why minion, can you not see? "

Malone.
I I'd set my ten commandments in your face.] So, in the
Play of the Four P's, 1569:

" Now ten times I beseech him that hie sits,
" Thy wifes x com. may serche thy five wits,"
Again, in Selimus Emperor of the Turks, I59i' :
"I would set a tap abroach, and not live in fear of my wife's
ten commandments."

Again, in Westward Hoe, 1607 '■

" your harpy has set his ten commandments on my back."

Steevens.
^ Exit Duchess.'] The quarto adds, after the exit of Eleanor,
the following :

" King. Believe me, my love, thou wert much to blame.
"■ I would not for a thousand pounds of gold,

" My noble uncle had been here in place,

" But see, where he comes ! I am glad he met her not."

Steevens.
3 She's TICKLED now;] Tickled is here used as a trisyllable.
The editor of the second folio, not perceiving this, reads — " her

192 SECOND PART OF act i.

* She'll gallop fast enough * to her destruction.

\Exit Buckingham.

Re-enter Gloster.

* Glo. Now, lords, my choler being over-blown,

* With walking once about the quadrangle,

* I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.

* As for your spiteful false objections,

* Prove them, and I lie open to the law :

* But God in mercy so deal with my soul,

* As I in duty love my king and country !

* But, to the matter that we have in hand : —

* I say, my sovereign, York is meetest man

* To be your regent in the realm of France.

* SuF. Before we make election, give me leave

* To show some reason, of no little force,

* That York is most unmeet of any man.

' York. V\\ tell thee, Suffolk, why I am unmeet.
' First, for I cannot flatter thee in pride :

* Next, if I be appointed for the place,

* My lord of Somerset will keep me here,

fume can need no spurs ; " in which he has been followed by all
the subsequent editors. Maloxe,

Were Mr. Malone's supposition adopted, the verse would still
'' halt most lamentably. I am therefore content with the emenda-
tion of the second folio, a book to which we are all indebted for
restorations of our author's metre. I am unwilling to publish what
no ear, accustomed to harmony, can endure. Steevens.

That the line would not be harmonious, is perfectly true ; but
how many lines equally faulty occur in our old dramatick writers.
In the First Part of Henrv W. to instance a few lines out of manv,
we meet with these :

" The Earl of Salisbury craveth supply, p. 17.
" I am come to survey the Tower this day," p. 28.

Mr. Steevens himself, p. 2i, n. 2, has proposed this line for our
adoption :

'•' Out a deal of old iron I chose forth."

For a fuller discussion of this topick, see the Essay on Shak-
speare's Metre, vol. ii, Bosw ell.

■* — FAST enough — ] The folio reads-7/flrre enough. Cor-
rected by Mr. Pope. Maloxe.

sc. HI. KING HENRY VI. 193

* Without discharge, money, or furniture,

* Till France be won into the Dauphin's hands.
=* Last time, I danc'd attendance on his will,

* Till Paris was besieg'd, famish'd, and lost.

* JVar. That I can witness ; and a fouler fact

* Did never traitor in the land commit.
SuF. Peace, head -strong Warwick !

fV.^R. Image of pride, why should I hold my
peace ?

Enter Servants of Suffolk, br'mging in Horner

and Peter.

SuF. Because here is a man accus'd of treason ;
Pray God, the duke of York excuse himself !

* York. Doth any one accuse York for a traitor.^

* K. Hen. What mean'st thou, Suffolk ? tell me :

What are these ?
' SuF. Please it your majesty, this is the man

* That doth accuse his master of high treason :

* His words were these ; — that Richard, duke of

York,

* Was rightful heir unto the English crown :

* And that your majesty was an usurper.

* K. Hen. Say, man, were these thy words ?
HoR. An't shall please your majesty, I never said

nor thought any such matter: God is my witness,
I am falsely accused by the villain.

' Pet. By these ten bones \ my lords, \_Holdmg

5 By these ten bones, &c.] We have just heard a Duchess
threaten to set he?- ten commandments in the face of a Queen.
The jests in this play turn rather too much on the enumeration of
fingers.

This adjuration is, however, very ancient. So, in the mystery
of Candlemas-Day, 1512:

" But by their bouys ten, thei be to you untrue."
Again, in The longer thou livest the more Fool thou art, 1570 :

" By these tenne bones I will, I have sworne."
It occurs likewise more than once in the Morality of Hycke
Scorner. Again, in Monsieur Thomas, 1637:
VOL. XVIII. O

194 SECOND PAUT OF act i.

* up I/is Hands J] he did speak them to me in the

* garret one night, as we were scouring my lord of

* York's armour.

* York. Base dunghill villain, and mechanical,

* I'll have thy head for this thy traitor's speech: —

* I do beseech your royal majesty,

* Let him have all the rigour of the law.

HoR. Alas, my lord, hang me, if ever I spake the
words. My accuser is my prentice; and when I
did correct him for his fault the other day, he did
vow upon his knees he would be even with me : I
have good witness of this ; therefore, I beseech your
majesty, do not cast away an honest man for a vil-
lain's accusation.

K. Hen. Uncle, what shall we say to this in law ?

* Glo. This doom, my lord, if I may judge.

* Let Somerset be regent o'er the French,

* Because in York this breeds suspicion :

* And let these have a day appointed them^

* For single combat in convenient place ;

* For he hath witness of his servant's malice :

" By these ten bones, sir, by these eyes and tears."

Steevens.
^ And let these have a day appointed them, &c.] In the ori-
ginal play, quarto 1600, the corresponding lines stand thus :

" The law, my lord, is this. By case it rests suspicious,
" l^hat a day of combat be appointed,
" And these to try each other's right or wrong,
" Which shall be on the thirtieth of this month,
" With ebon staves and sandbags combating,
" In Smitlifield, before your royal majesty."
An opinion has prevailed that The whole Contention, &c.
printed in 1600, was an imperfect surreptitious copy of Shak-
speare's play as exhibited in the folio ; but what spurious copy,
or imperfect transcript taken in short-hand, ever produced such
variations as these ? Malone.

Such varieties, during several years, were to be found in every
MS. copy of Mr, Sheridan's then unprinted Duenna, as used in
country theatres. The dialogue of it was obtained piece-meal,
and connected by frequent interpolations. Steevens.

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 195

* This is the law, and this duke Humphrey's doom^
SoM. I humbly thank your royal majesty.
Hon. And I accept the combat willingly.
Pet. Alas, my lord, I cannot fight ; * for God's

' Here Mr. Theobald inserted the following lines for the reason
he has given below. Boswell.

" A'. Hen. Then be it so. My lord of Somerset,
" We make your grace lord regent o'er the French." These
two lines I have inserted from the old quarto ; and, as I think,
very necessarily. For, without them, the King has not declared
his assent to Gloster's opinion : and the Duke of Somerset is
made to thank him for the regency before the King has deputed
him to it. Theobald.

The plea urged by Theobald for their introduction is, that
otherwise Somerset thanks the King before he had declared his
appointment; but Shakspeare, I suppose, thought Henry's assent
might be expressed by a nod. Somerset knew that Humphrey's
doom was final ; as likewise did the Armourer, for he, like Somer-
set, accepts the combat, without waiting for the King's confirma-
tion of what Gloster had said. Shakspeare therefore not having
introduced the following speech, which is found in the first copy,
we have no right to insert it. That it was not intended to be
preserved, appears from the concluding line of the present scene,
in which Henry addresses Somerset ; whereas in the quarto,
Somerset goes out, on his appointment. This is one of those
minute circumstances which may be urged to show that these
plays, however afterwards worked up by Shakspeare, were origi-
nallij the production of another author, and that the quarto
edition of 1600 was printed from the coin) originally written by
that author, whoever he was. Malone.

After the lines inserted by Theobald, the King continues his
speech thus :

" ■ over the French ;

" And to defend our rights 'gainst foreign foes,

" And so do good unto the realm of France.

" Make haste, my lord ; 'tis time that you were gone :

" The time of truce, I think, is full expir'd.

" Sowz. I humbly thank your royal majesty,
" And take my leave, to post with speed to France.

" SJLxit Somerset.
" King. Come, uncle Gloster ; now let's have our horse,
" For we will to St. Albans presently.
" Madam, your hawk, they say, is swift of flight,
" And we will try how she will fly to-day.

" [Exeunt omnes."
Steevens.

o 2

196 SECOND PART OF act i.

* sake, pity my case! the spite of man prevaileth

* against me. O, Lord have mercy upon me! I

* shall never be able to fight a blow : O Lord, my

* heart !

Glo. Sirrah, or you must fight or else be hang'd.

* K. Hen. Away with them to prison : and the

day

* Of combat shall be the last of the next month. —

* Come, Somerset, we'll see thee sent away.

\_Ej:eu7it.

SCENE IV.

The Same. The Duke of Gloster's Garden.

Enter ^ M.^rgeey Jourdain, Hume, Southtfell^

arid BOLINGBROKE.

* Hume. Come, my masters ; the duchess, I tell

* you, expects performance of your promises.

* BoLiNG. Master Hume, we are therefore pro-

* vided : Will her ladyship behold and hear our ex-

* orcisms ^ .''

* Hume, Ay ; What else ? fear you not her cou-

* rage.

* Enter, &c.] The quarto reads :

" Enter Eleanor, Sir John Hum, Roger Bolinobrook a conjurer,
and Margery Jourdaine a ivitcli.
" Eleanor. Here, sir John, take this scroll of paper here,
" Wherein is writ the questions you shall ask :
" And I will stand upon this tower here,
" And hear the spirit what it says to you ;
" And to my questions write the answers down.

" [She goes up to the toiver."
Steevens.
9 — our EXORCISMS !] The word exorcise, and its derivatives,
are used by Shakspeare in an uncommon sense. In all other
writei-s it means to lay spirits, but in these plays it invariably
means to raise them. So, in Julius Caesar, Ligarius says —
*' Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjur'd up
" My mortified spirit." M. Mason.

sc. jr. KING HENRY VI. 197

* BoLiiVG. I have heard her reported to be a wo-

* man of an invincible spirit : But it shall be con-

* venient, master Hume, that you be by her aloft,

* while we be busy below ; and so I pray you, go in

* God's name, and leave us. \^E.vit Hume.~\ 'Mo-

* ther Jourdain, be you prostrate, and grovel on the

* earth : — * John Southwell, read you ; and let us

* to our work.

Enter Duchess^ above.

* DucH. Well said, my masters ; and welcome

* all. To this geer; the sooner the better.

* BoLiNG. Patience, good lady ; wizards know

their times :
Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night \

' Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,] The silent
of the night is a classical expression, and means an interlunar
night. — Arnica silentia luncB. So, Pliny, Inter omnes vero con-
venit, utilissime in coitu ejus sterni, quern diem alii interlunii,
alii silentis lunae appellant. Lib. xvi. cap. 39. In imitation of this
language, Milton says :

" The sun to me is dark,

" And silent as the moon,

" When she deserts the night,

" Hid in her vacant interlunar cave." Warburton.
I believe this display of learning might have been spared.
Silent, though an adjective, is used by Shakspeure as a substan-
tive. So, in The Tempest, the vast of night is used for the
greatest part of it. The old quarto reads, " the silence of the
night." The variation between the copies is vv'orth notice :

" Bolinvbroohe makes a circle.

CD

" Bol. Dark night, dread night, the silence of the night,
" Wherein the furies mask in hellish troops,
" Send up, I charge you, from Cocytus' lake,
*' The spirit Ascalon to come to me ;
" To pierce the bovi^els of this centrick earth,
" And hither come in twinkling of an eye !
"Ascalon, ascend, ascend! "
In a speech already quoted from the quarto, Eleanor says,
they have —

" cast their spells in silence of the night."

198 SECOND PART OF act i.

* The time of night when Troy was set on fire;

* The time when screech-owls cry, and ban-dogs

howP,

* And spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves,

* That time best fits the work we have in hand.

' Madam, sit you, and fear not ; whom we raise,

* We will make fast within a hallow'd verge.

\_Here they perform the Ceremonies appertaining,
and make the Circle ; Bolixgbroke, or South-
TT'ELL, reads, Conjuro te, &c. It thunders and
light ejis terribly ; then the Spirit riseth.

* Spir. Adsum.

* M. JouRD. Asmath.

* By the eternal God, whose name and power

* Thou tremblest at, answer that I shall ask ;

And in the ancient Interlude of Nature, bl. 1, no date, is the
same expression :

" Who taught the nyghtyngall to recorde besyly
" Her strange entunes in sijlence of the nyght?"
Again, in The Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher :
" Through still silence of the night,
" Guided by the glow-worm's light." Steevens.
Steevens's explanation of this jiassage is evidently right ; and
Warburton's observations on it, though long, learned, and labo-
rious, are nothing to the purpose. Bolingbroke does not talk of
the silence of the moon, but of the silence of the night ; nor is he
describing the time of the month, but the hour of the night.

M. Mason.
^ — BAN-DOGS howl,] I was unacquainted with the etymo-
logy of this word, till it was pointed out to me by an ingenious
correspondent in the Supplement to The Gentleman's Magazine,
for 1789, who signs himself D. T. : " Shakspeare's ban-dog
(says he) is simply a village-dog, or mastiff", which was formerly
called a hand-dog, per syncopen, ban-dog." In support of this
opinion he quotes Caius de Canibus Britannicis : " Hoc genus
canis, etiam catenarium, a. catena vel ligamento, qua ad januas
intordiu detinetur, ne Isedat, et tamen latratu terreat, appellatur.
— Rusticos, shepherds' dogs, mastivcs, et bandogs, nominuvimus."

Steevens.
Ban-dogis certainly a corruption of band-dog ; or rather the first
d is suppressed here, as iu other compound words. Cole, in his
Diet. 1679, renders ban-dug, canis catenalus Malone.

sc. IF. KING HENRY VI. 199

* For, till thou speak, thou shalt not pass from
hence.
* Spjr. Ask what thou wilt : — That I had said

and done '^ !
BoLiNG. First, of the king. What shall of hirn
become'^ ? \_Readiug out of a Paper.

Spir. The duke yet lives, that Henry shall de-
pose;
But him outlive, and die a violent death.

[As the Spirit speaks, SouTHfFELL writes the
answer.
BoLiNG. What fate awaits the duke of Suffolk ?
Spir. By water shall he die, and take his end.
BoLiNG. What sJiall befall the duke of Somerset?
Spir. Let him shun castles ;
Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains
Than where castles mounted stand ^.

3 — That I had said and done !] It was anciently believed
that spirits, who were raised by incantations, remained above
ground, and answered questions with reluctance. See both
Lucan and Statins. Steevens.

So the Apparition says in Macbeth :

'• Dismiss me. — Enough ! "

The words " Tliat I had said and done ! " are not in the old
play. Malone.

■* — What shall of him becajnef] Here is another proof of
what has been already suggested. In the quarto 1600, it is con-
certed between Mother Jourdain and liolingbroke that he should
frame a circle, &c. and that she should " fall prostrate to the
ground," to " whisper with the devils below." [Southwell is not
introduced in that piece.] Accordingly, as soon as the incanta-
tions begin, BoUngbroke reads the questions out of a paper, as
here. But our poet has expressly said in the preceding part of
this scene that Southwell was to read them. Here, however, he
inadvertently follows his original as it lay before him, forgetting
that consistently with what he had already written, he should
have deviated from it. He has ftillen into the same kind of in-
consistency in Romeo and Juliet, by sometimes adhering to and
sometimes deserting the poem on which he formed that tragedy.

/ Malone.

5 Than where castles mounted stand.] I remember t.o have

200 SECOiSD PART OF act i.

* Have done, for more I hardly can endure.

BoLiNG. Descend to darkness, and the burning
lake :

* False fiend, avoid ^ !

[Thunder and Lightning. Spirit descends.

Enter York and BucKiNGHAMy hastily, with their
Guards, and Others.

* York. Lay hands upon these traitors, and their

trash.

* Beldame, I think, we watch'd you at an inch. —

* What, madam, are you there ? the king and com-

monweal

* Are deeply indebted for this piece of pains ;

* My lord protector will, I doubt it not,

* See you well guerdon'd for these good deserts.

* DucH. Not half so bad as thine to England's

king,

* Injurious duke ; that threat'st where is no cause.

read this prophecy in some old Chronicle, where, I think, it ran
thus :

" Safer shall he be on sand,
" Than where castles mounted stand : "
at present I do not recollect where. Steevens.

^ False fiend, avoid !] Instead of this short speech at the dis-
mission of the spirit, the old quarto gives us the following :
" Then down, I say, unto the damned pool
•' Where Pluto in his fieiy waggon sits,
*' Riding amidst the sing'd and parched smoaks,
" The road of Dytns, by the river Styx ;
" There howle and burn for ever in those flames :
" Rise, Jordane, rise, and stay thy charming spells : —
" 'Zounds ! we are betray'd ! "
Dytas is written by mistake for Ditis, the genitive case of Dis,
which is used instead of the nominative by more than one ancient
author.

So, in Thomas Drant's translation of the fifth Satire of Horace,
1567:

" And by that meanes made manye soules lord Dltis hall to
seeke." Steevens.
Here again we have such a variation as never could have arisen
from an imperfect transcript. Malone.

sc. jr. KING HENRY VI. 201

* Buck. True, madam, none at all. What call

you this ? [Shexvi7ig her the papers,

* Away with them ; let them be clapp'd up close,
'And kept asunder: — You, madam, shall with

us : —

* Stafford, take her to thee. —

[Exit Duchess from above.

* We'll see your trinkets here all forth-coming ;
' All.— Away !

[Exeunt Guards, with South, Boling. S^c.

* York. Lord Buckingham, methinks \ you

watch'd her well :

* A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon !
Now, pray, my lord, let's see the devil's writ.
What have we here ? [Reads.
The duke yet lives, that Henry shall depose;

But him outlive, and die a violent death.

* Why, this is just,

* j4io te, Macida, Romanos vincere posse.
Well, to the rest:

Tell me ^, what fate azvaits the duke of Suffolk ?
By water shall he die, and take his end. —
fFhat shall betide the duke of Somerset ? —
Let hiju shun castles ;
Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains,

7 Lord Buckingham, methinks, &c.] This repetition of the
prophecies, which is altogether unnecessary, after what the spec-
tators had heard in the scene immediately preceding, is not to be
found in the first edition of this play. Pope.

They are not, it is true, found in this scene, but they are re-
peated in the subsequent scene, in which Buckingham brings an
account of this proceeding to the King. This also is a variation
that only could proceed from various authors. Malone.

8 Tell me, &c.] Yet these two words were not in the paper
read by Bolingbroke, which York has now in his hand ; nor are
they in the original play. Here we have a species of inaccuracy
peculiar to Shakspeare, of which he has been guilty in other
places. See p. 170, where Glsster and Winchester read the
same paper differently. See also vol. xi. p. 420, n. 6. Malone.

5

202 SECOND PART OF act i.

Than where castles mounted stand.

* Come, come, my lords ;

* These oracles are hardily attain'd,

* And hardly understood ^.

' The king is now in progress toward Saint Albans,

* With him the husband of this lovely lady :

* Thither go these news, as fast as horse can carry

them ;

* A sorry breakfast for my lord protector.

* Buck. Your grace shall give me leave, my lord

of York,

* To be the post, in hope of his reward.

* York. At your pleasure, my good lord. — Who's

within there, ho !

Enter a Servant.

* Invite my lords of Salisbury, and Warwick,

* To sup with me to-morrow night. — Away !

[E.veunt*

9 These oracles are hardily attain'd,
And hardly understood.] The folio reads — hardhj. Malone.

Not only the lameness of the versification, but the imperfection
of the sense too, made me suspect this passage to be corrupt.
York, seizing the parties and their papers, says, he'll see the
devil's writ ; and finding the wizard's answers intricate and ambi-
guous, he makes this general comment upon such sort of intelli-
gence, as I have restored the text :

" These oracles are hardily attain'd,
" And hardly understood."
i. e. A great risque and hazard is run to obtain them ; and yet,
after these hardi/ steps taken, the informations are so perplexed
that they are hardly to be understood. Theobald.

The correction made by Mr. Theobald has been adopted by the
subsequent editors. Malone.

ACT 11. KING HENRY VI. 203

ACT II. SCENE I.

Saint Albans.

Enter King Henry, Queen Margaret, Gloster,
Cardinal, and Suffolk, with Falconers hollaing.

*' Q. Mar. Believe me, lords, for flying at the
brook \

* I saw not better sport these seven years' day :
'■ Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high ;
And, ten to one, old Joan had not gone out ".

* K. Hen. But what a point, my lord, your falcon
made,

* And what a pitch she flew above the rest ^ ! —

^ — for flying at the brook J The falconer's term for hawking
at water-fowl, Johnson.

1 — the|wind was very high ;
And, ten to one, old Joan had not gone out.] I am told by
a gentleman, better acquainted with falconry than myself, that the
meaning, however expressed, is, that the wind being high, it was
ten to one that the old hawk bad flown quite away ; a trick which
hawks often play their masters in windy weather. Johnson.

«« — old Joan had not gone out " i. e. the wind was so high it
was ten to one that old Joan would not have taken her flight at
the game. Percy.

The ancient books of hawking do not enable me to decide on
the merits of such discordant explanations. It may yet be re-
marked, that the terms belonging to this once popular amuse-
ment were in general settled with the utmost precision ; and I
may at least venture to declare, that a mistress might have been
kept at a cheaper rate than a falcon. To compound a medicine
to cure one of these birds of worms, it was necessary to destroy
no fewer animals than a lamb, a culver, apigeon, a buck, and a cat.
I have this intelligence from the Booke of Haukinge, &c. bl. 1. no
date. This work was written by dame Julyana Bernes, prioress of
the nimnery of Sopvvell, near St. Albans, (where Shakspeare has
fixed the present scene,) and one of the editions of it was prynted
at Westmestre l}y IVynkyn de Worde, 1496, together with an ad-
ditional treatise on Fishing. Steevexs.

3 But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,
And what a pilch she flew above the rest !] The variation

204 SECOND PART OF act ii.

' To see how God in all his creatures works !

* Yea, man and birds, are fain of climbing high*.
SuF. No marvel, an it like your majesty,

My lord protector's hawks do tower so well ;
They know their master loves to be aloft ^,

* And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch.

* Glo. My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind

* That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.

' Car. I thought as much ; he'd be above the
clouds.

* Glo. Ay, my lord cardinal ; How think you by

that .?
Were it not good, your grace could fly to heaven .?

* K. Hen. The treasury of everlasting j oy !

* Car. Thy heaven is on earth ; thine eyes and

thoughts
' Beat on a crown ^, the treasure of thy heart ;

between these lines and those in the original play on which this is
founded, is worth notice :

" Uncle Gloster, how high your hawk did soar,
" And on a sudden souc'd the partridge down." Malone.
^ — are fain of climbing high.] Fain, in this place, signifies
fond. So, in Heywood's Epigrams on Proverbs, 1562 :
" Fayre words make foolesyazwe."
Again, in Whetstone's Promos and Ca.ssandra, 1578 :

" Her brother's life would make her glad and /?«'«."
The word, (as I am informed,) is still used in Scotland.

Steevens.
i — to be aloft,] Perhaps alluding to the adage :

" High-flying hawks are fit for princes."
See Ray's Collection. Steevens.
^ — thine eyes and thoughts
Beat on a crown,] To hait or beat, {bathe) is a term in
falconry. Johnson.

To bathe, and to beat, or bate, are distinct terms in this diver-
sion. To (^fl/Z^c a hawk was to wash his plumage. To beat, or
bate, was io flutter with his wings. To beat on a crown, however,
is equivalent to an expression which is still used — to hammer, i. e.
to work in the mind. Shakspeare has employed a term somewhat
similar in a preceding scene of the play before us :
" Wilt thou still be hatnniering treachery ? "

sc.r. KING HENRY VI. 205

Pernicious protector, dangerous peer,
That smooth'st it so with king and commonweal !
' Glo. What, cardinal, is your priesthood grown
peremptory ?

* TantcEne animis ccElesiihiis ircc ?

* Churchmen so hot ? good uncle, hide such ma-

lice ;

* With such holiness can you do it ^ ?

* SuF. No malice, sir; no more than well be-
comes

* So good a quarrel, and so bad a peer.

Glo. As who, my lord ?

But the very same phrase occurs in Lyly's Maid's Metamor-
phosis, 1600 :

" With him whose restless thoughts do beat on thee."
Again, in Doctor Dodypoll, 1600:

" Since my mind beats on it mightily."
Again, in Herod and Antipater, 1622 :

*' I feel within my cogitations beating."
Later editors concur in reading, " Bent on a crown." I follow
the old copy. Steevens.
So, in The Tempest :

" Do not infest your mind with beating on
" The strangeness of this business."
Again, in The Two Noble Kinsmen, 1634- :

" This her mind beats on!'
I have given these instances of this phrase, because Dr. John-
son's interpretation of it is certainly incorrect. Malone.

7 With such holiness can you do it?] Do what? The verse
wants a foot ; we should read :

'• With such holiness can you not do it ? "
Spoken ironically. By holiness he means hypocrisy : and says,
' have you not hypocrisy enough to hide your malice ! '

Warburton.
The verse is lame enough after the emendation, nor does the
negative particle improve the sense. When words are omitted it
is not often easy to say what they were if there is a perfect sense
without them. I read, but somewhat at random :

" A churchman, with such holiness can you do it? "
The transcriber saw churchman just above, and therefore omit-
ted it in the second line. Johnson.

" — can you do it ? " The old play, quarto 1600, reads more
intelligibly,—" Good uncle, can yoM dote?" Malone.

206 SECOND PART OF ^cr//.

SuF. Why, as you, my lord ;

An'tlike your lordly lord- protectorship.

Glo, Why, Suffolk, England knows thine inso-
lence.

Q. M.JR. And thy ambition, Gloster.

K. Hen. I pr'ythee, peace,

Good queen ; and whet not on these furious peers.
For blessed are the peacemakers on earth ^

Car. Let me be blessed for the peace I make.
Against this proud protector, with my sword !

Glo. 'Faith, holy uncle, 'would 'twere come to
that ! \_j4side to the Cardinal.

* Car. Marry, when thou dar'st. \Aside.

* Glo. Make up no factious numbers for the

matter,

* In thine own person answer thy abuse. \^Aside.

* Car. Ay, where thou dar'st not peep : an if thou

dar'st,

* This evening on the east side of the grove. \_Aside.

' K. Hen. How now, my lords .^

* Car. Believe me, cousin Gloster,

* Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,

* We had had more sport. — Come with thy two-

hand sword. \_Aside to Glo.

Glo. True, uncle.
Car. Are you advis'd ? — the east side of the

grove .^
Glo. Cardinal, I am with you ^. \Aside,

7 — blessed are the peacemakers on earth.] See St. Mat-
thew, V. 9. Reed.

^ — Come with thy two-hand sword,

Glo. True, uncle, are ye advis'd ? — the east side of the grove ?

Cardinal, I am with you.] Thus is the whole speech placed
to Gloster, in all the editions : but, surely, with great inadver-
tence. It is the Cardinal who first appoints the east side of the
grove for the place of duel : and how finely does it express his
rancour and impetuosity, for fear Gloster should mistake, to re-
peat the appointment, and ask his antagonist if he takes him
right ! Theobald.

6

sc.j. KING HENRY VI. 207

K. Hen. Why, bow now, uncle Gloster.

* Glo. Talking of hawking; nothing else, my

lord. —
Now, by God's mother, priest, I'll shave your crown
for this,

* Or all my fence shall fail ^. [j4side.

* Car. Medice teipsum ; \ V J 'ri

* Protector, see to't well, protect yourself. ) *-

K. Hen. The winds grow high ; so do your sto-
machs, lords ^

* How irksome is this musick to my heart !

* When such strings jar, what hope of harmony ?

* I pray, my lords, let me compound this strife.

Enter an Inhabitant of Saint Albans, crying,

A Miracle ^ '

Glo. What means this noise ?

The ' two-hand sword ' is mentioned by Holinshed, vol, iii.
p. 833 : " — And he that touched the tawnie shield, should cast
a spear on foot with a target on his arme, and after to fight with
a tivo-ha7id sword." Steevens.

In the original play the Cardinal desires Gloster to bring * his
sword and buckler." The ' two hand-sword ' was sometimes called
the long svoord, and in common use before the introduction of
the rapier. Justice Shallow, in The Merry Wives of Windsor,
boasts of the exploits he had performed in his youth with this in-
strument.— See vol. viii. p. 70, n. 3. Malone.

9 — my fence shall fail.] i^ewce is the art of defence. So,
in Much Ado About Nothing :

" Despight his nice Jence, and his active practice."

Steevens.

' The winds grow high ; so do your stomachs, lords.] This
line Shakspeare hath injudi ciously adopted from the old play,
changing only the word color [choler] to stomachs. In the old
play the altercation appears not to be concealed from Henry.
Here Shakspeare certainly intended that it should pass between
the Cardinal and Gloster aside ; and yet he has inadvertently
adopted a line, and added others, that imply that Henry has
heard the appointment they have made. Malone.

?■ — ciying, A Miracle !] This scene is founded on a story
which Sir Thomas More has related, and which he says was com-
municated to him by his father. The impostor's name is not men-

208 SECOND PART OF act ii.

Fellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim ?
Inhab. a miracle ! a miracle !
SuF. Come to the king, and tell him what mi-
racle.
Inhab. Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Alban's
shrine,
Within this half hour, hath receiv'd his sight ;
A man, that ne'er saw in his life before.

* K. Hen. Now, God be prais'd ! that to believ-

ing souls

* Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair !

Enter the Mayor of Saint Albans, and his Bre-
thren ; and Simpcox, borne betzveen two persons
in a Chair ; his Wife and a great Multitude fol-
lowing.

* Car. Here come the townsmen on procession,

* To present your highness with the man.

* K. Hen. Great is his comfort in this earthly-

vale,

* Although by his sight his sin be multiplied.

* Glo. Stand by, my masters,bring him near the

king,

* His highness' pleasure is to talk with him.

* K. Hen. Good fellow, tell us here the circum-

stance,

* That we for thee may glorify the Lord.

What, hast thou been long blind, and now restor'd ?
Simp. Born blind, ant please your grace.
Wife. Ay, indeed, was he.
SuF. What woman is this ?
Wife. His wife, an't like your worship.
Glo. Had'st thou been his mother, thoucould'st
have better told.

tioned, !)ut he was detected by Humphrey Duke of Gloster, and
in the manner here represented. See his Works, p. 134,
edit. 1557. Malone.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 209

K. Hex. Where wert tliou born ?
SiMF. At Berwick in the north, an't like your
o;race.

* K. Hen. Poor soul ! God's goodness hath been

great to thee :

* Let never day nor night unhallow'd pass, ^

* But still remember what the Lord hath done.

* 0. M.m. Tell me, good fellow, cam'st thou

here by chance,

* Or of devotion, to this holy shrine ?

' Simp. God knows, of pure devotion; being call'd

* A hundred times, and oft'ner, in my sleep

* By good Saint Alban; who said, — Simpcoj:\ come ;

* Come, offer at my shrine, and I will help thee.

* Wife. Most true, forsooth ; and many time

and oft

* Pvlyself have heard a voice to call him so.
Car. What, art thou lame 2

SniF. Ay, God Almighty help me 1

SvF. How cam'st thou so ?

Simp. A fall off of a tree

JViFE. A plum-tree, master.

Glo. How long hast thou been blind ?

Simp. O, born so, master.

Glo. What, and would'st climb a tree ?

Simp. But that in all my life, when I was a youth.

* JT^iFE. Too true ; and bought his climbing very

dear.

* Glo. 'Mass, thou lov'dst plums well, that

would'st venture so.

3 — who said — Simpcox, &c.] The former copies :

" who said, Simon, come ;

" Come, offer at my shrine, and I will help thee."
Why Sinw)i ? The chronicles, that take notice of Gloster's
detecting this pretended miracle, tell us, that the impostor, who
asserted himself to be cured of blindness, was called Saunder
Sivipcox — Siynon was therefore a corruption. Theobald.

It would seem better to read Simpcox ; for which Sim. has in
all ])robability been put by contraction in the player's MS.

RiTSOX.

VOL. XYITI. P

210 SECOND PART OF act ii.

* Simp. Alas, good master, my wife desir'd some

damsons,
' And made me climb, with danger of my life.
'* Glo. a subtle knave ! but yet it shall not
serve. —

* Let me see thine eyes : — wink now ; — now open

them : —

* In my opinion yet thou see'st not well.

* Simp. Yes, master, clear as day ; I thank God,

and Saint Alban.
Glo. Say'st thou me so ^ ? What colour is this

cloak of .'^
Simp. Red, master; red as blood.
Glo. Why, that's well said : What colour is my

gov;Ti of?
Simp. Black, forsooth ; coal-black, as jet.
K. Hen. Why then, thou know'st what colour

jet is of ?
SvF. And yet, I think, jet did he never see.
Glo. But cloaks, and gowns, before this day, a

many.

* Wife. Never, before this day, in all his life.
Glo. Tell me, sirrah, what's my name ?
Simp. Alas, master, I know not.

Glo. What's his name ?

Simp. I know not.

Glo. Nor his ?

Simp. No, indeed, master.

Glo. What's thine own name ?

Simp. Saunder Simpcox, an if it please you,
master.

Glo. Then, Saunder, sit there ^ the lyingest knave
In Christendom. If thou hadst been born blind,

3 Say'st thou rae so ?] This phrase occurs in A new and plea-
sant Interlude, intituled the Marriage of Witteand Science, 1570:
" Saj/'st thou me so, boye, will she have me in deede ? "

BoSWELL,

■♦ — sit THOU there,] I have supplied the pronoun — thotc, for
the sake of metre. Steevens.

SCI. KING HENRY VI. 211

Thou might'st as well have known all our names *

as thus
To name the several colours we do wear.
Sight may distinguish of colours ; but suddenly
To nominate them all, it is impossible ^. —
My lords, Saint Alban here hath done a miracle ;
And would ye not think that cunning ^ to be great.
That could restore this cripple to his legs again ^ ?

Simp. O, master, that you could !

Glo. My masters of Saint Albans, have you not
beadles in your town, and things called v/hips ?

May. Yes, my lord, if it please your grace.

Glo. Then send for one presently.

May. Sirrah, go fetch the beadle hither straight.

[RivY an Attendant.

Glo. Now fetch me a stool hither by and by. [A
Stool brought out.~\ Now, sirrah, if you mean to
save yourself from whipping, leap me over this stool,
and run away.

Simp. Alas, master, I am not able to stand alone :
You go about to torture me in vain.

Re-enter Attendant, with the Beadle.
Glo. Well, sir, we must have you find your legs.
Sirrah beadle, whip him till he leap over that same
stool.

5 — OUR names,] Old copy, redundantly — all our names.

Steevens.
This line is not more harsh than the one almost immediately
following :

" Sight may distinguish of colours ; but suddenly."
But I apprehend no metre was intended in either instance, and
that the whole of this speech was written as prose. Boswell.
^ To nominate them all, 's impossible.] Old copy :

" it is impossible." Steevens.

7 — THAT cunning — ] Folio—?'/ cunning. Corrected by
Mr. Rowe. That was probably contracted in the MS. yt.

Malone.
^ — to his legs?] Old copies, redundantly— to his legs
again? Steevens.

P 2

212 SECOND PART OF act lu

Be.id. I will, my lord. — Come on, sirrah ; off
with your doublet quickly.

Simp. Alas, master, what shall I do ? I am not
able to stand.

[After the Beadle hath hit him once, he leaps
ove?^ the Stool, and runs arvajj ; and the
People J ollozv and cry, A Miracle!

* K. Hen. O God, see'st thou this, and bear'st so

long ?

* Q. M.^R. It made me laugh to see the villain

run.

* Glo. Follow the knave ; and take this drab

away.

* Wife, Alas, sir, we did it for pure need.

* Glo. Let them be whipped through every mar-
ket town, till they come to Berwick, whence they
came. [E.rcunt Mayor, Beadle, Wife, (^'C.

* C.-iR. Duke Humphrey has done a miracle to

day.

* SuF. True ; made the lame to leap, and fly

away.

* Glo. But you have done more miracles than I ;
You made, in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly'-*.

Enter Buckixgh^m.

* K. Hen. What tidings with our cousin Buck-

ingham ?

* Buck. Such as my heart doth tremble to un-

fold'.

9 —whole towns to fly.] Here in the old play the Kino- adds :
" Have done, I say; and let me hear no more of that."

Steevens.
^ Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold, &c.] In the origi-
nal play the corresponding speech stands thus ; and the variation
is worth noting :

" 111 news for some, my lord, and this it is.
*' That proud dame Elinor, our protector's wife,
" Hath plotted treasons 'gainst the king and peers,
" By witchcrafts, sorceries, and conjurings :

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 213

* A sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent ^ —

* Under the countenance and confederacy
' Of lady Eleanor, the protector's wife,

' The ringleader and head of all this rout, —

* Have practis'd dangerously against your state,

* Dealing with witches, and with conjurers :
' Whom we have apprehended in the fact ;

* Raising up wicked spirits from under ground,

* Demanding of king Henry's life and death,

* And other of your highness' privy council,

' As more at large your grace shall understand.
' Cm, And so, my lord protector, by this
means

* Your lady is forthcoming'^ yet at London.

* This news, I think, hath turn'd your v.'eapon's

edge ;

* 'Tis like, my lord, you will not keep your hour.

[^A-sidc to Gloster.
' Glo. Ambitious churchman, leave to afflict my
heart !

* Sorrow and grief have vanquish'd all my pov/ers :

* And, vanquish'd as I am, I yield to thee,

* Or to the meanest groom.

* K. Hex. O God, what mischiefs work the
wicked ones ;

* Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby !

" Who by such means did raise a spirit up,

" To tell her what hap should betide the state;

" But ere they had finish'd their devilish drift,

" Bv York and myself they were all surpriz'd,

" And here's the answer the devil did make to them."

Malone.

^ A SORT LEWDLY bent,] Leivdlij, in this place, and in

some others, does not signify ti;rt;;/t>«///, hut ivickedliy. Steevens.
The word is so used in old acts of parliament. A sort is a com-
pany. See vol. v. p. 260, n. 8. Malone.

3 Your lady is forthcoming — ] That is, Your lady is in cus-
tody. Johnson.

214 SECOND PART OF act ii.

* Q. Mar. Gloster, see here the tainture of thy
nest ;

* And, look, thyself be faultless, thou wert best.

' Glo. Madam, for myself^, to heaven I do ap-
peal,

* How I have lov'd my king, and commonweal :

* And, for my wife, I know not how it stands ;
' Sorry I am to hear what I have heard :

' Noble she is ; but if she have forgot

* Honour, and virtue, and convers'd with such

* As, like to pitch, defile nobility,

* I banish her, my bed, and company ;

' And give her, as a prey, to law, and shame,

* That hath dishonour'd Gloster's honest name.

' K. Hex. Well, for this night, we will repose us
here:
' To-morrow, toward London, back again,

* To look into this business thoroughly,

* And call these foul offenders to their answers ;

* And poise the cause injustice' equal scales,

* Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause

prevails '\ [Flourish . E.veimt.

4 Madam, for myself, &c.] Thus in the original play :

'•' And pardon me, my gracious sovereign,

" For here I swear unto your majesty,

" That I am guiltless of these heinous crimes,

" Which my ambitious wife hath falsely done :

" And for she would betray her sovereign lord,

" I here renounce her from my bed and board ;

'•' And leave her open for the law to judge,

" Unless she clear herself of this foul deed." Malone.

5 And poise the cause in justice' equal scales.

Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.]
The sense will, I think, be mended if we read in the optative
mood :

" justice' equal scale,

" Whose beam stand sure, whose rightful cause prevail!"

Johnson.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 215

SCENE II.
London. The Duke of York's Garden.

Enter York, Salisbury, andW^jRiricK,

' York. Now, my good lords of Salisbury and
Warwick,

* Our simple supper ended, give me leave,

* In this close walk, to satisfy myself,

* In craving your opinion of my title,

* Which is infallible ^ to England's crown.

* Sal. My lord, I long to hear it at full.
War. Sweet York, begin : and if thy claim be
good.
The Nevils are thy subjects to command.
York. Then thus : —

* Edward the Third, my lords, had seven sons :

* The first, Edward the Black Prince, prince of Wales ;
' The second, WilHam of Hatfield; and the third,

' Lionel, duke of Clarence ; next to whom,

* Was John of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster ;

' The fifth, was Edmond Langley \ duke of York ;

* The sixth, was Thomas of Woodstock, duke of

Gloster ;

* William of Windsor was the seventh, and last.

* Edward, the Black Prince, died before his father ;

* And left behind him Richard, his only son,

* Who, after Edward the Third's death, reign'd as

king ;

^ Which is infallible,] I know not well whether he means
the opinion or the title is infallible, Johnson.

Surely he means his title. Malone.

If so, why crave their opinions ? Boswell.

7 The fifth, was Edmond Langley, &c.] The author of the
original play has ignorantly enumerated Roger Mortimer, Earl
of March, as Edward's fifth son ; and represented the Duke of
York as Edward's second son. Malone.

216 SECOND PART OF act ii.

* Till Henry Bolingbroke, duke of Lancaster,

* The eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt,

* Crown'd by the name of Henry the Fourth,

* Seized on the realm; depos'd the rightful king;

* Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she

came,

* And him to Pomfret ; where, as all you know ^,

* Harmless Richard was murder'd traitorously.

* JVar. Father, the duke hath told the truth ;

* Thus got the house of Lancaster the crown.

* York. Which now they hold by force, and not

by right ;

* For Richard, the first son's heir being dead,

* The issue of the next son should have reign'd.

* Sal. But Wilham of Hatfield died without an

heir.
^ York. The third son, duke of Clarence, (from
whose line
*I claim the crown,) had issue — Philippe, a daugh-
ter,

* Who married Edmund Mortimer, earl of March,

* Edmund had issue — Roger, earl of March :

* Roger had issue — Edmund, Anne, and Eleanor.

' Sjl. This Edmund '\ in the reign of Boling-
broke,

* As I have read, laid claim unto the crown ;

* And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king,

^ — as ALL you know,] In the original play the words are,
" — as you both know." 'J'his mode of phraseology, wlien the
speaker addresses only two persons, is pecvdiar to Shakspeare.
In King Henry IV. Part II. Act III. Sc, I. the King addressing
AVarwick and Surrey, sajs —

" Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords." Malone.

9 This Edmund, &c.] In Act II. Sc. V. of the last play, York,
to whom this is spoken, is present at the death of Edmund Mor-
timer in prison ; and the reader will recollect him to have been
married to Owen Glendo\ver"s daughter, in The First Part of
King Henry \Y. Ritson.

sc. //. KIXG HENRY VI. 217

* Who kept him in captivity, till he died '.

* But, to the rest.

' Who kept him in captivity, till he died.] I have observed in
a former note, (First Part, Act II. Sc. V.) that the historians as
well as the dramatick poets have been strangely mistaken con-
cerning this Edmond Mortimer, Earl of .March, who was so far
from being " kept in captivity till he died," that he appears to
have been at liberty during the whole reign of King Henry V.
and to have been trusted and employed by him ; and there is no
proof that 'he ever was confined, as a state-prisoner, by King
Henry IV. Being only six years of age at the death of his father
in 1j9S, he was delivered by Henry in ward to his son Henrv
Prince of Wales ; and during the whole of that reign, being a
minor and related to tlie family on the throne, both he and his
brother Roger were under the particular care of the King. At
the age of ten years, in 1402, he headed a body of Hereford-
shire men against Owen Glendower ; and they being routed, he
was taken prisoner by Owen, and is said by Walsingham to have
entered into a contract of marriage with Glendower's daughter,
and to have been with him at the battle of Shrewsbury; but I
believe the story of his being affianced to Glendower's daughter is
a mistake, and that the historian has confounded Mortimer with
Lord Grey of Ruthvin, who was likewise taken prisoner bv Glen-
dower, and actually did marry his daughter. In the first part of
Henrv VI. the aced and crev-hair'd Mortimer is introduced in the
Tower, and made to say —

" Since Harry Monmouth first began to reign,
" This loathsome sequestration I have had : "
Yet here we are told, he was kept in captivity by Owen Glen-
dower till he died. The fact is, that Hall having said that Glen-
dower kept his son-in-law. Lord Cirey of Ruthvin. in captivitij till
he died, and this Lord March having been said by some his-
torians to have married Owen's daughter, the author of this play
has confounded them with each other. Edmond Mortimer, Earl
of March, married .Anne Stafl'ord, the daughter of E^dmnnd Earl of
Stafford. If he was at the battle of Shrewsbury he was probably
brought there against his will, to grace the cause of the rebels.
The Percies, in the Manifesto which they published a little before
that battle, speak of him, not as a confederate of Owen's, but as
the rightful heir to the crown, whom Owen had confined, and
whom, finding that the King for political reasons would not
ransom him, they at their own charges had ransomed. After that
battle, he was certainly under the care of the King, he and his
brother in the seventh year of that reign having had annuities of
two hundred pounds and one hundred marks allotted to them, for
their maintenance during their minorities.

In addition to what I have already said respecting the trust re-

218 SECOND PART OF act ii,

* York. His eldest sister, Anne,

* My mother being heir unto the crown,

* Married Richard, earl of Cambridge ; who was

son

* To Edmund Langley, Edward the third's fifth son.

* By her I claim the kingdom : she was heir

* To Roger, earl of March ; who was the son

* Of Edmund Mortimer; who married Philippe,

* Sole daughter unto Lionel, duke of Clarence :

* So, if the issue of the elder son

* Succeed before the younger, I am king.

posed in him during the whole reign of King Henry V., I may
add, that in the sixth year of that King, this Earl of March was
with the Earl of Salisbury at the siege of Fresnes ; and soon af-
terwards with the King himself at the siege of Melun. In the
same year he was constituted Lieutenant of Normandy. He
attended Henry when he had an interview with the French King,
&c. at Melun, to treat about a marriage with Catharine, and he
accompanied the Queen when she returned from France in 1422,
with the corpse of her husband.

One of the sources of the mistakes in our old histories concern-
ing this Earl, I believe, was this : he was probably confounded
with one of his kinsmen, a Sir John Mortimer, who was confined
for a long time in the Tower, and at last was executed in liS-l-.
This Sir John Mortimer was perhaps cousin german to the last
Edmond Earl of March, the illegitimate son of his uncle Ed-
mond.

I take this opportunity of correcting an inaccuracy into which I
had formerly fallen. I had said that Lionel Duke of Clarence was
married to Elizabeth the daughter of the Earl of Ulster, in 1360.
I have since learned that he was affianced to her in his tender
years ; and consequently Lionel, having been born in 1338, might
have had his daughter Philippa in 1354'. Philippa, I find, was
married in 1370, at the age of sixteen, to Edmond Mortimer Earl
of March, who was himself born in 1351. Their son Roger was
born in 1371, and must have been married to Eleanor, the daugh-
ter of the Earl of Kent, in the year 1388, or 1389, for their
daughter Anne, who married Richard Earl of Cambridge, was
born in 1389. Edmond Mortimer, Roger's eldest son, (the
Mortimer of Shakspeare's King Henry IV. and the person who
has given occasion to this tedious note,) was born in the latter
end of the year 1392; and consequently when he died in his
castle at Trim in Ireland, in 1124-5, he was thirty-two years old.

Malone.

sc. JJ. KING HENRY VI. 219

* JV^R. What plain proceedings are more plain

than this ?

* Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,
' The fourth son ; York claims it from the third.

* Till Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign ;
' It fails not yet ; but flourishes in thee,

* And in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock. —

* Then, father Salisbury, kneel we both together ;

* And, in this private plot ^, be we the first,
' That shall salute our rightful sovereign

* With honour of his birthright to the crown.

Both. Long live our sovereign Richard, England's
king !

* York. We thank you, lords. But I am not your

king
' Till I be crown'd ; and that my sword be stain'd
' With heart-blood of the house of Lancaster :

* And that's not suddenly to be perform'd ;

* But with advice, and silent secrecy.

* Do you, as I do, in these dangerous days,

* Wink at the duke of Suffolk's insolence,

*■ At Beaufort's pride, at Somerset's ambition,

* At Buckingham, and all the crew of them,

* Till they have snar'd the shepherd of the flock,

* That virtuous prince, the good duke Humphrey :

* 'Tis that they seek ; and they, in seeking that,

* Shall find their deaths, if York can prophesy.

* S^L. My lord, break we off; we know your

mind at full.
' TVar. My heart assures me ^, that the earl of
Warwick
' Shall one day make the duke of York a king.

* — private plot,] Sequestered spot of ground, Malone.

3 My heart assures me,] Instead of this couplet, we find in the
old play no less than ten lines ; so that if we suppose that piece to
be an imperfect transcript of this, we must acknowledge the tran-
scriber had a good sprag memory, for he remembered what he
never could have either heard or seen. Malone.

220 SECOND PART OF act ii.

' York. And, Nevil, this I do assure myself, —
' Richard shall live to niake the earl of Warwick

* The greatest man in England, but the king.

\_Exmnt,

SCENE III.

The Same. A Hall of Justice.

Trumpets soii/uJed. Enter King Henry, Queen
Margaret, Gloster, York, Suffolk, and Salis-
bury ; the Duchess of Gloster, Margery Jour-
DAiN, Southtt'ell, Hume, ttud BoLiNGBROKE, Un-
der guard.

' K. Hex. Stand forth, dame Eleanor Cobham,
Gloster's wife :
' In sight of God, and us, your guilt is great ;
' Receive the sentence of the law, for sins

* Such as by God's book are adjudg'd to death. —

* You four, from hence to prison back again ;

\_To JOURD. S^C,

'* From thence, unto the place of execution :

* The witch in Smithfield shall be burn'd to ashes,

* A.nd you three shall be strangled on the gal-

lows.—
' You, madam, for you are more nobly born,
' Despoiled of your honour in your life,

* Shall, after three days' open penance ^ done,
' Live in your country here, in banishment,

' With sir John Stanley, in the isle of Man.

* DucH. Welcome is banishment, welcome were
my death.

'* — after three days' open penance — ] In the original play
the King particularly specifies the jj/or/c of penance : " Thoushalt
ixvo days do penance barefoot, in the streets, vvitli a white sheet,"
&c. Malone.

sc.Jii. KmG HENRY VI. 221

* Glq. Eleanor, the law, thouseest, hath judged
thee ;

* I cannot justify whom the law condemns. —

[_E.veunt the Duchess, and the other Prisoners,
cruarclcd.
' Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief.
' Ah, Humphrey, this dishonour in thine age

* Will bring thy head with sorrow to the ground ! —
' I beseech your majesty, give me leave to go ;

' Sorrow would solace, and mine age would ease'^.
' A^ Hen. Stay, Humphrey duke of Gloster : ere
thou go,
' Give up thy staff; Henry will to himself
' Protector be : and God shall be my hope,
' My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet ^ ;
' And go in peace, Humphrey ; no less belov'd,

* Than when thou wert protector to thy king.

* Q. M.jn. I see no reason, why a king of years

* Should be to be protected hke a child. —

' God and king Henry govern England's helm ''

* Give up your staff, sir, and the king his realm.

5 Sorrow would solace, and mine age would ease.] That is.
Sorrow would have, sorrow requires, solace, and age requires ease.

Johnson.

6 — lantern to my feet ;] This image, I think, is from our Li-
turgy : " — a lantern to my feet, and a light to my paths."

Steevens.

7 God and king Henry govern England's helm :] Old copy —
realm. Steevens.

The word realm at the end of two lines together is displeasing ;
and when it is considered that much of this scene is written in
ihyme, it will not appear improbable that the author wrote, "go-
vern England's helm.'' Johnson.
So, in a preceding scene of this play :

" And you yourself shall steer the happy helm."

Steevens.
Dr. Johnson's emendation undoubtedly should be received into
the text. So, in Coriolanus :
" — — and you slander
" The helms of the state." Malone.

222 SECOND PART OF act lu

* Glo. My staff? — here, noble Henry, is my

staff:

* As willingly do I the same resign,

* As e'er thy father Henry made it mine ;
And even as willingly at thy feet I leave it.
As others would ambitiously receive it.

* Farewell, good king : when I am dead and gone.
May honourable peace attend thy throne ! \_Exit.

* Q. Mar. Why, now is Henry king, and Mar-

garet queen ;

* And Humphrey, duke of Gloster, scarce himself,

* That bears so shrewd a maim ; two pulls at

once, —

* His lady banish'd, and a limb lopp'd off;

* This stafi" of honour raught ^ : — 'There let it

stand,

* Where it best fits to be, in Henry's hand.

* SuF. Thus droops this lofty pine, and hangs his

sprays ;

* Thus Eleanor's pride dies in her youngest days ''.

^ This staff of honour raught :] Raught is the ancient pre-
terite of the verb reach, and is frequently used by Spenser ; as in
the following instance :

" He trained was till riper years he raught."

See vol, xii. p. 358, n. 1. Steeven^s.

Rather rcift, or reft, the preterite oi reave; unless reached were
ever used with the sense of arracher, Fr. that is, to snatch, take
or pull violently away. So, in Peele's Arraygnement of Paris,
1584:

" How Pluto raught queene Ceres daughter thence."

RiTSON.

9 Thus Eleanors pride dies in her youngest days.] This ex-
pression has no meaning, if we suppose that the word her refers
to Eleanor, who certainly was not a young woman. We must
therefore suppose that the pronoun her refers to pride, and stands
for it's; — a license frequently practised by Shakspeare.

M. Mason.

Or the meaning may be, in her, i. e. Eleanor's, youngest days
ofpoxxier. But the assertion, which ever way understood, is un-
true. Malone.

sc. 111. KING HENRY VI. 223

* York. Lords, let him go\ — Please it your ma-

jesty,

* This is the day appointed for the combat ;

* And ready are the appellant and defendant,

* The armourer and his man, to enter the lists,

* So please your highness to behold the fight.

* Q. Mar. Ay, good my lord ; for purposely

therefore

* Left I the court, to see this quarrel tried.

' K. Hen. O' God's name, see the lists and all
things fit ;

* Here let them end it, and God defend the right !

* York. I never saw a fellow worse bested "",

* Or more afraid to fight, than is the appellant,

* The servant of this armourer, my lords.

Enter, on one side, Horner, and his Neigliboiirs,
dinnking to him so much that he is drunk; and he
enters bearing his staff wit Jl a sand-bag fastened
to it^ ; a drum before him: at the other side, Pe-
ter, with a drum and a similar staff; accompa-
nied by Prentices drinking to him.
1 Neigh. Here, neighbour Horner, I drink to you

Suffolk's meaning may be : — " The pride of Eleanor dies before
it has reached maturity." It is by no means unnatural to sup-
pose, that had the designs of a proud woman on a crown suc-
ceeded, she might have been prouder than she was before.

Steevens.

' Lords, let him go.] i. e. Let him pass out of your thoughts.
Duke Humphrey had already left the stage. Steevens.

* — worse bested,] In a worse plight. Johnson.

3 — 'voith a sand-bag fastened to it ;'] As, according to the old
laws of duels, knights were to fight with the lance and sword ; so
those of inferior rank fought with an ebon staff or battoon, to the
farther end of which was fixed a bag crammed hard with sand.
To this custom Hudibras has alluded in these humorous lines :

" Engag'd with money-bags, as bold

" As men with sand-bags did of old." Warburton.
Mr. Sympson, in his notes on Ben Jonson, observes, that a pas-
sage in St. Chrysostom very clearly proves the great antiquity of
this practice. Steevens.

224 SECOND PART OF act ii,

in a cup of sack ; And fear not, neighbour, you shall
do well enough.

2 Neigh. And here, neighbour, here's a cup of
charneco *.

3 Neigh. And here's a pot of good double beer,
neighbour : drink, and fear not your man.

Hon. Let it come, i' faith, and I'll pledge you all ;
And a fig for Peter !

1 Prex. Here, Peter, I drink to thee ; and be
not afraid.

12 FiiEx. Be merry, Peter, and fear not thy mas-
ter ; fight for credit of the prentices.

Peter. I thank you all : * drink, and pray for me,

* I pray you ; for, 1 think, I have taken my last

* draught in this world ■'.* — Here, Robin, an if I die,

4 — a cup of charneco.] A common name for a sort of sweet
wine, as appears from a passage in a pamphlet intitled The Disco-
very of a London Monster, called the Black Dog of Newgate,
printed 1612 : " Some drinking the neat wine of Orleance, some
the Gascony, some the Bourdeaux. There wanted neither sherry,
sack, nor charneco, maligo, nor amber-colour'd Candy, nor liquor-
ish ipocras, brown beloved bastard, fat Aligant, or any quick-spi-
rited liquor." And as charnecn is, in Spanish, the name of a kind
of turpentine-tree, I imagine the growth of it was in some district
abounding with that tree ; or that it had its name from a certain
flavour resembling it. Warburton.

In a pamphlet entitled, \Ant's Miserie, or the World's Madne.ss,

printed in 1596, it is said, that " the only medicine for the fleghm»

is three cups oi charneco, fasting."

Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's \\'\i Without Money :

" Where no old charneco is, nor no anchovies."
Again, in Decker's Honest Whore, 1630, Part II. :
" Imprimis, a pottle of Greek wine, a pottle of Peter-sameene, a

pottle of charneco, and a pottle of Ziattica."
Again, in The Fair Maid of the West, 1615 :
' " Aragoosa, or Peter-see-me, canary, or charneco."
Charneco is the name of a village near Lisbon, where this

wine was made. See the European Magazine, for March, 1794-.
•' ' Steevens.

5 I have taken my last draught in this world.] Gay has bor-
rowed this idea in his What d'ye call it, where Peascod says:

" Stay, let me pledge — 'tis mij last earthly liquor."

sc, in. KING HENRY VI. 225

I give thee my apron ; and. Will, thou shalt have my
hammer : — and here, Tom, take all the money that
I have. — O Lord, bless me, I pray God ! for 1 am
never able to deal with my master, he hath learnt
so much fence already.

S.<iL. Come, leave your drinking, and fall to
blows. — Sirrah, what's thy name .^

Peter. Peter, forsooth.

Sal. Peter ! what more ?

Peter. Thump.

Sal. Thump! then see thou thump thy master
well.

Hon. Masters, I am come hither, as it were,
upon my man's instigation, to prove him a knave,
and myself an honest man : * and touching the
*' duke of York, — will take my death, I never
meant him any ill, nor the king, nor the queen :
* And therefore, Peter, have at thee with a down-
right blow,* as Be vis of Southampton fell upon As-
capart ^.

* York. Despatch : this knave's tongue begins to
doubled

Peascod's subsequent bequest is likewise copied from Peter's
division of his moveables. Steevens.

^ — as Bevis of Southampton fell upon Ascapart.] I have
added this from the old quarto. Warburton.

Ascapart — the giant of the story — a name familiar to our an-
cestors, is mentioned by Dr. Donne :

"Those Asccqmrts, men big enough to throw
" Charing-cross for abar," &c. Johnson.

The figures of these combatants are still preserved on the gates
of Southampton. Steevens.

Shakspeare not having adopted these words, according to the
hypothesis already stated, they ought perhaps not to be here in-
troduced. However, I am not so wedded to my own opinion,
as to oppose it to so many preceding editors, in a matter of so
little importance. Malone.

7 — this knave's tongue begins to double.] So, in Holinsheti,
whose narrative Shakspeare has deserted, by making the armourer
confess treason :

VOL. XVIII, Q

226 SECOND PART OF ^ct lu

^ Sound trumpets, alarum to the combatants.
\Alarum, They fight, and Peter strikes dozvn
his Master.
HoR. Hold, Peter, hold ! I confess, I confess
treason. [Dies.

* York. Take away his weapon : — Fellow,
thank

" In the same yeare also, a certeine armourer was appeached
of treason by a servant of his owne. For proofe whereof a dale
Avas giuen them to fight in Smithfield, insomuch that in conflict
the said armourer was ouercome and slaine ; but yet by raisgo-
uerning of himselfe. For on the morrow, when he should haue
come to the field fresh and fasting, his neighbours came to him,
and gaue him wine and strong drink in such excessive sort, that
he was therewith distempered, and reeled as he went ; and
so was slain without guilt : as for the false seruant, he liued not
long," &c.

By favour of Craven Ord, Esq. I have now before me the ori-
ginal Exchequer record of expences attending this memorable
combat. From hence it appears that William Catour, the Ar-
mourer, was not killed by his opponent John Dav)', but worsted,
and immediately afterwards hanged. The following is the last
article in the account ; and was struck off by the Barons of Ex-
chequer, because it contained charges unauthorised by the Sheriffs.

" Also paid to officers for watchyng of ye ded")
man in Smyth felde ye same day and ye nyghte j
aftyr yt ye bataill was doon, and for hors hyre j
for ye oificeres at ye execucion doyng, and for | ,

ye hangman's labor, xj% vi''. ! o

" Also paid for ye cloth yat lay upon ye ded f ^^^ '^"'

man in Smyth felde, viij''. j

" Also paid for 1 pole and nayllis, and for |
.settyng up of ye said mannys hed on london j
Brigge, v.-"." J

The sum total of expence incurred on this occa-
sion was ^.10 18 9.

I know not why Shakspeare has called the Armourer Horner.
The name of one of the Sherifts indeed was Home, as appears
from the record before me, which will be printed at full length by
Mr. Nichols in one of his valuable collections. Steevens.

It has been printed in his work entitled Illustrations of the
Manners and Expences of Antient Times in England, 4to. 1797.
See more on this subject in Mr. Douce's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 8.

BoSWELt.

sc. IV. KING HENRY VI. 227

* God, and the good wine in thy master's way.

* Peter. O God ! have I overcome mine ene-
' mies in this presence ^ O Peter, thou hast prevailed

* in right !

K. Hen. Go, take hence that traitor from our
sight ;
For, by his death, we do perceive his guilt ^ :
And God, in justice, hath reveal'd to us
The truth and innocence of this poor fellow,
Which he had thought to have murder'd wrong-
fully.—
Come, fellow, follow us for thy reward. \Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

The Same. A Street.

Enter Gloster and Servaiits, in mourning Cloaks,

* Glo. Thus, sometimes, hath the brightest day
a cloud ;

* And, after summer, evermore succeeds

* Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold ^ :

^ For, by his death, we do perceive his guilt :] According to
the ancient usage of the duel, the vanquished person not only lost
his life but his reputation, and his death was always regarded as
a certain evidence of his guilt. We have a remarkable instance
of this in an account of the Duellum inter Dominum Johannem
Hannesly, Militem, et Robertum Katlenton, Armigerum, in
quo Robei'tus fuit occisus. From whence, says the historian,
" magna fuit evidentia quod militis causa erat vera, ex quo mors
alterius sequebatur." A. Murimuth, ad. an. 1380, p. HQ.

BoWLE.

9 Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold :] So, in
Sackville's Induction :

" The •wratlifid "whiter 'proaching on apace." Reed.

I would read — i?flre winter — for the sake of the metre, which is
uncommonly harsh, if the word barren be retained. Steevens.

q2

228 SECOND PART OF act u.

* So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet \ —
Sirs, what's o'clock ?

Serv. Ten, my lord * '.

* Glo. Ten is the hour that was appointed me,

* To watch the coming of my punish'd duchess:

* Uneath ^ may she endure the flinty streets,

* To tread them with her tender-feeling feet.
Sweet Nell, ill can thy noble mind abrook
The abject people, gazing on thy face.

With envious ^ looks still laughing at thy shame ^ ;
That erst did follow thy proud chariot wheels,
When thou didst ride in triumph through the
streets.

* But, soft! I think, she comes ; and I'll prepare

* My tear-stain'd eyes to see her miseries.

* Quarto : — "■ Glo. Sii ra, what's o'clock ?
" Serv. Almost ten, my lord."

' — as seasons fleet.] Tojleet is to change. So, in Antony
and Cleopatra :

" now thejieeih/g moon

*' No planet is of mine." Steevens.
Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary supposes to fleet (as here used)
to be the same as to Jiit ; that is, to be in ajiiux or transient state,
to pass aticay . Malone.

^ Ten, my lord.] For the sake of metre, I am willing to sup-
pose this hemistich, as originally written, stood —
" 'Tis ten o'clock, my lord." Steevens.
3 Uneath — ] i. e. scarcely. Pope.

So, in the metrical romance of Guy Earl of Warwick, bl.l. no date :
" Uneathes we came from him certain,
" That he ne had us all slain."
T!,ath 'is the ancient word for ease or easy. So, in Spenser's
Fairy Queen, b. iv. c. vi. :

" More eath was new impression to receive."
Uneath is commonly used by the same author for 7iot easily.

Steevexs.

■* — envious — ] i. e. malicious. Thus Ophelia, in Hamlet,

is said to " spurn enviously at straws." See note on this passage.

Steevens.
5 With envious looks still laughing at thy shame ;] StiU,
which is not in the elder copies, was added in the second folio.

Malone.

sc. jr. KING HENRY VI. 229

Enter the Duchess of Glosteh, in a white sheet,
with papers pimi'd upon her back, her feet bare,
and a taper burning iti her hand-y Sir John
Stanley, a Sheriff, and Officers.

Serf. So please your grace, we'll take her from

the sheriff.
* Glo. No, sth" not, for your lives ; let her pass

by^
DucH. Come you, my lord, to see my open

shame ?
Now thou dost penance too. Look, how they

gaze !

* See, how the giddy multitude do point,

' And nod their heads, and throw their eyes on thee !

* Ah, Gloster, hide thee from their hateful looks ;

* And, in thy closet pent up, rue my shame,
And ban thine enemies, both mine and thine.

Glo. Be patient, gentle Nell ; forget this grief.

DucH. Ah, Gloster, teach me to forget myself:
For, whilst 1 think I am thy married wife.
And thou a prince, protector of this land,

* Methinks, I should not thus be led along,
Mail'd up in shame '', with papers on my back ;

* And follow'd with a rabble, that rejoice

* To see my tears, and hear my deep-fet ^ groans.
The ruthless flint doth cut my tender feet ;

And, when I start, the envious people laugh.
And bid me be advised how I tread.

* Ah, Humphrey, can I bear this shameful yoke ?

^ No, stir not, &c.] In the original play thus :
" I charge you for your lives, stir not a foot ;
" Nor otter once to draw a weapon here,
" But let them do their office as they should." Malone.

7 Mail'd up in shame,] JFrapped up, bundled up 171 disgrace;
alluding to the sheet of penance. Johnson.

8 — deep-FET — ] i.e. deep-fefc/ied. So, in King Henry V. :

" Whose blood if^Ji't from fathers of war-proof."

Steevens.

230' ^ SECOND PART OF act w

* Trow'st thou, that e'er I'll look upon the world ;

* Or count them happy, that enjoy the sun ?

* No ; dark shall be my light, and night my day ;

* To think upon my pomp, shall be my hell.
Sometime I'll say, I am duke Humphrey's wife ;
And he a prince, and ruler of the land :

Yet so he rul'd, and such a prince he was.
As he stood by, whilst I, his forlorn duchess,

* Was made a wonder, and a pointing-stock.
To every idle rascal follower.

But be thou mild, and blush not at my shame :
Nor stir at nothing, till the axe of death
Hang over thee, as, sure, it shortly will.
For Suffolk,— he that can do all in all

* With her, that hateth thee, and hates us all, —
And York, and impious Beaufort, that false priest,
Have all lim'd bushes to betray thy wings,

And, fly thou how thou canst, they'll tangle thee :

* But fear not thou, until thy foot be snaVd,

* Nor never seek prevention of thy foes.

* Glo. Ah, Nell, forbear; thou aimest all awry ;

* I must offend, before I be attainted :

* And had I twenty times so many foes,

* And each of them had twenty times their power,

* All these could not procure me any scathe ■',

* So long as I am loyal, true, and crimeless.

* Would'st have me rescue thee from this reproach ?
' Why, yet thy scandal were not wip'd away,

* But I in danger for the breach of law.

* Thy greatest help is quiet \ gentle Nell :

* I pray thee, sort thy heart to patience ;

9 — any scathe,] Scalhe is /larm, or mischief. Chaucer,
Spenser, and all our ancient writers, are frequent in their use of
this word. Steevens.

It is still used in Scotland. Boswell.

* Thy greatest help is quiet,] The poet has not endeavoured
to raise much compassion for the Duchess, who indeed suffers but
what she had deserved. Johnson.

sc. jr. KING HENRY VI. 23 1

* These few days' wonder will be quickly worn.

Enter a Herald.

Her. I summon your grace to his majesty's
parliament, holden at Bury the first of this next
month.

Glo. And my consent ne'er ask'd herein be-
fore ! '
This is close dealing. — Well, I will be there.

\_E2it Herald.'
My Nell, I take my leave : — and, master sheriff.
Let not her penance exceed the king's commission.
' Sher. An't please your grace, here my com-
mission sta^^s :

* And sir John Stanley is appointed now

* To take her with him to the isle of Man.

* Glo. Must you, sir John, protect my lady here ?

* St^n. So am I given in charge, may't please

your grace.
Glo. Entreat her not the worse, in that I pray
You use her well : the world may laugh again '" ;
And I may live to do you kindness, if
You do it her. And so, sir John, farewell.

DucH. What gone, my lord ; and bid me not
farewell ?

* Glo. Witness my tears, I cannot stay to speak.

[JL.vcunt Gloster and Serjeants.

* DucH. Art thou gone too ? * All comfort go

with thee !

* For none abides with me : my joy is — death ;

* Death, at whose name I oft have been afear'd,

* Because I wish'd this world's eternity. —

* Stanley, I pr'ythee, go, and take me hence ;

* I care not whither, for I beg no favour,

* Only convey me where thou art commanded.

^ — the world may laugh again ;] That is. The world may
look again favourably upon me. Johnson.

232 SECOND PART OF act ii

* Stan. Why, madam, that is to the isle of Man ;

* There to be used according to your state.

* DucH. That's bad enough, for I am but re-

proach :

* And shall I then be us'd reproachfully ?

* Stax. Like to a duchess, and duke Humphrey's

lady,

* According to that state you shall be used.

* DucH. Sheriff, farewell, and better than I fare ;

* Although thou hast been conduct of my shame ^ !

* Sher. It is my office ; and, madam, pardon

me.

* DucH. Ay, ay, farewell ; thy office is dis-

charg'd. —

* Come, Stanley, shall we go ?

' Stan. Madam, your penance done, throw off

this sheet,
' And go we to attire you for our journey.

' Ducii. My shame will not be shifted with my

sheet :

* No, it will hang upon my richest robes,

* And show itself, attire me how I can.

* Go, lead the way ; I long to see my prison ^.

\_E.veunt.

3 — CONDUCT of my shame !] i. e. conductor. So, in Romeo
and Juliet :

" Come, l)itter conduct, come, unsavoury guide."
Again :

" And fire-ey'd fury be my conduct now." Steevens.
4—1 long to see my prison.] This impatience of a high,
spirit is very natural. It is not so dreadful to be imprisoned, as it
is desirable in a state of disgrace to be sheltered from the scorn
of gazers. Johnson.

This is one of those touches that certainly came from the hand
of Shakspeare ; for these words are not in the old play. Malone.
Rowe, in Tamerlane, has put a similar sentiment in the mouth
of Bajazet :

" Come, lead me to my dungeon ; plunge me down,
'• Deep from the hated sight of man and day ;

ACT III. KING HENRY VI. 233

ACT III. SCENE I.

The Abbey at Bury.

Enter to the Parliament, King Henry, Queen
Margaret, Cardinal Beaufort, Suffolk, York,
Buckingham, and Others.

' K. Hex. I muse ^ my lord of Gloster is not
come :

* 'Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man,

* Whate'er occasion l^eeps him from us now.

' Q. Mar. Can you not see ? or will you not ob-
serve

* The strangeness of his alter'd countenance ?

* With what a majesty he bears himself;

* How insolent of late he is become,

* How proud, how peremptory ^ and unlike him-

self ?

* We know the time, since he was mild and affa-

ble;

* And, if we did but glance a far-off look,

* Immediately he was upon his knee,

* That all the court admir'd him for submission :
' But meet him now, and, be it in the morn,

* When everyone will give the tim.e of day,

* He knits his brow, and shows an angry eye,
' And passeth by with stiff unbowed knee,

* Disdaining duty that to us belongs.

* Small curs are not regarded, when they grin ;

" Where, under covert of the friendly darkness,
" My soul may brood, at leisure, o'er its anguish."

BOSWELL.

i I muse,] i. e. I wonder. So, in Macbeth :

" Do not 7nuse at me, my most worthy friends."

Steevens.
^ — peremptory,] Old copy, redundantly :

♦' . hoxv peremptory — ." Steevens.

234 SECOND PART OF act iiL

But great men tremble, when the lion roars ;
And Humphrey is no little man in England.
First, note, that he is near you in descent ;
And should you fall, he is the next will mount.
Me seemeth ^ then, it is no policy, —
Respecting what a rancorous mind he bears.
And his advantage following your decease, —
That he should come about your royal person.
Or be admitted to your highness' council.
By flattery hath he won the commons' hearts ;
And, when he please to make commotion,
'Tis to be fear'd, they all will follow him.
Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted ;
Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden.
And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.
The reverent care, I bear unto my lord.
Made me collect ^ these dangers in the duke.
If it be fond ^, call it a woman's fear ;
Which fear if better reasons can supplant,
I will subscribe and say — I wrong'd the duke.
My lord of Suffolk, — Buckingham., — and York, —
Reprove my allegation, if you can ;
Or else conclude my words effectual.
* SuF. Well hath your highness seen into this
duke ;
* And, had I first been put to speak my mind,
I think, I should have told your grace's tale \

7 Me seemeth — ] That is, it seemeth to me, a word more
grammatical than methinkr., which has, I know not how, intruded
into its place. Johnson.

* — collect — ] i. e. assemble by observation. Steevens.
9 If it be FOND,] i. e. weak, foolish. So, in Coriolanus :

" 'Tis /o«fif to wail inevitable strokes."
Again, in Timon of Athens :

" Why Aofond men exjjose themselves to battle ? "

Steevens.

• — your grace's tale.] Suffolk uses higliness and ^t^cc promis-
cuously to the Queen. Majestij was not the settled title till the
time of King James the First. Johnson.

sc. IF. KING HENRY VI. 236

* The duchess, by his subornation,

* Upon my life, began her devilish practices :

* Or if he were not privy to those faults,

* Yet, by reputing of his high descent ',

* (As next the king, he v/as successive heir,)

* And such high vaunts of his nobility,

* Did instigate the bedlam brain-sick duchess,

* By wicked means to frame our sovereign's fall.
Smooth runs the water, where the brook is deep ;

* And in his simple show he harbours treason.
The fox barks not, when he would steal the lamb.
No, no, my sovereign ; Gloster is a man
Unsounded yet, and full of deep deceit.

* Car. Did he not, contrary to form of law,

* Devise strange deaths for small offences done ?

York. And did he not, in his protectorship,
^ Levy great sums of money through the realm,

* For soldiers' pay in France, and never sent it ?

^ By means whereof, the towns each day revolted.

* Buck. Tut ! these are petty faults to faults un-

known,

* Which time will bring to light in smooth duke

Humphrey.

* K. Hen. My lords, at once : The care you have

of us,

* To mow down thorns that would annoy our foot,

* Is worthy praise : But shall I speak my conscience ?

* Our kinsman Gloster is as innocent

* From meaning treason to our royal person,

* As is the sucking lamb, or harmless dove :

* The duke is virtuous, mild ; and too well given,

* Yet, by reputing of his high descent,] Thus the old copy.
The modern editors read — repeating. " Reputing of his high
descent," is valuing himself upon it. The same word occurs in
the 5th Act :

" And in my conscience do repute his grace," &c.

Steevens.

236 SECOND PART OF act iiu

* To dream on evil, or to work my downfall.

* Q. Mar. Ah, what's more dangerous than this

fond affiance !

* Seems he a dove ? his feathers are but borrow'd,

* For he's disposed as the hateful raven.

* Is he a lamb .^ his skin is surely lent him,

* For he's inclin'd as are the ravenous wolves,

* Who cannot steal a shape, that means deceit .^

* Take heed, my lord ; the welfare of us all

* Hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man.

Enter S031ERSET. ""

* SoM. All health unto my gracious sovereign !
K. Hen. Welcome, lord Somerset. What news

from France ?

* SoM. That all your interest in those territories

* Is utterly bereft you ; all is lost.

K. Hen. Cold news, lord Somerset : But God's

will be done !
York. Cold news for me ^ ; for I had hope of
France,
As firmly as I hope for fertile England.

* Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud,
^ And caterpillars eat my leaves away :

* But I will remedy this gear * ere long,

* Or sell my title for a glorious grave. \_Aside.

Enter Gloster.

* Glo. All happiness unto my lord the king !

3 Cold news for me; &c.] These two lines York had spoken
before in the first Act of this play. Me is now meditating on his
disappointment, and comparing his former hopes with his j)resent

lass. StE EVENS.

4 — this GEAR — ] Gem- was a general word for things or
matters. Johnson.

tSo, in the story of King Darius, an interlude, 1565 :
" Wyll not yet this gere be amended,
" Nor your sinful acts corrected ? " Steevens.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 237

Pardon my liege, that I have staid so long.

SuF. Nay, Gloster, know, that thou art come too
soon,

* Unless thou wert more loyal than thou art :
I do arrest thee of high treason here.

Glo. Well, Suffolk's duke \ thou shalt not see me
blush.
Nor change my countenance for this arrest ;

* A heart unspotted is not easily daunted.

* The purest spring is not so free from mud,

* As I am clear from treason to my sovereign :
Who can accuse me ? wherein am I guilty ?

York. 'Tis thought, my lord, that you took bribes
of France,
And, being protector, stayed the soldiers' pay;
By means whereof, his highness hath lost France.
Glo. Is it but thought so ? What are they that
think it ?
' I never robb'd the soldiers of their pay,
' Nor ever had one penny bribe from France.

* So help me God, as I have watch'd the night, —

* Ay, night by night, — in studying good for Eng-

land !

* That doit that e'er I wrested from the king,

* Or any groat I hoarded to my use,

* Be brought against me at my trial day !

* No ! many a pound of mine own proper store,

* Because I would not tax the needy commons,

i Well, Suffolk, YET — ] Yet was added in the second folio.
Mr. Malone reads —

" Well, Suffolk's duker &c.

But this is, perhaps, too respectful an address from an adver-
sary. The reading of the second folio is, in my opinion, prefer-
able, though the authority on which it is founded cannot be as-
certained. Steevens.

The first folio has—'' Well, Suffolk, thou—r The defect of
the metre shows that the word was omitted, which I have sup-
plied from the old play. Malone.

238 SECOJVD PART OF act iiu

' Have I dispursed to the garrisons,
' And never ask'd for restitution.

* Car. It serves you well, my lord, to say so

much.

* Glo. I say no more than truth, so help me God !
YoBK. In your protectorship, you did devise

Strange tortures for offenders, never heard of.
That England was defam'd by tyranny.

Glo. Why, "tis well known, that whiles I was
protector.
Pity was all the fault that was in me ;

* For I should melt at an offender's tears,

* And lov/ly words were ransom for their fault.

* Unless it were a bloody murderer,

* Or foul felonious thief that fleec'd poor passengers,
' I never gave them condign punishment :

* Murder, indeed, that bloody sin, I tortur'd
' Above the felon, or what trespass else.

* SuF. My lord, these faults are easy^, quickly

answer'd :

* But mightier crimes are laid unto your charge,

* Whereof you cannot easily purge yourself.

* I do arrest you in his highness' name ;

* And here commit you to my lord cardinal

* To keep, until your further time of trial.

' K, Hen. My lord of Gloster, 'tis my special
hope,

* That you will clear yourself from all suspects ^ ;

6 — these faults are easy,] Easy is sligJit, imonsideraUe, as
in other passages of this author. Johnson.

See vol. xvi. p. 209, n, 5. Boswell.

The word, no doubt, means — easily. Ritson.

This explanation is, I believe, the true one. Easy is an adjec-
tive used adverbially. Steevens.

1 — from all suspects;] The folio reads — suspence. The
emendation was suggested by Mr. Steevens. The corresponding
line in the original play stands thus :

" Good uncle, obey to this arrest ;

" I have no doubt but thou shalt clear thyself." Malone.

sc. J. KING HENRY VI. . 239

My conscience tells me, you are innocent.

Glo. Ah, gracious lord, these days are dangerous!

* Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition,

* And charity chas'd hence by rancour's hand ;

* Foul subornation is predominant,

* And equity exil'd your highness' land.

* I know, their complot is to have my life ;

* And, if my death might make this island happy,

* And prove the period of their tyranny,

* I would expend it with all willingness :

* But mine is made the prologue to their play ;

* For thousands more, that yet suspect no peril,
' Will not conclude their plotted tragedy.

* Beaufort's red sparkling eyes blab his heart's ma-

lice,
' And Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate ;

* Sharp Buckingham unburdens with his tongue
' The envious load that lies upon his heart ;

' And dogged York, that reaches at the moon,

* Whose overweening arm I have pluck'd back,

* By false accuse ^ doth level at my hfe : —

* And you, my sovereign lady, with the rest,

* Causeless have laid disgraces on my head ;

* And with your best endeavour, have stirr'd up

* My liefest ^ liege to be mine enemy : —

* Ay, all of you have laid your heads together,

* Myself had notice of your conventicles,

' I shall not want false witness to condemn me,
' Nor store of treasons to augment my guilt ;

So, in a following scene :

" If my suspect be false, forgive me, God ! " Steevens.

8 — accuse — ] i. e. accusation. Steevens.

9 — liefest — ] Is dearest. Johnson.
So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b, ii. Sc. ii. :

" ■ ' Madam, my lief,

" For God's dear love," 8^c.
Again, c. ii. :

" ■ Fly, oh my liefest lord." Steevens.
See p. 168, n. 5. Malone.

240 SECOND PART OF .jct in.

* The ancient proverb will be well affected, —
A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.

* C.-iR. My liege, his railing is intolerable :

* If those that care to keep your royal person

* From treason's secret knife, and traitors' rage,
^ Be thus upbraided, chid, and rated at,

* And the offender granted scope of speech,

* 'Twill make them cool in zeal unto your grace.
SuF. Hath he not twit our sovereign lady here,

* With ignominious words, though clerkly couch'd,

* As if she had suborned some to swear

* False allegations to o'erthrow his state ?

' Q. M.iR. But I can give the loser leave to chide.
Glo. Far truer spoke, than meant: I lose, in-
deed;—

* Beshrew the winners, for they played me false !

* And well such losers may have leave to speak.
Buck. He'll wrest t?ie sense, and hold us here all

day: —

* Lord cardinal, he is your prisoner.

* Car. Sirs, take away the duke, and guard him

sure.
Glo. Ah, thus king Henry throws away his
crutch,
Before his legs be firm to bear his body :

* Thus is the shepherd beaten from thy side,

' And wolves are gnarling who shall gnaw thee first.

* Ah, that my fear were false ^ ! ah, that it were !

* For, good king Henry, thy decay I fear.

[E.veunt Jltteiidants xvith Gloster,
K. Hen. My lords, what to your wisdoms seem-
eth best,

* Ah, that my fear were false ! &c.] The variation is here
worth noting. In the original play, instead of these two lines, we
have the following :

" Farewell my sovereign ; long may'st thou enjoy

" Thy father's liappy days, free from annoy ! " Malone,

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 241

Do, or undo, as if ourself were here.

Q. Mar. What, will your highness leave the par-
liament ?
K. Hen. Ay, Margaret"; my heart is drown'd
with grief,

* Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes ;

* My body round engirt with misery;

* For what's more miserable than discontent .^ —

* Ah, uncle Humphrey ! in thy face I see

* The map of honour ^ truth, and loyalty ;

* And yet, good Humphrey, is the hour to come,

* That e'er I prov'd thee false, or fear'd thy faith.

* What low'ring star now envies thy estate,

* That these great lords, and Margaret our queen,

* Do seek subversion of thy harmless life ?

* Thou never didst them wrong, nor no man wrong:

* And as the butcher takes away the calf,

* And binds the wretch, and beats it when it strays*,

* Ay, Margaret ; &c,] Of this speech the only traces in the
quarto are the following lines. In the King's speech a line seems
to be lost :

" Queen. What, will your highness leave the parliament ?

" King. Yea, Margaret; my heart is kill'd with grief;

* * * * * *°^t

" Where I may sit, and sigh in endless moan,

" For who's a traitor, Gloster he is none."
If, therefore, according to the conjecture already suggested,
these plays were originally the composition of another author, the
speech before us belongs to Shakspeare. It is observable that
one of the expressions in it is found in his Richard II. and in The
Rape of Lucrece ; and in perusing the subsequent lines one can-
not help recollecting the trade which his father has by some been
supposed to have followed. M alone.

3 The MAP of honour,] In King Richard II. if I remember
right, we have the same words. Again, in The Rape of Lucrece :

" Showing life's triumph in the 7nap of death." Malone.

4 And as the butcher takes away the calf.

And binds the wretch, and beats it when it strays,] But how
can it strai/ when it is bound? The poet certainly intended when
it strives ; i. e. when it struggles to get loose. And so he else-
where employs this word. Thirlby.
VOI,. XVllI. R

242 SECOND PART OF act ni.

* Bearing it to the bloody slaughter-house ;

* Even SO) remorseless, have they borne him hence.

* And as the dam runs lowing up and dovm,

'* Looking the way her harmless young one went,

* And can do nought but wail her darling's loss ;

* Even so myself bewails good Gloster's case,

* With sad unhelpful tears ; and with dimm'd eyes

* Look after him, and cannot do him good ;

* So mighty are his vowed enemies.

* His fortunes I will weep ; and, 'twixt each groan,

* Say — Who's a trait or? Gloster he is none. [E.vit.

* Q. Mar. Free lords ^, cold snow melts with the
sun's hot beams.

* Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,

* Too full of foolish pity : and Gloster's show

* Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile

* With sorrow snares relenting passengers ;

This emendation is admitted by the succeeding editors, and I
had once put it in the text. I am, however, inchned to believe
that in this passage, as in many, there is a confusion of ideas, and
that the poet had at once before him a butcher carrying a calf
bound, and a butcher driving a calf to the slaughter, and beating
him when he did not keep the path. Part of the line was sug-
gested by one image, and part by anothier, so that strive is the
best word, but stray is the right. Johnson.

There needs no alteration. It is common for butchers to tie a
rope or halter about the neck of a calf when they take it away
from the breeder's farm, and to beat it gently if it attempts to
stray from the direct road. The Duke of Gloster is borne away
like the calf, that is, he is taken away upon his feet; but he is
not carried away as a burthen on horseback, or upon men's shoul-
ders, or in their hands. TOLLET.

5 Free lords, &c.] By this she means (as may be seen by the
sequel) you, who are not bound up to such precise regards of re-
ligion as is the King; but are men of the world, and know how to
live. War BURT ON

So, in Twelfth-Night :

" And ihejfrce maids that weave," &c.

Again, in Milton :

" thou goddess fair and Jree,

" In heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne." Steevens.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 243

* Or as the snake, roU'd in a flowering bank ^

* With shining checker'd slough, doth sting a child,

* That for the beauty, thinks it excellent.

* Believe me, lords, were none more wise than I,

* (And yet, herein, I judge mine own wit good,)

* This Gloster should be quickly rid the world,

* To rid us from the fear we have of him.

* Car. That he should die is worthy policy ;

* But yet we want a colour for his death :

* 'Tis meet he be condemn'd by course of law.

* SuF. But, in my mind that were no policy :

* The king will labour still to save his life ;

* The commons haply rise to save his life ;

* And yet we have but trivial argument,

* More than mistrust, that shows him worthy death.

* York. So that, by this, you would not have

him die.

* SuF. Ah, York, no man alive so fain as I.

* York. 'Tis York that hath more reason for his

death ^. —

* But, my lord cardinal, and you, my lord of Suf-

folk,—

* Say, as you think, and speak it from your souls, —

* Wer't not all one, an empty eagle were set

* To guard the chicken from a hungry kite,

^ — IN a flowering bank,] i. e. in the flowers growing on a
bank. Some of the modern editions read unnecessarily — on a
flowering bank. Malone.

7 'Tis York that hath more reason for his death.] Why York had
more reason than the rest for desiring Humphrey's death, is not
very clear ; he had only decided the deliberation about the regency
of France in favour of Somerset. Johnson.

York had more reason, because Duke Humphrey stood between
him and the crown, which he had proposed to himself as the ter-
mination of his ambitious views. So, p. 251 :

" For Humphrey being dead, as he shall be,

" And Henry put apart, the next for me." Steevens.

See Sir John Fenn's Observations on the Duke of Suftblk's
death, in the collection of The Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 48.

Henley.

P. 2

244 SECOND PART OF act hi.

* As place duke Humphrey for the king's protector?

Q. Mar. So the poor chicken should be sure of

death.
* SuF. Madam, 'tis true : And wer't not madness

then,

* To make the fox surveyor of the fold ?

* Who being accus'd a crafty murderer,

* His guilt should be but idly posted over,

* Because his purpose is not executed.

* No ; let him die, in that he is a fox,

* By nature prov'd an enemy to the flock,

* Before his chaps be stain d with crimson blood ;
' As Humphrey, prov'd by reasons, to my liege ^ .

^ No ; let him die, in that he is a fox.
By nature prov'd an enemy to the flock.
Before his chaps be stain'd with crimson blood ;
As Humphrey, prov'd by reasons, to my liege.] The mean-
ing of the speaker is not hard to be discovered, but his expression
is very much perplexed. He means that the fox may be lawfully
killed, as being known to be by nature an enemy to sheep, even
before he has actually killed them ; so Humphrey may be pro-
perly destroyed, as being prov'd by arguments to be the King's
enemy, before he has committed any actual crime.

Some may be tempted to read treasons for reasons, but the
drift of the argument is to show that there may be reason to kill
him before any treason has broken out. Johnson.

This passage, as Johnson justly observes, is perplexed, but the
perplexity arises from an error that ought to be corrected, which
it may be by the change of a single letter. What is it that
Humphrey proved by reasons to the King? — This line, as it stands,
is absolutely nonsense : — But if we read Humphrey s, instead of
Hiimphreij, and reason instead of reasons, the. letter s having been
transferred through inadvertency from one word to the other, the
meaning of Suffolk will be clearly expressed ; and if we enclose
also the third line in a parenthesis, the passage will scarcely re-
quire either explanation or comment :

" No ; let him die, in that he is a fox,
" By nature prov'd an enemy to the flock,
" (Before his chaps be stain'd with crimson blood)
" As Humphrey's prov'd by reason to my liege."
Suffolk's argument is this: — As Humphrey is the next heir to
the crown, it is as imprudent to make hira protector to the King,
as it would be to make the fox surveyor of the fold ; and as we

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 24^

* And do not stand on quillets how to slay him :

* Be it by gins, by snares, by subtilty,

* Sleeping, or waking, 'tis no matter how,

* So he be dead ; for that is good deceit

* Which mates him first, that first intends deceit ^.

* Q. M^R. Thrice noble Suffolk, 'tis resolutely

spoke.

* SuF. Not resolute, except so much were done ;
=* For things are often spoke, and seldom meant :

* But, that my heart accordeth with my tongue, —

* Seeing the deed is meritorious,

* And to preserve my sovereign from his foe, —

kill a fox before he has actually worried any of the sheep, be-
cause we know that by nature he is an enemy to the flock, so we
should get rid of Humphrey, because we know that he must be
by reaso7i an enemy to the King. M. Mason.

As seems to be here used for like. Sir T. Hanmer reads, with
some probability. As Humphreys prov'd, &c. In the original
play, instead of these lines, we have the following speech :
" Siif. And so think I, madam ; for as you know,
" If our king Henry had shook hands with death,
" Duke Humphrey then would look to be our king.
" And it may be, by policy he works,
" To bring to pass the thing which now we doubt,
" The fox barks not, when he would steal the lamb ;
" But if we take him ere he doth the deed,
" We should not question if that he should live.
" No, let him die, in that he is a fox,
" Lest that in living he offend us more." Malone.
Although it cannot be said that Humphrey is an enemy by his
nature like the wolk, reasons or ar<yuments have been adduced
which put it equally beyond doubt, Boswell.
9 — for that is good deceit
Which MATES him first, that first intends deceit,] " Mates
him " means — that first puts an end to his moving. To mate is a
term in chess, used when the King is stopped from moving, and
an end put to the game. Percy.

Mates him, means confounds him ; from amatir or mater, Fr.
To mate is no term in chess. Cliech mate, the term alluded to,
is a corruption of the Persian schah mat ; the king is killed.

RiTSON,

2 o mate, I believe, means here, as in many other places in our
author's plays, to confound or destroy ; from matar. Span, to kill.
See vol, xi. p. 243, n. 5. Malone.

246 SECOND PART OF act iii.

* Say but the word, and I will be his priest ^

* Car. But I would have him dead, my lord of

Suffolk,

* Ere you can take due orders for a priest :

* Say, you consent, and censure well the deed \

* And I'll provide his executioner,

* I tender so the safety of my liege.

* SuF. Here is my hand, the deed is worthy

doing.

* Q. Mar. And so say I.

* York. And I : and now we three "^ have spoke it,

* It skills not^ greatly who impugns our doom.

Enter a Messenger.

* Mess. Great lords ^, from Ireland am I come

amain,

' — I will be his priest.] I will be the attendant on his last
scene ; I will be the last man whom he will see. Johnson.

* — and censure well the deed,] That is, approve the deed,
judge the deed good. Johnson.

3 — we THREK — ] Surely the word three should be omitted.
The verse is complete without it :

" And so say I.

" And I : and now we have spoke it — ."
But the metre of these plays scarce deserves the reformation
which it too frequently requires. Steevens.

4 It skills not — ] It is of no importance. Johnson.

So, in Sir T. More's Utopia, translated by R. Robinson, 1624:
" I will describe to you one or other of them, for it sJdlleth not
greatly which." Malone.

5 Great lords, &c.] I shall subjoin this speech as it stands in
the quarto :

" Madam, I bring you news from Ireland,
*' The wild Onele, my lord, is up in arms,
" With troops of Irish kernes, that uncontroU'd
" Doth plant themselves within the English pale,
" And burn and spoil the country as they go."
Surely here is not an imperfect exhibition of tlie lines in the
folio, hastily taken down in the theatre by the ear or in short-
hand, as I once concurred with others in thinking to be the case.
We have here an original and distinct draught ; so that we must
be obliged to maintain tliat Shakspeare wrote tiw plays on the
present subject, a hasty sketch, and a more finished performance ;

sc, I, KING HENRY VI. 247

* To signify — that rebels there are up,

* And put the Englishmen unto the sword :

* Send succours, lords, and stop the rage betime,

* Before the wound do grow incurable ;

* For, being green, there is great hope of help.

* C^R. A breach, that craves a quick expedient

stop ^ !

* What counsel give you in this weighty cause ?

' York. That Somerset be sent as regent thither :

* 'Tis meet, that lucky ruler be employ'd ;

* Witness the fortune he hath had in France.

* SoM. If York, with all his far-fet policy,

* Had been the regent there instead of me,

* He never would have staid in France so long.

* York. No, not to lose it all, as thou hast done :

* I rather would have lost my life betimes,

* Than bring a burden of dishonour home,

* By staying there so long, till all were lost.

* Show me one scar character'd on thy skin :

* Men's flesh preserv'd so whole, do seldom win.

* Q. M^R. Nay then, this spark will prove a

raging fire,

* If wind and fuel be brought to feed it with : — •

* No more, good York ; — sweet Son>erset, be still ; —

* Thy fortune, York, hadst thou been regent there,
^ Might happily have prov'd far worse than his.

York. What, worse than naught ? nay, then a
shame take all !

* SoM. And, in the number, thee, that wishest

shame !

* C.4R. My lord of York, try what your fortune is.

* The uncivil Kernes of Ireland are in arms,

* And temper clay with blood of Enghshmen :

* To Ireland will you lead a band of men,

or else must acknowledge, that he formed the piece before us on
a foundation laid by another writer. Maloue.

^ — EXPEDIENT stop !] 1. 6, cxpeditious. So, in King John :
" His marches are expedient to this town." Steevens.

248 SECOND PART OF act hi.

* Collected choicely, from each county some,

* And try your hap against the Irishmen ?

* York. I will, my lord, so please his majesty.

* SuF. Why our authority is his consent ;

* And what we do establish, he confirms :

* Then, noble York, take thou this task in hand.

* York. I am content : Provide me soldiers, lords,
' Whiles I take order for mine own affairs.

* SuF. A charge, lord York, that I will see per-

form'd ".

* But now return we to the false duke Humphrey.

' Car. No more of him ; for I will deal with him,

* That henceforth, he shall trouble us no more.

* And so break off; the day is almost spent :

* Lord Suffolk, you and I must talk of that event.

* York. My lord of Suffolk, within fourteen days,

* At Bristol I expect my soldiers;

' For there 111 ship them all for Ireland.
Suf. I'll see it truly done, my lord of York.

\_Eieunt all but York.
' York. Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful
thoughts,

* And change misdoubt to resolution :

* Be that thou hop'st to be ; or what thou art

* Resign to death, it is not worth the enjoying:

* Let pale-fac d fear keep with the mean-born man,

* And tind no harbour in a royal heart.

7 — that I will see perform'd.] In the old play this office is
given to Buckingham :

" Queen. my lord of Buckingham,

*' Let it be your charge to muster up such. soldiers,

" As shall suffice him in these needful wars. '

'•' Buck. Madam, I will ; and levy such a band
" As soon shall overcome those Irish rebels :
" But York, where shall those soldiers stay for thee ?
" York. At Bristol Til expect them ten days hence.
" Buck. Then thither shall they come, and so farewell.

" [Exit Buck."
Here again we have a very remarkable variation. Malone.

sc. I. KIXG HEXHY VI. 249

* Faster than spring-time showers, comes thought

on thought ;

* And not a thought, but thinks on dignity.

* My brain, more busy than the labouring spider,

* Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies.

* Well, nobles, well, 'tis politickly done,

* To send me packing with an host of men :

* I fear me you but warm the starved snake,

* Who, cherish Vi in your breasts, will sting your

hearts.
'Twas men I lack'd, and you \vill give them me :

* I take it kindly ; yet, be well assur'd

' You put sharp weapons in a madman's hands.
' Whiles I in Ireland nourish a mighty band,

* I will stir up in England some black storm,

^ Shall blow ten thousand souls to heaven, or hell ;

* And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage

* Until the golden circuit on my head %

* Like to the glorious sun's transparent beams,

* Do calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw '\

8 Until the golden circuit on my head,] So, in Macbeth :

" All that impedes thee from the golden round,
" Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
" To have thee cro-wn'd withall."
Again, in King Henry IV. Part II. :
" ■ a sleep

" That from this rrdden rigol hath divorc'd
" .So many English kings." M.\loke.

9 — mad-bred flaw,] Flaxu Is a .sudden violent gust of wind.

JoHKSON.

Sir Richard Hawkins, stating the danger of leaving the port-
holes of a ship open, mentions " The Great Harr\% Admirall of
England, which was overset and sunke at Portsmouth, with her
captain, crew, and the most part of his company drowned in a
goodly summer's day with a little Jlawe of udnd, for that her
ports were all open ; and making a small hole, by them entered
her destruction ; where, if they had been shut, no wind could
have hurt her, especially in that place." Observations on a Voyage
to the South Sea, A. D. 1593, London 1622, p. 6. I have tran-
scribed this passage on account of the remarkable affinity of the
accident recorded in it to the unfortunate los.s of Admiral Kem-

250 SECOND PART OF act ui.

* And, for a minister of my intent,

* I have seduc'd a head-strong Kentishman,

* John Cade of Ashford,

* To make commotion, as full well he can,

* Under the title of John Mortimer.

* In Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade

* Oppose himself against a troop of Kernes ^ ;

* And fought so long '^, till that his thighs with

darts

* Were almost like a sharp-quill'd porcupine :

* And, in the end being rescu'd, I have seen him

* Caper upright like a wild Morisco '\

penfelt in 1782, by the oversetting of the Royal George at Spit-
head, which was occasioned by the same neglect. Blakeway.

' — a troop of Kernes;] Kernes were light-armed Irish
foot-soldiers. Steevens.

^ And FOUGHT so long,] Read — hxidijight so long. Ritson.

3 — a wild Morisco,] A Moor in a military dance, now
called Morris, that is, a Moorish dance. Johnson.

In Albion's Triumph, a Masque, 1631, the seventh entry con-
sists of mimicks or Moriscos.

Again, in Marston's What You Will, 1607 :
" Your wit skips a Morisco."

The Morris-dance was the Tripudium Mauritanicum, a kind
of hornpipe. Junius describes it thus: " — faciem plerumque
inficiunt fuligine, et peregrinum vestium cultum assumunt, qui
ludicris talibus indulgent, ut Mauri esse videantur, aut e longius
remota patria credantur advolasse, atque insolens recreationis
genus advexisse."

In the churchwardens' accompts of the parish of St. Helen's
in Abington, Berkshire, from the first year of the reign of Philip
and Mary, to the thirty-fourth of Queen Elizabeth, the Morrice
bells are mentioned. Anno 1560, the third of E^lizabeth, — " For
two dossin of Morres bells." As these appear to have been pur-
chased by the community, we may suppose this diversion was
constantly practised at their public festivals. See the plate of
Morris-dancers at the end of The First Part of King Henry IV.
with Mr. Toilet's remarks annexed to it. Steevens.

The editor of the Sad Shepherd, 8vo. 1783, p. 255, mentions
seeing a company of morrice-dancers from Abington, at Richmond
in Surrey, so late as the summer of 1783, They appeared to be
making a kind of annual circuit. Reed.

Morricc-danciiig, with bells on the legs, is common at this day

SCI. KING HENRY VI. '251

* Shaking the bloody darts, as he his bells.

* Full often, like a shag-hair'd crafty Kerne ^

* Hath he conversed with the enemy ;

* And undiscover'd come to me again,

* And given me notice of their villainies.

* This devil here shall be my substitute ;

* For that John Mortimer, which now is dead,

* In face, in gait, in speech, he doth resemble :

* By this I shall perceive the commons' mind,

' How they affect the house and claim of York.

* Say, he be taken, rack'd, and tortured ;

* I know, no pain, they can inflict upon him,

* Will make him say — I mov'd him to those arms.

* Say, that he thrive, (as 'tis great like he will,)

* Why, then from Ireland come I with my strength,

* And reap the harvest which that rascal sow'd :

* For, Humphrey being dead, as he shall be,

* And Henry put apart, the next for me \ \_E.vit.

in Oxfordshire and the adjacent counties, on May-Day, Holy-
Thursday, and VVhitsun-ales, attended by the fool, or, as he is
generally called, the 'Squire, and also a lord and lady ; the latter
most probably the Maid Marian mentioned in Mr. Toilet's note :
" nor is the hobby-horse forgot." Harris.

4 — like a shag-hair'd crafty Kerne,] See vol. xi. p. 215,
n. 8 ; and p. 16, n. 3. Malone.

5 For, Humphrey being dead, &c.] Instead of this couplet we
find in the old play these lines :

" And then Duke Humphrey, he well made away,
" None then can stop the light to England's crown,
" But York can tame, and headlong pull them down."

Malone.

252 SECOND PART OF act in,

SCENE II \

Bury. A Room in the Palace.

Enter certain Murderers^ hastily.

1 MuR. Run to my lord of Suffolk ; let him know,

* We have despatch'd the duke, as he commanded.

* 2 MuR. O, that it were to do ! — What have we

done ?

* Didst ever hear a man so penitent ?

Enter Suffolk.

* 1 MuR. Here comes my lord.

* SuF. Now, sirs, have you

* Despatch'd this thing ?

. * 1 MuR. Ay, my good lord, he's dead.

* SuF. Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my

house ;

* I will reward you for this venturous deed.

* The king and all the peers are here at hand : —

* Have you laid fair the bed ? are all things well,

* According as I gave directions ?

^ Scene II.] This scene, and the directions concerning it,
stand thus in the quarto edition :

" Then the curtaines being drnxvne, DuJce Humphrey is dis-
covered in his bed, and tivo men lijing on his brest, and smothering
him in his bed. And then e^iter the Duke of Suffblke to them.
" Suff. How now, sirs ! what, have you dispatcht him ?
" One. I, my lord : he's dead, I warrant you.
" Suff. Then see the cloathes, laid smooth about him still,
" That when the king comes, he may perceive
" No other, but that he dide of his owne accord.
2. " All things is handsome now, my lord.
" Suff. Then draw the curtaines againe, and get you gon,
^' And you shall have your firme reward anon."

" [Exit Murthcrers."
Steevens.

sc. IT. KING HENRY VI. 253

* 1 MuR. 'Tis, my good lord.

* SuF. Away, be gone ! [Exeunt Murderers.

Enter King Henry, Queen Margaret, Cardinal
Beaufort, Somerset, Lords, and Others.

* K. Hen. Go, call our uncle to our presence

straight ;

* Say, we intend to try his grace to-day,

* If he be guilty, as 'tis published.

* SuF. I'll call him presently, my noble lord.

\_Ei'it.
' K. Hen. Lords, take your places ; — And, I pray
you all,

* Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloster,

* Than from true evidence, of good esteem,

* He be approv'd in practice culpable.

* Q. Mar. God forbid any malice should pre-

vail,

* That faultless may condemn a nobleman !

* Pray God, he may acquit him of suspicion !

* K. Hen. I thank thee, Margaret ; these words

content me much^ —

7 I thank thee, Margaret ; &c.] In former editions :
" I thank thee, Nell, these words content me much,"

This is King Henry's reply to his wife Margaret. There can be
no reason why he should forget his own wife's name, and call her
Nell instead of Margaret. As the change of a single letter sets
all right, I am willing to suppose it came from his pen thus :
" I thank thee. Well, these words content me much."

Theobald,

It has been observed by two or three commentators, that it is
no way extraordinary the King should forget his wife's name, as
it appears in no less than three places that she forgets it herself,
calling herself Eleanor. It has also been said, that, if any con-
traction of the real name is used, it should be Meg. All this is
very true ; but as an alteration must be made, Theobald's is just
as good, and as probable, as any other. I have therefore retained
it, and wish it could have been done with propriety without a
note. Reed.

Though the King could not well forget his wife's name, either

254 SECOND PART OF act in.

Re-enter Suffolk.

* How now ? why look'st thou pale ? why trem-

blest thou ?

* Where is our uncle ? what is the matter, Suffolk ?

SuF. Dead in his bed, my lord ; Gloster is dead.

* Q. Mar. Marry, God forefend !

* Car. God's secret judgment: — I did dream to-

night,

* The duke was dumb, and could not speak a

word. [The King sxvoons.

* Q. Mar. How fares my lord ? — Help, lords ! the

king is dead.

* SoM. Rear up his body ; wring him by the

nose ^.

* Q. Mar. Run, go, help, help ! — O, Henry, ope

thine eyes !

* SuF. He doth revive again ; — Madam, be pa-

tient.

* K. Hen. O heavenly God !

* Q. Mar. How fares my gracious lord ?

SuF. Comfort, my sovereign ! gracious Henry,
comfort !

Shakspeare or the transcriber might. That Nell is not a mistake
of the press for Well, is clear from a subsequent speech of the
Queen's in this scene, where Eleanor, the name of the Duchess
of Gloster, is again three times printed instead of Margaret. No
reason can be assigned why the proper correction should be made
in all those places, and not here. Malone.

I have admitted Mr. Malone's correction ; and yet must re-
mark, that while it is favourable to sense it is injurious to metre.

Steevens.

^ Som. Rear up his body, wring him by the nose.] As no-
thing further is spoken either by Somerset or the Cardinal, or by
any one else, to show that they continue in the presence, it is to be
presumed that they take advantage of the confusion occasioned
by the King's swooning, and slip out unperceived. The ne.xt
news we hear of the Cardinal, he is at the point of death.

RiTSON.

sc. IT, KING HENRY VI. 255

K. Hen. What, doth my lord of Suffolk comfort
me ?
Came he right now ^ to sing a raven's note,

* Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers ;
And thinks he, that the chirping of a wren,

* By crying comfort from a hollow breast,

* Can chase away the first-conceived sound ?

* Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words.

* Lay not thy hands on me ; forbear, I say ;

* Their touch affrights me, as a serpent's sting.
Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight !

' Upon thy eye -balls murderous tyranny

* Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world.

* Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding : —

* Yet do not go away ; — Come, basilisk,

* And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight ^ :

* For in the shade of death I shall find joy ;

* In life, but double death, now Gloster's dead.

Q. Mar. Why do you rate my lord of Suffolk thus ?

* Although the duke was enemy to him,

* Yet he, most christian-like, laments his death :

* And for myself, — foe as he was to me,

* Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,

* Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life,

* I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,

* Look pale as primrose, with blood-drinking sighs "^^

9 — right now — ] Just now, even now. Johnson.
> — Come, basilisk,
And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight :] So, in Albion's
England, b. i. c. iii. :

" As iEsculap an herdsman did espie,

" That did with easy sight enforce a basilisk to flye,
" Albeit naturally that beast doth muvther with the eye."
, Reed.

So, Mantuanus, a writer very popular at this time :
Natus in ardentis Libyae basiliscus arena,
Vulnerat aspectu, luminibusque nocet. Malone.
* — BLOOD-DRINKING sighs,] So, In the Third Part of this
play, Act IV. Sc. IV. :

" And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs." Steevens.

256 SECOND PART OF act hi.

* And all to have the noble duke alive.

* What know I how the world may deem of me ?

* For it is known, we were but hollow friends ;

* It may be judg'd, I made the duke away :

* So shall my name with slander's tongue be

wounded,

* And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach.

* This get I by his death : Ah me, unhappy !

* To be a queen, and crown'd with infamy !

' K. Hen. Ah, woe is me for Gloster, wretched

man !
Q. M.4R. Be woe for me^ more wretched than
he is.
What, dost thou turn away, and hide thy face ?
I am no loathsome leper, look on me.

* What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf* ?

Again, in Romeo and Juliet :

*' dry sorrow drinks our blood." Malone.

3 Be woe for me,] That is. Let not woe be to thee for Glos-
ter, but for me. Johnson.

4 What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?] This allu-
sion, which has been borrowed by many writers from the Pro-
verbs of Solomon, and Psalm Iviii. may receive an odd illustra-
tion from the following passage in Gower de Confessione Amantis,
b. i. fol. X. :

" A serpent, whiche that aspidis

" Is cleped, of his kinde hath this,

" That he the stone noblest of all

*' The whiche that men carbuncle call,

" Bereth in his heed above on hight ;

" For whiche whan that a man by slight

" (The stone to wynne, and him to dante)

" With his carecte him wolde enchante,

" Anone as he perceiveth that,

" Heleyeth dotvtie his one eare all j)lat

" Unto the grounde, and halt it Jcist :

" And eke that other eare alsjctste

" He stoppeth with his taille so sore

" That he the ivordes, lasse nor more,

" Oj'his enchanteine?it ne heretli :

" And in this wise him selfe he skiereth.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 257

* Be poisonous too, and kill thy forlorn queen.

* Is all thy comfort shut in Gloster's tomb ?

* Why, then dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy :

* Erect his statue then, and worship it,

* And make my image but an alehouse sign.
Was I, for this, nigh wreck'd upon the sea;

* And twice by aukward wind ^ from England's bank
' Drove back again unto my native clime ?
What boded this, but well-forewarning wind

Did seem to say, — Seek not a scorpion's nest,

* Nor set no footing on this unkind shore ?

* What did I then, but curs'd the gentle gusts ^,

* And he that loos'd them from their brazen caves ;

* And bid them blov/ towards England's blessed

shore,

* Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock ?

* Yet yEolus would not be a murderer,

* But left that hateful office unto thee :

* The pretty vaulting sea refus'd to drown me ;

* Knowing, that thou would'st have me drown'd on

shore,

* With tears as salt as sea through thy unkindness :

" So that he hath the wordes wayved,
" And thus his eare is nought deceived."
Shakspeare has the same allusion in Troilus and Cressida :
" Have ears more decifthnn adders, to the voice
" Of any true decision." Steevens.
5 — awkward wind — ] Thus the old copy. The modern
editors read — adverse xvinds. Steevens.

The same uncommon epithet is applied to the same subject by
Marlow in his King Edward II. :

" With aukivard winds, and with sore tempests driven
" To fall on shore — ."
So, in Drayton's Epistle from Richard II. to Queen Isabell :
" And undertook to travaile dangerous waies,
" Driven by axvhvard ivinds aiid boisterous seas."

Malone,
^ What did I then, but curs'd the gentle gusts,] I believe
we should read — " but curse the gentle gusts." M. Mason.
VOL. XVIII. S

258 SECOND PART OF act lu.

* The splitting rocks cow'rd in the sinking sands ^

* And would not dash me with their ragged sides ;

* Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,

* Might in thy palace perish Margaret^.

* As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,

* When from the shore the tempest beat us back,

* I stood upon the hatches in the storm :

* And when the dusky sky began to rob

* My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view,

* I took a costly jewel from my neck, —

"* A heart it was, bound in with diamonds, —

* And threw it towards thy land ; — the sea receiv'd

it;

* And so, I wish'd, thy body might my heart :

*= And even with this, I lost fair England's view,
^ And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart ;

* And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles,

* For losing ken of Albion's wished coast.

* How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue
*= (The agent of thy foul inconstancy,)

* To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did,

7 The splitting rocks, &c.] The sense seems to be this. —
•The rocks hid themselves in the sands, which sunk to receive
them into their bosom.' Steevens.

That is, the rocks, whose property it is to split, shrunk into the
sands, and would not dash me, &c. M. Mason.

So, in Othello :

" Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling vidnds,

•' The gutter'd rocks, and congregated sands,

" Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel,

*' As having sense of beauty, do omit

" Their mortal natures, letting go safely by

" The divine Desdemona." Boswell.

8 Might in thy palace PERISH Margaret.] The verb ;?m5/j is
here used actively. Thus, in Froissart's Chronicle, cap. ccclvi. :
♦' Syr Johan Arundell their capitayne was there per^s/ie^/." Again,
in The Maid's Tragedy, by Beaumont and Fletcher :

" let not my sins

" Pem/< your noble youth." Steevens.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 25^

* When he to madding Dido, would unfold

* His father's acts, commenc'd in burning Troy^ ?

* Am I not witch'd like her ? or thou not false like

him ' ?

* Ah me, I can no more ! Die, Margaret !

* For Henry weeps, that thou dost live so long.

9 To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did,
When he to madding Dido, would unfold
His father's acts, commenc'd in burning Troy ?] Old copy,
" To sit and ivatc/i me," &c. Steevens.

The poet here is unquestionably alluding to Virgil (^neid i.)
but he strangely blends fact with fiction. In the first place, it
was Cupid in the semblance of Ascanius, who sat in Dido's lap,
and was fondled by her. But then it was not Cupid who related
to her the process of Troy's destruction ; but it was iEneas him-
self who related this history. Again, how did the supposed Asca-
nius sit and ivatch her? Cupid was ordered, while Dido mis-
takenly caressed him, to bewitch and infect her with love. To
this circumstance the poet certainly alludes ; and, unless he had
wrote, as I have restored to the text —

" To sit and tvifch me ,"

why should the Queen immediately draw this inference —
" Am I not tvitch'd like her? " Theobald.
Mr. Theobald's emendation is supported by a line in King
Henry IV. Part I. where the same verb is used :

" To ivitch the world with noble horsemanship."
It may be remarked, that this mistake was certainly the mis-
take of Shakspeare, whoever may have been the original author
of the first sketch of this play; for this long speech of Margaret's
is founded on one in the quarto, consisting only of seven lines, in
which there is no allusion to Virgil. Malone.

When Dido was caressing the supposed Ascanius, she would
naturally speak to him about his father, and would be tvitched by
what she learned from him, as well as by the more regular narra-
tive which she had heard from iEneas himself. Boswell.

' Am I not witch'd like her ? or thou not false like him ?]
This line, as it stands, is nonsense. We should surely read it
thus :

" Am I not witch'd like her? Art thou not false like him ? "

M. Mason.
The superfluity of syllables in this line induces me so suppose
it stood originally thus :

*' Am I not witch'd like her? thou false like him ? "

Steevens.
s 2

260 SECOND PART OF act hi.

Noise with'm. Enter Warwick and Salisbury,
The Commons press to the door.

* JVar. It is reported, mighty sovereign,

* That good duke Humphrey traitorously is mur-

der'd

* By Suffolk and the cardinal Beaufort's means.

* The commons, like an angry hive of bees,

* That want their leader, scatter up and down,

* And care not who they sting in his revenge.

* Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny,

* Until they hear the order of his death.

K. Hen. That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis
too true ;
But how he died, God knows, not Henry - :

* Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,

* And comment then upon his sudden death.

War. That I shall do, my liege : — Stay, Salis-
bury,
With the rude multitude, till I return.

\JVARjricK goes into an inner Room^ and
Salisbury retires.

* K. Hen. O thou that judgest all things, stay

my thoughts ;

* My thoughts, that labour to persuade my soul,

* Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's

life!

* If my suspect be false, forgive me, God ;

* For judgment only doth belong to thee !

* Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips

* With twenty thousand kisses, and to drain ^

^ — not Henry :] The poet commonly uses Henry as a word
of three syllables. Johnson.
3 — and to drain
Upon — ] This is one of our poet's harsh expressions. As
when a thing is drain d, drops of water issue from it, he licen-
tiously uses the word here in the sense of dropping, or distilling.

Malone.

sc.ii. KING HENRY VI. 261

* Upon his face an ocean of salt tears ;

* To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk,

* And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling :

* But all in vain are these mean obsequies ;

* And, to survey his dead and earthy image,
Wh at were it but to make my sorrow greater ?

The folding Doors of an inner Chamber are thrown
open, and Gloster is discovered dead in his Bed:
JV^RrrjcK and others standing by it *.

*= War. Come hither, gracious sovereign, view
this body.

* K. Hen. That is to see how deep my grave is

made :

* For, with his soul, fled all my worldly solace ;

* For seeing him, 1 see my life in death ^.

Surely our author wrote rain, not drain. The discharge of a
single letter furnishes wliat seems to me a necessary emendation,
confirmed by two passages, one in The Taming of the Shrew:
" To rain a shower of commanded tears."
And another, in King Henry IV. Part II. :

" To rain iqmn remembrance with mine eyes."

Steevens.

* This stage-direction I have inserted as best suited to the ex-
hibition. The stage-direction in the quarto is — " Warwick draws
the curtaines, [i. e. draws them open] and shows Duke Hum-
phrey in his bed," In the folio : " A bed with Gloster's body put
forth." These are some of the many circumstances which prove,
I think, decisively, that the theatres of our author's time were
unfurnished with scenes. In those days, as I conceive, curtains
were occasionally hung across the middle of the stage on an iron
rod, which, being drawn open, formed a second apartment, when
a change of scene was required. The direction of the folio, " to
put forth a bed," was merely to the property-man to thrust a bed
forwards behind those curtains, previous to their being drawn
open. See the Account of our ancient Theatres, vol. iii.

Malone.
^ For seeing him, I see my life in death.] Though, by a vio-
lent operation, some sense may be extracted from this reading,
yet I think it will be better to change it thus :

•' For seeing him, I see my death in life."

262 SECOND PART OF act in.

* IK^R. As surely as my soul intends to live

* With that dread King that took our state upon him

* To free us from his Father's wrathful curse,

* I do believe that violent hands were laid

* Upon the life of this thrice-famed duke.

SuF. A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn
tongue !

* What instance gives lord Warwick for his vow ?

' TV^R. See, how the blood is settled in his face !
Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost ^,

That is, Seeing him I live to see my own destruction. Thus it
will aptly correspond with the first line :

" Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.

" K. Hen. That is to see how deep my grave is made."

Johnson.
Surely the poefs meaning is obvious as the words now stand. —
•' I see my life destroyed or endangered by his death." Percy,

I think the meaning is, I see my life in the arms of death; I
see my life expiring, or rather expired. The conceit is much in
our authors manner. So, in Macbeth :

" the death of each day's life."

Our poet in King Richard III. has a similar play of words,
though the sentiment is reversed :

" even through the hollow eyes of death

" I spy life peering." Malone.
^ Oft have I seen a TiMEi.v-parted ghost, &c.] All that is
true of the body of a dead man is here said by Warwick of the
soul. I would read :

" Oft have I seen a timely-parted corse."
But of two common words how or why was one changed for
the other? I believe the transcriber thought that the epithet
iimelij -parted could not be used of the body, but that, as in
Hamlet there is mention of peace-parted souls, so here timelij-
parted mwaiXvAwe the same substantive. He removed one imagi-
nary difficulty, and made many real. If the soul is parted from
the body, the body is likewise parted from the soul.

I cannot but stop a moment to observe, that this horrible de-
scription is scarcely the work of any pen but Shakspeare's.

Johnson.
This is not the first time that Shakspeare has confounded the
terms that signify bodij and soul, together. So, in A Midsummer-
Night's Dream :

sc. Ji. KING HENRY VI. 263

* Of ashy semblance ^, meager, pale, and blood-
less,

damned spirits all

" That in cross ways and floods have burial."
It is surely the bodj/ and not the soul that is committed to the
earth, or whelmed in the water. The word ghost, however, is
licentiously used by our ancient writers. In Spenser's Fairy
Queen, b. ii. c. viii. Sir Guijon is in a swoon, and two knights are
about to strip him, when the Palmer say a :

" no knight so rude I weene,

" As to doen outrage to a sleeping ghost."
Again, in the short copy of verses printed at the conclusion of
the three first books of Spenser's Fairy Queen, 1596 :

" And grones of buried ghostcs the heavens did perse."
Again, in our author's King Richard II. :
" The ghosts they have depos'd."
Again, in Sir A. Gorges's translation of Lucan, b. ix. :

" a peasant of that coast

"Bids him not tread on Vleciors ghost."
Again, in Certain Secret Wonders of Nature, &c. by Edward
Fenton, quarto, bl. 1. If^i^D: " — astonished at the view of the
mortified o/i05^ of him that lay dead," &c. p. 104. Steevens.

A timel {/-parted ghost means a bodi/ that has become inanimate
in the common course of nature; to which violence has not brought
a timeless end. The opposition is plainly marked afterwards, by
the words — " As guilty of duke Humphrey's timeless death."

The corresponding lines appear thus in the quarto ; by which,
if the notion that has been already suggested be well founded, the
reader may see how much of this deservedly admired speech is
original, and how much super-induced :

" Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,
" Of ashy semblance, pale, and bloodless :
*' But, lo ! the blood is settled in his face,
" More better coloured than when he liv'd.
" His well proportion'd beard made rough and stern
" His fingers spread abroad, as one that grasp'd
"For life, yet was bv strength surpriz'd. The least *
" Of these are probable. It cannot choose
" But he was murthered."
In a subsequent passage, also in the original play, w-hich Shak-
speare has not transferred into his piece, the word ghost is agair»
used as here. Young Cliflbrd addressing himself to his father's
dead bodij, savs :

" A dismal sight ! sec, where he breathless lies,
" All smear'd and welter'd in his luke-warm blood !
" Sweet father, to thy tnurder'd ghost I swear," &c.

264 SECOND PART OF act iii.

* Being all descended to the labouring heart ^ ;
' Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,

* Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy ;
' Which with the heart there cools and ne'er re-
turn eth

* To blush and beautify the cheek again.

* But, see, his face is black, and full of blood ;
' His eye -balls further out than when he liv'd,
' Staring full ghastly like a strangled man :

* His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with

struggling ;
' His hands abroad display'd '\ as one that grasp'd
' And tugg'd for hfe, and was by strength subdu'd.

* Look on the sheets, his hair, you see, is sticking ;
' His well-proportion'd beard made rough and

rugged,

* Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodg'd.

Our author therefore is not chargeable here with any impro-
priety, or confusion. He has only used the phraseology of his
time. Malone.

It has been very plausibly suggested that timelij -■parted signifies
in f roper time, as opposed to tuneless ; yet in this place it seems
to mean early, recently, nevcly. Thus, in Macbeth, Act II.
Sc. III. :

" He did command me to call timely on him."
Again, in The Unfaithful Lover's Garland :
" Says he, I'll rise ; says she, I scorn
" To be so timely parted." Douce.
7 Of ASHY semblance,] So Spenser, Ruins of Rome, 4to.
1591:

" Ye pallid spirits, and ye ashy ghosts — ." Malone.

^ BLOODLESS,

Being all descended to the labouring heart ;] That is, the
blood being all descended, &c. ; the substantive being comprised
in the adjective bloodless. M. Mason.

9 His hands abroad display'd,] i, e. the fingers being widely
distended. So adotvn, for down ; aweary, for iveary, &c. See
Peacham's Complete Gentleman, 1627 : " Herein was the Em-
peror Domitian so cunning, that let a boy at a good distance off
hold up his hand and stretch his fingers abroad, he would shoot
through the spaces, without touching the boy's hand, or any
finger." Malone.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 265

* It cannot be, but he was murder'd here ;

' The least of all these signs were probable.

* SuF. Why, Warwick, who should do the duke

to death ?

* Myself, and Beaufort, had him in protection ;
' And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.

* War. But both of you were vow'd duke Hum-

phrey's foes ;

* And you, forsooth, had the good duke to keep :
' 'Tis like, you would not feast him like a friend ;
' And 'tis well seen he found an enemy.

' Q. M.m. Then you, behke, suspect these noble-
men

* As guilty of duke Humphrey's timeless death.

JV.4R. Who finds the heifer dead, and bleeding
fresh.
And sees fast by a butcher with an axe.
But will suspect, 'twas he that made the slaughter ?
Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest.
But may imagine how the bird was dead,
Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak ?
Even so suspicious is this tragedy.

' Q. M.iR. Are you the butcher, Suffolk ; where's
your knife ?
Is Beaufort term'd a kite ? where are his talons ?
SuF. I wear no knife, to slaughter sleeping
men;
But here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease.
That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart.
That slanders me with murder's crimson badge : —
Say, if thou dar'st, proud lord of Warwickshire,
That I am faulty in duke Humphrey's death.

[Exeunt Cardmal, Som. and Others.
TVar. What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk

dare him ?
Q. Mar. He dares not calm his contumelious
spirit,

266 SECOND PART OF act ///.

Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,

Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.

War. Madam, be still ; with reverence may I say :
For every word, you speak in his behalf,
Is slander to your royal dignity.

* SuF. Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour !
If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,

Thy mother took into her blameful bed
Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock
Was graft with crab-tree slip ; whose fruit thou art.
And never of the Nevils' noble race.

War. But that the guilt of murder bucklers
thee.
And I should rob the deathsman of his fee.
Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames.
And that my sovereign's presence makes me mild,
I would, false murderous coward, on thy knee
Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech.
And say — it was thy mother that thou meant'st,
That thou thyself wast born in bastardy :
And, after all this fearful homage done,
Give thee thy hire, and send thy soul to hell.
Pernicious bloodsucker of steeping men !

SvF. Thou shalt be waking, while I shed thy
blood,
If from this presence thou dar'st go with me.

War. Away even now, or I will drag thee
hence :

* Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee,

* And do some service to duke Humphrey's ghost.

\Excunt Suffolk and JVarjj'ick.

* K. Hen. What stronger breast-plate than a

heart untainted ?

* Thrice is he arm'd, that hath his quarrel just ^ ;

^ Thrice is he arm'd, &c.] So, in Marlow's Lust's Dominion :
" Come, Moor; I'm arm'd wih more than complete steel,
" T\\Q justice of my quarrel." Malone,

sc, II. KING HENRY VI. 267

* And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,

* Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

\_A Noise within.
Q. M.JR. What noise is this ?

Re-enter Suffolk and Wartt'ick, with their
Weapons drawn.

* K. Hen. Why, how now, lords ? your wrathful

weapons drawn

* Here in our presence ? dare yon be so bold ? —

* Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here ?

SuF. The traitorous Warwick, with the men of
Bury,
Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.

Noise of a Croud within. Re-enter Salisbury.

* Sal. Sirs, stand apart ; the king shall know

your mind. — [Speaking to those within.
Dread lord, the commons send you word by me,
Unless false Suffolk straight be done to death,
Or banished fair England's territories,

* They will by violence tear him from your palace,

* And torture him v/ith grievous ling'ring death,
They say, by him the good duke Humphrey died ;

* They say, in him they fear your highness' death ;

* And mere instinct of love, and loyalty, —

* Free from a stubborn opposite intent,

* As being thought to contradict your liking, —

* Makes them thus forward in his banishment.

* * They say, in care of your most royal person,

* That, if your highness should intend to sleep,

* And charge — that no man should disturb your

rest,
*" In pain of your dishke, or pain of death ;

* Yet notwithstanding such a strait edict,

* Were there a serpent seen, with forked tongue,

* That slily glided towards your majesty.

268 SECOND PART OF act iiu

* It were but necessary, you were wak'd ;

* Lest, being suffered in that harmful slumber,

* The mortal worm '^ might make the sleep eternal :

* And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,

* That they will guard you, whe'r you will, or no,

* From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is ;

* With whose envenomed and fatal sting,

* Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,

* They say, is shamefully bereft of life.

CoMMOxs. [IVith'm.'] An answer from the king,

my lord of Salisbury.
SuF. 'Tis like, the commons, rude unpolish'd
hinds.
Could send such message to their sovereign :
But you, my lord, were glad to be employed.
To show how quaint an orator * you are :
But all the honour Salisbury hath won.
Is — that he was the lord ambassador.
Sent from a sort ^ of tinkers to the king.

CoMMoxs. [JFitfnnr\ An answer from the king,

or we 11 all break in.
' K, Hex. Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from
me,

* I thank them for their tender loving care :

* And had I not been 'cited so by them.

3 The MORTAL WORM — ] i. c. the Jhfal, the deadly vioxva.
So, in The Winter's Tale :

" This news is mortal to the queen."
SerpeTits in general, were anciently called toor»?s. So, in The
Devil's Charter, 1607, Pope Alexander says, when he takes off
the aspicks from the young princes :

" How now, proud worms ? how tastes yon princes' blood? "

Steevens.
^ — how auAiNT an orator — ] Quaint for dextrous, artifi-
cial. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: " — a ladder
quaintly made of cords." Malone.

5 — a sort — ] Is a company. Johnson.
So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream :

" russet-pated choughs, many in sort" Steevens,

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 269

* Yet did I purpose as they do entreat ;

* For sure, my thoughts do hourly prophesy

* Mischance unto my state by Suffolk's means.

* And therefore, — by His majesty I swear,

* Whose far unworthy deputy I am, —

* He shall not breathe infection in this air ^

* But three days longer, on the pain of death.

\_Exit Salisbury.

* Q. Mar. O Henry, let me plead for gentle

Suffolk !

* K. Hen. Ungentle queen, to call him gentle

Suffolk.

* No, more, I say ; if thou dost plead for him,

* Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.

* Had I but said, I would have kept my word ;

* But, when I swear, it is irrevocable : —

* If, after three days' space, thou here be'st found

* On any ground that I am ruler of,

* The world shall not be ransom for thy Hfe. —

* Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with

me ;

* I have great matters to impart to thee.

[Exeunt K. Henry, Wartfick^ Lords, 8^c.

* Q. Mar. Mischance, and sorrow, go along with

you ^ !

* Heart's discontent, and sour affliction,

* Be playfellows to keep you company !

* There's two of you ; the devil make a third !

* And threefold vengeance tend upon your steps !

* SuF. Cease, gentle queen, these execrations,

* And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.

^ He shall not breathe infection in this air — ] That is, he
shall not contaminate this air with his infected breath. Malone.
7 Mischance, and sorrow, &c.] In the original play the queen
is still more violent :

" Hell-fire and vengeance go along with you ! "

Malone.

270 SECOND PART OF act iiu

* Q. Mar. Fye, coward woman, and soft-hearted
wretch !

* Hast thou not spirit to curse thine enemies ?

SuF. A plague upon them ! wherefore should I
curse them ?
Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan ^,

* I would invent as bitter-searching terms,

* As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,
Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,

* With full as many signs of deadly hate.
As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave :

My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words:
Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint ;
My hair be fix'd on end, as one distract ;
Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban :
And even now my burden'd heart would break.
Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink ^ 1

^ Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,] The fa-
bulous accounts of the plant called a mandrake give it an inferior
degree of animal life, and relate, that when it is torn from the
ground it groans, and that this groan being certainly fatal to him
that is offering such unwelcome violence, the practice of those
who gather mandrakes is to tie one end of a string to the plant,
and the other to a dog, upon whom the fatal groan discharges its
malignity. Johnson.

The same allusion occurs in Aristippus, or the Jovial Philoso-
pher, by Randolph :

" This is the mnndrahes voice that undoes meT Steevens.

Bulleine in his Bulwarke of Defence against Sickness, &c. fol.
1579, p- 41j speaking of Mandragora, says : " They doe af-
fyrme that this herbe commeth of the seede of some convicted
dead men: and also without the death of some lyvinge thinge it
cannot be drawen out of the earth to man's use. Therefore they
did tye some dogge or other lyving beast unto the roole thereof
wyth a corde, and digged the earth in compasse round about,
and in the meane tyme stopped their own eares for feare of the
terreble shriek and cry of this Mayidrack. In whych cry it doth
not only dye itselfe, but the feare thereof kylleth the dogge or
beast which pulleth it out of the earth." Reed.

9 — Poison be their drink !] Most of these e.xecrations are

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 271

Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste !
Their sweetest shade, a grove of cypress trees ^ !
Their chiefest prospect, murdering basilisks !
Their softest touch, as smart as lizards' stings' I
Their musick, frightful as the serpent's hiss ;
And boding screech-owls make the concert full !
All the foul terrors in dark-seated hell —

Q. Mar. Enough, sweet Suffolk ; thou torment'st
thyself;

* And these dread curses — like the sun 'gainst

glass,

* Or like an overcharged gun, — recoil,

* And turn the force of them upon thyself.

SuF. You bade me ban, and will you bid me
leave ^ .^
Now, by the ground that I am banish'd from.
Well could I curse away a winter's night,
Though standing naked on a mountain top.
Where biting cold would never let grass grow.
And think it but a minute spent in sport.

* Q. Mar. O, let me entreat thee, cease ! Give
me thy hand ^

used, in the very words of Shakspeare, by Lee, in his Caesar
Borgia, Act IV. Steevens.

« — of CYPRESS trees !] Cypress was employed in the funeral
rites of the Romans, and hence is always mentioned as an ill-
boding plant. Steevens.

i — murdering basilisks ! -lizards' stings!] It has been

said of the basilisk that it has the power of destroying by a single
glance of the eye. A lizard has no sting, but is quite inoffensive.

Steevens.

See p. 255, n. 1. Malone.

3 You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave ?] This incon-
sistency is very common in real life. Those who are vexed to im-
patience, are angry to see others less disturbed than themselves ;
but when others begin to rave, they immediately see in them what
they could not find in themselves, the deformity and folly of use-
less rage. Johnson.

4 O, let me entreat thee, &c.] Instead of the first four lines

272 SECOND PART OF act in.

* That I may dew it with my mournful tears ;

* Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place,

* To wash away my woeful monuments.

* O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand ;

\_Kisses his hand,

* That thou might'st think upon these by the seal,

* Through whom a thousand sighs are breath'd for

thee ^ !

* So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;

* Tis but surmis'd whilst thou art standing by,

* As one that surfeits thinking on a want.

* I will repeal thee, or, be well assur'd,

* Adventure to be banished myself:

* And banished I am, if but from thee.

* Go, speak not to me ; even now be gone. —

* O, go not yet ! — Even thus two friends con-

demn'd

* Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves,

* Loather a hundred times to part than die.

* Yet now farewell ; and farewell life with thee !
SuF. Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished,

Once by the king, and three times thrice by thee.

of this speech, we find in the old play these, which Shakspeare
has availed himself of elsewhere :

" No more, sweet Suffolk, hie thee hence to France ;
" Or live where thou wilt within this world's globe,
" I'll have an Irish [Iris] that shall find thee out."

Malone.
^ That thou might'st think upon these by the seal,
Through whom a thousand sighs, &c.] That by the impres-
sion of my kiss for ever remaining on thy hand thou mightest
think on those lips through which a thousand sighs will be
breathed for thee. Johnson.

See the song introduced in Measure for Measure :
" But my kisses bring again,
" Seals of love, but seal'd in vain."
Of this image our author appears to have been fond, having
introduced it in several places. There is no trace of it in the old
play. Malone.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 273

* 'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou hence ;

* A wilderness is populous enough,

* So Suffolk had thy heavenly company :

* For where thou art, there is the world itself^,

* With every several pleasure in the world ;

* And where thou art not, desolation.

* I can no more : — Live thou to joy thy life ;

* Myself no joy in nought, but that thou liv'st.

Enter Kiux,

* Q. Mar. Whither goes Vaux so fast .? what news,

I pr'ythee ^

* Vaux. To signify unto his majesty,
That cardinal Beaufort is at point of death :

* For suddenly a grievous sickness took him,

* That makes him gasp, and stare, and catch the

air,
' Blaspheming God, and cursing men on earth.

* Sometime, he talks as if duke Humphrey's ghost

* Were by his side; sometime, he calls the king.
And whispers to his pillow, as to him,

^ The secrets of his overcharged soul ^ :

* And I am sent to tell his majesty,

* That even now he cries aloud for him.

^ For where thou art, &c.] So Lucretius :

Nee sine te pulchrum dias in luminis auras
Exoritur, neque sit Isetum nee amabile quicquam.
Still more elegantly Milton, in a passage of his Comus, (after-
wards omitted) v. 214', &c. :

" — — while I see you,
" This dusky hollow is a paradise,
" And heaven gates o'er my head." Steevens.
7 And whispers to his pillow, as to him,
The secrets, 8cc.] The first of these lines is in the old play.
The second is unquestionably our author's. The thought appears
to have struck him ; for he has introduced it again in Macbeth :

" Infected minds

" To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets."

Malone.

VOL. XVIII. T

274 SECOND PART OF act ni.

Q. Mar. Go, tell this heavy message to the
king. \_Exit K^ux.

* Ah me ! what is this world ? what news are these ^ ?

* But wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor loss^ ,

* Omitting Suffolk's exile, my soul's treasure ?

* Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,

* And with the southern clouds contend in tears ;

* Theirs for the earth's increase \ mine for my

sorrows ?

* Now, get thee hence : The king, thou know'st, is

coming ?

* If thou be found by me, thou art but dead.

* SuF. If I depart from thee, I cannot live :

* And in thy sight to die, what were it else,
But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap ?
Here could I breathe my soul into the air,

* As mild and gentle as the cradle babe,
Dying with mother's dug between its lips :
Where, from thy sight \ I should be raging mad,

^ Ah me ! what is this world ? what news are these ?] Instead
of this line, the quarto reads :]

" Oh ! what is worldly pomp? all men must die,
■ " And woe am I for Beaufort's heavy end." Steevens.

9 — at an hour's poor loss,] She means, I believe, at a loss
which any hour spent in contrivance and deliberation will enable
her to supply. Or perhaps she may call the sickness of the Car-
dinal the loss of an hour, as it may put some stop to her schemes.

Johnson.

I believe the poet's meaning is, ' Wherefore do I grieve that
Beaufort has died an hour before his time, who, being an old man,
could not have had a long time to live ? ' Steevens.

This certainly may be the meaning ; yet I rather incline to
think that the Queen intends to say, " Why do I lament a cir-
cumstance, the impression of which will pass away in the short
period of an hour ; while I neglect to think on the loss of Suffolk,
my affection for whom no time will efface ? " Malone.

' Where, from thy sight,] In the preambles of almost all the
statutes made during the first twenty years of Queen Elizabeth's
reign, the word xi^liere is employed instead of xvhercns. It is so
used here, Malone.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 276

* And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,

* To have thee with thy Hps to stop my mouth ;

* So should'st thou either turn my flying soul '^j,

* Or I should breathe it so into thy body,
And then it liv'd in sweet Elysium.

To die by thee, were but to die in jest ;

From thee to die, were torture more than death :

,0, let me stay, befall what may befall.

* Q. Mar. Away ! though parting be a fretful
cor'sive '^,

* It is applied to a deathful wound.

' To France, sweet Suffolk: Let me hear from

thee;
' For wheresoe'er thou art in this world's globe,
I'll have an Iris * that shall find thee out.

So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :

" And ivho'c I thought the remnant of mine age," &c.
See vol. iv. p. 70, n. 6. Steevens.

* — turn my flying soul,] Perhaps Mr. Pope was indebted to
this passage in his Eloisa to Abelard, where he makes that vota-
rist of exquisite sensibility say:

" See my lips tremble, and my eye-balls roll,

" Suck my last breath, and catch my flying soul."

Steevens.'

3 Away ! though parting be a fretful cor'sive,] The word
corrosive w^^ generally, in our author's time, written, and, I sup-
pose, pronounced corsive ; and the metre shows that it ought to
be so printed here. So, in The Spanish Tragedy, 1605 :

" His son distrest, a corsive to his heart."
Again, in The Alchymist, by Ben Jonson, 1610:

" Now do you see that something's to be done

" Beside your beech-coal and your corsive waters."
Again, in an Ode by the same :

" I send not balms nor corsives to your wound." Malone.
Thus also, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632,
p. 600 : " a corsive to all content, a frenzie," &c. Steevens,

4 I'll have an Iris — ] Iris was the messenger of Juno.

Johnson,
So, in All's Well that Ends Well :

" ——this distemper'd messenger of wet,
" The many-colour'd Iris — ." Steevens.

T 2

2T6 SECOND PART OF act hi.

SuF. I go.

Q. Mar. And take my heart with thee^.

SvF. A jewel, lock'd into the woeful'st cask
That ever did contain a thing of worth.
Even as a spHtted bark, so sunder we ;
This way fall I to death.

Q. Mar, This way for me.

\_Kveunt, severally.

SCENE III.
"London. Cardinal Beaufort's Bed-chamber.

Enter King Henry"^, Salisbury, Warwick, and
Others. The Cardinal in bed ; Atte7idants with
him.

* K. Hen. How fares my lord ^ ? speak, Beau-
fort, to thy sovereign.

^ And take my heart with thee.] I suppose, to complete the
verse, we should read

along with thee."

So, in Hamlet :

" And he to England shall along with thee." Steevens.

7 Enter Kmg Henri/, &c.] The quarto offers the following stage

directions. " Enter King and Salisbiiri/, and then the curtaines

be draivne, and the cardinal if discovered in his bed, raving and

staring as if he were mad." Steevens,

This description did f.ot escape our author, for he has availed
himself of it elsewhere. See the speech of Vaux in p. 273.

Malone.
^ How fares my lord ? &c.] This scene, and that in which the
dead body of the Duke ot Gloster is described, are deservedly ad-
mired. Having already submitted to the reader the lines on
which the former scene is founded, I shall now subjoin those
which gave rise to that before us :

" Car. O death, if thou wilt let me live but one whole year,
** I'll give thee as much gold as will purchase such another
island.
" Kitig. O see, my lord of Salisbury, how he is troubled.
•* Lord Cardinal, remember, Christ must have thy soul.

sc. 121. KING HENRY VI. 377

* C.JR. If thou be'st death, I'll give thee Eng-
land's treasure ^,
* Enough to purchase such another island,

" Car. Why, dy'd he not in his bed ?
" What would you have me to do then ?
" Can I make men live, whether they will or no?
" Sirrah, go fetch me the strong poison, which
*' The 'pothecary sent me.

" O, see where duke Humphrey's ghost doth stand ?
*' And stares me in the foce ! Look ; look ; comb down his hair.
" So now, he's gone again. Oh, oh, oh.

" Sal. See how the pangs of death doth gripe his heart.
" King. Lord Cardinal, if thou diest assured of heaveiily
bliss,
" Hold up thy hand, and make some sign to rae.

" IThe Cardinal dies.
" O see, he dies, and makes no sign at all.
" O God, forgive his soul !

" Sal. So bad an end did never none behold :
" But as his death, so was his life in all.
" King. Forbear to judge, good Salisbury, forbear;
<^ *' For God will judge us all. Go take him hence,

" And see his funerals be perform'd. [Exeunt''

Malone.
9 If thou be'st death. 111 give thee England's treasure, &c.}
The following passage in Hall's Chronicle, Henry VL fol. 70, b.
suggested the corresponding lines to the author of the old play :
" During these doynges, Henry Beaufford, byshop of Winchester,
and called the riche Cardynall, departed out of this worlde.—
This man was — haut in stomach and h3'gh in countenance, ryche
above measure of all men, and to fewe liberal ; disdaynful to his
kynne, and dreadful to his lovers. His covetous insaciable and
hope of long lyfe made hym bothe to forget God, his prynce, and
hymselfe, in his latter dayes ; for Doctor John Baker, his pryvie
counsailer and his chapellayn, wrote, that lying on his death-bed,
he said these words : ' Why should I dye, having so muche riches ?
If the whole realme would save my lyfe, I am able either by
pollicie to get it, or by ryches to bye it. Fye will not death be
hyred, nor will money do nothynge ? When my nephew of Bed-
ford died, I thought myselfe halfe up the whele, but when I sawe
myne other nephew of Gloucester disceased, then I thought my
selfe able to be equal with kinges, and so thought to increase my
treasure in hope to have vvorne a trypple croune. But I se nowe
the worlde fayleth me, and so I am deceyved ; praying you all to
pray for me." Malon£.

278 SECOND PART OF act iii.

* So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain.

* K. Hex. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,

* When death's approach is seen so terrible !

* IfAR. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to

thee.

* C.4R. Bring me unto my trial when you will.
' Died he not in his bed ? where should he die ?
Can I make men live, whe'r they will or no ^ ? —

* O ! torture me no more, I will confess. —
' Alive again ? then show me where he is;

' I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him. —

* He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them '. —
^ Comb down his hair; look! look! it stands up-
right,

' Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul ! —

* Give me some drink ; and bid the apothecary

* Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.

* K. Hen. O thou eternal Mover of the heavens,

* Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch !

* O, beat away the busy meddling fiend,

* That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul,

* And from his bosom purge this black despair !

^ fi(^R. See, how the pangs of death do make him
grin .

* Sal. Disturb him not, let him pass peaceably.

* K. Hen. Peace to his soul, if God's good

pleasure be !

* Lord cardinal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss,

' Can I make men live? whe'r they will or no?] So, in King
John :

" We cannot hold mortality's strong hand : —
" Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?
" Think you, I bear the shears of destiny ?
" Have 1 commandment on the pulse of life ? " Malone.
* He hath no eyes, &c.] So, in Macbeth :
" Thou hast no speculation in those eyes,
" Which thou dost glare with." Malone.

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 279

* Hold up thy hand '^ make signal of thy hope. —

* He dies, and makes no sign ; O God, forgive him !

* JVar. So bad a death argues a monstrous life.

* K. Hen. Forbear to judge '^, for we are sinners

all.—

* Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close ;

* And let us all to meditation. [E.vcunt ^.

^ Hold up thy hand,] Thus, in the spurious phay of K. John,
1591, Pandulph sees the King dying, and says:

" Then, good my lord, if you forgive them all,
"■ Lift up your hand, in token you forgive."
Again :

" Lift up thy hand, that we may witness here,
" Thou diest the servant of our Saviour Christ : —
" Now joy betide thy soul ! "' Steevens.
When a dying person is incapable of speech, it is usual (in the
church of Rome) previous to the administration of the sacraments,
to obtain some sign that he is desirous of having them adminis-
tered. The passage may have an allusion to this practice. C.
•* Forbear to judge, &c.]

Peccantes culpare cave, nam labimur omnes,
Aut sumus, aut fuimus, vel possumus esse quod hie est.

Johnson.
5 Exeunt.'] This is one of the scenes which have been ap-
plauded by the criticks, and which will continue to be admired
when prejudices shall cease, .and bigotry give way to impartial
examination. These are beauties that rise out of nature and of
truth ; the superficial reader cannot miss them, the profound can.
image nothing beyond them. Johnson.

^^80 SECOND PART OF 4ct if.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

Kent. The Sea-shore near Dover ^

Firing heard at Sea'. Tlien enter from a Boat, a
Captain, a Master, a Master' s-Mate, Walter
TVhitmore, and Others ; with them Suffolk, and
other Gentlemen, prisoners.

*Cap. The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day'
* Is crept into the bosom of the sea ;

^ The circumstance on which this scene is founded, is thus re-
lated by Hall in his Chronicle : — " But fortune would not that
this flagitious person [the Duke of Sudblk, who being impeached,
by the Commons was banished from England for five years,]
shoulde so escape ; for when he shipped in Suffolk, entendynge
to be transported into France, he was encountered with a shippe
of warre apperteinyng to the Duke of Excester, the Constable of
the Towre of London, called The Nicholas of the l^owre. The
capitaine of the same bark with small fight entered into the
duke's shyppe, and perceyving his person present, brought him to
Dover rode, and there on the one syde of a cocke-bote, caused
his head to be stryken of, and left his body with the head upon
the sandes of Dover ; w-hich corse was there founde by a chape-
layne of his, and conveyed to Wyngfielde college in Suffolke, and
there buried." Malone.

See the Paston Letters, published by Sir John Fenn, second
edit. vol. i. p. 38, Letter X. in which this event is more circum-
stantially related. Steevens.

7 Firing heard at Sea.'] Perhaps Ben Jonson was thinking of
this play, when he put the following declaration into the mouth of
Morose in The Silent Woman : " Nay, I would sit out a play
that were nothing hutjig/its at sea, drum^ trumpet, and target."

Steevens,

^ The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day — ] The epi-
thet blabbing applied to the day by a man about to commit murder,
is exquisitely beautiful. Guilt is afraid of light, considers dark-
ness as a natural shelter, and makes night the confidante of those
actions which cannot be trusted to the iell-taleday. Johnson.

So;, Milton, in his Comus, v. 138 :

" Ere the blabbing eastern scout — ." Todd.

Again, in Spenser, Brit. Ida, c. ii. st. 3 :

" For Venus hated his vCA-blabbing light," Steevens.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 281

* And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades

* That drag the tragick melancholy night ;

* Who, with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings

* Clip dead men's graves ^, and from their misty

jaws

* Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.

* Therefore, bring forth the soldiers of our prize ;

* For, whilst our pinnace anchors in the Downs,

* Here shall they make their ransom on the sand,

* Or with their blood stain this discolour'd shore. —

* Master, this prisoner freely give I thee ; —

* And thou that art his mate, make boot of this ; —

Eemorsefulis piiiJiiL So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :

" a gentleman,

" Valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplish'd."
The same idea occurs in Macbeth :

" Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful dayj" Steevens.
This speech is an amplification of the following one in the first
part of The Whole Contention, &c. quarto, 1600:

" Bring forward these prisoners that scorn'd to yield ;

" Unlade their goods with speed, and sink their ship.

" Here, master, this prisoner I give to you,

" This other the master's mate shall have ;

" And Walter Whickmore, thou shalt have this man:

"And let them pay their ransome ere they pass.

" Siif. Walter ! ^He starlet k."

Had Shakspeare's play being taken down by the ear, or an im-
perfect copy otherwise obtained, his lines might have been muti-
lated or imperfectly represented ; but would a new circumstance
(like that of si/zA'/^io- Suffolk's ship), not found in the original, have
been added by the copyist ? — On the other hand, if Shakspeare
new modelled the work of another, such a circumstance might
well be omitted. Malone.

9 ■ -the jades

That drag the tragick melancholy night ;
Who, with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings
Clip dead men's graves,] The wings of the jades that drag
night appears an unnatural image, till it is remembered that the
chariot of the night is supposed, by Shakspeare, to be drawn by
dragons. Johnson.

See vol. V. p. 281, n. 8. Malone.

See also, Cyrabeline, vol. xiii. p. 67, n. 1. Steevens.

282 SECOND PART OF act iv,

* The other, \B)int'mg to Suffolk,^ Walter Whit-

more, is thy share.

* 1 Gent. What is my ransom, master ? let me

know.

* J^Lisi. A thousand crowns, or else lay down

your head.
' Mate. And so much shall you give, or off goes
yours.

* Cap. What, think you much to pay two thou-

sand crowns,

* And bear the name and port of gentlemen ? —

* Cut both the villains' throats ; — for die you shall ;

* The lives of those which we have lost in fight,

,* Cannot be counterpois'd with such a petty sum \

' The lives of those, &c.] The old copy (from which some de-
viation, for the sake of obtaining sense, was necessary,) has —
" The lives of those which we have lost in fight,
" Be counter-poys'd with such a pettie sum."
Mr. Malone reads :

" The lives of those which we liave lost in fight
" Camiot be counterpois'd with such a petty sum."
But every reader will observe, that the last of these lines is in-
cumbered with a superfluous foot. I conceive, that the passage
originally stood as follows :

" The lives of those we have lost in fight, cannot
" Be counterpois'd with such a petty sum." Steevens.
I suspect that a line has been lost, preceding — " The lives of
those," &c. and that this speecli belongs to Whitmore ; for it is
inconsistent with what the captain says afterwards. The word
cannot is not in the folio. The old play affords no assistance. The
word now added is necessary to the sense, and is a less innovation
on the text than what has been made in the modern editions —
" Nor can those lives," &c.

The emendation made in this passage, (which was written by
Shakspeare, there being no trace of it in the old play,) is sup-
ported by another in Coriolanus, in which we have again the
same expression, and nearly the same sentiments :
" The man I speak oi cannot in the world
'* Be singly counterpois'd." Malone.
The difference between the Captain's present and succeeding
sentiments may thus be accounted for. Here, he is only striving

sc. I, KING HENRY VI. 283

* 1 Gent. I'll give it, sir; and therefore spare

my life.

* 2 Gent. And so will I, and write home for it

straight.

* Whit. I lost mine eye in laying the prize aboard;
' And therefore, to revenge it, shalt thou die ;

\To Sue.
' And so should these, if I might have my will.

* C^p. B^ not so rash ; take ransom, let him live.

* Sue. Look on my George, I am a gentleman ^ ;

* Rate me at what thou wilt, thou shalt be paid.

* Whit. And so am I ; my name is — Walter

Whitmore.

* How now? why start'st thou.^ what, doth death

affright ?

* Sue. Thy name affrights me ^, in whose sound

is death.

* A cunning man did calculate my birth,

" And told me — that by JFater'^ I should die:

to intimidate his prisoners into a ready payment of their ransom.
Afterwards his natural disposition inclines him to mercy, till he is
provoked by the upbraidings of Suffolk. Steevens.

^ Look on my Geokge,] In the first edition it is my ring.

VVarburton.

Here we have another proof of what has been already so often
observed. A j-iug and a George could never have been confounded
either by the eye or the ear. So, in the original play the ransom
of each of Suffolk's companions is a hundred pounds^ but here a
thousand crowns. Malone.

3 Thy name affrights me,] But he had heard his name before,
without being startled by it. In the old play, as soon as ever the
captain has consigned him to " Walter IVhickmore,'' Suffolk im-
mediately exclaims, Walter! Whickmore asks him, why he
fears him, and Suffolk replies, " It is thy name affrights me,'*
Our author has here, as in some other places, fallen into an im-
propriety, by sometimes following and sometimes deserting his
original. Malone.

•* — by Water — ] So, in Queen Margaret's letter to this
Duke of Suffolk, by Michael Drayton :

" I pray thee, Poole, have care how thou dost pass,

" Never the sea yet half so dangerous was,

*' And one foretold, by ivater thou should'st die," &c.

284 SECOND PART OF act iv.

* Yet let not this make thee be bloody minded ;

* Thy name is — Gualtier, being rightly sounded.

* Whit. Gualtier, or Walter, which it is, I care

not;

* Ne'er yet did base dishonour blur our name^

* But with our sword we wip'd away the blot ;

* Therefore, when merchant-like I sell revenge,

* Broke be my sword, my arms torn and defac'd,

* And I proclaim'd a coward through th*e world !

\Lays hold on Suffolk.
' SuF. Stay, Whitmore; for thy prisoner is a
prince.
The duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole.

* Whit. The duke of Suffolk, muffled up in rags !
SuF. Ay, but these rags are no part of the duke ;

Jove sometime went disguis'd, And why not V?

A note on these lines says, " The witch of Eye received an-
swer from her spirit, that the Duke of Sufiblk shoiikl take heed
oiiKater," See the fourth scene of the first Act of this play.

Steevens.

This prophecy, and its accomplishment, are differently stated by
a contemporary in the Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 4-0. The vessel
there is said to have been called Nicholas of the Tower. " Also
he asked the name of the shippe, and whanne he knew it he re-
membered Stacy that said if he miglit eschape the daunger of
the Towr he should be saffe, and thanne his herte faylyd him,"

&C. BOSWELL.

^ 5 Ne'er yet did base dishonour, &c.j This and the following
lines are founded on these two in the old play :

" And therefore ere I merchant-like sell blood for gold,
" Then cast nw /wad/oiio- doivn into the sen."
:.. The new image which Shakspeare has introduced into this
speech, " — my arms torn and defac'd," — is found also in King
Richard 11. :

" From my own window-s torn my household coat,
" Raz'd out my impress ; leaving me no sign, —
*' Save men's opinions, and my living blood, —
" To show the world I am a gentleman,"
See the notes on that passage. See vol. xvi. p. 89, n. 3 and 4.

Malone.
^ Jove sometime went disguis'd, &c.] This verse is omitted in
all but the first old edition, [quarto 1600,] without which what
follows is not sense. The next line also :

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 285

Cjp. But Jove was never slain, as thou shalt be.
* SuF. Obscure and lowly swain/ king Henry's
blood.
The honourable blood of Lancaster^,

* Must not be shed by such a jaded groom ^

Hast thou not kiss'd thy hand, and held my stirrup ?

* Bare-headed plodded by my foot-cloth mule,

' And thought thee happy when I shook my head?

* How often hast thou waited at my cup,

' Fed from my trencher, kneel'd down at the board,
' When I have feasted with queen Margaret ?

* Remember it, and let it make thee crest-fall'n ;

* Ay, and allay this thy abortive pride ^ :

* How in our voiding lobby hast thou stood,

* And duly waited for my coming forth ?

" Obscure and lowly swain, king Henry's blood,"
was falsely put in the Captain's mouth. Pope.

7 — LOWLY swain,] The folio reads — " lotosy swain."

Steevens.
The quarto, loxdy. In a subsequent passage the folio has the
word right :

" By such a lovoly vassal as thyself."
Lowsy was undoubtedly an errour of the press. Malone.
^ The honourable blood of Lancaster,] How had Suffolk any
of this blood? If Shakspeare had been well acquainted with this
duke's pedigree, I think he would not have failed to make some of
his adversaries reproach him with his low extraction. His great
grandfather was a merchant at Hull. Blakeway.

9 — a JADED groom.] I suppose he means a low fellow, fit
only to attend upon horses ; which in our author's time were fre-
quently termed jades. The original play has jac?y, which conveys
this meaning (the only one that the words seem to afford,) more
clearly, jflf/ec? being liable to an equivoque. Jaded ^room,\\ovf~
ever, may mean a groom whom all men treat with contempt ; as
worthless as the most paltry kind of horse.
So, in King Henry VIII, :

" — — if we live thus tamely,

" To be t\i\xii jaded by a piece of scarlet — ." Malone.
A jaded groom may signify a groom who has hitherto been
treated with no greater ceremony than a horse. Steevens.

' — abortive pride :] Pride that has had birth too soon, pride
issuing before its time. Johnson.

286 SECOND PART OF ^ct iv.

* This hand of mine hath writ in thy behalf,

* And therefore shall it charm thy riotous tongue \

* Whit. Speak, captain, shall I stab the forlorn

swain ?

* Cap. First let my words stab him, as he hath

me.

* SuF. Base slave ! thy words are blunt, and so

art thou.
' Cap. Convey him hence, and on our long-boat's
side

* Strike off his head.

SuF. Thou dar'st not for thy own'.

Cap. Yes, Poole.

SuF. Poole .^

Cap. Poole .? Sir Poole .? lord ' ?

* — CHARM THY riotous TONGUE.] i. c. restrain thy licen-
tious talk, compel thee to be silent. See Mr. Steevens's note
in Othello, vol. ix. p. 477, n. 9, where lago uses the same ex-
pression. It occurs frequently in the books ofour author's age.

M ALONE.

Again, in the Third Part of this play, Act V. Sc. III. :
" Peace, wilful boy, or I will charm your tongue."''

Steevens.
^ Thou dar'st not, &c.] In the quarto edition the passage
stands thus :

" Strf. Thou dar'st not for thy own,
" Cap. Yes, Pole ?
" Suf. Pole ?

" Cap. Ay, Pole, puddle, kennel, sink and dirt,
" I'll stop that yawning mouth of thine."
I think the two intermediate speeches should be inserted in the
text, to introduce the Captain's repetition of Poole, &c.

Steevens.
It is clear from what follows that these speeches were not in-
tended to be rejected by Shakspeare, but accidentally omitted at
the press. I have therefore restored them. Malone.

3 Poole? Sir Poole? lord?] The dissonance of this broken
line makes it almost certain that we should read with a kind of
ludicrous climax :

" Poole ? Sir Poole ? lord Poole ? "
He then plays upon the name Poole, kennel, puddle.

Johnson,

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 287

* Ay, kennel, puddle, sink ; whose filth and dirt

* Troubles the silver spring where England drinks.

* Now will I dam up this thy yawning mouth,

* For swallowing* the treasure of the realm :

* Thy lips, that kiss'd the queen, shall sweep the

ground ;

* And thou, that smil'dst at good duke Humphrey's

death \

* Against the senseless winds shalt grin in vain ^,

* Who, in contempt, shall hiss at thee again'' :

* And wedded be thou to the hags of hell,

* For daring to affy ^ a mighty lord

4 For swallowing — ] He means, perhaps, so as to prevent thy
swallowing, &c. So, in The Puritan, 1607 : " — he is now in
huckster's handling_/or running away." I have met with many
other instances of this kind of phraseologj'. The more obvious
interpretation, however, may be the true one. Malone.

5 And thou, that smil'dst at good duke Humphrey's death, &c.]
This enumeration of Suffolk's crimes seems to have been sug-
gested by The Mirrour of Magistrates, 1575, Legend of William
de la Pole :

" And led me back again to Dover road,

" Where unto me i-ecountiiig all my faults, —

" As murthering of duke Humphrey in his bed,

" And how I had brought all the realm to nought,

" Causing the king unlawfully to wed,

" There was no grace but I must lose my head."

Malone.
^ — shalt grin in vain,] From hence to the endof this speech
is undoubtedly the original composition of Shakspeare, no traces
of it being found in the elder play. Malone.

7 — the senseless WINDS

Who, in CONTEMPT, shall hiss at thee again :] The same
worthless image occurs also in Romeo and Juliet :

" the rciinds

" Who, nothing hurt withal, kiss'd him in scorn."

Steevens.
' — to AFFY — ] To affy is to hetroth in marriage. So, in
Drayton's Legend of Pierce Gaveston :

" In bands of wedlock did to me affy
" A lady," &c,
A gain J in the 17 th Song of The Polyolbion :

288 SECOND PART OF act ir.

* Unto the daughter of a worthless king,

* Having neither subject, wealth, nor diadem.

* By devilish policy art thou grown great,

* And, like ambitious Sylla, overgorg'd

* With gobbets of thy mother's bleeding heart.

* By thee, Anjou and Maine were sold to France :

* The false revolting Normans, thorough thee,
^ Disdain to call us lord ; and Picardy

* Hath slain their governors, surpriz'd our forts,

* And sent the ragged soldiers wounded home.

* The princely Warwick, and the Nevils all, —

* Whose dreadful swords were never drawn in

vain, —

* As hating thee, are rising ^ up in arms :

* And now the house of York — thrust from the

crown,

* By shameful murder of a guiltless king,

* And lofty proud encroaching tyranny, —

* Burns with revenging fire ; whose hopeful colours

* Advance our half-fac'd sun \ striving to shine,

* Under the which is writ — Invitis mibibus.

"* The commons here in Kent are up in arms :

* And, to conclude, reproach, and beggary,

* Is crept into the palace of our king,

* And all by thee : — Away ! convey him hence.

* SuF. O that I were a god, to shoot forth
thunder

* Upon these paltry, servile, abject drudges !

" the Almaine emperor's bride

" Which after to the earl of Anjou was affyd."

Steevens.
9 — ARE rising — ] Old copy — and rising. Corrected by
Mr, Rowe. Malone,

* — whose hopeful colours
Advance our half-fac'd sun,] *' Edward III. bare for his
device the rays of the sun dispersing themselves out of a cloud."
Camden's Remaines. Malone.

sc. /. KING HENRY VI. 289

* Small things make base men proud : ' this vil-

lain here,

* Being captain of a pinnace^, threatens more

* Than Bargulus the strong Illyrian pirate^.

' Drones suck not eagles' blood, but rob bee-hives.

* It is impossible, that I should die
' By such a lowly vassal as thyself.

' Thy v/ords move rage, and not remorse, in me * :

^ Being captain of a pinnace,] A pinnace did not anciently
signify, as at present, a man of war's boat, but a ship of small
burthen. So, in Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. p. 118 : "The
king (James I.) naming the great ship. Trade's Increase; and
the prince, a jnmiace of 250 tons (built to wait upon her,) Pepper-
corn." Steevens.

The complement of men on board a pinnace (or sjyyner) was
about twenty-five. See Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 159. Henley.

3 Than Bargulus the strong Illyrian pirate.] Mr. Theobald
says, " This wight I have not been able to trace, or discover from
what legend our author derived his acquaintance with him."
And yet he is to be met with in TuUy's Offices ; and the legend
is the famous Theopompus's History : " Bargulus, lUyrius latro,
de quo est apud Theopompum, magnas opes habuit." lib. ii.
cap. xi. Warburton.

Dr. Farmer observes that Shakspeare might have met with this
pirate in two translations. Robert Whytinton, 1533, calls him
" Bargulus, a pirate upon the sea of Illiry ; " and Nicholas
Grimoald, about twenty-three years afterwards, " Bargulus, the
Illyrian robber,"

Bargulus does not make his appearance in the quarto ; but we
have another hero in his room. The Captain, says Suffolk :
" Threatens more plagues than mighty Abradas,
" The great Macedonian pirate."

I know nothing more of this Abradas, than that he is men-
tioned by Greene in his Penelope's Web, 1601 :

" Abradas the great Macedonian pirat thought every one had
a letter of mart that bare sayles in the ocean." Steevens.

Here we see another proof of what has been before suggested.

Malone.

4 Thy words move rage, and not remorse, in me :] This line
Shakspeare has injudiciously taken from the Captain, to whom
it is attributed in the original play, and given it to Suffolk ; for
what remorse, that is, pity, could Suffolk be called upon to show
to his assailant : whereas the Captain might with propriety say

VOI-. XVIII. u

290 SECOND PART OF act if.

* I go of message from the queen to France ;
' I charge thee, waft me safely cross the channel.
' Cap. Walter,

* Whit. Come, Suffolk, I must waft thee to thy

death.

* SuF. Pent gelidus timor occupat artus^ : — 'tis

thee I fear.

to his captive — thy haughty language exasperates me, instead of
exciting my compassion. Malone.

Perhaps our author meant (however imperfectly he may have
expressed himself,) to make Suffolk say — " Your words excite
my anger, instead of prompting me to solicit pity." Steevens.

The meaning, I apprehend, is this, " You have not made me
feel remorse for the crimes with which you have charged me,
but rage at your insolence." Remorse, in our old writers, some-
times signified pity ; but was also used in its modern sense.

BOSM^ELL.

5 Perw gelidus timor occiipat artus :^ The folio, where alone
this line is found, reads — Pine, &c. a corruption, I suppose, of
\_pene'] the word that I have substituted in its place. I know not
what other word could have been intended. The editor of the
second folio, and all the modern editors, have escaped the difficulty
by suppressing the word. The measure is of little consequence,
for no such line, I believe, exists in any classick author. Dr.
Grey refers lis to " Ovid de Trist. 313, and Metamorph. 24'7 : "
a very wide field to range in ; however, with some trouble I found
out what he meant. This line is not in Ovid (nor I believe in any
other poet) ; but in his De Tristibus, lib. i. El. iii. 113, we find :

Navita, confessus gclido pallore tiniorem — ,
and in his Metamorph. lib. iv. 247, we meet with these lines :
Ille quidem gelidos radiorum viribus artus.
Si queat, in vivum tentat revocare calorem. Malone.
In the eleventh book of Virgil, Turnus (addressing Drances)
says —

— — cur ante tubam tremor occupat artus ?
This is as near, I conceive, to Suffolk's quotation, as either of
the passages already produced. Yet, somewhere, in the wide
expanse of Latin Poetry, ancient and modern, the veiy words in
question may hereafter be detected.

Pene, the gem which appears to have illuminated the dreary
mine of collation, is beheld to so little advantage above-ground,
that I am content to leave it where it was discovered. Steevens.
In the seventh book of the .^neid, v. ^^fS, we find —
Subitus tremor occupat artus. Boswell.

sc. J. KING HENRY VI. 291

* Whit. Thou shalt have cause to fear, before I

leave thee.

* What, are ye daunted now ? now will ye stoop ?

' 1 Gent. My gracious lord, entreat him, speak

him fair.
* SuF. Suffolk's imperial tongue is stern and rough,

* Us'd to command, untaught to plead for favour.

* Far be it, we should honour such as these
' With humble suit: no, rather let my head

* Stoop to the block, than these knees bow to any,

* Save to the God of heaven, and to my king ;

* And sooner dance upon a bloody pole,

* Than stand uncover'd to the vulgar groom.

* True nobility is exempt from fear : —

* More can I bear, than you dare execute °.

* Cap. Hale him away, and let him talk no more.
' SuF. Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can \

^ More can I bear, than you dare execute.] So, in King
Henry VIII. :

" I am able now, methinks,

" (Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,)
" To endure more miseries, and greater far,
*' Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer."
Again, in Othello :

" Thou hast not half that power to do me harm,
" As I have to be hurt." Malone.
' Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can,] In the folio this
line is given to the Captain by the carelessness of the printer or
transcriber. The present regulation was made by Sir Thomas
Hanmer, and followed by Dr. Warburton. See the latter part
of note 6, p. 284. Malone.

Surely (as has been suggested) this line belongs to the next
speech. No cruelty was meditated beyond decollation ; and
without such an introduction, there is an obscure abruptness in
the beginning of Suffolk's reply to the Captain. Steevens.

Mr. Steevens has observed that " no cruelty was meditated be-
vond decollation ;" butwe learn from the letter in the Paston collec-
tion which I have already quoted, that this was very barbarously
performed, " con of the lewdeste of the shippe badde hym ley
down his hedde and he shuld be fair ford with and dye on a
svverde, and toke a rusly siverde and smo'.te of his hedde withyn
halfe a doseyn strokes." Boswell.

292 SECOND PART OF act iv.

' That this my death may never be forgot ! —
' Great men oft die by vile bezonians ^ :
' A Roman sworder '^ and banditto slave,
' Murder'd sweet Tully ; Brutus' bastard hand^
* Stabb'd Julius Caesar; savage islanders,
' Pompey the great " : and Suffolk dies by pirates.

\^E,vit ScF. with Jf'HiT. and Others.
C^p. And as for these whose ransom v/e have set,

^ — bezonians:] See a note on the second part of King
Henry IV. vol. xvii. p. 224, n. 4 :

*' Bisagnoso, is a mean low man."

So, in Sir Giles Goosecap, 1606:

" if he come to me like your Bcsognio, or your boor."

Again, in Markham's English Husbandman, p. 4 :

*' The ordinary tillers of the earth, such as we call husband-
men ; in France peasants, in Spain Jjesonyans, and generally the
cloutshoe." Steevens.

9 A Roman sworder, &c.] i. e. Herennius, a centurion, and
Popilius Laenas, tribune of the soldiers. Steevens.

' — Brutus' BASTARD hand — ] Brutus was the son of Servilia,
a Roman lady, who had been concubine to Julius Cfesar.

Steevens.

* Pompey the great :] The poet seems to have confounded the
story of Pompey with some other. Johnson.

This circumstance might be advanced as a slight proof, in aid
of many stronger, that our poet was no classical scholar. Such
a one could not easily have forgotten the manner in which the life
of Pompey was concluded. Pompey, however, is not in the
quarto. Spenser likewise abounds with deviations from esta-
blished history and fable. Steevens.

Pompey being killed by Achillas and Septimius at the moment
that the Egyptian fishing boat in which they were, reached the
coast, and his head being thrown into the sea, (a circumstance
which Shakspeare found in North's translation of Plutarch,) his
mistake does not appear more extraordinary than some others
which have been pointed out in his works.

It is remarkable that the introduction of Pompey was among
Shakspeare's additions to the old play : This may account for the
classical error into which probably the original author would not
have fallen. In the quarto the lines stand thus :
" A sworder, and banditto slave,
" Murdered sweet Tully ;
*' Brutus' bastard hand stabb'd Julius Caesar,
" And Suflblk dies by pirates on the seas." Malone.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 293

It is our pleasure one of them depart :
Therefore come you with us, and let him go.

\Exeunt all but the first Gentleman.

Re-enter Whitmore^ xvith Suffolk s Body.

* Whit. There let his head and lifeless body lie,
' Until the queen his mistress bury it ^. \Exit.

* 1 Gent. O barbarous and bloody spectacle !

* His body will I bear unto the king :

* If he revenge it not, yet will his friends;

* So will the queen, that living held him dear.

\_E.vit, ivith the Body.

SCENE II.
Blackheath.

Enter George Befis and John Holland.

* Geo. Come, and get thee a swor^^^, though

* made of a lath ; they have been up these two

* days.

' John. They have the more need to sleep now
then.
' Geo. I tell thee ^, Jack Cade the clothier means

(

3 There let his head, &c.] Instead of this speech, the quarto
gives us the following :

" Cap. Off with his head, and send it to the queen,
" And ransomless this prisoner shall go free,
" To see it safe deliver'd unto her." Steevens.
See Sir John Fenn's Collection of The Paston Letters, vol. i.
p. 40. Henley.

4 — get thee a sword,] The quarto reads — Come away,
NicJc, and/jw^ a long staff in thy pike, 8tc. Steevens.

So afterwards, instead of " Cade the clothier," we have in the
quarto " Cade the dyer of Ashford." Malone.

^ I tell thee,] In the original play this speech is introduced
more naturally. Nick asks George " Sirra George, what's the

294 SECOND PART OF act iv.

* to dress the commonwealth, and turn it, and set a
' new nap upon it.

John. So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well,
I say, it was never merry world in England ^, since
gentlemen came up ".

* Geo. O miserable age ! Virtue is not regarded

* in handycrafts-men.

' John. The nobility think scorn to go in leather

* aprons.

* Geo. Nay more, the king's council are no good

* workmen.

* John. True ; And yet it is said, — Labour in

* thy vocation : which is as much to say, as, — let

* the magistrates be labouring men ; and therefore

* should we be magistrates.

* Geo. Thou hast hit it : for there's no better

* sign of a brave mind, than a hard hand.

* John. I see them ! I see them ! There's Best's

* son, the tanner of Wingham ;

* Geo. He shall have the skins of our enemies,

* to make dog's leather of.

John. And Dick the butcher ^

matter?" to which George rejilies, " Why marry, Jack Cade,
the f/yer of Ash ford here," &c. Malone.

^ Well, I say, it was never merky world in England, &c.]
The same phrase was used by the Duke of Suffolk in the time of
Henry VIII. : "Then stept forth the Duke of Suffolke from the
King, and spake with a hault countenance these words : It xvas
never merry in EnryJand (quoth hee) while we had any Cardinals
among us," &c. Stoivcs Chronicle, fo. 1631, p. .546. Reed.

7 — since gentlemen came up.] Thus we familiarly say — a
fashion comes up. Steevens.

^ And Dick the butcher,] In the first copy thus :

" Why there's Dick the butcher, and Robin the sadler, and
Will tliat came a wooing to our Nan last Sunday, and Harry and
Tom, and (iregory, that should have your parnell, and a great
sort more, is come from Rochester and from Maidstone, and
Canterbury, and all the towns hereabouts, and we must all be
lords, or squires, as soon as Jack Cade is king. Malone.

sc. II. KING HENRY VJ. 295

* Geo. Then is sin struck down like an ox, and

* iniquity's throat cut like a calf.

* John. And Smith the weaver :

* Geo. Argo, their thread of life is spun.

* John. Come, come, let's fall in with them.

Drum. Enter Cade, Dick the Butcher, Smith
the Weaver, and Others in great number.

* Cade. We John Cade, so termed of our sup-

* posed father,

* Dick. Or rather, of stealing a cade of herrings ^.

[Aside.

* Cade. — for our enemies shall fall before us ^,

9 — a CADE of herrings.] That is, a barrel of herrings. I
suppose the word keg, which is now used, is cade corrupted.

Johnson.
A cade is less than a barrel. The quantity it should contain is
ascertained by the accounts of the Celeress of the Abbey of
Berking. " Memorandum that a barrel of herryng shold contene
a thousand herryngs, and a cade of herryng six hundreth, six
score to the hundreth." Mon. Aug. i. S3. Malone.

Nash speaks of having weighed one of Gabriel Harvey's books
against a cade of herrings, and ludicrously says, "That the
rebel Jacke Cade was the first that devised to put redde herrings
in cades, and from him they have their name." Praise of the Red
Herring, 1599. Cade, however, is derived from Cadus, Lat. a
cask or barrel. Steevens.

* — our enemies shall fall before us,] He alludes to his
name Cade, from cado, Lat. to Jail. He has too much learning
for his character. Johnson.

" We John Cade, &c.] This passage, I think, should be re-
gulated thus :

" Cade. We John Cade, so termed of our supposed father,

for our enemies shall fall before us ;

" Dick. Or rather of stealing a cade of herrings.
" Cade. Inspired with the spirit," &c. Tyrwhitt.
In the old play the corresponding passage stands thus :
" I John Cade, so named for my valiancy, —
" Dick. Or rather ybr stealing of a cade of sprats."
The transposition recommended by Mr. Tyrwhitt is so plausi-
ble, that I had once regulated the text accordingly. But Dick's
quibbling on the word of (which is used by Cade, according to
the phraseology of our author's time, for by, and as employed by

296 SECOND PART OF ACTif^.

' inspired with the spirit of putting down kings and

* princes, — Command silence.

Djck. Silence !

C.JDE. My father was a Mortimer, —
Dick. He was an honest man, and a good brick-
layer, l^^^ide.

* Cade. My mother a Plantagenet, —

* Dick. I knew her well, she was a midwife.

[Aside.

* Cade. My wife descended of the Lacies, —
Dick. She was, indeed, a pedlars daughter, and

sold many laces. [Aside.

' Smith. But, now of late, not able to travel with

* her furred pack ', she washes bucks here at home.

[Aside.

* Cade. Therefore am I of an honourable house.

Dick. Ay, by my faith, the field is honour-
able ^ ; and there was he born, under a hedge ; for
his father had never a house, but the cage ^.

[Aside.

Dick, signifies — on accoicnt of,) is so much in Shakspeare's man-
ner, that no change ought, I think, to be made. If the words
" Or rather of stealing," &c. be postponed to — " For our enemies
shall fall before us," Dick then, as at present, would assert — that
Cade is not so called on account of a particular theft; which in-
deed would correspond sufficiently with the old play ; but the
quibble on the word nf, which appears very like a conceit of Shak-
speare, would be destroyed. Cade, as the speeches stand in the
folio, proceeds to assign the origin of his name without paying any
regard to what Dick has said.

0/is used again in Coriolanus, in the sense which it bears in
Cade's speech : — " We have been called so of many." i. e. by
many. Malone.

^ — furred pack,] A wallet or knapsack of skin with the hair
outward. Johnson.

3 — the FIELD is honourable ;] Perhaps a quibble between
Jield in its heraldick, and in its common acceptation, was designed,

Steevens.

4 — but the CAGE.] A cage was formerly a term for a prison.
See Minsheu, in v. We yet talk of jail-birds. Malone.

sc. 11, KING HENRY VI. 297

* Cade. Valiant I am.

* Smith. 'A must needs ; for beggary is valiant.

[Aside.

Cade. I am able to endure much.

Dick. No question of that; for I have seen him
whipped three market days together. \Adde.

Cade. I fear neither sword nor fire.

Smith. He need not fear the sword, for his coat
is of proof \ [Aside.

Dick. But, methinks, he should stand in fear of
fire, being burnt i' the hand for stealing of sheep.

[Aside.

Cade. Be brave then ; for your captain is brave,
and vows reformation. There shall be, in England,
seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny : the three-
hooped pot shall have ten hoops ^ ; and I will make
it felony, to drink small beer : all the realm shall
be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfry

There is scarce a village in England which has not a temporary
place of confinement, still called The Cage. Steevens.

^ — for his coat is of proof.] A quibble between two senses
of the word ; one as being able to resist, the other as being txiell-
tried, that is, long worn. Hanmer.

^ — the THREE-HOOPED pot shall have ten hoops;] In The
Gul's Horn-Booke, a satirical pamphlet by Deckar, 1609, hoojis
are mentioned among other drinking measures : " — his hoops,
cans, half-cans," &c. And Nash, in his Pierce Penniles.se his
Supplication to the Devil, 1595, says : " I believe honpes in
quart pots were invented to that end, that every man should take
his Aoo/;e, and no more."

It appears from a passage in Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonson,
that " burning of cans " was one of the offices of a city magistrate.
I suppose he means burning such as were not of statutable mea-
sure. Steevens.

An anonymous commentator supposes, perhaps with more
truth, that " the burning of cans " was, marking them with a red-
hot iron, which is still practised by the magistrate in many coun-
try boroughs, in proof of their being statutable measure. — These
cans, it should be observed, were of wood. Henley.

Mr. VVhalley has given this explanation in a note on the passage
quoted from Cynthia's Revels. Boswell.

298 SECOJND PART OF act ly.

go to grass. And, when I am king, (as king I will
be)

All. God save your majesty !

' Cade. I thank you, good people : — there shall

* be no money " ; all shall eat and drink on my

* score ; and I will apparel them all in one livery,

* that they may agree like brothers, and worship me

* their lord.

* Dick. The first thing we do, let's kill all the

* lawyers.

Cade. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a la-
mentable thing ^, that of the skin of an innocent
lamb should be made parchment ? that parchment,
being scribbled o'er, should undo a man ? Some
say, the bee stings : but I say, 'tis the bee's wax,
for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never
mine own man since. How now ? who's there ?

Enter some, bringing in the Clerk of Chatham^.

Smith. The clerk of Chatham : he can write and
read, and cast accompt.
Cade. O monstrous !

7 — there shall be no money ;] To mend the world by ba-
nishing money is an old contrivance of those who did not consider
that the quarrels and mischiefs which arise from money, as the
sign or ticket of riches, must, if money were to cease, arise imme-
diately from riches themselves, and could never be at an end till
every man was contented with his own share of the goods of life.

Johnson.

^ Is not this a lamentable thing, &c.] This speech was trans-
posed by Shakspeare, it being found in the old play in a subse-
quent scene. Malone.

9 — the Clerk of Chatham.'] The person whom Shakspeare
makes Clerk of Chatham should seem to have been one Thomas
Baijly, a reputed necromancer, or fortune-teller, at Whitechapel.
He had formerly been a bosom friend of Cade's, and of the same
profession. W. Worcester, \i. ^1\. Ritson.

This person is a nonentity in history, and, in all probability, a
character invented by the writer of the play. It is presumed that
few will be inclined to agree with Mr. Ritson. Douce.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 299

Smith. We took him setting of boys' copies \

Cade. Here's a villain !

Smith. H'as a book in his pocket, with red let-
ters in't.

Cade. Nay, then he is a conjurer.

Dick. Nay, he can make obligations", and write
court-hand.

* Cade. I am sorry fort : the man is a proper
' man, on mine honour ; unless I find him guilty,
' he shall not die,~Come hither, sirrah, I must ex-
' amine thee : What is thy name ?

Clerk. Emmanuel.

Dick. They use to write it on the top of letters '';
— ^'Twill go hard with you.

* Cade. Let me alone : — Dost thou use to write
' thy name ? or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an
' honest plain-dealing man ?

1 We took him, Sic] We must suppose that Smith had taken
the Clerk some time before, and left him in the custody of those
who now bring him in. In the old play IVill the iKeaver enters
with the Clerk, though he has not long before been conversing
with Cade. Perhaps it was intended that Smith should go out
after his speech, ending — " for his coat is of proof : " but no Exit
is marked in the old copy. It is a matter of little consequence. —
It is, I think, most probable that Will was the true name of this
character, as in the old play, (so Dick, George, John, &c.) and
that Smith, the name of some low actor, has crept into the folio
by mistake. Malone.

2 — obligations,] That is, 6o??c?5. Malone.

3 They use to write it on the top of letters;] i. e. Of letters
missive, and such like publick acts. See Mabillon's Diplomata.

Warburton,
In the old anonymous play, called The Famous Victories of
Henry V. containing the Honourable Battel of Agincourt, I find
the same circumstance. The Archbishop of Burges (i. e. Bruges)
is the speaker, and addresses himself to King Henry :
" I beseech your grace to deliver me your safe
" Conduct, under your broad seal Emanuel."
The King in answer says :

" deliver him safe conduct

" Under our broad seal Emamid.'" Steevens.

300 SECOND PART OF yiCT iv.

Clerk. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well
brought up, that I can write my name.

' j4ll. He hath confessed : away with him, he's

* a villain, and a traitor.

* Cade. Away with him, I say : hang him with

* his pen and ink-horn about his neck.

\Exeunt some with the Clerk.

Enter Michael.

* Mich. Where's our general ?

* Cade. Here I am, thou particular fellow.

* Mich. Fly, fly, fly! sir Humphrey Stafford and

* his brother are hard by, with the king's forces.

* Cade. Stand, villain, stand, or Fll fell thee

* down : He shall be encountered with a man as

* good as himself: He is but a knight, is 'a ?

' Mich. No.

* Cade. To equal him, I will make myself a

* knight presently ; Rise up sir John Mortimer.

* Now have at him '*.

Enter Sir Humphrey Stafford, and JVilliam his
Brother, with Drum and Forces.

* Staf. Rebellious hinds, the filth and scum of

Kent,

* Mark'd for the gallows, — lay your weapons down,

* Home to your cottages, forsake this groom ; —

* The king is merciful, if you revolt.

* JV. Staf. But angry, wrathful, and inclin'd to

blood.

4 — have at him.] After this speech the oUl play has the fol-
lowing words :

" — Is there any more of them that be knights ?
" Tom. Yea, his brother.

" Cade. Then kneel down, Dick Butcher; rise up sir
" Dick Butcher. Sound up the drum."

sen. KING HENRY VI. 301

* If you go forward : therefore yield, or die.
C^DE. As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass

not ^ ;
It is to you, good people, that I speak,

* O'er whom, in time to come, I hope to reign ;

* For I am rightful heir unto the crown.

' St^f. Villain, thy father was a plasterer ;

* And thou thyself, a shearman. Art thou not ?

Cade. And Adam was a gardener.

* W. Staf. And what of that ?

Cade. Marry, this : — Edmund Mortimer, earl of
March,
Married the duke of Clarence' daughter ; Did he
not ?

* Staf. Ay, sir.

Cade. By her he had two children at one birth.
JV. Staf. That's false.

' Cade. Ay, there's the question ; but, I say, 'tis
true :

* The elder of them, being put to nurse,

* Was by a beggar-woman stol'n away ;

' And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,

* Became a bricklayer, when he came to age :

* His son am I ; deny it, if you can.

Dick. Nay, 'tis too true ; therefore he shall be
king.

Smith. Sir, he made a chimney in my father's
house, and the bricks are alive at this day to testify
it; therefore, deny it not.

* Staf. And will you credit this base drudge's

words,

* That speaks he knows not what ?

* All. Ay, marry, will we; therefore get ye gone.

•^ — I pass not ;] I pay them no regard. Johnson.
So, in Drayton's Quest of Cynthia :

" Transform me to what shape you can,

" \j)nss not what it be." Steevens.

302 SECOND PART OF act iv.

TV. Staf. Jack Cade, the duke of York hath
taught you this.

* Cade. He lies, for I invented it myself.
[Aside. ~\ — Go to, sirrah, Tell the king from me,
that — for his father's sake, Henry the fifth, in whose
time boys went to span-counter for French crowns,
— I am content he shall reign ; but I'll be protector
over him.

' Dick. And, furthermore, we'll have the lord

* Say's head, for selling the dukedom of Maine.

* Cade. And good reason ; for thereby is Eng-

* land maimed ^, and fain to go with a staff, but
' that my puissance holds it up. Fellow kings, I

* tell you that that lord Say hath gelded the com-

* monwealth'' , and made it an eunuch : and more

* than that, he can speak French, and therefore he
' is a traitor.

* Staf. O gross and miserable ignorance !

* Cade, Nay, answer, if you can : The French-

* men are our enemies : go to then, I ask but this ;

<> — is England maimed,] The folio has — main'd. The cor-
rection was made from the old play. I am not, however, sure that
a blunder was not intended. Daniel has the same conceit ; Civil
Wiiifi, 1595 :

" Anjou and Maine, the maim that foul appears — ."

Maloxe.

' — hath GELDED the commonwealth,] Shakspeare has here
transgressed a rule laid down by TuUy, De Oratore ; " Nolo
morte dici African! castratam esse rempublicam." The character
of the speaker, however, may countenance such indelicacy. In
other places our author, less excuseably, talks oi gelding purses,
patrimonies, and continents. Steevens.

This ])eculiar e.Kpression is Shakspeare's own, not being found
in the old play. In King Richard II. Ross says that Henry of
Bolingbroke has been —

" Bereft and gelded of his patrimony."

So Cade here says, that the commonwealth is hcrejl of \vhat
it before possessed, namely, certain provinces in France.

Malone.

See vol. iv. p, 315, n. 8. Boswell.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 303

* Can he, that speaks with the tongue of an enemy.

* be a good counsellor, or no ?

* All. No, no ; and therefore we'll have his

* head.

* fV. Staf. Well, seeing gentle words will not

prevail,

* Assail them with the army of the king.

* Staf. Herald, away : and, throughout every

town,

* Proclaim them traitors that are up with Cade ;
' That those which fly before the battle ends,

' May, even in their wives' and children's sight,

* Be hang'd up for example at their doors: —

' And you, that be the king's friends, follow me.

\_Ea:eunt the two Staffords, and Forces.

* Cade. And you, that love the commons, fol-

low me. —

* Now show yourselves men, 'tis for liberty.

* We will not leave one lord, one gentleman :

* Spare none, but such as go in clouted shoon ;

* For they are thrifty honest men, and such

* As would (but that they dare not,) take our parts.

* Dick. They are all in order, and march toward

us.

* Cade. But then are we in order, when we are

* most out of order. Come, march forward ^.

\_E.veiint.

* — Come, march forward.] In the first copy, instead of this
speech, we have only — " Come, Sirs, St. George for us, and
Kent.'' MA.LONE.

304 SECOND PART OF act if.

SCENE III.

Another Part of Blackheath.

Alarums. The txco Parties enter ^ and Jight, and
both the Staffords are slain.

* Cade. Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford ?

* Dick. Here, sir.

* Cade. They fell before thee like sheep and

* oxen, and thou behavedst thyself as if thou hadst

* been in thine own slaughter-house : therefore thus
' will I reward thee, — The Lent shall be as long

* again as it is ^ ; and thou shalt have a license to

* kill for a hundred lacking one, a week'.

9 — as long AGAIN as it is ;] The word again, which was
certainly omitted in the folio by accident, was restored from the
old play, by Mr. Steevens, on the suggestion of Dr. Johnson.

Malone.

' — and thou shalt have a licence to kill for a hundred lacking
one, A WEEK.] The last two words I have restored from the
original play. In that piece the passage stood thus : — " and the
Lent shall be as long again as it xuas, and thou shalt have a licence
iov fourscore and one, a loeck.'' Shakspeare changed the number
to ninety-nine, perhaps from that number being familiar to him,
being a common term or period of duration in leases. But, the
words — " a week," which are found in the original play, must have
been accidentally omitted in the transcript or at the press ; for
the passage is unintelligible without them. In the reign of Eli-
zabeth, butchers were strictly enjoined not to sell flesh meat
in Lent, not with a religious view, but for the double purpose of
diminishing the consumption of flesh meat during that period, and
so making it more plentiful during the rest of the year, and of en-
couraging the fisheries and augmenting the number of seamen.
Butchers who had interest at court, frequently obtained a dispen-
sation from this junction, and procured a licence to kill a certain
limited number of beasts a iveek, during Lent, of which indul-
gence the wants of invalids who could not subsist without ani-
mal food, was generally made the pretence. See the Proclamations
in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries. Malone.

sc. jy. KING HENRY VI. 305

' Dick. I desire no more.

* Cade. And, to speak truth, thou deservest no

* less. This monument of the victory will I bear';

* and the bodies shall be dragged at my horse' heels,

* till I do come to London, where we will have the

* mayor's sword borne before us.

* Dick. If we mean to thrive and do good ",

* break open the gaols, and let out the prisoners.

* Cade. Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come,

* let's march towards London. [^E.veu7it.

SCENE IV.

London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King Henry, read'mg a Supplication ; the
Duke of BrcKisGHAM, and Lord Say zvith him :
at a distance. Queen Margaret, mourning over
Suffolk's Head.

* Q. Mar. Oft have I heard — that grief softens
the mind,

* And makes it fearful and degenerate ;

* Think therefore on revenge, and cease to weep.

* But who can cease to weep, and look on this ?

* Here may his head lie on my throbbing breast :

' This monument of the victory will I bear;] Here Cade
must be supposed to take ott' Stafford's armour. So, Holinshed :

" Jack Cade, upon his victory against the Staffords, apparelled
himself in Sir Humphrey's brigandine, set full of gilt nails, and
so in some glorv returned again toward London." Steevens.

Sir Humphrey Stafl'ord, who was killed at Sevenoke in Cade's
rebellion, is buried at Bromsgrove in Staffordshire. \''aillant.

^ If we mean to thrive and do good, &c.] I think it should be
read thus : " If we mean to thrive, do good ; break open the

gaols," &C. JoHXSON.

The speaker designs to say — " If we ourselves mean to thrive,
and do good to others," &c. The old reading is the true one.

Steevens.
VOL. XYIII. X

306 SECOND PART OF ^jct ir,

* But Where's the body that I should embrace ?

' Buck. What answer makes your grace to the
' rebels' supplication " ?

* K. Hen. I'll send some holy bishop to entreat ^ :
' For God forbid, so many simple souls

' Should perish by the sword ! And I myself,
' Rather than bloody war shall cut them short,
' Will parley with Jack Cade their general, —
' But stay, I'll read it over once again.

* Q. M^R. Ah, barbarous villains! hath this

lovely face

* Rul'd, like a wandering planet \ over me ;

* And could it not enforce them to relent,

* That were unworthy to behold the same ?

' K. Hen. Lord Say, Jack Cade hath sworn to
have thy head.

3 — to the rebels' supplication ?] " And to the entent that the
cause of this glorious capitaynes comyng thither might be sha-
dowed from the king and his counsayll, he sent to him an humble
supplication, — affirmyng his commyng not to be against him, but
against divers of his counsayl," &c. Hall, Henrv VI. fol. 77.

Malone.

4 I'll send some holy bishop to entreat :] Here, as in some
other places, our author has fallen into an inconsistency, by some-
times following and sometimes deserting his original. In the old
play, the King says not a word of sending any bishop to the re-
bels ; but says, he will himself come and parly with them, and
in the mean while order Clifford and Bucldngham to gather an
array and to go to them. Shakspeare, in new modelling this
scene, found in Holinshed's Chronicle the following words :
" — to whome [Cade] were sent from the king, the Archbishop of
Caiiterburie and Humphrey duke of Buckingham, to common
with him of his griefs and requests." This gave birth to the line
before us ; which our author afterwards forgot, having introduced
in Scene VIII. only Buckingham and Clifford, conformably to the
old play. Malone.

5 Rul'd, like a wandering planet,] Predominated irresistibly
over my passions, as the planets over the lives of those that are
born under their influence. Johnson.

The old play led Shakspeare into this strange exhibition ; a
queen with the head of her murdered paramour on her bosom, in
presence of her husband? Malone.

;sc, ir, KING HENRY VI. 307

* 8ay, Ay, but I hope, your highness shall have

his.
K> Hen. How, now, madam "^ Still
Lamenting, and m.ourning for Suffolk's death .''
I fear, my love ^ if that I had been dead,
Thou would est not have mourn'd so much for me.
Q. Mab. No, my love, I should not mourn, but
die for thee.

Enter a Messenger.

* K. Hex. How novv^ ! what news ? why com'st

thou in such haste ?

* Mess. The rebels are in wSouthwark ; Fly, my

lord !

* Jack Cade proclaims himself lord Mortimer,

* Descended from the duke of Clarence' house ;

* And calls your grace usurper, openly,

* And vows to crown himself in Westminster.
' His army is a ragged multitude

* Of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless:

* Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother's death

* Hath given them heart and courage to proceed :

* All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen,

* They call — false caterpillars, and intend their

death.

* K. Hen. O graceless men ! they know not

what they do '.

* Buck. My gracious lord, retire toKenelworth*^,

^ 1 fear, my love.] The folio has here — "I fear me, love," which
is certainly sense ; but as we find " ??z_?/ love " in the old play,
and these lines were adopted without retouching, I suppose the
transcriber's ear deceived him. Malone.

7 — what they do.] Instead of this line, in the old copy we
have —

" Go, bid Buckingham and Clifford gather
" An army up, and meet with the rebels." Malone.
^ — retire to Kenelworth,] The old copy — Killin^imrth,
which (as Sir William Blackstone observes) is still the modern
pronunciation. Stkevens.

X 2

308 SECOND PART OF act ir.

' Until a power be rais'd to put them down.

* Q. Mar. Ah ! were the duke of Suffolk now

alive,

* These Kentish rebels would be soon appeas'd.
' K. Hen. Lord Say, the traitors hate thee,

' Therefore away with us to Kenelworth.

* Say. So might your grace's person be in danger ;
' The sight of me is odious in their eyes :

' And therefore in this city will I stay,
' And live alone as secret as I may.

Enter ano titer Messenger.

* 2 Mess. Jack Cade hath gotten London-bridge ;

the citizens

* Fly and forsake their houses :

* The rascal people, thirsting after prey,

* Join with the traitor ; and they jointly swear,

* To spoil the city, and your royal court.

* Buck. Then linger not, my lord ; away, take

horse.

* K. Hex. Come, Margaret ; God, our hope,

will succour us.
*.Q. Mar. My hope is gone, now Suffolk is de-
ceas'd.

* K. Hen. Farewell, my lord ; [To Lord Say.']

trust not the Kentish rebels.

* Buck. Trust no body, for fear you be betray'd ^.
' Say. The trust I have is in mine innocence,

' And therefore am I bold and resolute. [Exeunt.

In the letter concerning Queen Elizabeth's entertainment at
this place, we find, " the castle hath name of KylleUno;iworth ;
but of truth, grounded upon faythfull story, Kenekooorth."

Farmer.
9 — BE betray'd,] Be, which was accidentally omitted in the
old copy, was supplied by the editor of the second folio.

Malone.

sc. VI. KING HENRY VI. 309

SCENE V.

The Same. The Tower.

Enter Lord Scales, and Others, o?i the Walls.
Then enter certain Citizens, below.

Scales. How now ? is Jack Cade slain ?

1 CiT. No, my lord, nor likely to be slain ; for
they have won the bridge, killing all those that with-
stand them : The lord mayor craves aid of your
honour from the Tower, to defend the city from
the rebels.

Scales. Such aid as I can spare, you shall com-
mand ;
But I am troubled here with them myself.
The rebels have assay'd to win the Tower.
But get you to Smithfield, and gather head.
And thither I will send you Matthew Gough :
Fight for your king, your country, and your lives ;
And so farewell, for I must hence again. \_Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

The Same. Cannon Street.

Enter Jack Cade, and his Followers. He strikes
his Stajf on London-stone.

Cade. Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And
here, sitting upon London-stone, I charge and com-
mand, that, of the city's cost, the pissing-conduit
run nothing but claret ^ wine this first year of our

' — the pissing-conduit run nothing but claret — ] This
pissing conduit, I suppose, was the Sfandarde in Cheape, which,
as Stowe relates, " John Wels grocer, maior 1430, caused to be

310 SECOiND PART OF ^ct if,

reign. And now, henceforward, it shall be treason
for any that calls me other than — lord Mortimer.

Enter a Soldier, runnino-.
Sold. Jack Cade ! Jack Cade !
Cade. Knock him down there". [They kill him,
* Smith. If this fellow be wise, he'll never call

* you Jack Cade more ; I think, he hath a very

* fair warning.

Dick. My lord, there's an army gathered toge-
ther in Smithfield.

Cade. Come then, let's go fight with them : But,
first, go and set London-bridge on fire '^ ; and, if

made with a small cesterne for fresh water, hailing one cocke con-
tinunlhj running.'"—"' I have wept so immoderately and lauishly,
(says Jacke Wilton,) that I thought verily my palat had bin turned
to i\\Q pissing conduit in honAon.'" Life, 1594'. Ritson.

Whatever offence to modern delicacy may be given by this
imagery, it appears to have been borrowed from the French, to
whose entertainments, as well as our streets, it was sufficiently
familiar, as I learn from a very curious and entertaining work
entitled Histoire de la Vie privee des Fran^ais, par M. le Grand
D'Aussi, 3 vols. 8vo. J7S2. At a feast given by Phillippe-le-
Bon there was exhibited " une statue de femme, dont les mam-
melles fournissaient d'hippocras ; " and the Roman de Tirant-le-
Blanc affords such another circumstance : " Outre une statue de
femme, des mammelles de laquelle jallissoit une liqueur, il y
avait encore une jeune fille, &c. EUe etoit nue, et tenoit ses
mains baissees et serrees contre son corps, comme pour s'en couv-
rir. De dessous ses mains, il sortoit une fonlaine de vin deli-
cieux," &c. Again, in another feast made by the Philippe afore-
said, in 1453, there was " une statue d'enfant nu, pose sur une
roche, et qui, de sa broquctte, pissnit eau-rose." Steevens.

^ Knock him dovv^n there.] So, Holinshed, p. 634 : " He
also put to execution in Southwark diverse persons, some for
breaking his ordinance, and other being his old acquaintance, lest
they should bewraie his base linage, disparaging him for his
usurped surname of Mortimer." Steevens.

^ — set London-bridge on fire;] At that time London-
hridge was made of wood. " After that, (says Hall,) he entered
London and cut the ropes of the rfraw-bridge." The houses on
London-bridge were in this rebellion burnt, and many of the inha-
bitants perished. Malonk.

sc.rn. KING HENRY VI. 311

you can, burn down the Tower too. Come, let's
away. [^Exeunt.

SCENE Vll.

The Same. Smithfield.

Alarum. Enter, o?i one side. Cade and his Com-

pany ; on the other. Citizens, and the King's

Forces, headed by Mattheif Gough. They

fight ; the Citizens are routed, and Matthew

Gough "^ is slain.

Cade. So, sirs : — ^Now go some and pull down
the Savoy ^; others to the inns of court; down
with them all.

Dick. I have a suit unto your lordship.

Cade. Be it a lordship thou shalt have it for that
word.

* Dick. Only, that the laws of England may
* come out of your mouth ^.

4 — Matthew Gough — ] "A man of great wit and much
experience in feats of chivalrie, the which in continuall warres
had sjDent his time in serving of the king and his father." Holin-
shed, p. 635.

In W. of Worcestre, p. 357, is the following notice of Mat-
thew Gough :

" Memorandum quod Ewenus Gough, pater Matthei Gough
armigeri, fuit ballivus manerii de Hangmer juxta Whyte-church
in North Wales ; et mater Matthei Gough vocatur Hawys ; et
pater ejus, id est avus Matthei Gough ex parte matris, vocatur
Davy Handmere ; et mater Matthei Gough fuit nutrix Johannis
domini Talbot, comitis de Shrewysbery, et aliorum fratrura et
sororum suorum :

" Morte Matthei Goghe Cambria clamitat oghe ! "

See also the Paston Letters, 2d edit. vol. i. 42. Steevens.

5 — go some and pull down the Savoy ;] This trouble had
been saved Cade's reformers by his predecessor Wat Tyler. It
was never re-edifyed, till Henry VII. founded the hospital.

RiTSON.

* — that the laws of England may come out of your mouth.]

I~\

12 SECOND PART OF ./67 vr.

* JoHx. Mass, 'twill be sore law then " ; for he

* was thrust in the mouth with a spear, and 'tis not

* whole yet. \_Asidc.

* Smith. Nay, John, it will be stinking law ; for

* his breath stinks with eating toasted cheese.

[Aside.

* Cade. I have thought upon it, it shall be so.

* Away, burn all the records of the realm " ; my

* mouth shall be the parliament of England.

* John. Then we are like to have biting statutes,

* unless his teeth be pulled out. [Aside.

* Cade. And henceforward all things shall be in

* common.

Enter a Messenger

* Mess. My lord, a prize, a prize ! here's the lord
' Say, which sold the towns in France ; * he that

* made us pay one and twenty fifteens ^, and one

* shiUing to the pound, the last subsidy.

This alludes to what Holinshed has related of Wat Tyler, p. 432 :
•' It \vas reported, indeed, that he should saie with great pride,
putting his hands to his lips, that within four daies all the laws of
England sliaidd come foorth nf his mmith." Tyrwhitt.

7 — 'twill be SORE law then ;] This poor jest has already oc-
curred in The Tempest, scene the last :

" You'd be king of the isle, sivrah ? —

" I should have been a sore one then." Steevens.

^ — Away, burn all the records of the realm;] Little more
than half a century had elapsed from the time of writing this play,
before a similar proposal was actually made in parliament.
Bishop Burnet in his life of Sir Matthew Hale, says: " Among
the other extravagant motions made in this parliament (i. e. one
of Oliver Cromwell's) one was to destroy all the records in the
Tower, and to settle the nation on a new foundation ; so he (Sir
M. Hale) took this province to himself, to show the madness of
this proposition, the injustice of it, and the mischiefs that would
follow on it ; and did it with such clearness and strength of reason
as not only satisfied all sober persons (for it may be supposed that
was soon done) but stopt even the mouths of the frantic people
themselves." Reed.

9 — one and twenty fifteens,] " This capteine (Cade)
assured them — if cither by force or policic they might get the

sc. vii. KING HENRY VI. 313

Enter George Betis, xvith the Lord Say.

' C.JDE. Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten
' times. — Ah, thou say, thou serge ', nay, thou

* buckram lord ! now art thou within point-blank

* of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer
' to my majesty, for giving up of Normandy unto
' monsieur Basimecu '\ the dauphin of France ? Be
' it known unto thee by these presence, even the

* presence of lord Mortimer, that I am the besom
' that must sweep the court clean of such filth as
' thou art. Thou hast most traitorously corrupted
' the youth of the realm, in erecting a grammar-
' school : and whereas, before, our fore-fathers had
' no other books but the score and the tally, thou

king- and queene into their hands, he would cause them to be
honourably used, and take such order for the punishing and re-
forming of the misdemeanours of their bad councellours, that
mii\\e\- fifteens should hereafter be demanded, nor anie impositions
or taxes be spoken of." Holinshed, vol. ii. p. 632. A JiJ'teen
was the fifteenth part of all the moveables or personal property
of each subject. Malone.

' — thou SAY, thou serge.] Saij wa.'n the old word for silk;
on this depends the series of degradation, from say to serge, from
se7-ge to buchraw . Johnson.

This word occurs in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. i. c. iv. :
'* All in a kirtle of discolour'd say
" He clothed was."

Again, in his Perigot and Cuddy's Roundelay :
" And in a kirtle of green say.''

It appears, however, from the following passage in The Fairy
Queen, b. iii. c. ii. that say was not silk:

" His garment neither was of silk nor say.'' Steevens.

It appears from Minsheu's Diet. 1617, that say was a kind of
serge. It is made entirely of wool. There is a considerable
manufactory of say at Sudbury near Colchester. This stuff is
frequently dyed green, and is yet used by some mechanicks in
aprons. Malone.

^ — monsieur Basimecu,] Shakspeare probably wrote Sa/ser-
mycu, or, by a designed corruption, Bascmycu, in imitation of his
original, where also we find a word half French, half English, —
" Mounsier bus mine cue." Malone.

314 SECOND PART OF Jict if.

* hast caused printing to be used ^ ; and, contrary

* to the king, his crown, and dignity ^ thou hast
' built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face,

* that thou hast men about thee, that usually talk

* of a noun, and a verb ; and such abominable

* words, as no Christian ear can endure to hear.

* Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor

* men before them about matters they were not

* able to answer \ Moreover, thou hast put them

3 — printing to be used ;] Shakspeare is a little too early
with this accusation. Johnson.

Shakspeare might have been led into this mistake by Daniel, in
the sixth book of his Civil Wars, who mXvodwcQS, printing and ar-
tillery as contemporary inventions :

" Let there be found two fatal instruments,
•' The one to publish, th' other to defend
" Impious contention, and proud discontents ;
" Make that in-stamped characters may send
*' Abroad to thousands thousand men's intents ;
" And, in a moment, may despatch much more
" Than could a world of pens perform before."
Shakspeare's absurdities may always be countenanced bv those
of writers nearly his contemporaries.

In the tragedy of Herod and Antipater, by Gervase Markhara
and William Sampson, who were both scholars, is the following
passage :

" Though cannons roar^ yet you must not be deaf."
Spenser mentions cloth made at Lincoln during the ideal reign
of K. Arthur, and has adorned a castle at the same period " with
cloth of Arras and of Toure." Chaucer introduces guns in the
time of Antony and Cleopatra, and (as Mr. Warton has observed,)
Salvator Rosa places a cannon at the entrance of the tent of Holo-
fernes. Steevens.

Mr. Meerman, in his Origines Typographicse, hath availed
himself of this passage in Shaks|)eare, to support his hypothesis,
that printing was introduced into England (before the time of
Caxton) by Frederic Corsellis, a workman from Haerlem, in the
time of Henry VI. Blackstone.

•* — contrary to the king, his crown, &c.] " Against the
peace of the said lord the now king, his crown, and dignity," is
the regular language of indictments. Malone.

5 — to call poor men before them about matters they were not
able to answer.] The old play reads—" to hang honest men that
steal for their living.^" Malone.

sc. rii. KING HENRY VI. 315

' in prison ; and because they could not read, thou

* hast hanged them ^ ; when, indeed, only for that
' cause they have been most worthy to live. Thou

* dost ride on a foot-cloth \ dost thou not ?

Say. What of that ?

Cade. Marry, thou oughtest not to let thy horse
wear a cloak ^ when honester men than thou go in
their hose and doublets.

* Dick. And work in their shirt too ; as myself,

* for example, that am a butcher.
Say. You men of Kent, —
Dick. What say you of Kent ?

* Say. Nothing but this : 'Tis bona terra, mala

gens^.

^ — because they could not read, ihou hast hanged them :]
That is, they were hanged because they could not claim the be-
nefit of clergy. Johnson.

7 Thou dost ride on a foot-cloth,] A foot-cloth was ahorse
with housings which reached as low as his feet. So, in the tra-
gedy of Muieasses the Turk, 1610 :

" I have seen, since my coming to Florence, the son of a pedlar
mounted on a. Jootcloth." Steevens.

A foot-cloth was a kind of housing, which covered the body of
the horse, and almost reached the ground. It was sometimes
made of velvet, and bordered with gold lace.

So, in A Dialogue both pleasaunt and pitiful. By William
BuUeyne, 156^ : " He gave me my mule also with a velvet foot-
cloth." Malone.

^ — to let thy horse wear a cloak,] This is a reproach truly
characteristical. Nothing gives so much offence to the lower
ranks of mankind, as the sight of superfluities merely ostentatious.

Johnson.

9 — bo7ia terra, mala gens.'] After this line the quarto pro-
ceeds thus :

" Cade. Bonum terrum, what's that ?

" Dick. He speaks French.

" Will. No, 'tis Dutch.

" Nick. No, 'tis Outalian : I know it well enough."

Holinshed has likewise stigmatized the Kentish men, p. 677 :
"The Kentish-men, in this season (whose minds be ever move-
able at the change of princes) came," &c. Steevens.

316 SECOND PART OF ^1CT ir.

* Cade. Away with him, away with him ! he

* speaks Latin.

* Say. Hear me but speak, and bear me where

you will.

* Kent, in the commentaries Caesar writ,

' Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle ^ :

* Sweet is the country, because full of riches ;

* The people, liberal, vahant, active, wealthy ;

* Which makes me hope you are not void of pity.

* I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy ;

* Yet, to recover them '-, would lose my life.

* Justice with favour have I always done ;

* Prayers and tears have movd me, gifts could

never.

* When have I aught exacted at your hands,

* Kent to maintain, the king, the realm, and

you.?

* Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,

* Because my book preferrd me to the king " :

' Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle :] So, in Caesar's
Comment, b. v. : " Ex his omnibus sunt humanissimi qui Cantium
incolunt." The passage is thus translated by Arthur Golding,
1590 : " Of all the inhabitants of this isle, the civilest are the
Kenthhfolke'' Steevens.

So, in Lyly's Euphues and his England, 1580, a book which
the author of The Whole Contention, &c. probably, and Shak-
speare certainly, had read : " Of all the inhabitants of this isle the
Kentish-men are the civilest." Malone.

^ When have I aught exacted at your hands,
Kent to maintain, the king, the realm, and you?
Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,
Because my book preferr'd me to the king :] This passage I
know not well how to explain. It is pointed [in the old copy]
so as to make Say declare that he preferred clerks to maintain
Kent and the King. This is not very clear; and, besides, he
gives in the following line another reason of his bounty, that
•learning raised him, and therefore he supported learning. I am
inclined to think Kent slipped into this passage by chance, and
would read :

sc. FIT. KING HENRY VI. 317

* And — seeing ignorance is the curse of God,

* Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven, —

* Unless you be possess'd with devilish spirits,

* You cannot but forbear to murder me.

* This tongue hath parley'd unto foreign kings

* For your behoof, —

* Cade. Tut ! when struck'st thou one blow in

* the field .^

* Say. Great men have reaching hands : oft have

I struck

* Those that I never saw, and struck them dead.

* Geo. O monstrous coward ! what, to come be-

hind folks .^

* Say. These cheeks are pale for watching^ for

your good.

" When have I aught exacted at your hands,

" But to maintain the king, the realm, and you ? "

Johnson.
I concur with Dr. Johnson in believing the word Kent to have
been shuffled into the text by accident. Lord Say, as the passage
stands in the folio, not only declares he had preferred men of
learning, " to maintain Kent, the King, the realm" but adds tau-
tologically j/o« ; for it should be remembered that they are Kentish
men to whom he is now speaking. I would read. Bent to main-
tain, &c. i. e. strenuously resolved to the utmost, to, &c.

Steevens.
The punctuation to which Dr. Johnson alludes, is that of the
folio :

" When have I aught exacted at your hands ?
" Kent to maintain, the king, the realm, and you,
" Large gifts, have I bestow'd on learned clerks," &c.
I have pointed the passage differently, the former punctuation
appearing to me to render it nonsense. I suspect, however, with
the preceding editors^, that the word Kent is a corruption.

Malone.
3 — FOR watching — ] That is, inconsequence of watching.
So, in Nosce Teipsuni, by Sir John Davies, 1599 :

" And shuns it still, though she^or thirst do die."
The second folio and all the modern editions read — uufh
watching. Malone.

318 SECOND PART OF act iv,

* Cade. Give him a box o' the ear, and that will

* make 'em red again.

* Say. Long sitting to determine poor men's

causes
Hath made me full of sickness and diseases.

* Cade. Ye shall have a hempen caudle then,

* and the help of a hatchet ^.

' Dick. Why dost thou quiver, man ^ ?

* Say. The palsy, and not fear, provoketh me.

* Cade. Nay, he nods at us ; as who should say,
' I'll be even with you. I'll see if his head will stand

* steadier on a pole, or no : Take him away, and be-

* head him.

* Say. Tell me, wherein I have offended most ?

5 — and the help of a hatchet.] I suppose, to cut him down
after he has been hanged, or perhaps to cut off his head. The
article (a hatchet) was supplied by the editor of the second folio.

Malone.

" — ihepcip of a hatchet." Old copy — the/ie/j9of a hatchet.
But we have here, as Dr. Farmer observed to me, a strange cor-
ruption. The help of a hatchet is little better than nonsense,
and it is almost certain our author originally wrote pap ivith a
hatchet ; alluding to Lyly's pamphlet with the same title, which
made its appearance about the time when this play is supposed to
have been written. Steevens.

We should certainly read — the pap of a hatchet ; and are
much indebted to Dr. Farmer for so just and happy an emendation.
There is no need, however, to suppose any allusion to the title
of a pamphlet : It has doubtless been a cant phrase. So, in
Lyly's Mother Bombie : " — they giue us pap with a spoone
before we can speake, and when wee speake for that we loue,
pap tvith a hatchet." Ritson.

^ Why dost thou quiver, man ?] Otway has borrowed this
thought in Venice Preserved :

" Spinosa. You are trembling, sir.
" Renault. 'Tis a cold night indeed, and I am aged,
" Full of decay and natural infirmities."

Feck, in his Memoirs of Milton, p. 250, gravely assures us
that Lord Say's account of himself originates from the following
ancient charm for an ague : " — Pilate said unto Jesus, why
shakest thou ? And Jesus answered, the ague and not Jear pro-
voketh me." Steevens.

sc. yii. KING HENRY VI. 319

* Have I affected wealth, or honour ; speak ?

* Are my chests fiU'd up with extorted gold ?

* Is my apparel sumptuous to behold ?

* Whom have I injur'd, that ye seek my death ?

* These hands are free from guiltless blood-shed-

ding ',

* This breast from harbouring foul deceitful

thoughts.

* O, let me live !

* Cade. I feel remorse in myself with his words:

* but I'll bridle it ; he shall die, an it be but for

* pleading so well for his life ^. Away with him !

* he has a familiar under his tongue ^ ; he speaks

* not o' God's name. ' Go, take him away, I say,
' and strike off his head presently ; and then break

* into his son-in-law's house, sir James Cromer ^,

7 These hands are free from guiltless blood-shedding,] I for-
merly imagined that the word guiltless was misplaced, and that
the poet wrote —

" These hands are guiltless, free from blood-shedding."

But change is unnecessary. Guiltless is not an epithet to
blood-shedding, but to blood. These hands are free from shedding
guiltless or innocent blood. So, in King Henry VIII, :

" For then my guiltless blood must cry against them."

Malone.

^ — he shall die, an it be but for pleading so well for his life.]
This sentiment is not merely designed as an expression of fero-
cious triumpli, but to mark the eternal enmity which the vulgar
bear to those of more liberal education and superior rank. The
vulgar are always ready to depreciate the talents which they
behold with envy, and insult the eminence which they despair to
reach. Steevens.

9 — a FAMILIAR under his tongue;] K familiar is a daemon
who was supposed to attend at call. So, in Love's Labour s Lost :
" Love is ?i familiar ; there is no angel but love."

Steevens.

' — sir James Cromer,] It was William Crotvmer, sheriff of
Kent, whom Cade put to death. Lord Say and he had been
previously sent to the Tower, and both, or at least the former,
convicted of treason, at Cade's mock commission of oyer and
terminer at Guildhall. See W. Wyrcester, p. ^TO. Ritson.

320 SECOND PART OF ^ct ir.

* and strike off his head, and bring them both upon
' two poles hither.

' All. It shall be done.

* Say. Ah, countrymen ! if when you make your

prayers,

* God should be so obdurate as yourselves,

* How would it fare with your departed souls ?

* And therefore yet relent, and save my life.

* C.4DE. Away with him, and do as I command

ye. \_ETeunt some, uitli Lord S.iy.

' The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a

* head on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute ;

* there shall not a maid be married, but she shall

* pay to me her maidenhead " ere they have it :

* Men shall hold of me in capite '^ ; and we charge

* and command, that their wives be as free as heart

* can wish, or tongue can tell ^.

* — shall pay to me her maidenhead, &c.] AUudinc^ to an
ancient usage on which Beaumont and Fletcher have founded
their play called The Custom of the Countiy. See Mr. Seward's
note at the beginning of it. See also Cowell's Law Diet, in voce
Marchet, &c. &c. &c. Steevens.

Cowell's account of this custom has received the sanction of
several eminent antiquaries ; but a learned writer, Sir David
Dalrvmple, controverts the fact, and denies the actual existence
of the custom. See Annals of Scotland. Judge Blackstone, in
his Commentaries, is of opinion it never prevailed in England,
though he supposes it certainly did in Scotland. Reed.

See Blount's Glossographia, 8vo. 1681, in v. Marcheta.
Hector Boethius and Skene both mention this custom as existing
in Scotland till the time of Malcolm the Third, A. D. 1057.

Malone.

3 — in capite ;] This equivoque, for which the author of the
old play is answerable, is too learned for Cade. Malone.

4 — or tongue can tell.] After this, in the old play, Robin
enters to inform Cade that London bridge is on fire, and Dick
enters with a serjeant ; i. e. a bailiff; and there is a dialogue con-
sisting of seventeen lines^ of which Shakspeare has made no use
whatsoever. Malone.

" Cade. That their wives be as free as heart can wish, or

sc. VII. KING HENRY VI. 321

* Dick. My lord, when shall we go to Cheapside,
* and take up commodities upon our bills ^ ?

' Cade. Marry, presently.

* All. O brave !

Re-enter Rebels, with the Heads of lord Say and

his Son-in-law .

* Cade. But is not this braver ? — Let them kiss

tongue can tell." There are several ancient grants from our
early kings to their subjects, written in rude verse, and empov^ering
them to enjov their lands as " free as heart can wish or tongue
can tell." See Blount's Jocular Tenures. It is difficult to know
what to think of these rhyming grants ; the external evidence of
their authenticity is, in some cases, strong : the internal, very
weak. They have, however, been sometimes admitted in our
courts of justice. " En ascu case son graunt est, 'As free as
tongue can speak, or heart can think : ' " — which are almost Cade's
words, occurs in the Yearbook of 10 Hen. VII. fol. 14, a. pi. 6.

As to the Marcheta Mulierum referred to just before, Mr.
Whitaker has also controverted its existence, and given a very
ingenious and probable etymology of it, in his history of Man-
chester, book i. ch. viii. p.' 359, octavo edit, Blakew^ay.

5 — take up commodities upon our bills?] Perhaps this is an
equivoque alluding to the brown bills, or halberds, with which
the commons were anciently armed. Percy.

Thus, in the original play, but in a former part of this scene :

" Nick. But when shall we take up those commodities which
you told us of?

" Cade. Marry, he that will lustily stand to it, shall take up
these commodities following. Item, a gown, a kirtle, a petti-
coat, and a smocke."

If The Whole Contention, &c. printed in 1600, was an imper-
fect transcript of Shakspeare's Second and Third Part of King
Henry VI. (as it has hitherto been supposed to be,) we have here
another extraordinary proof of the inventive faculty of the tran-
scriber.— It is observable that the equivoque which Dr. Percy has
taken notice of, is not found in the old play, but is found in
Shakspeare's Much Ado About Nothing :

" Ber. We are likely to prove a good commodity, being taken
up of these men's bills.

" Con. A commodity in question, I warrant you."

See vol. vii. p. 94, n. 6. Malone.
VOL. XVIII. Y

322 SECOND PART OF act ir.

* one another ^, for they loved well \ when they were

* alive. Now part them again, lest they consult

* about the giving up of some more towns in France.

* Soldiers, defer the spoil of the city until night :

* for with these borne before us, instead of maces,

* will we ride through the streets ; and at every

* corner, have them kiss. — Away! \_Exeunt.

SCENE VIII.
Southwark.

Alarum, Enter Cade^ and all his Rahblement.

* Cade. Up Fish-street ! down Saint Magnus'

* corner ! kill and knock down ! throw them into

* Thames ! — \_A Parley sounded, then a Retreat.^

* What noise is this I hear ? Dare any be so bold

* to sound retreat or parley, when 1 command them

* kill ?

Enter Buckingham, and Old Clifford, with Forces.

* Buck. Ay, here they be that dare and will dis-

turb thee ;

^ Let them kiss one another,] This is from The Mirrour for
Magistrates, in the legend of Jack Cade :

" With these two heads I made a pretty play,

" For pighton poles I bore them through the strete,

" And for my sport made each kisse other swete."

Farmer.
It is likewise found in Holinshed, p. 634^ : " and as it were in
a spite caused them in every street to kisse together." Steevens,
So also in Hall, Henry VI. folio 78. Malone.
7 — for they loved well,] Perhaps this passage suggested to
Rowe the following remark in his Ambitious Stepmother:
" Sure they lov'd ivell ; the very streams of blood
" That flow from their pale bosoms, meet and mingle."

Steevens.

sc. nil. KING HENRY VI. 323

* Know, Cade, we come ambassadors from the king

* Unto the commons whom thou hast misled ;

* And here pronounce free pardon to them all,

' That will forsake thee, and go home in peace.
' Clif. What say ye, countrymen ^ ? will ye re-
lent,

* And yield to mercy, whilst 'tis offer'd you ;

* Or let a rabble lead you to your deaths ?

* Who loves the king, and will embrace his pardon,

* Fling up his cap, and say — God save his majesty !
' Who hateth him, and honours not his father,

* Henry the fifth, that made all France to quake,
' Shake he his weapon at us, and pass by.

* All. God save the king ! God save the king !

* Cade. What, Buckingham, and Clifford, are ye

* so brave ? — And you, base peasants, do ye believe

* him ? will you needs be hanged with your par-

* dons about your necks ? Hath my sword therefore

* broke through London Gates, that you should leave

* me at the White Hart in Southwark ? I thought,

* ye would never have given out these arms, till you

* had recovered your ancient freedom : but you are

* all recreants, and dastards ; and delight to live in

8 Clif. What say ye, countrymen ? &c.] The variation in the
original play is worth noting :

" Why countrymen, and warlike friends of Kent,

" What means this mutinous rebellion,

'* That you in troops do muster thus yourselves,

" Under the conduct of this traitor. Cade ?

" To rise against your sovereign lord and king,

" Who mildly hath this pardon sent to you,

" If you forsake this monstrous rebel here.

•' If honour be the mark whereat you aim,

" Then haste to France, that our forefathers won,

" And win again that thing which now is lost,

" And leave to seek your country's overthrow.

" All. A Clifford, a Clifford. \_Theijforsahe Cade:'

Here we have precisely the same versification which we find in
all the tragedies and historical dramas that were written before
the time of Shakspeare. Malone.

Y 2

324 SECOND PART OF actiV.

* slavery to the nobility. Let them break your backs
' with burdens, take your houses over your heads,

* ravish your wives and daughters before your faces :

* For me,— I will make shift for one ; and so— God's
' curse 'light upon you all !

' .4ll. We'll follow Cade, we'll follow Cade.
* Clif. Is Cade the son of Henry the fifth,

* That thus you do exclaim — you'll go with him ?

* Will he conduct you through the heart of France,

* And make the meanest of you earls and dukes ?

* Alas, he hath no home, no place to fly to ;

* Nor knows he how to live, but by the spoil,

* Unless by robbing of your friends, and us.

* Wer't not a shame, that whilst you live at jar,

* The fearful French, whom you late vanquished,

* Should make a start o'er seas, and vanquish you ?
' Methinks, already, in this civil broil,

* I see them lording it in London streets,

* Crying— Filiageois"! unto all they meet.

* Better, ten thousand base-born Cades miscarry,

* Than you should stoop unto a Frenchman's mercy.

* To France, to France, and get what you have

lost ;

* Spare England, for it is your native coast :

* Henry hath money ', you are strong and manly ;

* God on our side, doubt not of victory.

' All. a Clifford ! a Clifford ! we'll follow the

* king, and Clifford.

* C./DE. Was ever feather so lightly blown to and

9 — Villageois !^ Old copy — Villiago. Corrected by Mr.
Theobald. Malone.

' Henry hath money,] Dr. Warburton reads—" Henry hath
mercy ; " but he does not seem to have attended to the speaker's
drift, which is to lure them from their present design by the hope
of French plunder. He bids them spare England, and go to
France, and encourages them by telling them that all is ready for
their eipedition ; that they have strength, and the king has
money. Johnson.

sc. IX. KING HENRY VI. 325

' fro, as this multitude ? the name of Henry the

* fifth hales them to an hundred mischiefs, and

* makes them leave me desolate. I see them lay

* their heads together, to surprize me : my sword

* make way for me '", for here is no staying. — In de-

* spight of the devils and hell, have through the

* very midst of you ! and heavens and honour be

* witness, that no want of resolution in me, but only

* my followers' base and ignominious treasons,

* makes me betake me to my heels. \_E.vit.

' Buck. What, is he fled ? go some, and follow
him ;

* And he, that brings his head unto the king,

' Shall have a thousand crowns for his reward. —

[^E.veunt some of them.

* Follow me, soldiers ; we'll devise a mean

* To reconcile you all unto the king. [Exeunt.

SCENE IX.

Kenelworth Castle.

Enter King Henry, Queen Margaret, and Somer-
set, on the Terrace of the Castle.

* K. Hen. Was ever king that joy'd an earthly
throne,

* And could command no more content than I ?

* No sooner was I crept out of my cradle,
'^ But I was made a king, at nine months old '^ :

*

2 — my sword make way for me,] In the original play Cade
employs a more vulgar weapon : " My staff shall make way
through the midst of you, and so a pox take you all ! " Malone.

3 _L I was made a king, at nine months old :] So all the his-
torians agree. And yet in Part I. Act III. Sc. IV. King Henry is
made to say —

"' I do remember how my father said — "

326 SECOND PART OF act if.

* Was never subject long'd to be a king,

* As I do long and wish to be a subject ^.

Enter Buckingham and Clifford.

*■ Buck. Health, and glad tidings, to your ma-
jesty !

* K. Hex. Why, Buckingham, is the traitor, Cade,
surpriz'd ?

* Or is he but retir'd to make him strong ?

Enter, belozv, a great number of Cades FollowerSy
with Halters about their Necks.

' Clif. He's fled, my lord, and all his powers do
yield ;

* And humbly thus, with halters on their necks,

* Expect your highness' doom, of life, or death.

' K. Hen. Then, heaven ^, set ope thy everlasting
gates,

a plain proof that the whole of that play was not written by the
same hand as this. Blackstone.

4 — to be a subject.] In the original play, before the entry of
Buckingham and Clifford, we have the following short dialogue,
of which Shakspeare has here made no use :

" King. Lord Somerset, what news hear you of the rebel
Cade?

" Som. This, my gracious lord, that the lord Say is done to
" death, and the city is almost sack'd.

" King. God's will be done ; for as he hath decreed,
" So it must be ; and be it as he please,
■' To stop the pride of these rebellious men.

" Queen. Had the noble duke of Suffolk been alive,
" The rebel Cade had been suppress'd ere this,
" And all the rest that do take part with him,"

This sentiment he has attributed to the Queen in Sc. IV.

Malonk.

5 Then, heaven, &c.] Thus, in the original play :

" King. Stand up you simple men, and give God praise,
*' For you did take in hand you know not what ;
'* And go in peace, obedient to your king,
" And live as subjects ; and you shall not want,
" VA^hilst Henry lives, and wears the English crown.

" All. God save the king, God save the king." Malone.

sc. IX. KING HENRY VL- . 327

* To entertain my vows of thanks and praise ! —

* Soldiers, this day have you redeemed your lives,

* And show'd how well you love your prince and

country :
' Continue still in this so good a mind,

* And Henry, though he be infortunate,

* Assure yourselves, will never be unkind :

* And so, with thanks, and pardon to you all,

* I do dismiss you to your several countries.

y^LL. God save the king ! God save the king !

Enter a Messenger.

* Mess. Please it your grace to be advertised,

* The duke of York is newly come from Ireland :
^ And with a puissant and a mighty power,

* Of Gallowglasses, and stout Kernes ^,

* Is marching hitherward in proud array ;

* And still proclaimeth, as he comes along,

* His arms are only to remove from thee

' The duke of Somerset, whom he terms a traitor.

* K. Hen. Thus stands my state, 'twixt Cade and

York distress'd ;

* Like to a ship, that, having scap'd a tempest,

* Is straightway calm, and boarded with a pirate ^ :

^ Of Gallowglasses, and stout Kernes,] These were two
orders of foot-soldiers among the Irish. See Dr, Warburton's
note on the second scene of the first Act of Macbeth, vol. xi.
p. 16, n.3. Steevens.

" The galloglasse useth a kind of poUax for his weapon. These
men are grim of countenance, tall of stature, big of limme,
lusty of body, wel and strongly timbered. The kerne is an ordi-
nary souldier, using for weapon his sword and target, and some-
times his peece, being commonly good mark men. Kerne
[Kigheyren] signifieth a shower of hell, because they are taken
for no better than for rake-hells, or the devils blacke garde."
titanihurst' s Description of Ireland, ch. viii. f. 21. Bowle.

7 Is straightway calm, and boarded with a pirate :] Thus the
folio. The editor of the second folio, who appears to have been
wholly unacquainted with Shakspeare's phraseology, changed calm
to claim'd. The editor of the tliird folio changed clainid to

328 SECOND PAKT OF act ir.

* But now ^.is Cade driven back, his men dispers'd;

* And now is York in arms to second him. —

* I pray thee, Buckingham, go forth and meet him ;

* And ask him, what's the reason of these arms.

* Tell him, I'll send duke Edmund to the Tower ; —

calm'd ; and the latter word has been adopted, unnecessarily in
my apprehension, by the modern editors. Many words were used
in this manner in our author's time, and the import is ])recisely
the same as if he had written cahi'd. So, in King Henry IV. :
" — what a candy deal of courtesy," which Mr. Pope altered im-
properly to — " what a deal of candy d courtesy." See vol. xi.
p. 226, n. 1, and p. 227, n. 2.

By " my state " Henr\% I think, means, ' his realm ;' which had
recently become quiet and peaceful bv the defeat of Cade and his
rabble. " With a pirate," agreeably to the phraseolog)" of Shak-
speare's time, means " fjy a pirate." Malone.

The editions read — claim'd; and one would think it plain
enough ; alluding to York's claim to the crown. Cade's head-long
tumult was well compared to a tempest, as York's premeditated re-
bellion to a. piracy. But see what it is to be critical : Mr, Theo-
bald says, claimed should be calm'd, because a calm frequently
succeeds a tempest. It may be so ; but not here, if the King's
word may be taken ; who expressly says, that no sooner was Cade
driven back, but York appeared in arms :

" But now is Cade driv'n back, his men dispers'd ;
" And now is York in arms to second him."

W'arburton.

Dr. Warburton begins his note by roundly asserting that the
editions read claim'd. The passage, indeed, is not found in the
quarto ; but the folio, 1623, reads calme, Claim'd, the reading of
the second folio, was not. perhaps, intentional, but merely a mis-
print for — calm'd. Theobald says, that the third folio had antici-
pated his correction. I believe calm'd is right.

So, in Othello :

" " must be be-lee'd and calm'd — ."

The commotion raised by Cade was over, and the mind of the
King was subsiding into a cahn, when York appeared in arms, to
raise fresh disturbances, and deprive it of its momentary peace.

Steevens.

^ But now — ] But is here not adversative. — It was on\y just
noiv, says Henry, that Cade and his followers were routed.

Malone.

So, in King Richard II. :

" But noiv the blood of twenty thousand men
" Did triumph in my face." Steevens.

sc. X. KING HENRY VI. 329

* And, Somerset, we will commit thee thither,

* Until his army be dismiss'd from him.

* SoM, My lord,

* I'll yield myself to prison willingly,

* Or unto death, to do my country good.

* K. Hen. In any case, be not too rough in

terms ;

* For he is fierce, and cannot brook hard language.

* Buck. I will, my lord ; and doubt not so to

deal,

* As all things shall redound unto your good.

* K. Hen. Come, wife, let's in ^, and learn to

govern better ;

* For yet may England curse my wretched reign.

\_E.reunt.

SCENE X.
Kent. Iden's Garden ^

E titer Cade.

* Cjde. Fye on ambition ! fye on myself ; that

* have a sword, and yet am ready to famish ! These

9 Come, wife, let's in, &c.] In the old play the King concludes
the scene thus :

" Come, let us haste to London now with speed,
" That solemn processions may be sung,
" In laud and honour of the God of heaven,
•' And triumphs of this happy victory." Malone.
' Kent. Iden's Garden.] Holinshed, p. 635, says ; " — a gen-
tleman of Kent, named Alexander Eden, awaited so his time, that
he tooke the said Cade in a garden in Sussex, so that there he was
slaine at Hothfield," &c.

Instead of the soliloquy with which the present scene begins,
the quarto has only this stage direction. " Enter Jacke Cade at
one doore, and at' the other M. Alexander Eyden and his men;
and Jack Cade lies down picking of hearbes, and eating them."

Steevens.
This Iden was, in fact, the new sheriff of Kent, who had followed
Cade from Rochester. W. Wyrcester, p. 472. Ritson.

330 SECOND PART OF act iv.

* five days have I hid me in these woods ; and durst

* not peep out, for all the country is laid for me ;

* but now am I so hungry, that if I might have a

* lease of my life for a thousand years, I could stay

* no longer. Wherefore, on a brick-wall have I

* climbed into this garden ; to see if 1 can eat

* grass, or pick a sallet another while, which is not

* amiss to cool a man's stomach this hot weather.

* And, I think, this word sallet was born to do me

* good : for, many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-
pan " had been cleft with a brown bill ; and, many

*

- — but for a sallet, my brain-pan, &c.] A sallet by cor-
ruption from ccclata, a helmet, (says Skinner,) quia galece ccdatcB
Jueriint. Pope.

I do not see by what rules of etymology, sallet can be formed
from ccclata. Is it not rather a corruption from the French salut,
taken, I suppose, from the scriptural phrase, the helmet of salva-
tion f Brain-pan, for sladl, occurs, I think, in Wicliff's transla-
tion of Judges xix. 53. Whalley.

In the ancient MS. romance of The Sowdon of Babyloyne, p. 39,
we have a similar phrase :

" Such a stroke, she him there raught,

" The brayne sterte oute of his hede pan." Steevens.

So, in Caxton's Chronicle :

" Anone he [Cade] toke sir Umfreyes snlade and his briganteins
smyten fulle of gilte nailles, and also his gilt spores, and arraied
him like a lord and a capitayne." Ritson.

Again, in Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch : " — One
of the company seeing Brutus athirst also, he ran to the river for
water, and brought it in his sallet."

Again, ibid. : " Some were driven to fill their sallets and mur-
rains with water."

Again, in The longer thou Livest, the more Fool thou Art, 1570 :
" This will beare away a good rappe,
" As good as a sallet to me verilie." Steevens.

Salade has the same meaning in French, as appears from aline
in La Pucelle d' Orleans :

Devers la place arrive un Ecuyer

Fortant salade, avec lance doree. M. Mason.

Minsheu conjectures that it is derived " a saint, Gal. because
it keepeth the head whole from breaking." He adds, " alias
salade dicitur, a G. salade, idem ; utrumque vero celando, quod
caput tegit."

sc. X. KING HENRY VI. 331

* a time, when I have been dry, and bravely march -

* ing, it hath served me instead of a quart-pot to

* drink in ; and now the word sallet must serve me

* to feed on.

Enter Iden^ zvith Servants.

* Iden. Lord, who would live turmoiled in the

court,

* And may enjoy such quiet walks as these ?

* This small inheritance, my father left me,
' Contenteth me, and is worth a monarchy.

* I seek not to wax great by others' waning ^ ;

* Or gather wealth, I care not with what envy*;
' Sufficeth that I have maintains my state,

' And sends the poor well pleased from my gate.

* Cade. Here's the lord of the soil come to seize

* me for a stray, for entering his fee-simple without

* leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt betray me, and get

* a thousand crowns of the king for carrying my

* head to him ; but I'll make thee eat iron like an

The word undoubtedly came to us from the French. In the
Stat. 4< 5 Ph. and Mary, ch. 2, we find — " twenty haquebuts, and
twentie morians or salets." M alone.

3 — by others' waning ;] The folio reads — warning. Cor-
rected by Mr. Pope. Is in the preceding line was supplied by
Mr. Rowe. Malone.

4 Or gather wealth, I care not with what envy ;] Or accumu-
late riches, without regarding the odium I may incur in the acqui-
sition, however great that odium may be. Envi/ is often used in
this sense by oiir author and his contemporaries. It may, how-
ever, have here its more ordinary acceptation.

This speech in the old play stands thus :

" Good lord, how pleasant is this country life !
" This little land my father left me here,
" With my contented mind, serves me as well,
" As all the pleasures in the court can yield,
" Nor would I change this pleasure for the court."
Here surely we have not a hasty transcript of our author's lines,
but the distinct composition of a preceding writer. The versifica-
tion must at once strike the ear of every person who has perused
any of our old dramas. Malone.

6

332 SECOND PART OF .4ct if.

* ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin, ere

* thou and I part.

* Iden. Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou
be,

* I know thee not ; Why then should I betray thee ?

* Is't not enough, to break into my garden,

* And, like a thief to come to rob my grounds,

* CUmbing my walls in spite of me the owner,

* But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms ?

Cade. Brave thee? ay, by the best blood that
ever was broached, and beard thee too ^. Look on
me well : I have eat no meat these five days ; yet,
come thou and thy five men, and if I do not leave
you all as dead as a door nail ^, I pray God I may
never eat grass more.

' Iden. Nay, it shall ne'er be said, while England
stands.
That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent,
Took odds to combat a poor famish'd man.

* Oppose thy stedfast-gazing eyes to mine \

* See if thou canst outface me with thy looks.

* Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser ;

* Thy hand is but a finger to my fist ;

' Thy leg a stick, compared with this truncheon ;

* My foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast;

* And if mine arm be heaved in the air,

* Thy grave is digg'd already in the earth.

* As for words, whose greatness answers words,

5 — and BEARD thee too.] See vol. xvi. p. 352, n. 7.

Steevens.
^ — as dead as a door-nail.] See vol. xvii. p. 225, n. 7.

Steevens.
7 Oppose thy stedfast-gazing eyes to mine, &c.] This and the
following nine lines are an amplification by Shakspeare on these
three of the old play :

" Look on me, my limbs are equal unto thine,
•' And every way as big : then hand to hand
" I'll combat with thee. Sirra, fetch me weapons,
" And stand vou uU aside." Malone.

sc. X. KING HENRY VI. 333

* Let this my sword report what speech forbears^.

* C.iDE. By my valour, the most complete cham-

* pion that ever I heard. — * Steel, if thou turn the

* edge, or cut not out the burly-boned clown in

* chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I be-

* seech God ^ on my knees, thou mayest be turned

^ As for words, whose greatness answers words,
Let this my sword report what speech forbears.] Sir Thomas
Hanmer, and after him. Dr. Warburton, read :
" As for more words, let this my sword report
*' (Whose greatness answers words) what speech forbears."

It seems to be a poor praise of a sword, that its greatness nn-
sxvers words, whatever be the meaning of the expression. The
old reading, though somewhat obscure, seems to me more capa-
ble of explanation. " For more words," whose pomp and rumour
may answer words, and only words, I shall forbear them, and
refer the rest to my svcord. Johnson.

So, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. :

" I will not bandy with thee, word for word,

" But buckle with thee blows, twice two for one."

More (As for more words) was an arbitrary and unnecessary
addition made by Mr. Rowe. Malone.

How an unnecessary addition ? The measure is incomplete
without it. Steevens.

The introduction of the monosyllable more, in my opinion,
injures the sense though it improves the metre. Were I to intro-
duce any word for that purpose, I should choose to read — As for
wzere words, instead of ?nore words. M. Mason.

9 — I beseech God — ] The folio reads — I beseech Jove.
This heathen deity, with whom Cade was not likely to be much
acquainted, was undoubtedly introduced by the editor of the folio
to avoid the penalty of the statute, 3 Jac. i. ch. 2. In the old
play, 1600, he says, " I beseech God\.\\o\x might'st fall into some
smith's hand, and be turned to hobnails." This the editor of the
second edition of the quarto play, no date, but printed in 1619,
changed (from the same apprehension) to " \ would thon might'st
fall," &c. These alterations fully confirm my note on King
Henry V. Act IV. Sc.III. [where the King swears " hy Jove."''] —
Contrary to the general rule which I have observed in printing
this plav, I have not adhered in the present instance to the
reading of the folio ; because I am confident that it proceeded
not from Shakspeare, but his editor, who, for the reason already
given, makes Falstaff say to Prince Henry — " I knew ye as well
as he that made ye," instead of — " By the Lord, I knew ye," &c.

Malone.

334 SECOND PART OF act ir.

' to hobnails. [Theyjight. C.-ide falls.'] O, I am
' slain I famine I and no other, hath slain me : let
' ten thousand devils come against me, and give me
' but the ten meals I have lost, and I'd de^' them
' all. Wither, garden ; and be henceforth a hnry-

* ing-place to all that do dv/ell in this house, be-
' cause the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.

' Idex. 1st Cade that I have slain, that monstrous
traitor .'
' Sword, I v.ill hallow thee for this thy deed,

* And hang thee o"er my tomb, when I am dead' :

* Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point ;

* But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat,

* To emblaze the honour that thy master got.

* Cade. Iden, farewell; and be proud of thy \'ic-
' tory: Tell Kent from me, she hath lost her best
' man, and exhort all the world to be cowards ; for

' — when I am dead, &,c.] How Iden was to hang a sword
over bus own tomb, after he was dead, it is not easy to explain.
The sentiment is more correctly expressed in the quarto :

" Oh, sword. 111 honour thee for this, and in my chamber
*' Shalt thou hang, as a monument to after age,
" For thLs great service thou hast done to me."

Steeven's.
Here again we have a single thought considerably amplified.
Shakspeare, in new moulding this speech, has ased the same mode
of expression that he has employed in The Winters Tale : " If
thou'lt see a thing to talk on, when thou art dead and rotten,
come hither," i. e. for people to taVt of. So again, in a subse-
quent scene of the play before us :

" And dead mens cries do fill the empty air."
\\'hich of our author's plays does not exhibit expressions equally
bold as " I will hang thee," to express " I will have thee hung ? "
I must jast observe, that most of our author's additions are
strongly characteristick of hLs manner. The making Iden's sword
wear the stains of Cade's blootl on its point, and comparing those
stains to a herald's coat, declare at once the pen of Shakspeare.

Maloxb.
So, in the mock play perfonn'd in Hamlet :
'■' smear d

" With heraldry more dismal ." Steeven;

sc. X. KING HENRY VI. 335

o

' I, that never feared any, am vanquished by famine,

* not by valour. [^Dies.

* Insx. How much thou wrong'st me^ heaven
be my judge.

* Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare

thee !

* And as I thrust thy body in with my sword,

* So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell ^.

* Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels

* Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave,

* How much thou wrong'st me,] That is, in supposing that I
am proud of my victory. Johnson.

An anonymous writer [Mr. llitson,] suggests that the meaning
may be, that Cade wrongs Iden by undervaluing his prowess,
declaring that he was subdued by famine, not by the valour of his
adversary. — I think Dr. Johnson's is the true interpretation.

Malone.

3 So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell, &c.] Not to
dwell upon the wickedness of this horrid wish, with which Iden
debases his character, the whole speech is wild and confused. To
draw a man by the heels, headh)ng, is somewhat dilTicult ; nor
can I discover how the dunghill would be his grave, if his trunk
were left to be fed upon by crows. These ! conceive not to be
the faults of corruption but negligence, and therefore do not
attempt correction. Johnson.

The quarto is more favoural)le both to Iden's morality and lan-
guage. It omits this savage wish, and makes him only add, after
the lines I have just quoted :

" I'll drag him hence, and with my sword
" Cut off his head, and bear it to the king."

The player editors seem to have preferred want of humanity
and common sense, to fewness of lines, and defect of versification.

Steevens.

By headlong the poet undoubtedly meant, with his head trailed
along the ground. By saying, " the dunghill shall be thy grave,"
Iden means, the dunghill shall be the place where thy dead hodij
shall he laid: the dunghill shall be the o»/// grave which thou
shalt have. Surely in poetry this is allowable. So, in Macbeth :
" our monuments

" Shall be the maws of kites."

After what has been already stated, I fear it must be acknow-
ledged, that this faulty amplification was owing rather to our au-
thor's desire to expand a scanty thought of a preceding writer,
than to any want of judgment in the player editors. Malone.

336 SECOND PART OF act r.

* And there cut off thy most ungracious head ;

* Which I will bear in triumph to the king,

* Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon.

[^Exit dragging out the Body.

ACT V. SCENE I.

The Same. Fields between Dartford and Black-
heath.

The King's Camp on one side. On the other, enter
York attended, with Drum and Colours: his
Forces at some distance.

* York. From Ireland thus comes York, to claim
his right,

* And pluck the crown from feeble Henry's head :

* Ring, bells, aloud ; burn, bonfires, clear and bright,

* To entertain great England's lawful king.

Ah, sancta majestas'^! who would not buy thee
dear ?

* Let them obey, that know not how to rule ;

* This hand was made to handle nought but gold :
' I cannot give due action to my words,

* Except a sword, or scepter, balance it \

* A scepter shall it have, have 1 a soul^;

^ Ah, SANCTA MAJESTAS !] Thus the old copy; instead of
which the modern editors read, Ah, majesty ! Steevens.

5 — balance it,] That is, balance my hand. Johnson'.

<5 A scepter shall it have, have I a soul ;] I read :
" A scepter shall it have, have I a sword."

York observes that his hand must be employed with a sword
or scepter ; he then naturally observes, that he has a sword, and
resolves that, if he has a sword, he will have a scepter.

Johnson.

I rather think York means to say — If I have a soul, my hand
shall not be without a scepter. Steevens,

sc. 1. KING HENRY VI. 337

* On which I'll toss the flower-de-luce of France.

Enter Buckingham.

' Whom have we here ? Buckingham, to disturb

me "^
' The king hath sent him, sure : I must dissemble.
' Buck. York, if thou meanest well, I greet thee

well.
' York. Humphrey of Buckingham, I accept thy
greeting.

* Art thou a messenger, or come of pleasure ?

* Buck. A messenger from Henry, our dread

liege,

* To know the reason of these arms in peace ;
' Or why, thou — being a subject as I am'', —

' Against thy oath and true allegiance sworn,

* Should 'st raise so great a power without his leave,

This certainly is a veiy natural interpretation of these words,
and being no friend to alteration merely for the sake of improve-
ment, we onght, I think, to acquiesce in it. But some difficulty
will still remain ; for if we read, with the old copy, soul, York
threatens to " toss the flower-de-luce of France on his scepter,''
which sounds but oddly. To toss it on his sivord, was a threat
very natural for a man who had already triumphed over the French,
So, in King Henry VI. Part III. :

" The soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes."
However, in the licentious phraseology of our author, York
may mean, that he will ivield his scepter, (that is, exercise his
royal power,) when he obtains it, so as to abase and destroy the
French. — The following line also in King Henry VIII. adds sup-
port to the old copy :

" Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel." Malone.
7 — being a subject as I am,] Here again in the old play we
have the style and versification of our author's immediate prede-
cessors :

" Or that thou, being a subject as I am,
"■ Should'st thus approach so near with colours spread,
" Whereas the person of the king doth keepe." Malonf..
VOL. XVIII. Z

338 SECOND PART OF act v.

Or dare to bring thy force so near the court.

* York. Scarce can I speak ^ my choler is so

great.

* O, I could hew up rocks, and fight with flint,
' I am so angry at these abject terms;

' And now, Hke Ajax Telamonius,

' On sheep or oxen could I spend my fury !

* I am far better born than is the king ;

' More like a king, more kingly in my thoughts :
' But I must make fair weather yet a while,

* Till Henry be more weak, and 1 more strong. —

\Aside.
' O Buckingham ^, I pr'ythee, pardon me,

* That I have given no answer all this while ;

' My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.
' The cause why I have brought this army hither,
' Is — to remove proud Somerset from the king,

* Seditious to his grace, and to the state.

' Buck. That is too much presumption on thy
part :

* But if thy arms be to no other end,

' The king hath yielded unto thy demand;

* The duke of Somerset is in the Tower.

York. Upon thine honour, is he prisoner ?
Buck. Upon mine honour, he is prisoner.

* York. Then, Buckingham, I do dismiss my

powers. —
' Soldiers, I thank you all ; disperse yourselves ;

8 Scarce can I speak, &c.] The first nine lines of this speech
are founded on the following In the old play :

" A subject as he is !

" O, how I hate these spiteful abject terms !

" But York dissemble, till thou 7neet thy sonnes,

" Who now in arms expect their father's sight,

" And not far hence I linow they cannot be." MaloxVe.

9 O Buckingham.] O, which is not in the authentick copy,
was added, to supply the metre, by the editor of the second folio.

MALONli.

sc. /. KING HENRY VI. 339

* Meet me to-morrow in Saint George's field,

* You shall have pay, and every thing you wish.

* And let my sovereign, virtuous Henry,

* Command my eldest son, — nay, all my sons,

* As pledges of my fealty and love,

* I'll send them all as willing as I live ;

* Lands, goods, horse, armour, any thing I have

* Is his to use, so Somerset may die.

* Buck. York, I commend this kind submission :

* We twain will go into his highness' tent \

Enter King Henry, attended,

* K. Hex. Buckingham, doth York intend no

harm to us,

* That thus he marcheth with thee arm in arm ?

* York. In all submission and humility,

* York doth present himself unto your highness.

* K. Hen. Then what intend these forces thou

dost bring ?

* York. To heave the traitor Somerset from

hence '" ;

* And fight against that monstrous rebel, Cade,
" Who since I heard to be discomfited.

Enter Iden, with Cades Head.

* Iden. If one so rude, and of so mean condition,

' We twain will go into his highness' tent.] Shakspeare has
here deviated from the original play without much propriety. —
He has followed it in making Henry come to Buckingham and
York, instead of their going to him ; — yet without the introduc-
tion found in the quarto, where the lines stand thus :

" Biick. Come, York, thou shaJt go speak unto the king ; —
" But see, his grace is coming to meet with us." Malone.
^ York. To heave the traitor Somerset from hence ;] The cor-
responding speech to this is given in the old play to Buckingham,
and acquaints the King with the plea that York had before made
to him for his rising: "To heave the duke of Somerset," &c.
This variation could never have arisen from copyists, short-hand
writers, or printers. Malone.

Z2

340 SECOND PART OF act v.

' May pass into the presence of a king,
' Lo, I present your grace a traitor's head,
' The head of Cade, whom I in combat slew.

* K. Hen. The head of Cade ^ ? — Great God, how

just art thou ! —

* O, let me view his visage being dead,

* That living wrought me such exceeding trouble.

' Tell me, my friend, art thou the man that slew
him ?
' Idejv. I was, an't like your majesty.
' K. Hen. How art thou call'd ? and what is thy

degree ?
' Iden. Alexander Iden, that's my name ;
' A poor esquire of Kent, that loves his king.

* Buck. So please it you, my lord, 'twere not

amiss

* He were created knight for his good service.

' K. Hen. Iden, kneel down ; \_He kneels.^ Rise
up a knight.

* We give thee for reward a thousand marks ;
' And will, that thou henceforth attend on us.

' Iden. May Iden live to merit such a bounty,
' And never live but true unto his liege ^ !

3 The head of Cade ?] The speech corresponding to this in the
first part of The Whole Contention, &.c. 1600, is alone sufficient
to prove that piece the work of another poet :

" Kiyig. First, thanks to heaven, and next, to thee, my friend,
" That hast subdu'd that wicked traitor thus.
" O, let me see that head, that in his life
" Did work me and my land such cruel spight.
" A visage stern ; coal-black his curled locks ;
" Deep trenched ^furrows in his J'r owning broiv,
'* Presageth tvarli/ce humours in his life.
" Here take it hence, and thou for thy reward
" Shalt be immediately created knight :
" Kneel down, my friend, and tell me what's thy name."

Malone.
' May Iden, &c.] Iden has said before :

" Lord ! who would live turmoiled in a court,
'' And may enjoy," &.c.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 341

' K. Hen. See, Buckingham ! Somerset comes

with the queen ;
' Go, bid her hide him quickly from the duke.

Enter Queen Margaret and Somerset.

' Q. Mar. For thousand Yorks he shall not hide
his head,

* But boldly stand, and front him to his face.

* York. How now^ ! Is Somerset at liberty ?

* Then, York, unloose thy long-imprison'd thoughts,
' And let thy tongue be equal with thy heart.

' Shall I endure the sight of Somerset ? —

' False king ! why hast thou broken faith with me,

* Knowing how hardly I can brook abuse ?

* King did I call thee ? no, thou art not king ;
' Not fit to govern and rule multitudes,

* Which dar'st not, no, nor canst not rule a traitor.

* That hand of thine doth not become a crown ;
' Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff,

' And not to grace an awful princely scepter.

* That gold must round engirt these brows of mine :
' Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear,

Shakspeare makes Iden rail at those enjoyments which he sup-
poses to be out of his reach ; but no sooner are they offered to
him but he readily accepts them. Anonymous.

In Iden's eulogium on the happiness of rural life, and in his
acceptance of the honours bestowed by his majesty, Shakspeare
has merely followed the old play. Malone.

5 How now ! &c.] This speech is greatly amplified, and in
other respects very different from the original, which consists of
but ten lines :

" York. Who's that? proud Somerset at liberty?
" Base fearful Henry, that thus dishonour'st me,
" By heaven, thou shalt not govern over me !
" I cannot brook that traitor's presence here,
" Nor will I subject be to such a king,
" That knows not how to govern, nor to rule.
'* Resign thy crown, proud Lancaster, to me,
" That thou usurped hast so long by force ;
" For now is York resolv'd to claim his own,
" And rise aloft unto fair England's throne." Malone.

342 SECOND PART OF act V.

* Is able with the change to kill and cure ®.

* Here is a hand to hold a scepter up,

* And with the sanne to act controlling laws.

* Give place ; by heaven, thou shalt rule no more

* O'er him, whom heaven created for thy ruler.

* SoM. O monstrous traitor " ! — I arrest thee,

York,

* Of capital treason 'gainst the king and crown :

* Obey, audacious traitor; kneel for grace.

* York. Would'st have me kneel ? first let me ask

of these,

* If they can brook I bow a knee to man. —

* Sirrah, call in my sons to be my bail ^ ;

\Ea;it an Attendant,

like to Achilles' spear,

Is able with the change to kill and cure.]

Mysus et iEmoniajuvenis quacuspide vulnus
Senserat, hac ipsa cuspide sensitopem.

Propert. lib. ii. el. i,
Greene, in his Orlando Furioso, 1599, has the same allusion :
•' Where I took hurt, there have I heal'd myself;
" As those that with Achilles' launce were wounded,
" Fetch'd help at self-same pointed speare." Malone.

7 O monstrous traitor! &c.] The variation between this
speech and the original is worth noting. In the old play Somer-
set says :

" Proud traitor, I arrest thee on high treason
•' Against thy sovereign lord : yield thee, false York,
" For here I swear thou shalt unto the Tower,
" For these proud words which thou hast given the King."

Malone.

8 Would'st have me kneel ? first let me ask of these.
If they can brook I bow a knee to man. —

Sirrah, call in my sons to be my bail ;J As these lines stand,
I think the sense perplexed and obscure. I have ventured to
transpose them. Wakburton.

I believe these lines should be replaced in the order in which
they stood till Dr. Warburton transposed them. By tliese York
means his knees. He speaks, as Mr. Upton would have said,
JsjwTixwf : laying his hand upon, or at least pointing to, his knees.

Tyrwhitt.
By these York evidently means his sons, whom he had just

sv. I. KING HENRY VI. 343

* I know, ere they will have me go to ward,

* They'll pawn their swords for my enfranchisement.

* Q. Mar. Call hither ChfFord ; bid him come

amain,

* To say, if that the bastard boys of York

* Shall be the surety for their traitor father.

* York. O blood-bespotted Neapolitan,

* Outcast of Naples, England's bloody scourge !

* The sons of York, thy betters in their birth,

* Shall be their father s bail ; and bane to those ^

* That for my surety will refuse the boys.

Enter Edtvarb and Richard Plantagenet, with
Forces, at one side ; at the other y xvith Forces
also, old Clifford and his Son.

* See where they come; I'll warrant they'll make

it good.

* Q. Mar. And here comes Clifford, to deny

their bail.

* Clif. Health and all happiness to my lord the

king! \_Kneels.

called for. Tyrwhitt's supposition, that he meant to ask his
knees, whether he should bow his knees to any man, is not ima-
gined with his usual sagacity. M. Mason.

I have no doubt that York means either his sons, whom he
mentions in the next line, or his troops, to whom he may be sup-
posed to point. Dr. Warburton transposed the lines, placing that
which is now the middle line of tiie speech at the beginning of it.
But, like many of his emendations, it appears to have been un-
necessary. The folio reads — " of thee." The emendation was
made by Mr. Theobald. Sous was substituted for son by the
editor of the second folio. The correction is justified both by the
context and the old play ; " For my enfranchisement," instead of
— " of my," ike. was likewise his correction. Malone.

9 Shall be their father's bail ; and bane to those — ] Consi-
dering how our author loves to play on words similar in their
sound, but opposite in their signification, I make no doubt but
the author wrote bail and bale. Bale (from whence our common
adjective, baleful) signifies detriment, ruin, misfortune, &c.

Theobald.

Bale signifies sorroiv. Either word may serve. Johnsok.

344 SECOND PART OF act v,

* York. I thank thee, Clifford : Say, what news

with thee ?
' Nay, do not fright us with an angry look :
' We are thy sovereign, Chfford, kneel again ;
' For thy mistaking so, we pardon thee.

' Clip. This is my king, York, I do not mistake ;
' But thou mistak'st me much, to think I do : —
' To Bedlam with him ! is the man grown mad ?
' K. Hen. Ay, Clifford; a bedlam and ambitious
humour ^

* Makes him oppose himself against his king.

' Clif. He is a traitor ; let him to the Tower,
And chop away that factious pate of his.
Q. Mar. He is arrested, but will not obey ;
' His sons, he says, shall give their words for him.

* York. Will you not, sons ?

Edjv. Ay, noble father, if our words will serve.
' Rich. And if words will not, then our weapons
shall.

* Clif. Why, what a brood of traitors have we

here !

* York. Look in a glass, and call thy image so ;

* I am thy king, and thou a false-heart traitor. —

9 — a BEDLAM and ambitious humour — ] The woxA bedlam
was not used in the reign of King Henry the Sixth, nor was Beth-
lehem Hospital (vulgarly called Bedlam) converted into a house
or hospital for lunaticks till the reign of King Henry the Eighth,
who gave it to the city of London for that purpose. Grey.

Shakspeare was led into this anachronism by the author of the
elder play. Malone.

It is no anachronism, and Dr. Grey was mistaken : " Next
unto the parish of St. Buttolph," says Stow, " is a fayre inne for
receipt of travellers : then an Ilospita/l of S. Marij of Bethelem,
founded by Simon Fitz Mary, one of the Sherifl'es of London, in
the yeare I'i^G. He founded it to haue beene a priorie of Can-
nons with brethren and sisters, and king Jidvvard the thirde
granted a protection, vvhich I haveseene, for the brethren Mi/icice
beatce Marice de Beth/an, within the citie of London, the 14
yeare of his raigne. li was an liospilall for distracted peo^^leS"
Survey of London, LGOS, p. 127. Ritson.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 315

* Call hither to the stake my two brave bears,

* That, with the very shaking of their chains,

* They may astonish these fell lurking curs ^ ;

* Bid Salisbury, and Warwick, come'- to me '.

Drums. Enter Warwick and Salisbury, with

Forces.

' Clip. Are these thy bears ? we'll bait thy bears
to death,

* And manacle the bear- ward in their chains,

' If thou dar'st bring them to the baiting- place.
* Rich. Oft have I seen " a hot o'erweening cur

* Run back and bite, because he was withheld ;

* Who, being suffer'd^ with the bear's fell paw,

* Hath ciapp'd his tail between his legs, and cry'd :

* And such a piece of service will you do,

1 — FELL LURKING curs ;] Ml*. Roderick would read "fell
harking;" Mr. Heath, "fell lurching;" but, perhaps, hy Jell
lurking is meant curs who are at once a compound of cruelty and
treachery. Steevens.

^ Call hither to the stake my two brave bears, —
Bid Salisbury, and Warwick, come—] The Nevils, earls of
\\''arwick, had a bear and ragged stajfiox their cognizance.

Sir J. Hawkins.

3 Bid Salisbury, and Warwick, come to me.] Here in the old
play the following lines are found :

" King. Call Buckingham, and bid him arm himself.
" York. Call Buckingham and all the friends thou hast ;
" Both thou and they shall curse this fatal hour."
Buckingham accordingly enters immediately with his forces.
Shakspeare, we see, has not introduced him in the present scene,
but has availed himself of those lines below. Malone.

4 Oft have I seen, &c.] Bear-baiting was anciently a royal
sport. See Stowe's account of Queen Elizabeth's Amusements
of this kind ; and Langham's Letter concerning that Queen's
Entertainment at Kenelworth Castle. Percy.

The one of them has adopted his description from the other.

Henley.

5 — being suffer'd — ] Being suffer'd to approach to the
bear's fell paw. Such may be the meaning. I am not, however,
sure, but the poet meant^ being in a state oi sufferance or pain.

Malone.

346 SECOND PART OF act v.

* If you oppose yourselves to match lord Warwick .

* Clip. Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested

lump,

* As crooked in thy manners as thy shape !

* York. Nay, we shall heat you thoroughly anon.

* Clif. Take heed, lest by your heat you burn

yourselves *'.

* K. Hex. Why, Warwick, hath thy knee forgot

to bow? —

* Old Salisbury, — shame to thy silver hair,

* Thou mad misleader of thy brain-sick son ! —

* What, wilt thou on thy death-bed play the ruffian,

* And seek for sorrow with thy spectacles ?

* O, where is faith ? O, where is loyalty ?

* If it be banish'd from the frosty head,

* Where shall it find a harbour in the earth ? —

* Wilt thou go dig a grave to find out war,

* And shame thine honourable age with blood ?

* Why art thou old, and want'st experience ?

* Or wherefore dost abuse it, if thou hast it ?

* For shame ! in duty bend thy knee to me,

* That bows unto the grave with mickle age.

* S.iL. My lord, I have consider'd with myself

* The title of this most renowned duke ;

* And in my conscience do repute his grace

* The rightful heir to England's royal seat.

* K. Hen. Hast thou not sworn allegiance unto

me ?

* Sal. I have.

* A^ Hex. Canst thou dispense with heaven for

such an oath ?

* Sal. It is great sin, to swear unto a sin " ;

^ Take heed, lest by your heat you burn yourselves.] So, in
King Henry Vlil. :

" lieat not a furnace for yourself so hot,
" That it do singe yourselj." Steevens.
7 It is great sin, to swear unto a sin ; S;c.] We have the same
sentiment in Love's Labours Lost :

sc. I. KING HENUY VI. 347

* But greater sin, to keep a sinful oath.

* Who can be bound by any solemn vow

* To do a murderous deed, to rob a man,

* To force a spotless virgin's chastity,

* To reave the orphan of his patrimony,

* To wring the widow from her custom'd right ;

* And have no other reason for this wrong,

* But that he was bound by a solemn oath ?

* Q. Mar. a subtle traitor needs no sophister.

* K. Hen. Call Buckingham, and bid him arm

himself.

* York. Call Buckingham, and all the friends

thou hast,
' I am resolv'd for death, or dignity ^.

' Cljf. The first I warrant thee, if dreams prove
true.

* IV^R. You were best to go to bed, and dream

again.
To keep thee from the tempest of the field.

Clip. I am resolv'd to bear a greater storm.
Than any thou canst conjure up to-day ;
And that I'll write upon thy burgonet^,
Might I but know thee by thy household badge \

"•It is religion, to be thus forsworn."
Again, in King John :

*' It is religion that doth make vows kept ;

" But thou dost swear only to be forsworn ;

" And most forsworn to keep what thou dost swear."

Malone,
^ — for death, OR dignity.] The folio reads — "a«af dignity."
The emendation was made by Mr. Pope, Malone.
9 — burgonet,] Is a helmet. Johnson.
So, in The Martyr'd Soldier, 1638 :

" now tye

" Strong charms upon my full-plum'd burgonet."'

Steevens.
^ — thy HOUSEHOLD badge,] The folio has — housed badge,
owing probably to the transcriber's ear deceiving him. The true
reading is found in the old play. Malone.

348 SECOND PART OF ^ct f.

IP AR. Now, by my father's badge old Nevil's
crest,
The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff.
This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet,
(As on a mountain -top the cedar shows,
That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm,)
Even to affright thee with the view thereof.

Clif. And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear,
And tread it under foot with all contempt,
' Despight the bear-ward that protects the bear.

' K Clif. And so to arms, victorious father,
* To quell the rebels, and their 'complices.

Rich. Fye ! charity, for shame ! speak not in
spite.
For you shall sup with Jcsu Christ to-night.

' Y. Clif. Foul stigmatick '", that's more than

thou canst tell.
* Rich. If not in heaven, you "11 surely sup in hell.

lE.veioit several/ 1/.

SCENE II.

Saint Albans.

Clarions : Excursions. Enter Wartvick.

War. Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick
calls !
And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear.
Now, — when the angry trumpet sounds alarm,
And dead men's cries do fill the empty air, —

^ Foul STIGMATICK,] k st'igmatick i& one on whom nature has
set a mark of deformity, a stigma. Steevens.

This certainly is the meaning here. A stigmatick originally
and properly signified a person iv/io has been branded ivit/i a hot
iron Jbr some crime. See BuUokar's English Expositor, 1616.

Malone.

sc. 11. KING HENRY VI. 349

Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me !
Proud northern lord, Clifford of Cumberland,
Warwick is hoarse with calling thee to arms ^ .

Enter York.

' How now, my noble lord ? what, all a-foot ?
' York. The deadly-handed Clifford slew my
steed ;
' But match to match I have encounter'd him,
' And made a prey for carrion kites and crows'*
' Even of the bonny beast he lov'd so well \

Enter Clifford.

* W.iR. Of one or both of us the time is come.
York. Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other
chace.
For I myself^ must hunt this deer to death.

PVar. Then, nobly, York ; 'tis for a crown thou
fight'st. —
' As I intend, Clifford, to thrive to-day.
It grieves my soul to leave thee unassail'd.

\_E.vit JVARiricK.
' Clip. What seest thou in me, York'' ? why dost
thou pause ?

3 Warwick is hoarse with calling thee to arms.] See Mac-
beth, vol. xi. p. 62, n. 3. Steevens.

4 And made a prey for carrion kites and crows — ] So, in
Hamlet :

" I should have fatted all the region kites
" With this slave's offal." Steevens.

5 Even of the bonny beast he lov'd so well.] In the old play :

" The bonniest gray, that e'er was bred in North."

Malone.
^ For I myself, &c.] This passage will remind the classical
reader of Achilles' conduct in the 22d Iliad, v. 205, where he ex-
presses his determination that Hector should fall by no other
hand than his own. Steevens.

7 What seest thou in me, York? &;c.] Instead of this and the
ten following lines, we find these in the old play, and the varia-
tion is worth noting: :

350 SECOND PART OF ^cr v.

' York. With thy brave bearing should I be in
love,

* But that thou art so fast mine enemy.

* Clif. Nor should thy prowess want praise and

esteem,

* But that 'tis shown ignobly, and in treason.

' York. So let it help me now against thy sword,

* As I in justice and true right express it !

' Clif. My soul and body on the action both ! —

' York. A dreadful lay ^ ! — address thee instantly.

[They fight, and Clifford falls.

* Clif. La Jin couronne les oeuxires'^. [Dies^.

" York. Now, Clifford, since we are singled here alone,
" Be this the day of doom to one of us ;
" For now my heart hath sworn immortal hate
" To thee and all the house of Lancaster.

" Clif. And here I stand, and pitch my foot to thine,
" Vowing ne'er to stir till thou or 1 be slain ;
" For never shall mv heart be safe at rest,
" Till I have spoil'd the hateful house of York.

" \_Alarums, andtheifjiglit, and York kills Clifford.
" York. Now Lancaster, sit sure; thy sinews shrink.
" Come, fearful Henry, groveling on thy face,
" Yield up thy crown unto the prince of York. \_Exit York."

Malone.
^ A dreadful lay !] A dreadful wager, a tremendous stake.

Johnson.
9 Lajtn COURONNE les oeuvres.] The players read :

La fin corrone les eumenes. Steevens.
Corrected by the editor of the second folio. Malone.
' Dies.'] Our author, in making ('lifford fall by the hand of
York, has departed from the truth of history ; a practice not un-
common to him when he does his utmost to make his characters
considerable. This circumstance, however, serves to prepare the
reader or spectator for the vengeance afterwards taken by Clifford's
son on York and Rutland.

It is remarkable, that at the beginning of the third part of this
historical play, the poet has forgot this occurrence, and there re-
presents Clifford's death as it really happened :

" Lord Clifford and lord Stafford all abreast,
" Charg'd our main battle's front ; and breaking in,
" Were by the swords of common soldiers slain." Percy,
For this inconsistency the elder poet must answer ; for these

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 351

* York. Thus war hath given thee peace, for

thou art still.
' Peace with his soul, heaven, if it be thy will !

Enter young Clifford.

* Y. CiiF. Shame and confusion ! all is on the

rout ^ ;

* Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds

* Where it should guard. O war, thou son of hell,

* Whom angry heavens do make their minister,

* Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part

* Hot coals of vengeance '^ ! — Let no soldier fly :

* He that is truly dedicate to war,

* Hath no self-love ; nor he, that loves himself,

* Hath not essentially, but by circumstance,

* The name of valour. — O, let the vile world end !

\_Seeing his dead Father.

lines are in The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York, &c.
on which, as I conceive, The Third Part of King Henry VI. was
founded. Malone.

^ Shame and confusion ! all is on the rout, &c.] Instead of
this long speech, we have the following lines in the old play :
" Y. Clifford. Father of Cumberland!
" Where may I seek my aged father forth ?
•' O dismal sight ! see where he breathless lies,
" All smear'd and welter'd in his luke-warm blood !
" Ah, aged pillar of all Cumberland's true house !
" Sweet father, to thy murdered ghost I swear
" Immortal hate unto the house of York ;
" Nor never shall I sleep secure one night,
" Till I have furiously reveng"d thy death
" And left not one of them to breathe on earth.

\_He takes him up on his back.
" And thus as old Anchises' son did bear
" His aged father on his manly back,
" Andfouoht ivith him against the bloody Greeks,
" Even so will I ; — but stay, here's one of them,
" To whom my soul hath sworn immortal hate."

Malone.
^ Hot COALS of vengeance !] This phrase is scriptural. So,
in the 1+Olh Psalm : " Let hot burning coals fall upon them."

Steevens.

352 SECOND PART OF ./tr f.

* And the premised flames ^ of the last day

* Knit earth and heaven together !

* Now let the general trumpet blow his blast,

* Particularities and petty sounds

* To cease ^ ! — Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,

* To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve ^

* The silver livery of advised age " ;

* And, in thy reverence ^ and thy chair-days, thus

* To die in ruffian battle ? — Even at this sight,

* My heart is turn'd to stone '^ : and, while 'tis mine,

* It shall be stony \ York not our old men spares ;

* No more will I their babes : tears virginal

* Shall be to me even as the dew to fire ;

* And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims,

* Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax'".

* Henceforth, I will not have to do with pity :

4 And the premised flames — ] Premised, for sent before their
time. The sense is, let the flames reserved for the last day be
sent now. Warburton.

5 To CEASE !] Is to stoj}, a verb active. So, in Timon of
Athens :

" be not ceas'd

" With slight denial — ." Steevens.
*" — to achieve — ^] Is, to obtain. Johnson.
7 The silver livery of advised age ;] Advised is ivise, expe-
rienced. M ALONE.

Advised is cautious, considerate. So before in this play :

" And bid me be advised how I tread." Steevens.
^ And, in thy reverence,] In that period of life, which is en-
titled to the reverence of others. Our author has used the word
in the same manner in As You Like It, w^herethe younger brother
savs to the elder, (speaking of their father,) " thou art indeed
nearer to his reverence." Malone.

9 My heart is turn'd to stone :] So, in Othello : " — my heart
is turn'd to stone ; I strike it, and it hurts my hand." Malone.
' It shall be stony.] So again in Othello :

" Thou dost st07ie my heart."
And, in King Richard III. we have " stone-hard heart."

Steevens.
' — to my flaming wrath be oil and flax,] So, in Hamlet :
" To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
" .\nd melt in her own fire." Steevkns.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 353

* Meet I an infant of the house of York,

* Into as many gobbets will I cut it,

* As wild Medea young Absyrtus did ^ :

* In cruelty will I seek out my fame.

* Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's ]^6\xse ;

{Taking up the Body,

* As did ^neas old Anchises bear,

' So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders '^ ;

* But then ^neas bare a living load,

* Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine. [Exit,

Enter Richard Plantagenet and Somerset,
fighting, and Somerset is killed.

Rich. So, lie thou there ; —
' For, underneath an alehouse' paltry sign,
The Castle in Saint Albans, Somerset

3 As wild Medea, &c.] When Medea fled with Jason from
Colchos, she murdered her brother Absyrtus, and cut his body
into several pieces, that her father might be prevented for some
time from pursuing her. See Ovid, Trist. Lib. iii. El. 9 :

—— divellit, divulsaque membra per agros

Dissipat, in multis invenienda locis : —
Ut genitor luctuque novo tardetur, et artus

Dum legit extinctos, triste moretur iter." Malone.

4 — my manly shoulders ;] The quarto copy has these lines :

" Even so will I. — But stay, here's one of them,
" To whom my soul hath sworn immortal hate."

Enter Richard, and then Clifford lays doxun his father, Jights xmth
him, and Richard flies atxiay again.

" Out, crook -back'd villain ! get thee from my sight !

" But I will after thee, and once again

" (When I have borne my father to his tent)

*' I'll try my fortune better with thee yet.

" [Exit yoimg Clifford with hisjather."

Steevens.
This is to be added to all the other circumstances which have
been urged to show that the quarto play was the production of an
elder writer than Shakspeare. The former's description of iEneas
is different. See p. 351, n. 2. Malone.
VOL. XVIII. 2 A

354 SECOND PART OF act v.

Hath made the wizard famous in his death ^. —

* Sword, hold thy temper ; heart, be wrathful still :

* Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill. \_Exut.

Alarums: Excursions. Enter King Henry, Qiieen
Margaret, and others, retreating.

* Q. Mar. Away, my lord ^ ! you are slow ; for
shame, away !

^ So, lie thou there ;—
For, underneath an alehouse' paltry sign.
The Castle in Saint Albans, Somerset

Hath made the wizard famous in his death.] The particle
Joj- in the second line seems to be used without any very apparent
inference. We might read :

" Fall'n underneath an alehouse' paltry sign," &c.
Yet the alteration is not necessary ; for the old reading is sense,
though obscure, Johnson.

Dr. Johnson justly observes that the particle ybr seems to be
used here without any apparent inference. The corresponding
passage in the old play induces me to believe that a line has
been omitted, perhaps of this import :

" Behold, the prophecy is come to pass ;

" For, underneath ," &c.

We have had already two similar omissions in this play.

Malone.
Thus the passage stands in the quarto :

" Rich. So lie thou there, and tumble in thy blood!
" What's here ? the sign of the Castle?
" Then the prophecy is come to pass ;
" For Somerset was forewarned of castles,
" Tlie which he always did observe ; and now,
*' Behold, under a paltry ale-house sign,
" The Castle in saint Albans, Somerset
" Hath made the wizard famous by his death."
I suppose, however, that the third line was originally written :

" Why, then the prophecy is come to pass." Steevens.
The death of Somerset here accomplishes that equivocal pre-
diction given by Jourdain, the witch, concerning this duke ;
which we meet with at the close of the first Act of this play :
" Let him shun castles :
" Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains,
" Than where castles, mounted stand."
i. e. the representation of a castle, mounted for a sio;n.

Theobald,
^ Away, my lord !] Thus, in the old play :

sc. 11. KING HENRY VI. 355

* K. Hen. Can we outrun the heavens ? good

Margaret, stay.

* Q. Mar. What are you made of ? you'll not

fight, nor riy :

* Now is it manhood, wisdom, and defence \

* To give the enemy way ; and to secure us

* By what we can, which can no more but fly.

\_Alarum afar off.

* If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom

* Of all our fortunes ^ : but if we haply scape,

* (As well we may, if not through your neglect,)

* We shall to London get : where you are lov'd ;

* And where this breach, now in our fortunes

made,

* May readily be stopp'd.

" Queen. Away, my lord, and fly to London straight ;
*' Make haste, for vengeance comes along with them ;
" Come, stand not to expostulate : let's go.

" King. Come then, fair queen, to London let us haste,
" And summon a parliament with speed,
" To stop the fury of these dire events.

" \_ExeuNt King and Qtieen."
Previous to the entry of the King and Queen, there is the fol-
lowing stage-direction :

" Alarums again, and then enter three or four hearing the DuJce
of Buckingham wounded to his tent. Alarums still, and then
enter the king and queen." Malone.

7 Now IS IT manhood, w^isdom, &c.] This passage will serve
to countenance an emendation proposed in Macbeth. See vol. xi.
p. 219, n. 5. Steevens.

^ If you be ta'en, we then should seethe bottom
Of all our fortunes :] Of this expression, which is un-
doubtedly Shakspeare's, he appears to have been fond. So, in
King Henry IV. Part I. :

" . for therein should we read

" The very bottom and the soul of hope,
" The very list, the very utmost bound
" Of all our fortunes ."
Again, in JRomeo and Juliet :

" Which sees into the bottom of my grief."
Again, in Measure for Measure :

" To look into the bottom of my place." Malone.
2a2

356 SECOND PART OF act r.

Enter young Clifford.

* Y. Clip. But that my heart's on future mis-
chief set,

* I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly ;

* But fly you must ; uncurable discomfit

* Reigns in the hearts of all our present parts -.

* Awav, for vour relief I and we will live

* To see their day, and them our fortune give :

* Away, my lord, away I [Exeunt.

9 — all our present parts.] Should we not read? — party.

Tyrwhitt,
The text is undoubtedly right. So, before:
" Throw in the frozen bosoms of owe part
" Hot coals of vengeance."
I have met with pad for party in other books of that time.
So, in the Proclamation for the apprehension of John Cade,
Stowe's Chronicle, p. 6-i6, edit. 1605 : " — the which John Cade
also, after this, was sworne to the Y x^ncYi parts, and dwelled with
them," &c.

Again, in Hall's Chronicle, King Henr)- W. fol. 101 : " — in
conclusion King Edward so corageously comforted his men, re-
freshing the wear}-, and helping the wounded, that the other pai-t
[i. e. the adverse army] was discomforted and overcome." Ajjain,
in the same Chronicle, Edward W . fol. xxii. : " — to bee pro-
vided a kxTige, for to extinguish both the faccions and partes
[i. e. parties] of Kyng Henry the VI. and of Kyng Edward the
fourth."

Again, in Coriolanus :

" if I cannot persuade thee,

" Rather to show a noble grace to both pa)is,
" Than seek the end of one — ."
In Plutarch the corresponding passage runs thus : " For if I
cannot persuade thee rather to do good unto holh parties," ^c.

Maloxe.
A hundred instances might be brought in proof that part and
party were svronymously used. But that is not the present ques-
tion. Mr. Tyrwhitt's ear (like every otlier accustomed to har-
mony of versification) must naturally have been shocked bv the
leonine gingle of hearts and parts, which is not found in anv one
of the passages produced by Mr. Malone in defence of the present
reading. Steevens.

sc. HI. KING HENRY VI. 357

SCENE III.

Fields near Saint Albans.

Alarum : Retreat. Flourish ; then enter York,
Richard Plantagenet, IKirwick, and Soldiers,
with Drum and Colours.

* York. Of Salisbury \ who can report of him ; '

* That winter lion, who, in rage, forgets

* Aged contusions and all brush of time - ;

* And, like a gallant in the brow of youth '\

^ Of Sallsburv, &c.] The corresponding speeches to this ajo
the following, are these, in the original play :

" York. How now, boys ! fortunate this fight hath been,
" I hope, to us and ours, for England's good,
" And our great honour, that so long we lost,
" Whilst faint-heart Henry did usurp our rights.
*' But did vou see old Salisbury, since we
" \Vith bloody minds did buckle with the foe?
" I would not for the loss of this right hand
" That ought but well betide that good old man.

" Rich.'^ly lord, 1 saw him in the thickest throng,
" Charging his launce with his old weary arms ;
" And thrice I saw him beaten from his horse,
" And thrice this hand did set him up again ;
" And still he fought with courage 'gainst his foes ;
" The boldest-spirited man that e'er mine eyes beheld."

Malone.
^ — BRUSH of time;] Read bruise of time. \V.\rburtox.
The brush of time, is the gradual detrition of time. The old
reading I suppose to be the true one. So, in Timon :

" one winter's brush — ." Steevens.

8 — gallant in the brow of youth,] The brow of youth is an
expression not very easily explained. I read the bloiv of youth ;
the blossom, the spring. Johnson.

The bro-M of youth is the height of youth, as the broixi of a hill is
its summit. So, in Othello :

" the head ^wAfront of my offending."

Again, in King John :

" Why here walk I in the black brovi of night."

Steevens.

358 SECOND PART OF act v.

* Repairs him with occasion ? this happy day

* Is not itself, nor have we won one foot,

* If Salisbury be lost.

* Rich. My noble father,

* Three times to-day I holp him to his horse,

* Three times bestrid him ^ thrice I led him off,

* Persuaded him from any further act :

* But still, where danger was, still there I met him ;

* And like rich hangings in a homely house,

* So was his will in his old feeble body.

* But, noble as he is, look where he comes.

Enter Salisbury.

* Sal. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought

to-day ^ ;

* By the mass, so did we all. — I thank you, Richard :

* God knows, how long it is I have to live ;

* And it hath pleas'd him, that three times to-day

* You have defended me from imminent death. —

* Well, lords, we have not got that which we

have ^ :

4 Three times bestrid him,] That is, Three times I saw him
fallen, and, striding over him, defended him till he recovered.

Johnson.
See vol. xvi. p. 3S6, n. 9. Of this act of friendship, which
Shakspeare has frequently noticed in other places, no mention is
made in the old play, as the reader may find in the preceding page ;
and its introduction here is one of the numerous minute circum-
stances, which when united form almost a decisive proof that the
piece before us was constructed on foundations laid by a preced-
ing writer. Malone.

5 Well hast thou fought, &c.] The variation between this
speech and that in the original play deserves to be noticed :

" Sal. Well hast thou fought this day, thou valiant duke ;
" And thou brave bud of York's increasing house,
" The small remainder of my weary life,
" I hold for thee, for with thv warlike arm
" Three times this day thou hast preserv'd ray life."

Malone.
^ Well, lords, we have not got that which we have ;] i. e, we

sc.ni. KING HENRY VI. 359

* 'Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,

* Being opposites of such repairing nature \

* York. I know, our safety is to follow them ;
' For, as I hear, the king is fled to London,

* To call a present court of parliament ^.

* Let us pursue him, ere the writs go forth : —

* What says lord Warwick ? shall we after them ?

TVyiR. After them ! nay, before them, if we can.
Now by my faith ^, lords, 'twas a glorious day :
Saint Albans' battle, won by famous York,
Shall be eterniz'd in all age to come. —
Sound, drums and trumpets ; — and to London all :
And more such days as these to us befall !

\_Ei'eunt.

have not secured, we are not sure of retaining, that which we
have acquired. In our author's Rape of Lucrece, a poem very
nearly contemporary with the present piece, we meet with a simi-
lar expression :

" That oft they have not that which they possess."

Malone.
' Being opposites of such repairing nature.] Being ene
mies that are likely so soon to rally and recover themselves from
this defeat.

To repair, in our author's language, is, to renovate. So, in
Cymbeline :

" O, disloyal thing !
" That should'st repair my youth — ."
Again, in All's Well that End's We'll :

" It much repairs me,

" To talk of your good father." Malone.
^ To call a present court of parliament.] The King and Queen
left the stage only just as York entered, and have not said a word
about calling a parliament. Where then could York hear this ?
—The fact is, as we have seen, that in the old play the King does
say, " he will call a parliament," but our author has omitted the
lines. He has, therefore, here, as in some other places, fallen
into an impropriety, by sometimes following and at others desert-
ing his original. Malone.

^ Now by my faith,] The first folio reads — " Now by my
hand." This undoubtedly was one of the many alterations made
by the editors of that copy, to avoid the penalty of the Stat.
3 Jac. I. c. 21. See p. 333, n. 9. The true reading I have re-
stored from the old play. Malone.

KING HENRY VI.

PART III.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

.i HE action of this play (which was at first printed under this
title, The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, and the good
King Henry the Sixth ; or, The Second Part of the Contention of
York and Lancaster,) opens just after the first battle at St. Albans,
[May 23, 1455,] wherein the York faction carried the day; and
closes with the murder of King Henry VI. and the birth of Prince
Edward, afterwards King Edward V. [November 4, 1471.] So
that this history takes in the space of full sixteen years.

Theobald.

I have never seen the quarto copy of the Second Part of The
Whole Contention, &c. printed by Valentine Simmes for Thomas
Millington, 1600; but the copy printed by W. W. for Thomas
Millington, 1600, is now before me ; and it is not precisely the
same with that described by Mr. Pope and Mr. Theobald, nor
does the undated edition (jjrinted in fact, in 1619,) correspond
with their description. The title of the piece printed in 1600, by
W. W. is as follows : " The True Tragedie of Richarde Duke of
Yorke, and the Death of good King Henrie the Sixt : With the
whole Contention between the Two Houses Lancaster and Yorke:
as it was sundry Times acted by the Right Honourable the Earle
of Pembrooke his Servants. Printed at London by W. W. for
Thomas Millington, and are to be sold at his Shoppe under St.
Peter's Church in Cornewall, 1600," There was, however, an
earlier edition in 1595. See it more particularly described in the
list of quartos, vol. ii. On this piece Shakspeare, as I conceive,
in 1591 formed the drama before us. See p. 3 of this volume,
and the Essay at the end of this play. Malone.

The present historical drama was altered by Crowne, and
brought on the stage in the year 1680, under the title of The
Miseries of Civil War. Surely the works of Shakspeare could
have been little read at that period ; for Crowne, in his Prologue,
declares the play to be entirely his own composition :
" For by his feeble skill 'tis built alone,
" The divine Shakspeare did not laij one stone."
whereas the very first scene is that of Jack Cade copied almost
verbatim from The Second Part of King Henry VI. and several
Others from this third Part, with as little variation. Steeveng.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

party.

King Henry the Sixth :

Edward, Prince of Wales, his Son.

Lewis XL King of France.

Duke of Somerset. Duke of "i

Exeter. Earl of Oxford. | t i j^
Earl of Northumberland. [>„ ^"^ ?^ .^^*
Earl of Westmoreland. | "^^i^^^ « side.
Lord Clifford. J

Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York :

Edward, Earl of March, afterwards ^
King Edward IV. | , .

Edmund, Earl of Rutland, re

George, afterwards Duke of Clarence, | ^°"^-

Richard, afterwards Duke of Glocester, J

Duke of Norfolk, ^

Marquis of Montague, |

Earl of Warwick, [ of the Duke of York's

Earl of Pembroke,

Lord Hastings,

Lord Stafford,

Sir John Mortimer, ) Uncles to the Duke of

Sir Hugh Mortimer, j York.

Henry, Earl of Richmond, a Youth.

Lord Rivers, Brother to Lady Grey. Sir Wil-
liam Stanley. Sir John Montgomery. Sir
JohnSomerville. Tutor to Rutland. Mayor
of York. Lieutenant of the Tower. A Noble-
man. Two Keepers. A Huntsman. A Son that
has killed his Father. A Father that has killed
his Son.

Queen Margaret.

Lady Grey, afterwards Queen to Edward IV.

Bona, Sister to the French Queen.

Soldiers, and other Attendants on King Henry and
King Edward, Messengers, Watchmen, &c.

SCENE, during part of the third Act, in France ;
during all the rest of the Play, in England.

THIRD PART OF

KING HENRY VF.

ACT I. SCENE I.

London. The Parliament- House.

Drums. Some Soldiers of Yorks party break in.
Then, Enter the Duke of York, Edtfard,
Richard, Norfolk, Montague, Wartfick, and
Others, with white Roses in their Hats.
War. I wonder how the king escaped our hands.
York. While we pursued the horsemen of the
north,
He slily stole away, and left his men :
Whereat the great lord of Northumberland,
Whose warlike ears could never brook retreat,

* Cheer'd up the drooping army ; and himself,

* Lord Clifford, and lord Stafford, all a-breast,

* Charg'd our main battle's front, and, breaking in,

* Were by the swords of common soldiers slain '^.

I Third Part of King Henry VI.] This play is only divided
from the former for the convenience of exhibition ; for the series
of action is continued without interruption, nor are any two scenes
of any play more closely connected than the first scene of this
play with the last of the former. Johnson.

^ Were by the swords of common soldiers slain.] See the Se-
cond Part of this Play, p. 350, n, 1. Reed.

This is an inadvertency in our author. The elder Clifford was
slain by York, and his son lives to revenge his death.

M. Mason.

Dr. Percy, in a note on the preceding play, has pointed out the
inconsistency between this account, and the representation there,
Clifford being killed on the stage by the Dake of York, the
present speaker. Shakspeare was led into this inconsistency by

366 THIRD PART OF act i.

Eorr. Lord Stafford's father, duke of Bucking-
ham,

* Is either slain, or wounded dangerous :
I cleft his beaver with a downright blow ;

* That this is true, father, behold his blood.

[Showing his bloody Sword.
Mont. And, brother, here's the earl of Wiltshire's
blood, [To York, showing his.

Whom I encountered as the battles join'd.

Rich. Speak thou for me, and tell them what I
did^

[Thi^ozving down the Duke of Somersets
Head.
* York. Richard hath best deserv'd of all my
sons. —
What, is your grace '* dead, my lord of Somerset ?

the author of the original plays : if indeed there was but one au-
thor, for this circumstance might lead us to suspect that i\\e first
and second part of The Contention, &c. were not written by the
same hand. — However, this is not decisive; for the author, who-
ever he was, might have been inadvertent, as we find Shakspeare
undoubtedly was. Malone.

3 Rich. Speak thou for me, and tell them what i did.] Here,
as Mr. Elderton of Salisbury has observed to me, is a gross ana-
chronism. At the time of the first battle of Saint Albans, at
which Richard is represented in the last scene of the preceding
play to have fought, he was, according to that gentleman's cal-
culation, not one year old, having (as he conceives,) been born
at Fotheringay Castle, October 21, 1454-. At the time to which
the third scene of the first Act of this play is referred, he was,
according to the same gentleman's computation, but six years old ;
and in the fifth Act, in which Henry is represented as having
been killed by him in the Tower, not more than sixteen and eight
months.

For this anachronism the author or authors of the old plays on
which our poet founded these two parts of King Henry the Sixth,
are answerable. Malone.

4 What, is your grace — ] The folio reads — But is your grace,
&c. It was evidently a mistake of the transcriber, the word in
the old play being "what, which suits sufficiently with York's ex-
ultation ; whereas but affords no sense whatsoever. Malone.

sc, J. KING HENRY VI. 367

NoEF. Such hope have all the line of John of
Gaunt !

Rich. Thus do I hope to shake king Henry's
head.

fV^R. And so do I. — Victorious prince of York,
Before I see thee seated in that throne
Which now the house of Lancaster usurps
I vow by heaven these eyes shall never close:
This is the palace of the fearful king,
' And this the regal seat : possess it, York :
For this is thine, and not king Henry's heirs'.

York. Assist me then, sweet Warwick, and I will ;

* For hither we have broken in by force.

NoRF. We'll all assist you; he, that flies, shall

die.
York. Thanks, gentle Norfolk, — Stay by me, my

lords;—

* And, soldiers, stay, and lodge by me this night.

' IV^R. And, when the king comes, offer him no
violence,

* Unless he seek to thrust you out by force.

[They retire.
* York. The queen, this day, here holds her par-
liament,

* But httle thinks we shall be of her council:

* By words or blows here let us win our right.
Rich. Arm'd as we are, let's stay within this

house.
TK^R. The bloody parliament shall this be call'd,
Unless Plantagenet, duke of York, be king ;
And bashful Henry depos'd, whose cowardice

Though the sense and verse is complete without either but or
XKihat, I suppose we ought to read :

" What, 's your grace dead, my lord of Somerset ? "

1 do not, however, perceive the inefficiency of — but. This con-
junction is sometimes indeterminately used; and is also insultingly
employed in Twelfth-Night : " But, are you not mad indeed, or
do vou but counterfeit ? " Steevens.

368 THIRD PART OF act i.

Hath made us by-words to our enemies.

* York. Then leave me not, my lords ; be reso-
lute;
I mean to take possession of my right.

J'Var. Neither the king, nor he that loves him
best,

* The proudest he \ that holds up Lancaster,
Dares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells ^.

* I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares : —
Resolve thee, Richard; claim the Enghsh crown.

[IVartfick leads York to the Throne^ who
seats himself.

Flourish. Enter King Hbnry, Clifford, Nor-

THUMBERLAND, WESTMORELAND, ExETER, Uud

Others, with red Roses in their Hats.

K. Hen. My lords, look where the sturdy rebel
sits,
Even in the chair of state ! belike, he means,
(Back'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer,)
To aspire unto the crown, and reign as king. —
Earl of Northumberland, he slew thy father ; —
And thine, lord Clifford ; and you both have vow'd

revenge
On him, his sons, his favourites, and his friends.
' North. If I be not, heavens, be reveng'd on me !
Clip. The hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in

steel.
West. What, shall we suffer this ? let's pluck
him down :

* My heart for anger burns \, I cannot brook it.

K. Hen. Be patient, gentle earl of Westmore-
land.

t Quarto, bird. X Quarto, breaks.

5 — if Warwick shake his bells.] The allusion is to falconiy.
The hawks had sometimes little bells hung upon them, perhaps
to dare the birds ; that is, to fright them from rising. Johnson.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 369

Clif. Patience is for poltroons, such as he ^ ;
He durst not sit there had your father Hv'd.
My gracious lord, here in the parliament
Let us assail the family of York.

North. Well hast thou spoken, cousin ; be it so.

K. Hen. Ah, know you not, the city favours

them.

And they have troops of soldiers at their beck ?

ExE. But when the duke is slain, they'll quickly
fly 7.

K. Hen. Far be the thought of this from Henry '»*
heart.
To make a shambles of the parliament-house !
Cousin of Exeter, frowns, words, and threats.
Shall be the war that Henry means to use.

[They advance to the Duke.
Thou factious duke of York, descend my throne.
And kneel for grace and mercy at my feet ;
I am thy sovereign.

York, Thou art deceiv'd ^, I am thine.

ExE. For shame, come down ; he made thee duke

of York.
York. 'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was''.

^ — AND such as he :] Thus the second folio. The first folio
and the quartos omit — and. Steevens.

7 Exe. But when, &c.] Tliis line is by the mistake of the
compositor given to Westmoreland. The king's answer shows
that it belongs to Exeter, to whom it is assigned in the old play.

Malone.

^ Thou art deceiv'd,] These words, which are not in the folio,
were restored from the old play. The defect of the metre in the
folio, makes it probable that they were accidentally omitted. The
measure is, however, still faulty. Malone.

9 — as the EARLDOM WAS.] Thus the folio. The quarto 1600,
and that without date, read — as the kingdom is. Steevens.

York means, I suppose, that the dukedom of York was his
inheritance from his father, as the earldom of March was his in-
heritance from his mother, Anne Mortimer, the wife of the Earl
of Cambridge ; and by naming the earldom, he covertly asserts

VOL. XVIII. 2 B

370 THIRD PART OF act i.

ExE. Thy father was a traitor to the crown.
If^R. Exeter, thou art a traitor to the crown,
In following this usurping Henry.

Clip. Whom should he follow, but his natural

king ?
Wah. True, Clifford ; and that's Richard ', duke

of York.

* K. Hen. And shall I stand, and thou sit in my

throne ?

* York. It must and shall be so. Content thyself.
War. Be duke of Lancaster, let him be king.
West. He is both king and duke of Lancaster ;

And that the lord of Westmoreland shall maintain.
JPar. And Warwick shall disprove it. You forget.
That we are those, which chas'd you from the field,
And slew your fathers, and with colours spread
March'd through the city to the palace gates.

* North. Yes, Warwick, I remember it to my

grief;
And, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.

' West. Plantagenet, of thee, and these thy sons,
Thy kinsmen, and thy friends, I'll have more lives.
Than drops of blood were in my father's veins.

* Clif. Urge it no more; lest that, instead of

words,
I send thee, Warwick, such a messenger,
As thall revenge his death, before I stir.

* IPar. Poor Clifford ! how I scorn his worthless

threats !

his right to the crown ; for his title to the crown was not as Duke
of York, but Earl of March.

In the original play the line stands [is quoted by Mr. Steevens] ;
and why Shakspeare altered it, it is not easy to say; for the new
line only exhibits the same meaning more obscurely. Malone,

' — AND that's Richard,] The word nyid, which was acci-
dentally omitted in the first folio, is found in the old play.

Malone.

SCI. KING HENRY VI. 371

York. Will you, we show our title to the crown ?
* If not, our swords shall plead it in the field.
K. Hen. What title hast thou, traitor, to the
crown ?
Thy father was, as thou art, duke of York ^ ;
Thy grandfather, Roger Mortimer, earl of March :
I am the son of Henry the fifth '\
Who made the Dauphin and the French to stoop,
And seiz'd upon their towns and provinces.

JVar. Talk not of France, sith '^ thou hast lost it

all.
K. Hen. The lord protector lost it, and not I ;
When I was crown'd, I was but nine months old.
Rich. You are old enough now, and yet, me-
thinks, you lose : —
Father, tear the crown from the usurper's head.
Edtv. Sweet father, do so ; set it on your head.
Mont. Good brother, \To York7\ as thou lov'st
and honour'st arms.
Let's fight it out, and not stand cavilling thus.
Rich. Sound drums and trumpets, and the king

will fly.
York. Sons, peace !

K. Hen. Peace thou ! and give king Henry leave
to speak.

^ Thy father was, as thou art, duke of York ;] This is a mis-
take, into which Shakspeare was led by the author of the old play.
The father of Richard Duke of York was Earl of Cambridge,
and was never Duke of York, being beheaded in the life-time of
his elder brother Edward Duke of York, who fell in the battle of
Agincourt. The folio, by an evident error of the press, reads —
My father. The true reading was furnished by the old play.

Malone.

3 I am the son of Henry the fifth,] The military reputation of
Henry the Fifth is the sole support of his son. The name of
Henry the Fifth dispersed the followers of Cade. Johnson.

4 — sith — ] i. e. since. So, in Measure for Measure :

" Siih 'twas my fault to give the people scope." Steevens.

2b 2

372 THIRD PART OF act j.

War. Plantagenet shall speak first: hear him,
lords ;
And be you silent and attentive too,
For he, that interrupts him, shall not live.

* K. Hen. Think'st thou, that I vi^ill leave my
kingly throne ^,
Wherein my grandsire, and my father, sat ?
No : first shall war unpeople this my realm ;
' Ay, and their colours — often borne in France ;
And Xiovj in England, to our heart's great sorrow, —
Shall be my winding sheet ^. — Why faint you, lords ?
* My title's good, and better far than his.

War. Prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be king^.
K. Hen. Henry the fourth by conquest got the

crown.
York. 'Twas by rebellion against his king.
K. Hen. I know not what to say ; my title's
weak.
Tell me, may not a king adopt an heir ?

5 Think'st thou, &c.] The old play here exhibits four lines
that are not in the folio. They could not have proceeded from
the imagination of the transcriber, and therefore they must be
added to the many other circumstances that have been already
urged, to show that these plays were not originally the production
of Shakspeare :

" Ah Plantagenet, why seek'st thou to depose me?
" Are we not both Plantagenets by birth,
" And from two brothers lineally descent ?
" Suppose by right and equity thou be king,
" Think'st thou," &c. Malone.
^ Shall be my winding-sheet.] Perhaps Mr. Gray had this
passage in his mind, when he wrote :

" Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
" The voinding-sheet of Edward's race — ." Steevens.
7 But prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be king.] Thus the
second folio. The first omits the necessary word — hut. Steevens.
Henri/ is frequently used by Shakspeare and his contemporaries
as a word of three syllables. Malone.

But not as in the present instance, where such a trisyllable must
prove offensive to the ear. Steevens.

sc. 1. KING HENRY VI. 373

York. What then ?

' K. Hen. An if he may, then am I lawful king :
* For Richard, in the view of many lords,
Resign'd the crown to Henry the fourth :
Whose heir my father was, and I am his.

York. He rose against him, being his sovereign,
And made him to resign his crown perforce.

War. Suppose, my lords, he did it unconstrain'd.
Think you, 'twere prejudicial to his crown ^?

ExE. No ; for he could not so resign his crown.
But that the next heir should succeed and reign.

K. Hen. Art thou against us, duke of Exeter ?

ExE. His is the right, and therefore pardon me.

* York. Why whisper you, my lords, and answer

not ?
ExE. My conscience tells me he is lawful king.
K. Hen. All will revolt from me, and turn to

him.
North. Plantagenet, for all the claim thou lay'st.
Think not, that Henry shall be so depos'd.

* War. Depos'd he shall be, in despite of all.
North. Thou art deceiv'd : 'tis not thy southern

power,
' Of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,—
Which makes thee thus presumptuous and proud, —
Can set the duke up, in despite of me.

^ Think you, 'twere prejudicial to his ckown?] The phrase
prejudicial to his crown, if it be right, must mean, detrimental to
the general rights of hereditary royalty ; but I rather think that
the transcriber's eye caught crown from the line below, and
that we should read — prejudicial to his son, to his next heir.

Johnson.

Dr. Percy observes on Dr. Johnson's note, that son could not
have been the right word, as Richard the Second had no issue ;
and our author would hardly have used it simply for heir general.
" Prejudicial to the crown/' is right, i. e. to the prerogative of the
crown. Steevens.

374 THIRD PART OF ^ct i.

Clif. King Henry, be thy title right or wrong,
Lord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence :
May that ground gape, and swallow me alive ^,

* Where I shall kneel to him that slew my father !

' K. Hen. O Clifford, how thy words revive my

heart !
York. Henry of Lancaster, resign thy crown :
What mutter you, or what conspire you, lords ?

JVar. Do right unto this princely duke of York ;
Or I will fill the house with armed men.
And, o'er the chair of state, where now he sits.
Write up his title with usurping blood.

[He stamps, and the Soldiers show themselves.
* K. Hen. My lord of Warwick, hear but one
word'. —

* Let me, for this my Hfe-time, reign as king.

York. Confirm the crown to me, and to mine
heirs,
And thou shalt reign in quiet while thou liv'st.

K. Hen. I am content : Richard Plantagenet,
Enjoy the kingdom after my decease^.

Clip. What wrong is this unto the prince your
son ?

9 May that ground gape, and swallow me alive.] So, in
Phaer's translation of the fourth .-Eneid :

" But rather would I wish the ground to gape for me below."

Steevens.
» — HEAR but one word ;] Hear is in this line, as in some
other places, used as a dissyllable. The editor of the third
folio, and all the subsequent editors, read — hear me but one
word. Malone.

Since the third folio reads — hear me but one word, which im-
proves both the language and the metre, why should it not be
followed ? M. Mason.

^ lam CONTENT, &c.] Instead of this speech the old play
has the following lines :

" King. Convey the soldiers hence, and then I will.
" War. Captaine, conduct them into Tuthilfields."

Malone.

sc. I, KING HENRY VI. 375

I'F^R. What good is this to England, and himself?
West. Base, fearful, and despairing Henry !

* Clif. How hast thou injur'd both thyself and us ?
West. I cannot stay to hear these articles.
North. Nor I.

Clif. Come, cousin, let us tell the queen these
news.

* West. Farewell, faint-hearted and degenerate

king,

* In whose cold blood no spark of honour bides.
North. Be thou a prey unto the house of York,

* And die in bands for this unmanly deed !

Clif. In dreadful war may'st thou be overcome !
Or live in peace, abandon'd, and despis'd !

[E^'eunt Northumberland^ Clifford,
and Westmoreland.

* War. Turn this way, Henry, and regard them

not.
Exe. They seek revenge ^, and therefore will not

yield.
K. Hen. Ah, Exeter !

War. Why should you sigh, my lord ?

K. Hen. Not for myself, lord Warwick, but my
son,
Whom I unnaturally shall disinherit.
But, be it as it may : — I here entail
' The crown to thee, and to thine heirs for ever ;
Conditionally, that here thou take an oath
To cease this civil war, and, whilst I live.
To honour me as thy king and sovereign ;

* And neither * by treason, nor hostility.

3 They seek revenge,] They go away, not because they doubt
the justice of this determination, but because they have been
conquered, and seek to be revenged. They are not influenced
by principle, but passion. Johnson,

4 And NEITHER — ] Neither, either, tvhether, brother, rather.

376 THIRD PART OF act j.

* To seek to put me down, and reign thyself.
York. This oath I willingly take, and will per-
form. [Coming from the Thro}ie.
War. Long live king Henry ! — Plantagenet, em-
brace him.

* K. Hen. And long live thou, and these thy for-

ward sons !
York. Now York and Lancaster are reconcil'd.
ExE. Accurs'd be he, that seeks to make them

foes ! [Senet. The Lords come forxvard.

* York. Farewell, my gracious lord ; I'll to my

castle ^.
War. And I'll keep London, with my soldiers.
Norf. And I to Norfolk, with my followers.
Mont. And I unto the sea, from whence I came.
\_Ej:eunt York, and his Sons, JVartfick, Norfolk^
Montague, Soldiers, and Attendants.

* K. Hen. And I, with griefand sorrow, to the court.

Enter Queen Margaret and the Prmce of Wales.

ExE. Here comes the queen, whose looks be-
wray ^ her anger :
I'll steal away.

and many similar words, were used by Shakspeare as monosylla-
bles. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream :

" Either death or you I'll find immediately."

The editor of the second folio, who appears to have been en-
tirely ignorant of our author's metre and phraseology, not knowing
this, omitted the word and. Malone.

My ignorance must be content to accompany that of the editor
of the second folio ; for how — either, brother, neither, or rather^
can be pronounced as monosyllables, I am yet to learn.

The versification, however, in this and the preceding play is
often so irregular, that I leave the passage before us at it stands
in the first folio. Steevens.

^ — I'll to my castle.] Sandal Castle near Wakefield, in
Yorkshire. Malone.

^ — bewray — ] i. e. betray, discover. So, in King Lear :
" Mark the high noises, and thyself ieicr ay."

sc. 1. KING HENRY VI. 377

K. Hen. Exeter, so will I. [Goi?ig.

' Q. M^R. Nay, go not from me, I will follow

thee.
K. Hen. Be patient, gentle queen, and I will

stay.

* Q. M^R. Who can be patient in such extremes ?

* Ah, wretched man ! 'would I had died a maid,

* And never seen thee, never borne thee son,

* Seeing thou hast prov'd so unnatural a father !

* Hath he deserv'd to lose his birthright thus ?

* Hadst thou but lov'd him half so well as I ;

* Or felt that pain which I did for him once ;

* Or nourish'd him, as I did with my blood ;

* Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood

there,

* Rather than have made ^ that savage duke thine

heir,

* And disinherited thine only son.

* Prince. Father, you cannot disinherit me :

* If you be king, why should not I succeed ?

* K. Hen. Pardon me, Margaret ; — pardon me,

sweet son ; —

* The earl of Warwick, and the duke, enforc'd me.

* Q. M^r. Enforc'd thee ! art thou king, and wilt

be forc'd ?
I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch !
Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me ;

* And given unto the house of York such head,

* As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.

* To entail him and his heirs unto the crown.

Again, ibid. :

" He did heivray his practice." Steevens.
7 Rather than made— ] Old copy— " Rather than Aave made."
The compositor inadvertently repeated the woxA—have, from the
preceding line. Steevens.

Rather is here used as a monosyllable. See p. 375, n. 4.

Malone.

6

378 THIRD PART OF act i.

* What is it, but to make thy sepulchre %

* And creep into it far before thy time ?

* Warwick is chancellor, and the lord of Calais ;
Stern Faulconbridge commands the narrow seas ^ ;
The duke is made protector of the realm ;

* And yet shalt thou be safe ? * such safety finds

* The trembling lamb, environed with wolves.

* Had I been there, which am a silly woman,

* The soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes,

* Before I would have granted to that act.

* But thou preferr'st thy life before thine honour:

* And seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself,

8 What is it, but to make thy sepulchre,] The Queen's re-
proach is founded on a position long received among politicians,
that the loss of a king's power is soon followed by loss of life.

Johnson,

9 Stern Faulconbridge commands the narrow seas ;] So, in
Marlowe's Edward II. :

" The haughty Dane commands the narroxv seas."
This may be too slight a circumstance to prove Marlowe the
author of The Whole Contention : it is, however, in other re-
spects, sufficiently probable that he had some hand in it.

The person here meant was Thomas Nevil, bastard son to the
lord Faulconbridge, " a man, (says Hall,) of no lesse corage then
audacitie, who for his euel condicions was such an apte person,
that a more meter could not be chosen to set all the worlde in a
broyle, and to put the estate of the real me on an yl hazard." He
had been appointed by Warwick vice-admiral of the sea, and had
in charge so to keep the passage between Dover and Calais, that
none which either favoured King Henry or his friends should
escape untaken or undrowned : such at least were his instructions,
with respect to the friends and favourers of King Edward, after the
rupture between him and Warwick. On Warwick's death,
he fell into poverty, and robbed, both by sea and land, as well
friends as enemies. He once brought his ships up the Thames,
and with a considerable body of the men of Kent and Essex,
made a spirited assault on the city, with a view to plunder and
pillage, which was not repelled but after a sharp conflict and the
loss of many lives ; and, had it happened at a more critical period,
might have been attended with fatal consequences to Edward.
After roving on the sea some little time longer, he ventured to
land at Southampton, where he was taken and beheaded. See
Hall and Holinshed. Ritson.

sc. J. KING HENRY VI. 379

* Both from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,

* Until that act of parHament be repeal'd,

* Whereby my son is disinherited \

The northern lords that have forsworn thy colours.
Will follow mine, if once they see them spread :

* And spread they shall be ; to thy foul disgrace,

* And utter ruin of the house of York.

* Thus do I leave thee :— Come, son, let's away ;

* Our army's ready ; come, we'll after them.

K. Hen. Stay, gentle Margaret, and hear me

speak.
Q. M^R. Thou hast spoke too much already ; get

thee gone.
K. Hen. Gentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with

me ?
Q. M.JR. Ay, to be murder'd by his enemies.
Fringe. When I return with victory from the

field \
I'll see your grace : till then, I'll follow her.

Q. Mjr. Come, son, away ; we may not linger

thus.
[Exeunt Queen Margaret, and the Prince.
* K. Hen. Poor queen ! how love to me, and to

her son,

* Hath made her break out into terms of rage !

* Reveng'd may she be on that hateful duke ;

* Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,

* Will cost my crown, and, like an empty eagle ^,

' Whereby my son is disinherited.] The corresponding line in
the old play is this. The variation is remarkable :

" Wherein thou yieldest to the house of York."

Malone.

2 — from the field,] Folio — " to the field." The true read-
ing is found in the old play. Malone.

3 Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire.

Will COST my crown, and, like an empty eagle, &c.] Read
coast, i. e. hover over it. Warburton.

Dr Warburton's alteration aims at a distinction without a dif-

5

380 THIRD PART OF acti.

* Tire on the flesh of me *, and of my son !

* The loss of those three lords ^ torments my heart:

ference, both cost and coast being ultimately derivations of the
same original. Henley.

Tl e word which Dr. Warburton would introduce, has been sup-
poseii to violate the metaphor ; nor indeed is to coast used as a
term of falconry in any of the books professedly written on that
subject. To coast is a sea-faring expression, and means to keep
along shore. We may, however, maintain the integrity of the
figure, by inserting the word cote, which is used in Hamlet, and
in a sense convenient enough on this occasion :
" We coled them on the way."
To cote is to come up tvith, to overtake, to reach. So, in The
Return from Parnassus, a comedy, 1606 :

" — — marry, we presently coted and outstript them."
Yet, on further inquiry, I am become less certain, that to coast
is merely a sea-faring expression. It is used in the following in-
stance to denote speed :

" And all in haste she coasteth to the cry."

Shahspeare" s Venus and Adonis.
Again, in Tiie Loyal Subject, by Beaumont and Fletcher :

" Take you those horse, and coast them."
Again, in The Maid of the Mill, by the same authors, two gen-
tlemen are entering, and a lady asks :

" who are those that const us ? "

Mr. Toilet therefore observes, that Dr. \V'arburton's interpreta-
tion may be right, as Holinshed often uses the verb to coast, i. e.
to hover, or range about any thing. So, in Chapman's version of
the fifth Iliad :

" Atrides yet coasts through the troops, confirming men so
stay'd."
See Holinshed, vol. iii. p. 352 : " William Douglas still coai^e^/
the Englishmen, doing thera what damage he might." So again,
p. 387, and 404-, and in other writers. Steevens.

I have no doubt but coast is the true reading. To coast is to
keep along side of it, and ivaich it. In King Henry VIII. the
Chamberlain says of Wolsey :

" — — the king perceives him how he coasts
" And hedges his own way."
And in the last Act of The Loyal Subject, Archas says :

" Lord Barris,

" Take you those horse, and coast them." M. Mason.
" Will cost my crown." i. e. will cost me my crown ; will in-
duce on me the expence or loss of my crown. Malone.

Hud this been our author's meaning, he would have otherwise

sc.ii, KING HENRY VI. 381

* I'll write unto them, and entreat them fair ; —

* Come, cousin, you shall be the messenger ^.

* ExE. And I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.

\_Ea:eunt.

SCENE II.

A Room in Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, in
Yorkshire.

Enter Edtfard, Richard, aiid Montague.

* Rich. Brother, though I be youngest, give me

leave.
Edw. No, I can better play the orator.
Mont. But I have reasons strong and forcible.

Enter York.

* York. Why, how now, sons and brother ^, at a

strife ?

formed his verse, and written " cost me my crown." So, in King-
Lear :

" The dark and vicious place where thee he got,

" Co5^ /<im his eyes." Steevens.

4 Tire on the flesh of me,] To tire is to Jasten, to Jix the
talons, from the French tirer. Johnson,

To tire is to peck. So, in Decker's Match Me in London, 1631 :
" — — the vulture tires
" Upon the eagle's heart." Steevens.

5 — those three lords— ] That is, of Northumberland, West-
uoreland, and Clifford, who had left him in disgust. Johnson,

6 — you shall be the messenger.] Instead of the six last lines
of this speech, the first copy presents these :

" Come, cousin of Exeter, stay thou here,

" For Clifford and those northern lords be gone,

" I fear towards Wakefield, to disturb the duke."

Malone.
■' — sons, and brother,] I believe we should read — cousin
instead of brother, unless brother be used by Shakspeare as a term
expressive of endearment, or because they embarked, like bro-
thers, in one cause, Montague was only cousin to York, and in

382 THIRD PART OF act j.

* What is your quarrel ? how began it first ?

' Edtf. No quarrel, but a slight contention^.
. York. About what ?

* Rich. About that which concerns your grace,

and us ;

* The crown of England, father, which is yours.

* York. Mine, boy ? not till king Henry be dead.

* Rich. Your right depends not on his life, or

death.

* Edw. Now you are heir, therefore enjoy it now :

* By giving the house of Lancaster leave to breathe,

* It will outrun you, father, in the end.

the quarto he is so called. Shakspeare uses the expression, bro-
ther of the war, in King Lear. Steevens.

It should be sons and brothers ; my sons, and brothers to each
other. Johnson.

Brother is right. In the two succeeding pages York calls
Montague brother. This may be in respect to their being h'o-
thers of the ivar, as Mr. Steevens observes, or of the same council,
as in King Henry VIII. who says to Cranmer : " You are brother
of us." Montague was brother to Warwick ; Warwick's daugh-
ter was married to a son of York : therefore York and Montague
were brothers. But as this alliance did not take place during the
life of York, I embrace Mr. Steevens's interpretation rather than
suppose that Shakspeare made a mistake about the time of the
marriage. Tollet.

The third folio reads as Dr. Johnson advises. But as York
again in this scene addresses Montague by the title of brother,
and Montague uses the same to York, Dr. Johnson's conjecture
cannot be right. Shakspeare certainly supposed them to be bro-
thers-in-law. Malone.

^ No quarrel, but a slight contention.] Thus the players,
first, in their edition ; who did not understand, I presume, the
force of the epithet in the old quarto, which I have restored —
sweet contention, i. e. the argument of their dispute was upon a
grateful topick ; the question of their father's immediate right to
the crown. Theobald.

Sweet is, I think, the better reading of the two ; and I should
certainly have received it had it been found in the folio, which Mr.
Malone supposes to be the copy of this play, as reformed by
Shakspeare. Steevens.

sc. 11. KING HENRY VI. 383

* York. I took an oath, that he should quietly

reign.

* Edjv. But, for a kingdom, any oath may be

broken :

* I'd break a thousand oaths, to reign one year.

' Rich. No ; God forbid, your grace should be
forsworn ^.

* York. I shall be, if I claim by open war.

* Rich. I'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me

speak.

* York. Thou canst not, son ; it is impossible.

' Rich. An oath is of no moment \ being not
took

* Before a true and lawful magistrate,

* That hath authority over him that swears :
' Henry had none, but did usurp the place ;

' Then, seeing 'twas he that made you to depose,

* Your oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.

* Therefore, to arms. * And, father, do but think,

* How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown ;

9 Rich. No ; God forbid, &c.] Instead of this and the three
following speeches, the old play has these lines :

" Rich. An if it please your grace to give me leave,
" I'll shew your grace the way to save your oath,
" And dispossess King Henry from the crown.

" York. I pr'ythee, Dick, let me hear thy devise."

Malone.
' An oath is of no moment,] The obligation of an oath is here
eluded by very despicable sophistry. A lawful magistrate alone
has the power to exact an oath, but the oath derives no part of its
force from the magistrate. The plea against the obligation of an
oath obliging to maintain a usurper, taken from the unlawfulness
of the oath itself in the foregoing play, was rational and just,

Johnson.
This speech is formed on the following one in the old play :
" Rich. Then thus, my lord. An oath is of no moment,
" Being not sworn before a lawful magistrate ;
" Henry is none, but doth usurp your right ;
" And yet your grace stands bound to him by oath :
" Then, noble father,
" Resolve yourself, and once more claim the crown."

Malone.

384 THIRD PART OF act i,

* Within whose circuit is Elysium,

* And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.

* Why do we linger thus ? I cannot rest,

* Until the white rose, that I wear, be dyed

* Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry's heart.

* York. Richard, enough ; I will be king, or
die. —

* Brother, thou shalt to London presently ",

* And whet on Warwick to this enterprise. —

* Thou, Richard, shalt unto the duke of Norfolk,

* And tell him privily of our intent. —

* You, Edward, shall unto my lord Cobham,
With whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise :
' In them I trust ; for they are soldiers,

* Witty and courteous, liberal, full of spirit^. —

* Brother, thou shalt to London presently,] Thus the original
play:

" Edward, thou shalt to Edmond Brooke, lord Cobham,

" With whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise.

" Thou, cousin Montague, shalt to Norfolk straight,

" And bid the duke to muster up his soldiers,

" And come to me to Wakefield presently.

" And Richard, thou to London straight shalt post,

" And bid Richard Nevil Earl of M^arwick

" To leave the city, and with his men of war

" To meet me at St. Albans ten days hence.

" My self here in Sandall castle will provide

" Both men and money, to further our attempts."

Malone.
3 Witty and courteous, liberal, full of spirit.] What a
blessed harmonious line have the editors given us ! and what a
promising epithet, in York's behalf, from the Kentishmen being
so xvitty I I cannot be so partial, however, to my own county, as
to let this compliment pass. I make no doubt to read :

" for they are soldiers,

" Wealthy and courteous, liberal, full of spirit."
Now these five characteristicks answer to Lord Say's descrip-
tion of them in the preceding play :

" Kent, in the commentaries Ceesar writ,
" Is term'd the civil'st place in all this isle ;
" The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy."

Theobald.

sen. KING HENRY VI. 385

* While you are thus employ'd, what resteth more,

* But that I seek occasion how to rise ;

* And yet the king not privy to my drift,

* Nor any of the house of Lancaster ?

Enter a Messenger *.

* But, stay ; What news ? Why com'st thou in such

post ?
' Mess. The queen, with all the northern earls
and lords '\

This is a conjecture of very liUle import. Johnson.

I see no reason for adopting Theobald's emendation. Witty
anciently signified, of sound judgment. The poet calls Bucking-
hvim, " the deep revolving, voitti/ Buckingham." Steevens.

4 Enter a Messenger.'] Thus the quartos ; the folio reads, —
Enter Gabriel. Steevens.

Gabriel was the actor who played this inconsiderable part. He
is mentioned by Heywood, in his Apology for Actors, 1612. The
correction was made by Mr. Theobald from the old play.

Malone.

5 The queen, with all, &c.] I know not whether the author
intended any moral instruction, but he that reads this has a strik-
ing admonition against that precipitancy by which men often use
unlawful means to do that which a little delay would put honestly
in their power. Had York staid but a few moments, he had
saved his cause from the stain of perjury. Johnson.

It will be no more than justice to York, if we recollect that
this scene, so far as respects the oath, and his resolution to break
it, proceeds entirely from our author's imagination. Neither the
Earl of March nor Richard was then at Sandal ; the latter being
likewise a mere child, barely turned of eight years old. His ap-
pearance, therefore, and actions in this, and, at least, the two
first Acts of the following play, are totally unsupported by history
and truth.

It may be likewise observed that the Queen was not actually
present at this battle, not returning out of Scotland till some little
time after. This insurrection, which the Duke, not in breach of,
but in strict conformity with his oath to the King, and in dis-
charge of his duty as protector of the realm, had marched from
London to suppress, was headed by the Duke of Somerset, the
Earl of Northumberland, and the Lord Nevil, who, in direct vio-
lation of a mutual agreement, and before the day prefixed for the
battle, fell suddenly upon the Duke's army, made him and Saks-
VOL. xviii. 2 c

386 THIRD PART OF act j.

6

* Intend here to besiege you in your castle :

* She is hard by with twenty thousand men

* And therefore fortify your hold, my lord.

* York. Ay, with my sword. What! think'st
thou, that we fear them ! —

* Edward and Richard, you shall stay with me ; —

* My brother Montague shall post to London :

* Let noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,

* Whom we have left protectors of the king,

* With powerful poHcy strengthen themselves,

bury prisoners, and treated him in the manner here described.
See Whethamstede. Salisbury was next day killed at Pontefract
by a bastard son of the Duke of Exeter, and beheaded, with York,
Rutland, and others, after death. W. Wyrcester. Ritson.

In October 1460, when it was established in parliament that
the Duke of York should succeed to the throne after Henry's
death, the Duke and his two sons, the Earl of March, and the
Earl of Rutland, took an oath to do no act whatsoever that might
" sound to the abridgement of the natural life of King Henry the
Sixth, or diminishing of his reign or dignity royal." Having per-
suaded the King to send for the Queen and the Prince of Wales,
(who were then in York,) and finding that she would not obey his
requisition, he on the second of December set out for his
castle in Yorkshire, with such military power as he had ; a mes-
senger having been previously dispatched to the Earl of March,
to desire him to follow his father with all the forces he could pro-
cure. The Duke arrived at Sandal Castle on the 21<th of Decem-
ber, and in a short time his army amounted to five thousand men.
An anonymous Remark er, [the author of the preceding note,]
hovi'ever, very confidently asserts, that, " this scene, so far as re-
spects York's oath and his resolution to break it, proceeds entirely
from the author's imagination." His oath is on record ; and
what his resolution was when he marched from London at the
head of a large body of men, and sent the message above stated
to his son, it is not very difficult to conjecture. Malone.

^ — with twenty thousand men ;] In the quarto this speech
stands as follows :

" My lord, the queene with thirty thousand men

" Accompanied with the earles of Cumberland,

" Northumberland, and Westmerland,

" With others of the house of Lancaster,

" Are marching towards Wakefield,

" To besiedge you in your castle heere." Steevens.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 387

* And trust not simple Henry, nor his oaths.

* Mont. Brother, I go ; I'll win them, fear it not:

* And thus most humbly I do take my leave.

Enter Sir John and Sir Hugh Mortimer.

York. Sir John, and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine
uncles !

* You are come to Sandal in a happy hour;
The army of the queen mean to besiege us.

Sir John. She shall not need, we'll meet her in
the field.

* York. What, with five thousand men ?
Rich. Ay, with five hundred, father, for a need.

A woman's general ; What should we fear ?

\_A March afar off.
' Edtf. I hear their drums ; let's set our men in
order ;

* And issue forth, and bid them battle straight.

* York. Five men to twenty '' I — though the odds

be great,

* I doubt not, uncle, of our victory.

* Many a battle have I won in France,

* When as the enemy hath been ten to one ;

* Why should I not now have the like success ?

[Alarum. E.veunt.

7 Five men to twenty ! &c.] Thus, in the old play :
" York, Indeed many brave battles have I won
"■ In Normandy, whereas the enemy
" Hath been ten to one, and why should I now
" Doubt of the like success. I am resolv'd.
" Come, let us go,

" Edvc. Let us march away. I hear their drums."

Malone.

2 c 2

388 THIRD PART OF act i.

SCENE III.

Plains near Sandal Castle.

Alarums: Excursions. Eyiter Rutland, and his

Tutor \

* Rut. Ah, whither shall I fly to 'scape their

hands ^!
Ah, tutor I look, where bloody Clifford comes !

Enter Clifford, and Soldiers.

Clip. Chaplain, away ! thy priesthood saves thy
life.
As for the brat of this accursed duke.
Whose father ^ slew my father, — he shall die.

Tut. And I, my lord, will bear him company.

Clif. Soldiers, away with him.

* Tut. Ah, Clifford ! murder not this innocent

child,
' Lest thou be hated both of God and man.

\_Ejcit, forced off by Soldiers.
Clif. How now ! is he dead already ? Or, is it
fear,
That makes him close his eyes^ ? — I'll open them.

^ — his Tutor.] A priest called Sir Robert Aspall. Hall,
Henry VI. fol. 99. Puts on.

9 Ah, whither, 8cc.] This scene in the old play opens with
these lines :

" Tutor. Oh, fly, my lord, let's leave the castle,
" And fly to Wake'field'straight." Malone.

* Whose father — ] i. e. the father of which brat, namely, the
Duke of York. Malone.

* — is he dead already? Or, is it fear,

That makes him close his eyes ?] This circumstance is taken
from Hall : " Whilst this battail was in fighting, a prieste called
Sir Robbert Aspall, chappelaine and schole- master to the yong
erle of Rutlande, ii sonne to the above named duke of Yorke,
scarce of the age of xii yeres, a faire gentleman, and a maydenlike

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 389

* Rut. So looks the pent-up lion ^ o'er the

wretch -f-
* That trembles under his devouring paws'^:
And so he walks, insulting o'er his prey ;
' And so he comes to rend his limbs asunder. —
' Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword.
And not with such a cruel threat'ning look.
Sweet Chfford, hear me speak before I die ; —
I am too mean a subject for thy wrath.
Be thou reveng'd on men, and let me hve.

Clif. In vain thou speak'st, poor boy ; my father's

blood
Hath stopp'd the passage where thy words should

enter.
Rut. Then let my father's blood open it again ;
He is a man, and, Clifford, cope with him.

Clif. Had I thy brethren here, their lives, and

thine,
Were not revenge sufficient for me ;
No, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves,
And hung their rotten coffins up in chains.
It could not slake mine ire, nor ease my heart.
The sight of any of the house of York

t Quarto, lamb.

person, perceyving that flight was more safe-gard than tarrying,
bothe for hym and his master, secretly conveyd therle out of the
felde, by the lord Cliffordes bande, toward the towne ; but or he
could entre into a house, he was by the sayd Lord Clifford espied,
folowed, and taken, and by reson of his apparell, demaunded what
he was. The yong gentleman dismayed, had not a word to speake,
but kneled on his knees, imploring mercy, and desiring grace,
both with holding up his handes, and making dolorous counte-
nance, for his speache ivas gone for Jeare." Malone.

3 So looks the pent-up lion — ] That is, the lion that hath
been long confined without food, and is let out to devour a man
condemned. Johnson.

4 — devouring paws ;] Surely the epithet devouring, which
might well have characterised the whole animal, is oddly be-
stowed on his panos. Steevens.

390 THIRD PART OF act j.

Is as a fury to torment my soul * ;

* And till I root out their accursed line,

' And leave not one alive, 1 live in hell.

Therefore — \_Lij'ting his Hand.

Rut. O, let me pray before I take my death : —
To thee I pray ; Svi^eet Clifford, pity me !

Clip. Such pity as my rapier's point affords.

* Rut. I never did thee harm ; Why wilt thou

slay me ?
Clip. Thy father hath.

Rut. But 'twas ere I was born ^.

Thou hast one son, for his sake pity me ;
Lest, in revenge thereof, — sith ^ God is just, —
He be as miserably slain as I,
Ah, let me live in prison all my days ;
And when I give occasion of offence.
Then let me die, for now thou hast no cause.

Clip. No cause ?
Thy father slew my father ; therefore, die.

\Cljppord stabs him.
Rut. Diifaciant, laudis summa sit ista tuce ^ !

[Dies.

^ The sight of any of the house of York
Is as a fury, &c.] In Romeo and Juliet the same idea is ex-
pressed in humbler language : " A dog of the house of Montague
moves me." Steevens.

^ But 'twas ere I was born.] The author of the original play
appears to have been as incorrect in his chronology as Shakspeare.
Rutland was born, I believe, in 1443 ; according to Hall, in l^^S;
and Clifford's father was killed at the battle of St. Albans, in
14-55. Consequently Rutland was then at least seven years old ;
more probably twelve. The same observation has been made by
an anonymous writer [Mr. Ritson]. Malone.

Rutland is under a mistake. The battle of St. Albans, in which
old Clifford was slain, happened in 14'55 ; that of Wakefield in
1460. He appears to have been at this time about seventeen
years old. Ritson.

7 — sith — ] i. e. since. So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor :
" — sith you yourself know how easy it is to be such an
offender." Steevens.

* Diifaciant, &c.] This line is in Ovid's Epistle from Phillis

sc. IV. KING HENRY VI. 391

Clif. Plantagenet ! I come, Plantagenet !
And this thy son's blood cleaving to my blade,
Shall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood,
Congeal'd with this, do make me wipe off both.

\Exit.

SCENE IV.
The Same.

Alarum. Enter York.

^ York. The army of the queen hath got the
field:

* My uncles both are slain in rescuing me ^ ;

* And all my followers to the eager foe

* Turn back, and fly, like ships before the wind,

* Or lambs pursu'd by hunger-starved wolves.

* My sons — God knows, what hath bechanced

them :
But this I know, — they have demean'd themselves
Like men born to renown, by life, or death.

* Three times did Richard make a lane to me ;
And thrice cried, — Courage, father ! Jight it out !
' And full as oft came Edward to my side,
With purple faulchion, painted to the hilt

* In blood of those ^ that had encounter'd him :

* And when the hardiest warriors did retire,

* Richard cried, — Charge ! and give no foot of

ground !

to Demophoon. I find the same quotation in Have With You to
Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt Is Up, &c. 1596.

Steevens,
9 My uncles both are slain in rescuing me ;] These were two
bastard uncles by the mother's side, Sir John and Sir Hugh Mor-
timer. See Grafton's Chronicle, p. SiQ. Percy.
* With purple faulchion, painted to the hilt
In blood of THOSE — ] So, in King Henry V. :
" With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur."

Steevens.

392 THIRD PART OF act j.

* And cried, — Acroivn, or else a glorious tomb !
' A sceptre^ or an earthly sepulclire !

With this, we charg'd again : but, out, alas !

* We bodg'd again * ; as I have seen a swan

' With bootless labour swim against the tide,

* And spend her strength with over-matching waves.

[A short Alarum zvithin.

* Ah, hark ! the fatal followers do pursue ;

* And I am faint, and cannot fly their fury :

' And, were I strong, I would not shun their fury :

* The sands are number'd, that make up my life ;

* Here must I stay, and here my life must end.

Enter Queen Margaret, Clifford, Northumber-
land, and Soldiers.

* Come, bloody Clifford, — rough Northumberland, —

* I dare your quenchless fury to more rage ;

* I am your butt, and 1 abide your shot.

North. Yield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet.

Clif. Ay, to such mercy, as his ruthless arm,
With downright payment, show'd unto my father.
Now Phaeton hath tumbled from his car.
And made an evening at the noontide prick '^.

* We bodg'd again ;] I find hodgery used by Nashe in his
Apologie of Pierce Penniless, 1593, for hotelier y : " Do you know
your own misbegotten bodgery?" To bodge might therefore
mean, (as to botch does now) to do a thing imperfectly and auk-
wardly ; and thence to Jail or miscarry in an attempt. Cole, in
his Latin Dictionary, 1679, renders — " To botch or bungle,
ojius corrumpcre, disj)erdcre!'

I suspect, however, with Dr. Johnson, that we should read —
We biidgd again. " To budge " Cole renders, pedem referre, to
retreat : the precise sense required here. So, Coriolanus, speak-
ing of his army who had^ec? from their adversaries :

" The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat, as they did budge
" From rascals worse than they." Malone.

I believe that — ive bodg'd only means, " we boggled, made bad
or bungling work of our attempt to rally." A low unskilful
tailor is often called a botcher. Steevens.

3 • — noontide prick.] Or, noontide point on the dial, Johnson.

sc. ir. KING HENRY VI. 393

York. My ashes as the phoenix, may bring forth

* A bird that will revenge upon you all :

* And, in that hope, I throw mine eyes to heaven.
Scorning whatever you can afflict me with.

* Why come you not ? what ! multitudes, and fear ?

Clip. So cowards fight when they can fly no
further;

* So doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons ;
So desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives.
Breathe out invectives 'gainst the officers.

York. O, Clifford, but bethink thee once again,
' And in thy thought o'er-run my former time :

* And, if thou can'st for blushing, view this face;
And bite thy tongue, that slanders him with cow-
ardice,

* Whose frown hath made thee faint and fly ere this.

Clif. I will not bandy with thee word for word;
But buckle with thee blows, twice two for one.

\Draws.
Q. Mar. Hold, valiant CHfford ! for a thousand
causes,
I would prolong awhile the traitor's life : —
Wrath makes him deaf: speak thou, Northumber-
land.
North. Hold, Clifford ; do not honour him so much
To prick thy finger, though to wound his heart :
What valour were it, when a cur doth grin.
For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,
When he might spurn him with his foot away ?
It is war's prize * to take all vantages ;

The same phrase occurs in Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. IV.

Steevens.
'' It is war's PRIZE — ] Read — praise. Warburton.
I think the old reading right, which means, that all 'vantages
are in war lawful prize ; that is, may be lawfully taken and used.

Johnson.
To take all advantages, is rather to the discredit than to the
praise of war, and therefore Warburton's amendment cannot be

394 THIRD PART OF ^ct i.

* And ten to one is no impeach of valour.

[They lay hands on York, who struggles.
Clip. Ay, ay, so strives the woodcock with the

gin.
North. So doth the coney struggle in the net.

[York is taken prisoner.
York. So triumph thieves upon their conquer'd
booty ;
So true men yield ^ with robbers so o'er-match'd.
North. What would your grace have done unto

him now ?
Q. M^R. Brave warriors, Clifford and Northum-
berland,
Come make him stand upon this molehill here ;

* That raught ^ at mountains with outstretched

arms.
Yet parted but the shadow with his hand. —

* What ! was it you, that would be England's king ?
Was't you that revell'd in our parliament.

And made a preachment of your high descent ?
Where are your mess of sons to back you now ?
The wanton Edward, and the lusty George ?

* And where's that valiant crook-back prodigy,
Dicky your boy, that, with his grumbling voice.
Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies ?

Or, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland ?
Look, York ; I stain'd this napkin '^ with the blood

right ; nor can I approve of Johnson's explanation ; — it appears to
me that " It is rvars prize," means merely that it is the estimation
of people at war; the settled opinion. M. Mason.

dolus, an virtus, quis in hoste requirat ? Virg.

Malone.

5 So TRUE men yield,] A true man has been already explained
to be an honest man, as opposed to a thief. See vol. ix. p. 146,
n. 7. Malone.

6 That raught — ] i. e. That reached. The ancient preterite
and participle passive oi reach. So, in Antony and Cleopatra :

" The hand of death has raught him." Steevens.

7 -^ this NAPKIN— ] A «a/3A7n is a handkerchief. Johnson.

sc. IF. KING HENRY VI. 39$

That valiant Clifford, with his rapier's point,

Made issue from the bosom of the boy :

And, if thine eyes can water for his death,

I give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.

' Alas, poor York! but that I hate thee deadly,

I should lament thy miserable state.

I pr'ythee, grieve, to make me merry, York ;

Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance ^.

What, hath thy firy heart so parch'd thine entrails.

That not a tear can fall for Rutland's death ?

* Why art thou patient, man ? thou should'st be

mad;

* And I, to make thee mad, do mock thee thus.
Thou would'st be feed, I see, to make me sport ;
York cannot speak, unless he wear a crown. —

A crown for York; — and, lords, bow low to him. —
Hold you his hands, v/hilst I do set it on. —

[Putting a paper Crown on his Head^.

So, in As You Like It : " To that youth he calls his Rosalind,
he sends this bloody napkin." Stbevens.

^ Stamp, rave, and fret, &c.] I have placed this line as it
stands in the old play. In the folio it is introduced, I believe, by
the carelessness of the transcriber, some lines lower, after the
words — " do mock thee thus ; " where it appears to me out of its
place. Malone.

9 Putting a paper Crotvn on Jiis Head.'] Shakspeare has on this
occasion deviated from history, if such of our English Chronicles
as I have occasionally looked into, may be believed. According
to these, the paper crown was not placed on the Duke of York's
head till after it had been cut off. Rutland likewise was not
killed by Clifford^ till after h'is father's death. Steevens,

The ingenious commentator is most certainly mistaken. Shak-
speare, so far from having deviated from history, has followed it
with the utmost precision. Whethamstede expressly tells us,
that the Lancastrians, in direct breach of a mutual agreement,
and before the day appointed for the battle, fell suddenly upon
the Duke's army, and took him and the Earl of Salisbury prison-
ers ; treating both, but especially the Duke, in the most shameful
manner: "Nam, (says he,) statuentes eum super unum parvum
formicariura colliculum, et quoddam sertum vile, ex palustri
graraine confectum, imponentes, per modum coronse, super caput

396 THIRD PART OF act i.

Ay, marry, sir, now looks he like a king !

Ay, this is he that took king Henry's chair ;

And this is he was his adopted heir. —

But how is it that great Plantagenet

Is crown'd so soon, and broke his solemn oath ?

As I bethink me, you should not be king,

Till our king Henry had shook hands with death '.

And will you pale" your head in Henry's glory,

suum, non aliter quam Judsei coram Domino incurvaverunt genua
sua coram ipso, dicentPs illusorie : Ave rex, sine 7-egimine ; ave
rex, absque licreditatc ; ave dux et princeps, absque omni populo
j)enitu& et possessione. Ex hiis una cum aliis variis, in eum pro-
brose opprobrioseque dictis, coegerunt ipsum demum per capitis
abscissionom clameum relinquere sua; justicite vendicacionis,"
p. 4S9. Not a single circumstance is omitted, or varied in the
scene. It is not, however, imagined that Shakspeare had ever
consulted ^^'hethamstede : lie found the same story no doubt in
some old black letter Chronicle, or he might possibly have it
from a popular tradition. Ritson.

According to Hall the paper crown was not placed on York's
head till after he was dead ; but Holinshed, after giving Hall's
narration of this business almost verbatim, adds : — " Some write,
that the Duke was taken alive, and in derision caused to stand
upon a mole-hill, on whose heade they put a garland instead of
a crowne, which they had fashioned and made of segges or bul-
rushes, and having so crowned him with that garlande, they
kneeled downe afore him, as the Jewes did to Christe in scorne,
saving to him, hayle king without rule, hayle king without heri-
tage,"havle duke and prince without people or possessions. And
at lengtli having thus scorned hym with these and dwerse
other the like despitefuU woordes. tliey stroke otf his heade, which
(as yee have heard) they presented to the queen."

Both the chroniclers say, that the Karl of Rutland was killed
by Clitford duriu<r the battle of M'akefiold ; but it may be pre-
sumed that his father had first ftiUen. The Earl's tutor probably
attempted to save him as soon as the rout began. Maloxe.

' Till our king Henry had shook hands with death.] On York's
return from Ireland, at a meeting of parliament, it was settled,
that Henry should enjoy the throne during his life, and that York
should succeed him. See Hall, Henry \\. fol 9S. Maloxe.

^ .\nd will you pale — ] i. e. impale, encircle with a crown.

Malone.

So, in Antony and Cleopatra :

•' Whate'cr the ocean pales, or sky inclips." Steevens.

sc. jr. KING HENRY VI. 397

And rob his temples of the diadem,
Now in his life, against your holy oath ?
O, tis a fault too too unpardonable ! —
Off with the crown ; and, with the crown, his head ;
And, whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead^.
Clip. That is my office, for my father s sake.
Q. M.^R. Nay, stay ; let's hear the orisons he

makes.
York. She -wolf of France, but worse than wolves

of France,
' Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's

tooth !
How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex.
To triumph like an Amazonian trull,
' Upon their woes ^, whom fortune captivates ?
But that thy face is, visor-like, unchanging.
Made impudent with use of evil deeds,
I would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush :
To tell thee whence thou cam'st, of whom deriv'd.
Were shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not

shameless.
Thy father bears the type ^ of king of Naples,
Of both the Sicils, and Jerusalem ;
Yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.
Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult ?
It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen ;
Unless the adage must be verified, —
That beggars, mounted, run their horse to death.
'Tis beauty, that doth oft make women proud ;
But, God he knows, thy share thereof is small :

3 — to do him dead,] To kill him. See vol. vii. p. 153, n. 4.

Malone.
See also this play, p. 408, n. 9. Steevens.

4 Upon THEIR woes,] So the folio. The quarto reads — Upon
his woes. Stee\ exs.

s — the type — ] i. e. the distinp^uishing" mark; an obsolete
use of the word. So again, in King Richard III. :

" The high imperial ti/pe of this earths glory." Steevens.

398 THIRD PART OF act i.

'Tis virtue, that doth make them most admir'd ;

The contrary doth make thee Vv^onder'd at :

'Tis government, that makes them seem divine ^ ;

The want thereof makes thee abominable :

Thou art as opposite to every good.

As the Antipodes are unto us.

Or as the south to the septentrion ^.

O, tiger's heart, wrapp'd in a woman's hide^ !

How could'st thou drain the hfe-blood of the child,

To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,

And yet be seen to bear a woman's face ?

Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible ;

* Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.

* Bid'st thou me rage ? why, now thou hast thy

wish ^ :

* Would'st have me weep ? why, now thou hast thy

will:

* For raging wind blows up incessant showers \
And, when the rage allays, the rain begins".

^ 'Tis GOVERNMENT, that makes them seem divine ;] Govern-
ment, in the language of that time, signified evenness of temper,
and decency of manners. Johnson.

So, in King Henry IV. Part I. FalstafFsays :

" Let men say, we be men oi ^ooA government." ^teevess.

7 ^septentrion.] i. e. the North. Seplentrio, Lat. Milton
uses the same word as an adjective :

" cold septentrion blasts." Steevens.

8 O, tiger's heart, wrapp'd in a woman's hide !] We find al-
most the same line in Acolastus his Aftervvitte, 1600:

" O xvoolvish heart, wrapp'd in a woman's hide ! "
The author of this piece, S. Nicholson, has frequently tran-
scribed whole lines from Shakspeare. M alone.

9 — thy WISH, &c.] So the folio. The quarto reads — "thy
•will" in the first line, and "thy ivish" in the second. Steevens.

' For raging wind blows up incessant showers,] Thus the
folio. The quartos read —

" For raging winds blow up a storm oftearsy Steevens.
^ Would'st have me weep? why, now thou hast thy will :

For RAGING WIND BLOW'S UP INCESSANT SHOWERS,

And, when the rage allays, the rain begins.] We
meet with the same thought in our author's Rape of Lucrece :

sc. jr. KING HENRY VI. 399

These tears are my sweet Rutland's obsequies ;
* And every drop cries vengeance for his death ''\ —
' 'Gainst thee, fell Clifford, — and thee, false French-
woman.
North. Beshrew me, but his passions move me so,
That hardly can I check my eyes from tears,

York. That face of his the hungry cannibals
Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd
with blood ^ :

" This ivi7tdi/ tempest, till it bloiv up rain,
" Held back his sorrow's tide, to make it more ;
" At last it rains, and busy winds give o'er.
" Then son and father iveep with equal strife,
" Who should weep most for daughter or for wife."
Again, in Macbeth :

" . that tears shall drown the wind."

Again, in Troilus and Cressida :

" Where are my tears? rain, rain, to laij this wiyid? "
Again, in King John :

" This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul — ."

Malone.
3 And every drop cries vengeance for his death,] So the
folio. The quarto thus :

" And every drop begs vengeance as it Jails,
" On thee, &c, Steevens.
4 — would not have stain'd with blood :] Thus the first folio.

Steevens.
" — would not have stain'd tlie 7-oses just with blood : " So
the second folio nonsensically reads the passage ; but the old
quarto, &c, of better authority, have it thus :
" That face of his the hungry cannibals
" Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd with blood."
And this is sense. Could any one now have believed that an
editor of common understanding should reject this, and fasten
upon the nonsense of the later edition, only because it afforded
matter of conjecture? and yet Mr. Theobald vvill needs correct,
" roses just with blood," to " roses juic'd with blood," that is,
change one blundering editor's nonsense for another's. But if
there ever was any meaning in the line, it was thus expressed :

" Would not have stain'd the roses just in bud.''
And this the Oxford editor hath espoused. Warbukton.

As, without correction, the words — " the roses just," do not
make good sense, there is very little reason to suspect their being

400 THIRD PART OF act i.

But you are more inhuman, more inexorable, —
O, ten times more, — than tigers of Hyrcania^.
See, ruthless queen, a hapless father's tears :
This cloth thou dipp'dst in blood of my sweet boy,
And I with tears do wash the blood away.
Keep thou the napkin, and go boast of this :

\He gives back the Handkerchief.
And, if thou tell'st the heavy story right.
Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears ^ ;
Yea, even my foes will shed fast-falling tears.
And say, — Alas, it was a piteous deed ! —
There, take the crown, and, with the crown, my

curse '' ;
And, in thy need, such comfort come to thee.
As now I reap at thy too cruel hand ! —
Hard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world ;
My soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads!
North. Had he been slaughter-man to all my
kin,
* I should not for my life but weep with him,

interpolated, and therefore it is most probable they were preserved
among the players by memory. The correction is this :

" That face of his the hungry cannibals

" Would not have touch'd :

" Would not have slain'd the roses just i' tJi bloom.'"
The words [" the roses just "] were, I suppose, left out by the
first editors, in order to get rid of the superfluous hemistich.

MUSGRAVE.

s — of Hyrcania.] So the folio. The quartos read — of Ar-
cadia. Steevens.

^ And, if thou tell'st the heavy story right,
Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears ;] So, in King
Richard II. :

" Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,

" And send the hearers weeping to their beds."

Steevens.
1 There, take the crown, and, with the crown, my curse ;]
Rowe has transferred this execration to his dying Hengist in The
Royal Convert :

" wear my crown ;

" Take it, and be as curs'd with it as I was." Steevens.

ACT II. KING HENRY VI. 401

To see how inly sorrow gripes his souP.

Q. Mar. What, weeping-ripe, my lord North-
umberland ?
Think but upon the wrong he did us all.
And that will quickly dry thy melting tears.

Clip. Here's for my oath, here's for my father's
death. [Stabbing him.

Q. Mar. And here's to right our gentle-hearted
king^. [Stabbing him.

York. Open thy gate of mercy, gracious God !
My soul flies through these wounds to seek out
thee. [Dies.

Q. Mar. Off with his head, and set it on York
gates ;
So York may overlook the town of York \

[E.veimt.

ACT II. SCENE I.

A Plain near Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire.

Drums. Enter En/rARD, and Richard, with their

Forces, marching.

* Enir. I wonder, how our princely father 'scap'd,
* Or whether he be 'scap'd away, or no,

^ I should not for my life but weep with him.
To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.] So the folio. The
quartos as follows :

" I could not choose but weep with him, to see
" How inward anger gripes his heart." Steevens.
9 And here's to right our gentle-hearted king.] So the folio.
The quarto thus :

" And there's to right our gentle harted kind."
Of these variations there are many, but it is useless labour to
enumerate them all. Steevens.

' So York may overlook, &c.] This gallant prince fell by his
own imprudence, in consequence of leading an army of only five
VOL. XVIII. 2 D

402 THIRD PART OF act n,

* From Clifford's and Northumberland's pursuit ;

* Had he been ta'en, we should have heard the

news;
Had he been slain, we should have heard the news ;

* Or, had he scap'd, methinks, we should have

heard

* The happy tidings of his good escape. —

* How fares my brother ' ? why is he so sad ?

Rich. I cannot joy, until I be resolv'd
Where our right valiant father is become.

* I saw him in the battle range about ;

* And watch'd him how he singled Clifford forth.

thousand men to engage with twenty thousand, and not waiting
for the arrival of his son the Earl of March, with a large body of
Welshmen. He and Cecily his wife, with his son Edmond Earl
of Rutland, were originally buried in the chancel of Foderingay
church ; and (as Peacham informs us in his Complete Gentleman,
4to. 1627,) " when the chancel in that furie of knocking
churches and sacred monuments in the head, was also felled to
the ground," they were removed into the churchyard ; and after-
wards " lapjDed in lead they were buried in the church by the
commandment of Queen Elizabeth ; and a mean monument of
plaister wrought with the trowel erected over them, very homely,
and far unfitting so noble princes."

" I remember, (adds the same writer,) Master Creuse, a gen-
tleman and my worthy friend, who dwelt in the college at the
same time, told me, that their coffins being opened, their bodies
appeared very plainly to be discerned, and withal that the dut-
chess Cecily had about her necke, hanging in a silke ribband, a
pardon from Rome, which, penned in a very fine Roman hand,
was as faire and fresh to be read, as it had been \vritten yester-
day." This pardon was probably a dispensation which tlie Duke
procured, from the oath of allegiance that he had sworn to Henry
in St. Paul's church on the 10th of March, 1452. Malone.

^ How fares my brother ?] This scene, in the old quartos be-
gins thus :

" After this dangerous fight and hapless war,
" How doth my noble brother Richard fare ? "

Had the author taken the trouble to revise his play, he hardly
would have begun the first Act and the second with almost the
same exclamation, expressed in almost the same words. Warwick
opens the scene with —

" I wonder, how the king escap'd our hands." Steevens.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 403

* Methought, he bore him ^ in the thickest troop.
As doth a lion in a herd of neat :

* Or as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs ;

* Who having pinch'd a few, and made them cry,

* The rest stand all aloof, and bark at him.

* So far'd our father with his enemies ;

* So fled his enemies my warlike father ;

' Methinks, 'tis prize enough to be his son*.
See, how the morning opes her golden gates.
And takes her farewell of the glorious sun ^ !

* How well resembles it the prime of youth,

* Trimm'd like a younker, prancing to his love !
Enir. Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns '^ ?
Rich. Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun ;

Not separated with the racking clouds \

3 Methought, he bore him — ] i. e. he demeaned himself. So,
in Measure for Measure :

" How I may formally in person Lear me — ." Mai.one.

4 Methinks, 'tis prize enougli to be his son.] The old quarto
reads — pride, which is right, for ambition, i. e. We need not aim:
at any higher glory than this. Warburton.

I believe ^;r2ce is the right word. Richard's sense is, though
we have missed the prize for which v.'e fought, we have yet an
honour left that may content us. Johnson.

Prize, if it be the true reading, I believe, here means ^;rm7co-e.
So, in the former Act :

" It is war's prize to take all 'vantages ? " Malone.

5 And takes her farewell of the glorious sun !] Aurora takes
for a time her farewell of the sun, when she dismisses him to his
diurnal course. Johnson.

6 — do I see THREE SUNS?] This circumstance is mentioned
both by Hall and Ilolinshed : " — at which tyme the son (as
some write) appeared to the earle of March like three sunnes, and
sodainely joyned altogither in one, uppon whiche sight hee tooke
such courage, that he fiercely setting on his enemyes put them to
flight ; and for this cause menne ymagined that he gave the sun
in his full bryghtnesse for his badge or cognisance." These are
the words of Holinshed. Malone.

7 — the RACKING clouds,] i. e. the clouds in rapid, tumultuary
motion. So, in The Raigne of King Edward III. 1596 :

2D 2

404 THIRD PART OF act lu

But sever d in a pale clear-shining sky.

See, see ! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss.

As if they vow'd some league inviolable :

Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.

In this the heaven figures some event.

* Enir. 'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never

heard of.
I think, it cites us, brother, to the field;
That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,
' Each one already blazing by our meeds ^,
Should, notwithstanding, join our lights together,

* And over-shine the earth, as this the world.
' Whate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear
Upon my target three fair shining suns.

* Rich. Nay, bear three daughters; — by your

leave I speak it,

* You love the breeder better than the male.

Enter a Messenger.

' But what art thou, whose heavy looks foretel,

' vSome dreadful story hanging on thy tongue ?

Mess. Ah, one that was a woful looker on,

" like inconstant clouds

" That, rack'd upon the carnage of the winds,
" Encrease," &c. Steevens.
Again, in our author's 32d Sonnet :

" Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

" With ugly rack on his celestial face." Malone.

* — blazing by our meeds,] Illustrious and shining by the
armorial ensigns granted us as meeds of our great exploits. Meed
likewise is merit. It might be plausibly read :

" blazing by our deeds." Johnson.

Johnson's first explanation of this passage is not right. Meed
here means merit.

So, in the fourth Act, the King says :
" My meed hath got me fame."
And in Timon of Athens the word is used in the same sense:

" No meed but he repays

" Sevenfold above itself." M. Mason.

sc. 1. KING HENRY VI. 405

When as the noble duke of York was slain,

* Your princely father, and my loving lord.

' Eorr. O, speak no more'' ! for I have heard too
much ^ .

* Rich. Say, how he died, for I will hear it all.

* Mess. Environed he was with many foes - ;
' And stood against them as the hope of Troy ^

* Against the Greeks, that would have enter'd Troy.

* But Hercules himself must yield to odds ;

* And many strokes, though with a little axe,

* Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.
' By many hands your father was subdu'd ;

* But only slaughter'd by the ireful arm

* Of unrelenting Clifford, and the queen :

9 O, speak no more !] The generous tenderness of Edward,
and savage fortitude of Richard, are well distinguished by their
different reception of their fathers death. Johnson.

I — for I have heard too much.] So the folio. The quartos
thus :

" . for I can hear no more.

*' Rich. Tell on thy tale," &c. Steevens.
^ Environed he was with many foes ;] Thus, in the old play :
" O, one that was a woeful looker on,
" When as tlie noble duke of York was slain. —
" When as the noble duke was put to flight,
" And then persude by Clifford and the queene,
" And many soldiers moe, who all at once
" Let drive at him, and forst the duke to yield ;
" And then they set him on a moul-hill there,
" And crown'd the gracious duke in high despight ;
" Who then with tears began to wail his fall.
" The ruthlesse queene perceiving he did weepe,
" Gave him a handkerchief to wipe his eyes,
*' Dipt in the bloud of sweete young Rutland, by
" Rough Clifford slaine ; who weeping tooke it up :
" Then through his brest they thrust their bloudie swords,
" Who like a lambe fell at tlie butcher's feate.
*' Then on the gates of Yorke thty set his head,
*' And there it doth remaine the piteous spectacle
" That ere mine eyes beheld." Malon.'^,,
8 — the hope of Troy—] Hector. These lines are bor-
rowed, with some alterations, from another part of the old play.

Malone.

406 THIRD PAUT OF ^cz' //.

* Who crown'd the gracious duke in high despite ;

' Laugh'd in his face ; and, when with grief he

wept,
' The ruthless queen gave him, to dry his cheeks,

* A napkin steeped in the harmless blood

' Of sv/eet young Rutland, by rough Clifford slain :
' And, after many scorns, many foul taunts,
' They took his head, and on the gates of York

* They set the same ; and there it doth remain,

* The saddest spectacle that e'er I view'd.

Edtv. Sweet duke of York, our prop to lean
upon ;

* Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay !

* O Clifford, boist'rous Clifford, thou hast slain

* The flower of Europe for his chivalry ;

* And treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him,

* For, hand to hand, he would have vanquishd

thee ! —
Now my soul's palace is become a prison :
Ah, would she break from hence ! that this my body
' Might in the ground be closed up in rest :
' For never henceforth shall 1 joy again,

* Never, O never, shall I see more joy.

' Rich. I cannot weep ; for all my body's moisture
Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart :

* Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great

burden ;

* For self-same wind, that I should speak withal,

* Is kindling coals, that fire all my breast,

* And burn me up with flames ^, that tears would

quench.

* To weep, is to make less the depth of grief ^ :

4 And burn me up with flames, &c.] So, in King John :

" France, 1 am burnd up with consuming wrath," &c.

Steevens.

5 To weep, &c.] Here, in the original play, instead of these
two lines, we have —

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 407

* Tears, then, for babes ; blows, and revenge, for

me ! —

* Richard, I bear thy name, I'll venge thy death,

* Or die renowned by attemping it.

Edtf. His name that valiant duke hath left with
thee ;

* His dukedom and his chair with me is left ^.

Rich. Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird.
Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun "^ :
For chair and dukedom, throne and kingdom say;
Either that is thine, or else thou wert not his.

March. Enter WAmricK and Montague^ with

Forces ^.

PPar. How now, fair lords ? What fare ? what

news abroad ?
* Rich. Great lord of Warwick, if we should re-
count
Our baleful news, and, at each word's deliverance.
Stab poniards in our flesh till all were told,

" I cannot joy, till this white rosebedy'd

" Even in the heart-bloud of the house of Lancaster."

Malone.
^ His dukedom and his chair with me is left.] So the folio.
The quarto thus :

" His chair, and dukedom, that remains for me."

Steevens.

7 Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun :] So, in Spen-
ser's Hymn of Heavenly Beauty :

" . like the native brood of eagle's kind,

" On that bright sun of glory fix thine eyes."
Again, in Solyman and Perseda :

" As air-bred eagles, if they once perceive

" That any of their brood but close their sight,

" When they should gaze against the glorious sun ;

" They straitway seize upon him with their talons,

" That on the earth it may untimely die,

" For looking but askew at heaven's bright eye."

Steevens.

8 Enter JVarivick, &c.] This meeting was at Chipping-Nor-
ton. W. Wyrcester, p. 488. Ritson.

408 THIRD PART OF act lu

The words would add more anguish than the
wounds.

0 valiant lord, the duke of York is slain.

Edu'. O "Warwick ! Warwick ! that Plantagenet,
Which held thee dearly, as his soul's redemption,
Is by the stern lord Clifford done to death ''.

War. Ten days ago I drown'd these news in
tears :
And now, to add more measure to your woes,

1 come to tell you things since then befall n.
After the bloody fray at Wakefield fought,
Where your brave father breath'd his latest gasp.
Tidings, as swiftly as the posts could run,
Were brought me of your loss, and his depart.

I then in London, keeper of the king,
Muster'd my soldiers, gathered flocks of friends.
And very well appointed, as I thought \
March'd towards Saint Alban's to intercept the

queen,
Bearing the king in my behalf along :
For by my scouts I was advertised.
That she was coming with a full intent
To dash our late decree in parliament,
*. Touching king Henry's oath, and your succession.
Short tale to make, — we at Saint Alban's met,

9 Is by the stern lord Clifford done to death.] T)one to
death, for killed, was a common expression long before Shak-
speare's time. Thus Chaucer :

" And seide, that if ye done us both to dicn." Gray.
Spenser mentions a plague " which many r/«/ <ot(ye."

.Johnson.
Faire mourir, a French phrase. So, in The Battle of Alcazar,
1564.:

" ^Ve understand that he was done to death."
Again, ibid. :

•' done to death with many a mortal wound."

Again, in Orlando Furioso, 1599:

" I am the man that did the slave to death." Steevens.
* And very well, &c.] This necessary line I have restored from
the old quartos. Steevens,

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 409

Our battles join'd, and both sides fiercely fought ;
But, whether 'twas the coldness of the king,
Who look'd full gently on his warlike queen,
That robb'd my soldiers of their hated spleen ;
Or whether 'twas report of her success ;
Or more than common fear of Clifford's rigour,
' Who thunders to his captives - — blood and death,
I cannot judge : but, to conclude with truth,
Their weapons like to lightning came and went ;
Our soldiers' — like the night-owl's lazy flight ^,
* Or like a lazy thrasher with a flail *, —
Fell gently down, as if they struck their friends.
I cheer'd them up with justice of our cause,
With promise of high pay, and great rewards :
But all in vain ; they had no heart to fight.
And we, in them, no hope to win the day.
So that we fled ; the king, unto the queen ;
Lord George your brother, Norfolk, and myself,
In haste, post-haste, are come to join with you;
For in the marches here, w^e heard, you were.
Making another head to fight again.

' EorrJ Where is the duke of Norfolk, gentle
Warwick ?

^ — to his CAPTIVES — ] So the folio. The old play reads —
captaines. Malone.

^ — like the night-owl's lazy flight,] Tliis image is not very-
congruous to the subject, nor was it necessary to the comparison,
which is happily enough completed by the thrasher. Johnson.

Dr. Johnson objects to this comparison as incongruous to the
subject ; but I think, unjustly. Warwick compares the languid
blows of his soldiers, to the lazy strokes which the wings of the
owl give to the air in its flight, which is remarkably slow.

M. Mason.

4 Or like a lazy thrasher — ] The old play more elegantly
reads — Or like an idle thrasher, &c. Malone.

5 Ecliv. &c.] The exact ages of the Duke of York's children,
introduced in the present play, will best prove how far our au-
thor has, either intentionally or otherwise, deviated, in this par-
ticular, from historical truth.

Edward, Earl of March, afterwards Duke of York, and King

410 THIRD PART OF act lu

And when came George from Burgundy to England ?

* JVar. Some six miles off the duke is with the
soldiers :
And for your brother,— he was lately sent
From your kind aunt, duchess of Burgundy,
* With aid of soldiers to this needful war *".

Rich. 'Twas odds, belike, when valiant Warwick
fled:
Oft have I heard his praises in pursuit,
But ne'er, till now, his scandal of retire.

War. Nor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou
hear:
For thou shalt know, this strong right hand of mine
Can pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head,
And wring the awful scepter from his fist ;

of England, his second son, was born at Rouen on Monday the
27th or 28th. of April, 1442; Edmund, Earl of Rutland, his
third son, at the same place, on Monday the 17th of May, 1443 ;
George of York, afterwards Duke of Clarence, his sixth son, in
Dublin, on Tuesday the 21st of October, 1449; and Richard
of York, afterwards Duke of Gloster, and King of England, his
eighth son, at Fotheringay, on Monday the 2d of October, 1452:
Henry, thejirst son, born in 1441, William, the fourth, in 1447.
John, thejifth, in 1448, and Thomas, the seventh, in 1451, died
young. He had likewise four daughters. The battle of Wake-
field was fought the 29th of December, 1460, when Edward,
of course, was in his nineteenth year, Rutland in his eighteeiith,
George in his twelfth, and Richard in his ninth. Ritson.

^ Ediv. — — WHEN CAME George from Burgundy to England?

IVar. HE WAS LATELY SCUt

From your kind a\uit, duchess of Burgundy,

With aid of soldiers to this needful war.] This circumstance
is not warranted by history. Clarence and Gloster (as they were
afterwards created) were sent into Flanders immediately after the
battle of Wakefield, and did not return until their brother Edward
got possession of the crown. Besides, Clarence was not now
more than twelve years old.

Isabel, Duchess of Burgundj% whom Shakspeare calls the
Duke's aunt, was daughter of John I. King of Portugal, by
Philippa of Lancaster, eldest daughter of John of Gaunt. They
were, therefore, no more than third cousins. Ritson.

sc.L KING HENRY VI. 411

Were he as famous and as bold in war,
As he is fam'd for mildness, peace, and prayer.
Rich. I know it well, lord Warwick : blame me

not ;
'Tis love, I bear thy glories, makes me speak.
But, in this troublous time, what's to be done ?
Shall we go throw away our coats of steel.
And wrap our bodies in black mourning gowns,
Numb'ring our Ave-Maries with our beads ?
Or shall we on the helmets of our foes
Tell our devotion with revengeful arms ?
If for the last, say — Ay, and to it, lords.

fi^-jR. Why, therefore Warwick came to seek you

out ;
And therefore comes my brother Montague.
Attend me, lords. The proud insulting queen,
With CHfford, and the haught Northumberland '^,
And of their feather, many more proud birds.
Have wrought the easy-melting king like wax^.
He swore consent to your succession,
His oath enrolled in the parliament ;
And now to London all the crew are gone.
To frustrate both his oath, and what beside
May make against the house of Lancaster.

' —HAUGHT Northumberland,] So, Grafton, in his Chronicle,

says, p. 417: " — the lord Henry Percy, whom the Scottes for

his ha lit and valiant courage called sir Henry Hotspurre." Percy.

The word is common to many writers. So, in Marlowe's

King Edward II. 1598 :

" This liaught resolve becomes your majesty."
Again, in Kyd's Cornelia, ISOi :

" Pompey, that second Mars, whose haught renown," &c.
Again, in Lyly's Woman in the Moon, 1597 :

" Thy mind as haught as Jupiter's high thoughts."

Steevens.
^ — the easy-melting king like wax.] So again, in this play,
of the Lady Grey :

" As red as fire ; nay, then her ixiax must melt."

JoHNSOIf.

412 THIRD PART OF yicr ii,

' Their power, I think, is thirty thousand strong ^ :
Now, if the help of Norfolk, and myself.
With all the friends that thou, brave earl of March,
Amongst the loving Welshmen canst procure,

* Will but amount to five and twenty thousand,
Why, Via ! to London will we march amain ;
And once again bestride our foaming steeds,

* And once again cry — Charge upon our foes !
But never once again turn back, and fly.

Rich. Ay, now, methinks, I hear great Warwick
speak :
Ne'er may he live to see a sunshine day,
' That cries — Retire, if Warwick bid him stay.
Rdtv. Lord Warwick, on thy shoulder will I
lean;

* And when thou fall'st, (as God forbid the hour !)
Must Edward fall, which peril heaven forefend !

War. No longer earl of March, but duke of York ;
' The next degree is, England's royal throne :
For king of England shalt thou be proclaim'd
In every borough as we pass along ;
And he that throws not up his cap for joy,

* Shall for the fault make forfeit of his head.
King Edward, — valiant Richard, — Montague, —
Stay we no longer dreaming of renown,

* But sound the trumpets, and about our task.

* Rich. Then, Clifford, were thy heart as hard

as steel,

* (As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds,)

* I come to pierce it, — or to give thee mine.

* Edw. Then strike up, drums; — God, and Saint

George, for us !

9 — is THIRTY thousand strong:] Thus the folio. The old
play reads —

" Their power, I guess them^///> thousand strong."
A little lower the same piece has — eight and forty thousand.

Malonb.

sc. 11. KING HENRY VI. 413

Enter a Messenger.

War. How now ? what news ?

Mess. The duke of Norfolk sends you word by
me,
The queen is coming with a puissant host ;
And craves your company for speedy counsel.

* War. Why then it sorts ^, brave warriors : Let's

away. \Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Before York.

Enter King Henry, Queen Margaret, the Prince
of Wales, Clifford, and Northumberland, with
Forces.

Q. Mar. Welcome, my lord, to this brave town
of York.
Yonder s the head of that arch-enemy.
That sought to be encompass'd with your crown :
* Doth not the object cheer your heart, my lord ?

* K. Hen. Ay, as the rocks cheer them that fear

their wreck ; —
To see this sight, it irks my very soul. —
Withhold revenge, dear God ! 'tis not my fault,
Not wittingly have I infring'd my vow.

Clif. My gracious liege, this too much lenity
And harmful pity, must be laid aside.
To whom do lions cast their gentle looks ?
Not to the beast that woujd usurp their den.

' Why then it sorts,] Why then things are as they should be.

Johnson.
So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608 : " — thy love shall sort
to such happy success as thou thyself dost seek for." Steevens.

414 THIRD PART OF act n.

Whose hand is that the forest bear doth Hck ?
Not his, that spoils her young before her face.
Who 'scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting ?
Not he, that sets his foot upon her back.
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on ;
' And doves will peck, in safeguard ~ of their brood.
Ambitious York did level at thy crown.
Thou smiling, while he knit his angry brows :
He, but a duke, would have his son a king,
And raise his issue, like a loving sire ;
Thou, being a king, bless'd with a goodly son,
Didst yield consent to disinherit him,

* Which argued thee a most unloving father^.
Unreasonable creatures feed their young :
And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,
Yet, in protection of their tender ones,

Who hath not seen them (even with those wings

* Which sometime they have us'd with fearful flight,)
Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest.
Offering their own lives in their young's defence ?
For shame, my liege, make them your precedent !
Were it not pity that this goodly boy

Should lose his birthright by his father's fault ;
And long hereafter say unto his child, —
What my great-grandfather and grandsire got.
My careless father fondly ^ gave away ?
Ah, what a shame were this ! Look on the boy ;
And let his manly face, which promiseth
Successful fortune, steel thy melting heart,
To hold thine own, and leave thine own with him.
K. Hen. S\x\\ well hath Clifford play'd the orator,

2 —in safeguard — ] Thus -the folio. The quartos read In
rescue. Steevens,

3 — unloving father.] Th^ (\}i-A.\io^ xtViA unnatural father.

Steevens.

4 — fondly — ] \. e.foolishli/. So, in King Richard II.:

" ' sorrow and grief of heart

" Makes him speak ybnrf/^ — ." Steevens.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 415

Inferring arguments of mighty force.

* But, Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear, —
That things ill got had ever bad success ^ .^
And happy always was it for that son,

Whose father ^ for his hoarding went to hell ^
ril leave my son my virtuous deeds behind ;
And 'would, my father had left me no more !
For all the rest is held at such a rate,

* As brings a thousand -fold more care to keep,

* Than in possession any jot of pleasure ''.

Ah, cousin York ! 'would thy best friends did know,

* How it doth grieve me that thy head is here !

* Q. Mar. My lord, cheer up your spirits ; our
foes are nigh,

* And this soft courage makes your followers faint.
' You promis'd knighthood to our forward son ;

' Unsheath your sv/ord, and dub him presently. —
Edward, kneel down.

K. Hen. Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight ;
And learn this lesson, — Draw thy sword in right.

Prince. My gracious father, by your kingly leave,
I'll draw it as apparent to the crown.

5 — didst thou never hear, —
That things ill got had ever bad success? &c.] The proverb
quoted by his majesty on this occasion, seems to militate directly
against his own argument, and shows that things ill got might
have good success. M. Mason.

Mr. Mason's note appears to me to be founded on a little mis-
apprehension. The king seems to me to quote two proverbs:
the o«e equivalent to the Latin, male jxtrta cito dilabuntur ; the
other that referred to by Dr. Johnson : this last hf» must be sup-
posed to quote interrogatively as disputing thi. truth of it :
•' was it always happy for that son? " &c. This interpretation sets
the king's reasoning right. Blakeway.

^ Whose father, &c.] Alluding to a common proverb :
" Happy the child whose father went to the devil."

Johnson.
7 Than in possession any jot of pleasure.] Thus the folio. The
quarto thus :

" Than may the present profit countervaile." Steevens.

416 THIRD PART OF act ii.

And in that quarrel use it to the death.

Clip. Why, that is spoken like a toward prince.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. Royal commanders, be in readiness :

* For, with a band of thirty thousand ^ men,
Comes Warwick, backing of the duke of York ;
And, in the towns as they do march along.
Proclaims him king, and many fly to him :

* Darraign ^ your battle, for they are at hand.

Clip. I would, your highness would depart the

field;
The queen ^ hath best success when you are absent.
Q. Mar. Ay, good my lord, and leave us to our

fortune.
K. Hen. Why, that's my fortune too ; therefore

I'll stay.

8 — thirty thousand — ] The quarto reads Ji/t^ thousand.

Steevens,

9 Darraign — ] That is, Range \o\iv host, put your host in
order. Johnson,

Chaucer, Skelton, and Spenser, use this word.

Thus also, in Guy Earl of Warwick, a Tragical History, 1661 :

" Darraifyji our battles, and besfin the fierht."
The quartos read — Prepare ijour battle, &c. Steevens.
» I would, your highness would depart the field ;
The queen, &.C.] This superstitious belief, relative to the
fortunes of our unhappy prince, is yet more circumstantially intro-
duced by Drayton in The Miseries of Queen Margaret :
" Some think that Warwick had not lost the day,
" But that the king into the field he brought ;
" For with the worse that side went still away
" Which had king Henry with them when they fought.
*' Upon his birth so sad a curse there lay,
" As that he never prospered in aught.

" The queen wan two, among the loss of many,
" Her husband absent ; present, never any."

Steevens.
So, Hall : " Happy was the queene in her two battayls, but
unfortunate was the king in al his enterprises ; for where his
person was present, the victorie fledde ever from him to the
other parte." Henry VI. fol. C. Malonb.

sc. 11. KING HENRY VI. 417

North. Be it with resolution then to fight.

Prj.xce. My royal father, cheer these noble lords.
And hearten those that fight in your defence :
Unsheath your sword, good father ; cry, Saint
George !

March. Enter EnrrARD, George, Richard,
Wartvick, Norfolk. Montague, and Soldiers.

* Edtv, Now, perjur'd Henry ! wilt thou kneel
for grace,

* And set thy diadem upon my head ;

* Or bide the mortal fortune of the field ?

Q. Mar. Go, rate thy minions, proud insulting
boy !

* Becomes it thee to be thus bold in terms,

' Before thy sovereign, and thy lawful king?

Edtp\ I am his king, and he should bow his
knee ;
I was adopted heir by his consent :
Since when, his oath is broke " ; for, as I hear,

^ I am his king, and he should bow his knee ;
I was adopted heir by his consent :

Since when, his oath is broke;] Edward's argument is
founded on the following article said to have been in the compact
entered into by Henry and the Duke of York, which the author
found in Hall's Chronicle, but which I believe made no part of
hat agreement : " Provided alvvaye, that if the king did closely or
apertly studye or go about to breake or alter this agreement, or to
compass or imagine the death or destruction of the sayde duke or
his bloud, then he tojhrfet the crotvne, and the duke of Yorke to take
it." If this had been one of the articles of the compact, the Duke
having been killed at Wakefield, his eldest son would have now
a title to the crown. Malone.

" Since when," &c. The quartos give the remainder of this
speech to Clarence, and read :

" To blot our brother out," &c. Steevens.

Here is another variation of the same kind with those which
have been noticed in the preceding play, which could not have
arisen from a transcriber or printer. — Though Shakspeare gave
the whole of this speech to Edward by substituting me for brother,
the same division which is found in the quarto, is inadvertently
retained in the folio. Malone.

VOL. XVIII. 2 E

418 THIRD PART OF act ii.

You — that are king, though he do wear the

crown, —
Have caus'd him, by new act of parliament,

* To blot out me, and put his own son in.

* Clip. And reason too ;

Who should succeed the father, but the son ?

* Rich. Are you there, butcher ? — O, I cannot

speak !

* Clif. Ay, crook-back ; here I stand, to answer

thee,

* Or any he the proudest of thy sort.

Rich. 'Twas you that kill'd young Rutland, was

it not ?
Clif. Ay, and old York, and yet not satisfied.
Rich. For God's sake, lords, give signal to the

fight.
War. What say'st thou, Henry, wilt thou yield

the crown ?

* Q. Mar. Why, how now, long-tongu'd War-

wick ? dare you speak ?
When you and I met at Saint Alban's last,
Your legs did better service than your hands ^.
TVar. Then 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis

thine.
Clif. You said so much before, and yet you fled.
War. 'Twas not your valour, CHffbrd, drove me
thence.

* North. No, nor your manhood, that durst make

you stay.

Rich. Northumberland, I hold thee reverently: —
Break off" the parle ; for scarce I can refrain
The execution of my big-swoln heart
Upon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.

Clif. I slew thy father : Call'st thou him a child ?

3 Your legs did better service than your hands.] An allusion
to the proverb : " One pair of heels is worth tw^o pair of hands."

Steevens.

sc. If. KING HENRY VI. 419

Rich. Ay, like a dastard, and a treacherous
coward.
As thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland ;
But, ere sun-set, I'll make thee curse the deed.
K. Hen. Have done with words, my lords, and

hear me speak.
Q. Mar. Defy them then, or else hold close thy

lips.
K. Hen. I pr'ythee, give no limits to my tongue ;
I am a king, and privileg'd to speak.

Clip. My liege, the wound, that bred this meet-
ing here.
Cannot be curd by words ; therefore be still.

Rich. Then, executioner, unsheath thv sword :
By him that made us all, I am resolv'd^
* That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.

* Eorr. Say, Henry, shall I have my right, or no ?
A thousand men have broke their fasts to-day,
That ne'er shall dine, unless thou vield the crown.

JK-iR. If thou deny, their blood upon thy head;
For York in justice puts his armour on.

* Prince. If that be right, which Warwick says is

right.
There is no wrong, but everything is right.

Rich. Whoever got thee \ there thy mother
stands ;
For, well I wot, thou hast thy mother's tongue.
Q. Mar. But thou art neither like thy sire, nor
dam ;
But like a foul mis-shapen stigmatick **,

^ — I am resolv'd,] It is my firm persuasion ; I am no longer
in doubt. Johnson.

5 Rich. Whoever got thee, &c.] In the folio this speech is
erroneously assigned to Warwick. The answer shows that it be-
longs to Richard, to whom it is attributed in the old play.

Malone.
^ — mis-shapen stigmatick.] "A stigmatic" says J. Bullo-
kar in his English Expositor, 1616, " is a notorious lewd fellow,

2e 2

420 THIRD PART OF act n,

Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided,
As venom toads, or lizards' dreadful stings ^

Rich. Iron of Naples, hid with English gilt ^
Whose father bears the title of a king,
(As if a channel should be calFd the sea ^,)

which hath been burnt with a hot iron, or beareth other marks
about him as a token of his punishment."

The word is likewise used in Drayton's Epistle from Q. Mar-
garet to W. de la Poole :

" That foul, ill favour'd, crook-back'd stigmatick:'
Again, in Drayton's Epistle from King- John to Matilda :
" These for the crook'd, the halt, ihe. stigmatick"

Steevens.
7 — lizards' dreadful stings.] Thus the folio. The quartos
have this variation :

" or WzM-^'^' Jahiting looks."

This is the second time that Shakspeare has armed the lizard
(which in reality has no such defence) with a sting ; but great
powers seem to have been imputed to its looks. So, in Noah's
Flood, by Drayton :

" The lizard shuts up his sharp-sighted eijes,
" Amongst the serpents, and there sadly lies."

Steevens.
Shakspeare is here answerable for the introduction of the
lizard's sting; but in a preceding passage, p. 271, the author of
the old play has fallen into the same mistake. Malone,
^ — gdt,] Gilt is a siiperjicial covering of gold.
So, in King Henry V. :

" Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch 'd." Steevens.
9 — (As if a channel should be call'd the sea,)] A chmmel,
in our author's time, signified what we now call a kennel. So, in
Stowe's Chronicle, quarto, 1605, p. 114-8 : " — such a storme of
raine happened at London, as the like of long time could not be
remembered ; where-through, the channels of the citie suddenly
rising," &c. Agmn, in King Henry IV. Part II. : " — quoit him
into the channel." Malone.

Kennel is still pronounced channel in the North. So, in Mar-
lowe's Edward II. :

" Throw ofl* his golden mitre, rend his stole,
" And in the cAawwe/ christen him anew."
Again :

" Here's channel water, as our charge is given."
Again :

" To which the channels of the castle run." Ritson.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 421

* Sham'st thou not, knowing whence thou art ex-

traught,

* To let thy tongue detect ^ thy base-born heart ?

Edjf. a wisp of straw ~ were worth a thousand
crowns,

^ To let thy tongue detect — ] To show thy meanness of hirth
by the indecency of language with v.-hich thou railest at my de-
formity. Johnson.

"To let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?" So the
folio. The quartos :

" To ])arly thus with England's lawful heirs." Steevens.
' A wisp of straw — ] I suppose, for an instrument of correc-
tion that might disgrace, but not hurt her. Johnson.

I believe that a insp signified some instrument of correction
used in the time of Shakspeare. The following instance seems
to favour the supposition. See A Woman Never Ve.^ed, a comedy
by Rowley, 163^2 :

" Nay, worse ; I'll stain thy ruff; nay, worse than that,
" rU do thus — \_Holds tip a imp.

" — dost tasp me thou tatterdemallion ? "
Again, in Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1601 :
" Thou little more than a dwarf, and soraeihing less than a
woman !

" Cris. A ivispe ! a xmspe ! a ivispe ! "
Barrett, in his Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1.530, inter-
prets the word tvispe by pcniculus or aTio-^yog, which signify any
thing to wipe or cleanse with ; a cook's linen apron, &c. Pewter
is still scoured by a tvispe of stran.\ or kaj/. Perhaps Edward
means one of these wisps, as the denotement of a menial servant.
Barrett adds, that, like a xvasc, it signifies " a wreath to be laied
under the vessel that is borne uoon the head, as women use." If
this be its true sense, the Prince may think that such aiDi.y; would
better become the head of Margaret, than a crown.

It appears, however, from the following passage in Thomas
Drant's translation of the seventh satire of Horace^ 1567, that a
ivispe was the punishment of a scold :

" So perfyte and exacte a scoulde that women mighte geve

place
" Whose tatling tongues had won a tvispe," &c. Steevens.
See also, Nashe's Apology of Pierce Pennilesse, 1593 : " Why,
thou errant butter-whore, thou cotquean and scrattop of scolds,
wilt thou never leave afflicting a dead carcasse? continually read
the rhetorick lecture of Ramme-Alley ? a ivispe, a ivispe, you
kitchen-stuife wrangler." Again, in A Dialogue between John and

422 THIRD PART OF act ii.

To make this shameless callet know herself^. —
*■ Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,

* Although thy husband may be Menelaus * ;

* And ne'er was Agamemnon's brother wrong'd
^ By that false woman, as this king by thee.

' His father revell'd in the heart of France,

And tam'd the king, and made the Dauphin stoop ;

And, had he match'd according to his state,

He might have kept that glory to this day :

But, when he took a beggar to his bed,

And grac'd thy poor sire with his bridal day ;

* Even then that sunshine brew'd a shower for him,
' That wash'd his father's fortunes forth of France,

Jone, Striving Who Shall Wear the Breeches, — Pleasures of
Poetry, bl. 1. no date :

" Good gentle Jone, vvith-holde thy hands,

" This once let me entreat thee,
" And make me promise, never more

" That thou shalt mind to beat me ;
" For feare tliou weave the rvispe, good wife,

" And make our neighbours ride — ." Malone.
3 To make this shameless callet know herself.] Shakspeare
uses the word callet likewise in The Winter's Tale, Act II. Sc. III.:
" A cnllat

" Of boundless tongue; who late hath beat her husband,
" And now baits me."
Callet, a leivd woman, a drab, perhaps so called from the
French calote, which was a sort of head-dress worn by country
girls. See Glossary to Urry's Chaucer. So, in Chaucer's
Remedy of Love, v. 307 :

" A cold old knave cuckolde himself wenyng,
" And oi calot of lewd demenyng."
So, Skelton, in his Elinour Rumming, Works, p. 133 :
" Then Elinour said, ye callettes,
" I shall break your palettes."
Again, in Ben Jonson's Volpone :

" Why the callet you told me of here,
" I have tane disguis'd." Gkey.
4 Menelaus ;] i. e. a cuckold. So, in Troilus and Cressida,
Thersites, speaking of Menelaus, calls him " — the goodly trans-
formation of Jupiter there, — the primitive statue and oblique me-
morial of cuckolds." Steevens.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 423

And heap'd sedition on his crown at home.

* For what hath broach'd this tumult \ but thy

pride ?
Hadst thou been meek, our title still had slept ;
And we, in pity of the gentle king,
Had slipp'd our claim until another age.

' Gjeo. But, when we saw our sunshine made thy
spring,
' And that thy summer bred us no increase ^,
We set the axe to thy usurping root :
And though the edge hath something hit ourselves,
' Yet, know thou, since we have begun to strike,
' We'll never leave, till we have hewn thee down.
Or bath'd thy growing with our heated bloods.

Enir. And, in this resolution, I defy thee ;
Not wiUing any longer conference.
Since thou deny'st the gentle king to speak. —
Sound trumpets ! — let our bloody colours wave ! —
And either victory, or else a grave.

Q. M.^ii. Stay, Edward.

Enir. No, wrangling woman ; we'll no longer
stay :
These words will cost ten thousand lives to-day.

[^E.veimf,

5 — hatli broach'd this tumult,] The quarto reads, "hath.
nzouW this," &c. Steevens,

^ — we saw our sunshine made thy spring,
And that thy summer bred us no increase,] When we saw
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 determined to try some
other means, though our first efforts have failed. Johnson.
The quartos read ;

" But when we saw our summer brought thee gain,
" And that the harvest brought us no increase."

Steevens.

424 THIRD PART OF act ii.

SCENE III.

A Field of Battle ' between Towton and Saxton in

Yorkshire.

Alarums: E.vcurs'ions, Enter WARTncK.

' War. Forspent with toil ^, as runners with a
race;,

7 A Field of Battle, &.C.] We should read near Towton. Shak-
peare has here, perhaps, intentionally thrown three different
actions into one. The Lord Kitzwater, being stationed by King
Edward, to defend the pass of Ferrybridge, was assaulted by the
Lord Clifford, and immediately slain, " and with hym," says
Hall, " the bastard of Salisbury, brother to the earl ofWarwycke,
a valeaunt yong gentleman, and of great audacitie. When the
earl of Warvvicke," adds he, " was informed of this feate, he lyke
a man desperated, mounted on his hackeney, and came blowing
to kyng Edwarde, saiyng : Syr, I praye God have mercy of their
soules, which in the beginning of your enterprise hath lost their
lyfes, and because I se no succors of the world, I remit the venge-
ance and punishment to God our creator and Redeemer ; and
with that lighted doune, and slewe his horse with his swourde,
saying : let them flye that wyl, for surely I wil tarye with him
that wil tarye with me, and kissed the crosse of his swourde."
Clifford, in his retreat, was beset with a party of Yorkists, when
*' eyther," says the historian, " for heat or payne, putting oft" his
gorget, sodainly with an arrowe (as some say) without an hedde
[he] was striken into the throte, and incontinent rendered his
spirite, and the erle of Westmerlandes brother, and almost all his
company were thare slayn, at a place called Dinting-dale, not
farr fro Towton." In the afternoon of the next day (Palm Sunday
eve 1461) on a plain field between Towton and Saxton, joined
the main battles which continued engaged that night, and the
greater part of the following day : upwards of 30,000 men, all
English (including many of the nobility and the flower of the
gentry, especially of the northern parts) being slain on both sides.
This battle, says Carte, " decided the fate of the house of
Lancaster, overturning in one day an usurpation strengthened by
sixty-two years continuance, and established Edward on the throne
of England." Ritson.

An authentick copy of King Edward's account of this battle,
together with a list of the noblemen and knights who were slain
in it, may be seen in Sir John Fenn's Collection of the Fasten
Letters, vol. i. p. 216, &c. Henley.

* Forspent with toil,] Thus the folio. The quartos read—
Sore spent, &c, Steevens.

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 425

I lay me down a little while to breathe :
For strokes receiv'd, and many blows repaid,
Have robb'd my strong-knit sinews of their strength,

* And, spite of spite ^, needs must I rest awhile.

Enter Edtfard, running.

Rdw. Smile, gentle heaven ^ ! or strike, ungentle
death !

* For this world frowns, and Edward's sun is clouded.

If AR. How now, my lord? what hap.^ what hope
of good .^

Enter George.

* Geo. Our hap is loss, our hope but sad despair ^ ;

* Our ranks are broke, and ruin follows us :

* What counsel give you, whither shall we fly ?

* EoTr. Bootless is flight, they follow us with

wings ;

* And weak we are, and cannot shun pursuit.

9 And, SPITE OF SPITE,] So, in King John :

" And, spite of spite, alone holds up the day." Steevens.
' Smile, gentle heaven ! &c.] Thus the folio. Instead of
these lines, the quartos give the following :

" Smile, gentle heavens, or strike, ungentle death,
*' That we may die unless we gain the day !
*' What fatal star malignant frowns from heaven
" Upon the harmless line of York's true house ! "

Steevens.
* Our hap is loss, &c.] Thus the folio. The quartos thus :
" Come, brother, come, let's to the field again,
" For yet there's hope enough to win the day :
*' Then let us back to cheer our fainting troops,
" Lest they retire now we have left the field.

" War. How now, my lords? what hap? what hope of good?"

Steevens.
*' Our hap is loss, our hope but sad despair i'' Milton seems to
have copied this line :

" Thus repuls'd, our final hope

" Is Jlat despair." Malonk,

426 THIRD PART OF act ii.

Enter Richard.

* Rich. Ah, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn
thyself ?
* Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk ^,

3 Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,] This pas-
sage, from the variation of the copies, gave me no little perplexity.
The old quarto applies this description 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 Wake-
field, wherein Richard Duke of York lost his life, was taken
prisoner, beheaded at Pomfret, and his head, together with the
Duke of York's, fixed over York gates. Then the only brother of
Warwick, introduced in this \A^y, is the Marquess of Montacute
(or Montague, as he is called by our author) : but he does not
die till ten years after, in the battle at Barnet ; where Warwick
likewise was killed. The truth is, the brother here mentioned is
no person in the drama, and his death is only an accidental piece
of history. Consulting the Chronicles, upon this action at Ferry-
bridge, 1 find him to have been a natural son of Salisbury, (in
that respect a brother to Warwick,) and esteemed a valiant young
gentleman. Theobald.

" Thy brother's blood," 8cc. Instead of this speech, which is
printed, like almost all the rest of the play, from the folio, the
quartos give the following :

" Thy nohXo. Jcither in the thickest throngs

" Cried still for Warwick, his thrice valiant son ;

" Until with thousand swords he was beset,

" And many wounds made in his aged breast.

" And, as he tottering sat upon his steed,

" He waft his hand to me, and cried aloud,

" Richard, commend me to my valiant son :

" And still he cried, Warwick, revenge my death !

" And with these words he tumbled off his horse ;

" And so the noble Salisbury gave up the ghost."

Steevens.
It is here only necessary to refer to former notes on similar va-
riations.

" Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk." In this
line, of which there is no trace in the original play, Shakspeare
had probably the sacred writings in his thoughts : " And now art
thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to re-
ceive thi/ brother's blood." Genesis, iv. 1 1 .

The old play (as Theobald has observed) applies this descrip-

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 427

* Broach'd with the steely point of Clifford's lance :

* And, in the very pangs of death, he cried, —

* Like to a dismal clangor heard from far, —

* Warwick, revenge I brother, revenge my death I

* So underneath the belly of their steeds,

* That stain'd their fetlocks in his smoking blood,

* The noble gentleman gave up the ghost.

* IF^R. Then let the earth be drunken with our
blood :
I'll kill my horse, because I will not fly "*.

* Why stand we like soft-hearted women here,

* Wailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage ;

* And look upon ^, as if the tragedy

* Were play'd in jest by counterfeiting actors ?

tion to the death of Salisbury, Warwick's father, contrary to the
truth of history, for that nobleman was taken prisoner at the
battle of Wakefield, and "afterwards beheaded at Pomfret. But
both Hall and Holinshed, in nearly the same words, relate the
circumstance on which this speech, as exhibited in the folio, is
founded ; and from the latter our author undoubtedly took it.
" The Lord Fitzwalter [who had been stationed to keep the pass
of Ferrybridge] hearing the noise, [made by Lord Clifford and a
body of light-horsemen, who attacked by surprize the party sta-
tioned at the bridge,] sodainly rose out of his bedde, and unarmed,
with a pollax in his hande, thinking that it had bin a fraye amongst
his men, came down to appease the same, but ere he knew
what the matter meant, he was slaine, and with him the bastard
of Salisbury, brother to the eiie of JVarwick, a valiant young
gentleman, and of great audacitie." Holinshed, p. 664. In this
action at Ferrybridge, which happened on the 2Sth of March,
1461, the day before the great buttle of Towton, Lord Clifford
was killed. The author of this play has blended the two actions
together. Malone.

* I'll kill my horse, &c.] So, in The Miseries of Queen Mar-
garet, by Drayton :

" Resolv'd to win, or bid the world adieu :

*' Which spoke, the earl his sprightly courser slew."

Again, in Daniel's Civil Wars, b. viii. st. xiii.

From Hall, Henry ^T. p. 102. See p. 424, n. 7. Steevens.

5 And LOOK UPON,] And are mere spectators. So, in The
Winter's Tale, vol. xiv. p. 379, n. 9:

" Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
" Looks on alike." Malone.

428 THIRD PAUT OF act ii,

* Here on my knee I vow to God above,

* I'll never pause again, never stand still,

* Till either death hath clos'd these eyes of mine,

* Or fortune given me measure of revenge.

Ebw. O Warwick, I do bend my knee with
thine ;

* And, in this vow, do chain my soul to thine ^. —

* And, ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face,

* I throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to thee.
Thou setter up and plucker down of kings !

* Beseeching thee ", — if with thy will it stands,

* That to my foes this body must be prey, —

* Yet that thy brazen gates of heaven may ope,

* And give sweet passage to my sinful soul ! —

* Now, lords, take leave until \ve meet again,
Where-e'er it be, in heaven, or on earth.

* Rich. Brother, give me thy hand ; — and, gentle
Warwick,

" And, in this vow, do chain my soul to thine.] Thus the
folio. The quarto as follows :

*' And in tliat vow noivjoin mv soul to thee." Steevens.
7 Beseeching thee,] That is, beseeching the divine power.
Shakspeare in new-forming this speech may seem, at the first
view of it, to have made it obscure, by placing this line immedi-
ately after — " Thou setter up," 8:c.

What I have now observed is founded on a supposition that the
words "Thou setter up," &c. are applied to Warwick, as they
appear to be in the old play. However, our author certainly in-
tended to deviate from it, and to apply this description to the
Deity ; and this is another strong confirmation of the observation
already made relative to the variations between these pieces and
the elder dramas on which they were formed. In the old play the
speech runs thus :

" Lord W^arwick, I do bend my knees with thine,
" And in that vow now join my soul to thee,
" Thou setter-up and puller-down of kings — :
" Vouchsafe a general victory to us,
*' Or let us die before we lose the day ! "
The last two lines are certainly here addressed to the Deity ;
but the preceding line, notwithstanding the anachronism, seems
to be addressed to Warwick. Malonb.

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 429

* Let me embrace thee in my weary arms : —

' I, that did never weep, now melt with woe,

* That winter sliould cut off our spring-time so.

* War. Away, away ! Once more, sweet lords,

farewell.
' Geo. Yet let us all together to our troops,

* And give them leave to fly that will not stay ;
And call them pillars, that will stand to us ;

* And, if we thrive, promise them such rewards

* As victors wear at the Olympian games :

* This may plant courage in their quailing^ breasts;

* For yet is hope of life, and victory. —

* Fore-slow no longer ■*, make we hence amain \

[Exeunt.

8 — quailing — ] i. e. sinking into dejection. So, in Cymbe-
line :

" my false spirits

" Qiiail to remember — : " Steevens.

9 Fore-slow no longer,] To fore-sloiv is to be dilatory, to
loiter. So, in The Battle of Alcazar, 1594':

*' Why, king Sebastian, wilt thou now Jbresloto?"
Again, in Marlowe's Edward II. 1598 :

" Forcslotv no time; sweet Lancaster, let's march."
Again, in Promos and Cassandra, 1578 :

" Good knight, for time do not my smtjbreslow."

Steevens.
* — make we hence amain.] Instead of this and the two pre-
ceding speeches, we have in the old play the following :

" Geo. Then let us haste to cheare the souldiers' hearts,
" And call them pillers that will stand to us,
*' And highly promise to remunerate
" Their trustie service in these dangerous warres.

" Rich. Come, come away, and stand not to debate,
" For yet is hope of fortune good enough.
" Brothers, give me your handes, and let us part,
" And take our leaves untill we meete againe ;
" Where ere it be, in heaven or in earth,
" Now I that never wept, now melt in woe,
" To see these dire mishaps continue so.
" Warwick^ farewell."

" IFar. Away, away; once more, sweet lords, farewell,"

Malone.

430 THIRD PART OF actii.

SCENE IV.
The Same. Another Part of the Field.

Excursions. Enter Richard and Clifford.

* Rich. Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone^:

* Suppose, this arm is for the duke of York,

* And this for Rutland ; both bound to revenge,

* Wert thou environ'd with a brazen wall ''\

Clif. Now, Richard, I am with thee here alone:
This is the hand, that stabb'd thy father York;
And this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland ;
And here's the heart, that triumphs in their death.
And cheers these hands, that slew thy sire and

brother,
To execute the like upon thyself ;
And so, have at thee.

[They fight. TVARiricK enters ; Clifford
flies.
* Rich. Nay, Warwick ^ single out some other
chase ;

* For I myself will hunt this wolf to death.

\Exeunt,

* Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone, &c.] Thus the
folio. The quartos thus :

"■ Now, Clifford, for York and young Rutland's death,
" This thirsty sword, that longs to drink thy blood,
" Shall lop thy limbs, and slice thy cursed heart,
" For to revenge the murders thou hast made." Steevens.
3 Wert thou environ'd with a brazen wall.] So, in the second
Thebaid of Statius, v. 453 :

non si te ferreus agger

Ambiat — . Steevens.

* Nay, Warwick, &c.] ^Ve have had two very similar lines in
the preceding play, p. 349 :

" Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chace ;
" For I myself must hunt this deer to death,"
See p. 4-51, n. 2. Malone.

These words, in the former instance, are spoken of Clifford's
father by Richard's father. Bo swell.

sc. r. KING HENRY VI. 431

SCENE V.

Another Part of the Field.

Alarum. Enter King Henry.
^ K. Hen. This battle fares like to the morning's
war ^,

* When dying clouds contend with growing Hght ;

* What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails ^

5 This battle fares like to the morning's war, &c.] Instead of
this interesting speech, the quartos exhibit only the following :
" O gracious God of heaven, look down on us,
" And set some ends to these incessant griefs !
" How like a mastless ship upon the seas,
" This woeful battle doth continue still,
" Now leaning this way, now to that side driven,
" And none doth know to whom the day will fall.
" Oh, would my death might stay these at;// f jars !
*' Would I had never reign'd, nor ne'er been king !
" Margaret and Clifford chide me from the field,
" Swearing they had best success when I was thence,
" Would God that I were dead, so all were well ;
" Or, would my crown suffice, I were content
" To yield it them, and live a private life ! "
The leading thought in both these soliloquies is borrowed from
Holinshed, p. 6Q5 : — " This deadly conflict continued ten hours
in doubtful state of victorie, uncertainlie heaving and setting on
both sides," &c.

Virgil, however, Mn. lib. x. v. 354, has a similar comparison :

' Expellere tendunt

Nunc hi, nunc illi : certatur limine in ipso
Ausonise. Magno discordes aethere venti
Praelia ceu toUunt, animis et viribus aequis :
Non ipsi inter se, non nubila, non mare cedunt ;
Anceps pugna diu : stant obnixi omnia contra, &c.
This simile, however, originates with Homer ; Iliad, xiv.

Steevens.
^ — the shepherd, blowing of his nails,] So, in Love's La-
bour's Lost :

" When icicles hang by the wall,

" And Dick the shepherd bloxvs his nail — ." Malone.

t The quarto, 160, printed by W. W. reads— crM^/jare.

432 THIRD PART OF act lu

* Can neither call it perfect day, nor night.

* Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea,

* Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind :

* Now sways it that way, like the self-same sea

* Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind :

* Sometime, the flood prevails; and then, the wind;

* Now, one the better, then, another best ;

* Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast^,
' Yet neither conqueror, nor conquered :

* So is the equal poise of this fell war.

* Here on this molehill v/ill I sit me down.

* To whom God will, there be the victory !
' For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,

* Have chid me from the battle ; swearing both,

* They prosper best of all when I am thence.

* 'Would I were dead ! if God's good will were so :

* For what is in this world, but grief and woe ^

* O God ! methinks, it were a happy life ^,

* To be no better than a homely swain :

* To sit upon a hill, as I do now,

* To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,

* Thereby to see the minutes how they run :

* How many make the hour full complete ^,

* How many hours bring about the day,
^ How many days will finish up the year,

7 Both TUGGING to be victors, breast to breast,] Hence, per-
haps, the vulgarism that gives such acknowledged force to the
following line in Lee's Rival Queens :

" When Greeks join'd Greeks, then was the tug of war."

Steevens.

8 — methinks, it were a happy life,] This speech is mournful
and soft, exquisitely suited to the character of the King, and
makes a pleasing interchange, by affording, amic^stthe tumult and
horror of the battle, an unexpected glimpse of rural innocence
and pastoral tranquillity. Johnson.

This speech strongly confirms the remark made by Sir Joshua
Reynolds on a passage in Macbeth, vol. xi. p. 69, n. 3. Malone.

9 Thereby to see the minutes how they run :

How many make the hour full complete,] So, in our
author's Rape of Lucrece :

" Stuff up his lust, as minutes Jill up hours.'" Malonk.

sc. r. KING HENRY VI. 433

"* How many years a mortal man may live.

* When this is known, then to divide the times :

* So many hours must I tend my flock ;

* So many hours must I take my rest ;

* So many hours must I contemplate;

* So many hours must I sport myself;

* So many days my ewes have been with young ;

* So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean ' ;

* So many years ere I shall sheer the fleece '^ :

* So minutes, hours, days, weeks ^ months and

years,

* Pass'd over to the end they were created,

* Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.

* Ah, what a life were this ! how sweet ! how lovely!

* Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade

* To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep,

* Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy

* To kings that fear their subjects' treachery ?

* O, yes it doth ; a thousand fold it doth.

* And to conclude, — the shepherd's homely curds,

* His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,

* His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,

* All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,

* Is far beyond a prince's delicates,

*= His viands sparkling in a golden cup,

* His body couched in a curious bed,

' — ere the poor fools will yean ;] Poor fool, it has already
been observed, is an expression of tenderness, often used by our
author. Malone.

So, in King Lear, Scene the last :

" And my poor fool is hang'd."

See notes on this passage, vol. x. p. 283, n. 8. Steevens.

^ So many years ere I shai' sheer the fleece :] i. e. the years
which must elapse between the time of the yeaning of the ewes,
and the lambs arriving to such a state as to admit of being shorn.
Mr. Rowe changed years to months ; which was followed by the
subsequent editors. Malone.

3 So minutes, hours, days, weeks,] The word iveeks is not in
the old copy, hut was inserted by Mr. Rowe. Malone.

VOL. XYIII. 2 F

434 THIRD PART OF act n.

* When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.

Alarum. Enter a Son that has killed his Father"^,
dragging in the dead Body.

Son. Ill blows the wind, that profits no'body. —

* This man whom hand to hand I slew in fight,

* May be possessed with some store of crowns :

* And I, that haply take them from him now,

* May yet ere night yield both my life and them

* To some man else, as this dead man doth me. —

* Who's this ? — O God ! it is my father's face,

* Whom in this conflict I unawares have kill'd.

* O heavy times, begetting such events !

* From London by the king was I press'd forth ;

* My father, being the earl of Warwick's man,

* Came on the part of York, press'd by his master ;

* And I, who at his hands receiv'd my life,

* Have by my hands of life bereaved him. —

* Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did ! —
And pardon, father, for I knew not thee ! —

* My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks ;

* And no more words, till they have flow'd their fill.

* K. Hen. O piteous spectacle ^ ! O bloody times !

4 Enter a Son, &c.] These two horrible incidents are selected
to show the innumerable calamities of civil war. Johnson.

In the battle of Constantine and Maxentius, by Raphael, the
second of these incidents is introduced on a similar occasion.

Steevens.
s O piteous spectacle ! &c.] In the old play the King does not
speak, till both the Son and the Father have appeared, and
spoken, and then the following words are attributed to him, out of
which Shakspeare has formed two distinct speeches :

" Woe above woe ! grief more than common grief!

" Whilst lions war, and battle for their dens,

'* Poor lambs do feel the rigour of their wraths.

*' The red rose and the white are on his face,

" The fatal colours of our striving houses.

" Wither one rose, and let the other perish,

"For, if you strive, ten thousand lives must perish."

Malone.

sc. r. KING HENRY VI. 435

Whilst lions war, and battle for their dens,

* Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity, —

* Weep, wretched man, I'll aid thee tear for tear ;

* And let our hearts, and eyes, like civil war,

* Be blind with tears, and break o'ercharg'd with

grief ^,

Enter a Father^ who has killed his Son, with the
Body in his arms.

* Fath. Thou that so stoutly hast resisted me,

* Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold ;

* For I have bought it with an hundred blows. —
' But let me see : — is this our foeman's face ?

* Ah, no, no, no, it is mine only son ! —

* Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee,

* Throw up thine eye ; see, see, what showers arise,

* Blown with the windy tempest of my heart \

* Upon thy wounds, that kill mine eye and heart! —
' O, pity, God, this miserable age ! —

* What stratagems % how fell, how butcherly,

^ And let our hearts, and eyes, like civil war.
Be blind with tears, and break o'ercharg'd with grief.] The
meaning is here inaccurately expressed. The King intends to say
that the state of their hearts and eyes shall be like that of tlie
kingdom in a civil war, all shall be destroyed by power formed
within themselves. Johnson.
7 — what showers arise.
Blown with the windy tempest of my heart,] This image
had occurred in the preceding Act :

" For raging wind blows up incessant showers."

Steevens.
^ What STRATAGEMS,] Stratagem seems to stand here only
for an event of war, or may intend snares and surprizes.

Johnson.
Stratagem is used by Shakspeare not merely to express the
events and surprizes of war. — The word means, in this place, some
dreadful event, as it does also in The Second Part of King
Henry IV. where Northumberland says :

" Every minute now

" Should be the father of some stratagem:'
Slratagemma, in Italian, bears the same acceptation which

2f 2

436 THIRD PART OF ^ct it.

* Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural,

' This deadly quarrel daily doth beget ! —

* O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon ^,

* And hath bereft thee of thy life too late ^ !

Shakspeare gives to the English word stratagem, in these two
passages. Bernini in his History of Heresies, savs : "■ Ma Dio
puni la Francia, et la Spagna, co'l flagello dei Vandali, per
I'Eresia abbracciataj et piu gravamente puni Roma, prevaricata di
nuovo, al culto de gl' idoli, con il sacco che gli diedero. Orosio,
che descrisse quelle strntagemme, paragoni Roma a Sodoma, chia-
mando i Romani peccatori."

It is evident, that in this passage stratagemme means disastrous
events, as stratagem does in this place. M. Mason.

We find the word stratagem in The True Chronicle History of
King Lear, p. 417, where Regan says to the Messenger —
" Hast thou the heart to act a stratagem,
" And give a stab or two, if need require ?

" Messenger. I have a heart compact of adamant
" Which never knew what melting pity meant.
" I weigh no more the murd'ring of a man,
" Than I respect the cracking of a flea,
" When I do catch her biting on my skin.
" If you will have your husband or your father,
" Or both of them, sent to another world,
" Do but command me do it, it shall be done."
It is evident that Regan's stratagem, or subtle device, was assas-
sination. M. Mason.

I formerly questioned Mr. Mason's explanation ; but I am now
convinced he was right. In Greene's Orlando Furioso, it is used
with the meaning which he has assigned to it. Orlando is de-
scribed as —

" Performing strange and ruthful stratagems,
" All for the love of fair Angelica." Malone.
^ O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,] Because, had he
been born later, he would not now have been of years to engage
in this quarrel. Warburton.

9 And hath 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 son thus miserable. This is the sense, such as it is, of the
two lines ; however, an indifferent sense 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,
" And hath bereft thee of thv life too soon."

Warburton.
I rather think the meaning of the line, " And hath bereft thee

sc. y. KING HENRY VI. 437

K. Hen. Woe above woe ! grief more than
common grief !

* O, that my death would stay these ruthful deeds ! —

* O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity! —

The red rose and the white are on his face,
The fatal colours of our striving houses :

* The one, his purple blood right well resembles;

* The other, his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth ;
Wither one rose, and let the other flourish !

' If you contend, a thousand lives must wither \

of thy life too soon," to be this: 'Thy father exposed thee to
danger, by giving thee life too soon, and hath bereft thee of life by
living himself too long.' Johnson.

The Oxford editor might have justified the change he made,
from the authority of the quarto, according to which I vi'ould
read ; explaining the first line thus : ' Thy father begot thee at
too late a period of his life, and therefore thou vvert not old and
strong enough to cope with him.' The next line can want no ex-
planation. Mr. Toilet thinks, that by too late is meant too lately,
as in King Richard HI. Act III. :

" Too late he died that might have kept that title."

Steevens.
Too late, without doubt, means too recently. The memory of
thy virtues and fthy hapless end is too recent, to be thought of
without the deepest anguish. The same quaint expression is
found in our author's Rape of Lucrece :

" O, quoth Lucretius, I did give that life,
" Which she too early and too late hath spill'd."
Here late clearly means lately. Again, in this Third Part of
King Henry VI. :

" VVhere fame, late entering at his heedful ears,"
In the old play this and the preceding line stand thus :
" Poor boy, thy father gave thee life too late,
'• And hath bereft thee of thy life too soon." Malone.
The present reading appears to be far the more eligible. Had
the son been younger, he would have been precluded from the
levy that brought him into the field ; and had the father recog-
nized him before the mortal blow, it would not have been too late
to have saved him from death. Henley.

' If you contend, a thousand lives must wither,] Thus the
folio. The quartos thus :

" For if you strive, a thousand lives must perish.''

Steevens.
I think the word mthcr is more likelyto have been inudver-

438 THIRD PART OF act n.

Son, How will my mother, for a father's death,
Take on with me ^, and ne'er be satisfied ?

Fath. How will my wife, for slaughter of my son,

* Shed seas of tears, and ne'er be satisfied ?

' K. Hen. How will the country '^, for these
woful chances,

* Misthink the king, and not be satisfied ?

* Son. Was ever son, so ru'd a father's death ?
' Fath. Was ever father, so bemoan'd a son * ?

* K, Hen. Was ever king, so griev'd for subjects'

woe ?

* Much is your sorrow ; mine, ten times so much.

* Son. I'll bear thee hence % where I may weep

my fill. \_Exit with the Body.

tently repeated by the transcriber, than substituted by Shakspeare
for the former word. Malone.

^ Take on with me,] Be enraged at me. So, in Pierce Pen-
niless his Supplication to the Devil, by T. Nashe, 1592 : " Some
will take on, like a madman, if they see a pig come to the table."

Malone.

To talce on is a phrase still in use among the vulgar, and signi-
fies— to persist inclaviorous lamentation. Steevens.

3 How will the country, &c,] So the folio. The quartos thus :

" How will the country now misdeem their king !
" Oh, would my death their minds could satisfy ! "
To mis-think is to think ill, urifavourably . So, in The Northern
Lass, 1633 :

" and heaven pardon me what I tnis-thought every hour of

the night ! " Steevens.

This word, which Shakspeare substituted for misdeem, he has
again used in Antony and Cleopatra :

" Be it known, that we the greatest are mis-thought,
" For things that others do." Malone.

4 Was ever son, so ku'd a father's death ?

Was ever father, so bemoan'd his son ?] The variation is
here worth remarking, for in the old play the corresponding lines
are :

" Was ever son so rude, his father's blood to spill !
" Was ever father so unnatural, his son to kill ? "

Malone,

5 I'll bear thee hence, &c.] Thus the folio. The old play
thus :

sc. V. KING HENRY VI. 439

* Path. These arms of mine shall be thy wind-

ing-sheet :

* My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre ;

* For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go.

* My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell ;

* And so obsequious will thy father be ^,

* Sad for the loss of thee \ having no more,

* As Priam was for all ® his valiant sons,

I'll bear thee hence ; and let them fight that will,
For I have murder'd where I should not kill.

\Exit^ with the Body.

* K. Hen. Sad-hearted men, much overgone with

care,

* Here sits a king more woful than you are.

Alarums: E.vcursions. Enter Queen Margaret,
Prince of Wales, and Exeter.

* Prince. Fly, father, fly ! for all your friends are

fled,

* And Warwick rages like a chafed bull :

* Away ! for death doth hold us in pursuit.

* Q. Mar. Mount you, my lord ; towards Berwick

post amain :
' Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds,

* Having the fearful, flying hare in sight,

* With firy eyes, sparkling for very wrath,

" I'll bear thee hence from this accursed place,
" For woe is to me, to see my father's face." Malone.
^ And so OBSEQ.UIOUS will thy father be,] Obsequious is here
careful of obsequies, or oi {nneraX x'lies. Johnson.
In the same sense it is used in Hamlet :

" ' to do obsequious sorrow." Steevens.

7 Sad for the loss of thee,] The old copy reads — vien for the
loss, &c. Mr. Rowe made the alteration ; but I think we might
read :

" so obsequious will thy father be,

" Man, for the loss of thee," &c. Steevens.
^ As Priam was for all — ] I having but one son, will grieve
as much for that one, as Priam, who had many, could grieve for
many. Johnson.

440 THIRD PART OF jct ii.

* And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,

* Are at our backs ; and therefore hence amain.

* Ex£, Away ! for vengeance comes along with

them :

* Nay, stay not to expostulate, make speed ;
Or else come after, I'll away before.

* K. Hen. Nay, take me with thee, good sweet

Exeter ;

* Not that I fear to stay, but love to go

* Whither the queen intends. Forward ; away !

\_Exeunt.

SCENE VI.
The Same.

A loud Alarum, Enter Clifford, wounded^.

* Clip. Here burns my candle out, ay, here it

dies \
Which, while it lasted, gave King Henry light,
O, Lancaster ! I fear thy overthrow.
More than my body's parting with my soul.
My love, and fear, glued many friends to thee !

* And, now I fall, thy tough commixtures melt '^.

9 Enter Clifford, ivoimded.'] The quarto adf's, " with an
arrow in his neck." In ridicule of this, Beaumont and Fletcher
have introduced Ralph, the grocer's prentice, in The Knight of
the Burning Pestle, with b. forked arroiv through his head It ap-
pears, however, from Holinshed, p. 664, that this circumstance
has some relation to the truth : " The lord Clift'ord, either for
heat or paine, putting off his gorget suddenlie, with an arrow (as
some saie) without a head, was striken into the throte, and im-
mediately rendered his spirit." Steevens.

' Here burns my candle out, ay, here it dies,] So, in the first
part of this play :

" Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer." Steevens.

* — THY tough commixtures melt.] Perhaps better, the tough
commixture. Johnson.

The quartos read — " that tough commixture melts."

Steevens.

sc. VI. KING HENRY VI. 441

Impairing Henry, strength'ning mis-proud York,
The common people swarm like summer flies ^ :
And v/hither fly the gnats, but to the sun '^ ?
And who shines now but Henry's enemies ?
O Pheebus ! hadst thou never given consent ^
That Phaeton should check thy firy steeds.
Thy burning car never had scorch'd the earth :
And, Henry, hadst thou sway'd as kings should do,
Or as thy father, and his father, did,
Giving no ground unto the house of York,

* They never then had sprung like summer flies ;

* I, and ten thousand in this luckless realm.
Had left no mourning widows for our death.
And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.
For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air ?

* And what makes robbers bold, but too much

lenity ?
Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds ;

* No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight ^ :

3 The common people swarm like summer flies :] This line,
which is not in the folio, was recovered from the old play by Mr.
Theobald. The context shows, that, like a line in The Second
Part of King Henry VI. it was omitted by the negligence of the
transcriber or compositor. Malone.

4 The common people swarm like summer flies :

And whither fly the gnats, but to the sun ?] Hence, perhaps,
originated the following passage in The Bard of Gray :

" The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born?
" Gone to salute the rising morn." Steevens.

5 O Phoebus ! hadst thou never given consent — ] The Duke
of York had been entrusted by Henry with the reins of govern-
ment both in Ireland and France ; and hence perhaps was taught
to aspire to the throne. Malone.

^ No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight :] This line is
clear and proper as it is now read ; yet perhaps an opposition of
images was meant, and Cliftbrd said :

" No way to fly, nor strength to hold out ^ght."

Johnson.
The sense of the original reading is — No way to fly, nor with
strength sufficient left to sustain myself in flight, if there were.

Steevens.

442 THIRD PART OF act ii.

The foe is merciless, and will not pity ;
For, at their hands, I have deserv'd no pity.

* The air hath got into my deadly wounds.

And much effuse of blood doth make me faint ; —
Come, York, and Richard, Warwick, and the rest ;

* I stabb'd your father's bosoms, split my breast ^

\He faints.

Alarum and Retreat. Enter Edward^ George,
Richard, Montague, Warwick, and Soldiers.

* Edtf. Now breathe we, lords ^ ; good fortune
bids us pause,

* And smooth the frowns of war^ with peaceful

looks. —
Some troops pursue the bloody-minded queen ; —

* That led calm Henry, though he were a king,

* As doth a sail, fill'd with a fretting gust.

7 I stabb'd your father's bosoms, split my breast.] So the
folio. The quartos read :

" I stabb'd your father's, noiu come split my breast."

Steevens.
* Now breathe we, lords ;] Instead of this speech the quartos
have the following :

" Thus far our fortunes keep an upward course,
" And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.
" Some troops pursue the bloody-minded queen,
" That now towards Berwick doth post amain :— — —
" But think you that Clifford is fled away with them? '*

Steevens.
This battle, in which the house of York was victorious, was
fought on a plain between Towton and Saxton, on the 29th of
March, (Palm Sunday) 1461. The royal army consisted, ac-
cording to Hall, of about forty thousand men ; and the young
Duke of York's forces were 48,760. In this combat, which
lasted fourteen hours, and in the actions of the two following
days, 36,776 persons are said to have been killed ; the greater
part of whom were undoubtedly Lancastrians. Malone.

9 And SMOOTH the frowns of war — ] So, in K. Richard III. :
" Grim-visag'd xmr hath smoothed his uimiklcd front."

Steevens.

sc. VI. KING HENRY VI. 443

' Command an argosy to stem the waves.

* But think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them ?

JK4R. No, 'tis impossible he should escape ;
For, though before his face I speak the words.
Your brother Richard mark'd him for the grave ' :

* And, wheresoe'er he is, he's surely dead.

[^Clifford groans and dies.
Edtv. Whose soul ^ is that which takes her heavy

leave ?
Rich. A deadly groan, like life and death's

departing^.
Emr. See who it is : and, now the battle's ended.
If friend, or foe, let him be gently us'd.

* Rich. Revoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis
CUfford ;

* Who not contented that he lopp'd the branch
' In hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth %

J — mark'd him for the grave :] Young has transferred this
expression to Alonzo in The Revenge :

" This only marks my body for the grave."
A simih\r phrase occurs in Chapman's version of the fifth Iliad :
" Our bravest foe is marled for dealh; he cannot long sustain
" My violent shaft — ." Steevens.
^ Edtv. Whose soul, &c.] I have distinguished this and the
two following speeches according to the authority of the quarto.
The folio gave all to Richard, except the last line and half.

Steevens.
I have also followed the original regulation, because it seems
absurd that Richard should first say to his brother, or to one of
the soldiers, " See who it is ; " — and then, himself declare that
it is Clifford ; and therefore I suppose the variation in the folio
arose, not from Shakspeare, but from some negligence or inac-
curacy of a compositor or transcriber. Malone.

3 — like life and death's departing.] Sir Thomas Hanmer
reads, " like life m death departing ; " which Dr. Warburton has
received. Johnson.

The quartos read, like life and death's departure. Steevens.
" — like life and death's departing" Departing, for separation.

Malone.
There is no occasion for correction. " Till death us depart "
was the expression in the old Marriage Service. Fakmek.

4 In hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth,] It is manifest

444 THIRD PART OF .ict ii.

' But set his murdering knife unto the root

* From whence that tender spray did sweetly spring,

* 1 mean, our princely father, duke of York.

JVar. From off the gates of York fetch down the
head.
Your father's head, which Clifford placed there :

* Instead whereof, let this supply the room ;
Measure for measure must be answered.

Edtf. Bring forth that fatal screech-owl to our
house,

* That nothing sung but death to us and ours ^ :

' Now death shall stop his dismal threatening sound,

* And his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak.

[Attendants bring the Body forward.
War. I think his understanding is bereft : —
Speak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to

thee ? —
Dark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life.
And he nor sees, nor hears us what we say.

Rich. O, 'would he did ! and so, perhaps, he
doth ;

* 'Tis but his policy to counterfeit,

from this and many other passages, that the author of the old
play, where the corresponding line stands thus :

" Who killed our tender brother Rutland — "
imagined that Rutland was younger than George and Richard ;
whereas he was in fact older than them both, being the Duke of
York's second son ; in consequence of which he bore a title by
courtesy ; and a particular stipulation was made in the compact
entered into between Henry and the Duke of York, that Rutland,
as well as his elder brother Edward Earl of March, should swear
to the due observance of the agreement. Shakspeare has, we
see, fallen into the same error ; as have Habington in his nervous
and elegant History of Edward IV. and several other historians
and poeis. Malone.

5 — screech-owL to our house,
That NOTHING SUNG BUT DEATH, &c.] So, in King
Richard III. :

" Out on you^ oids ! nuthbig hut songs of death'?"

St£evens.

sc. V!. KING HENRY VI. 445

* Because he would avoid such bitter taunts

* Which in the time of death he gave our father.

Geo. If so thou think'st, vex him with eager

words ^.
Rich. Clifford, ask mercy, and obtain no grace.
Edtf. Clifford, repent in bootless penitence.
JVar. Clifford, devise excuses for thy faults.
Geo. While we devise fell tortures for thy faults.

* Rich. Thou didst love York, and I am son to

York.
Enrr. Thou pitied'st Rutland, I will pity thee.
Geo. Where's captain Margaret, to fence you

now ?
War. They mock thee, Clifford ! swear as thou

wast wont.

* Rich. What, not an oath ? nay, then the world

goes hard,

* When Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath : —
I know by that, he's dead ; And, by my soul,

' If this right hand would buy two hours' life.
That I in all despite might rail at him,

* This hand should chop it off; and with the issuing

blood
Stifle the villain, whose unstaunched thirst
York and young Rutland could not satisfy.

IKm. Ay, but he's dead : Off with the traitor's

head.
And rear it in the place your father's stands. —
And now to London with triumphant march.
There to be crowned England's royal king.
' From whence shall Warwick cut the sea to

France,
And ask the lady Bona for thy queen :

^ — EAGER words.] <SoMr words; words of asperity.

Johnson.
So, in Hamlet:

" It is a nipping and an eager air." Steevens.

446 THIRD PART OF act n.

So shalt thou sinew both these lands together ;

* And, having France thy friend, thou shalt not

dread
The scatter'd foe, that hopes to rise again ;
For though they cannot greatly sting to hurt.
Yet look to have them buz, to offend thine ears.
First, will I see the coronation ;

* And then to Britanny Fll cross the sea%
To effect this marriage, so it please my lord.

Edw. Even as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let it
be :

* For on thy shoulder do 1 build my seat ;

* And never will I undertake the thing,

* Wherein thy counsel and consent is wanting. —
' Richard, I will create thee duke of Gloster ; —

' And George, of Clarence ; — Warwick, as ourself,

* Shall do, and undo, as him pleaseth best.

Rich. Let me be duke of Clarence ; George of
Gloster ;
For Gloster's dukedom is too ominous^.

7 And then to Britanny I'll cross the sea,] Thus the folio. The
quartos thus :

" And afterward I'll cross the seas to France,"

Steevens.
® — too ominous.] Alluding, perhaps, to the deaths of Tho-
mas of Woodstock, and Humphrey, Dukes of Gloster.

Steevens.
Tlie author of the original play, in which thia line is found,
prob.ibly had here a passage in Hall's Chronicle in his thoughts :
" It seemeth to many men that the name and title of Gloucester
hath bene unfortunate and unluckie to diverse, whiche for their
honor have bene erected by creation of princes to that stile and
dignitie ; as Hugh Spencer, Thomas of Woodstock e, son tokynge
Edwarde the thirde, and this duke Humphrey, [who was killed
at Bury ;] whiche three persons by miserable death finished their
daies ; and after them king Richard the iii. also duke of Glou-
cester, in civil warre was slaine and confounded ; so that this
name of Gloucester is taken for an unhappie and unfortunate
stile, as the proverbe speaketh of Sejanes horse, whose ryder was
ever unhorsed, and whose possessor was ever brought tomiserie."

Malone.
6

ACT HI. KING HENRY VI. 447

War, Tut, that's a foolish observation ;
Richard, be duke of Gloster : Now to London,
To see these honours in possession. \Exeunt.

ACT III. SCENE I.

A Chace in the North of England.

Enter Two Keepers^, zvith Cross-bows in their

Hands.

• 1 Keep. Under this thick-grown brake ^ we'll
shroud ourselves ;

9 — txx)o Keepers,'] In the folio, instead of tivo keepers, we
have, through negligence, the names of the persons who repre-
sented these characters ; Sinklo and Hnmj)hreij . Humphrey was
Humphrey Jeaffes, as ap])ears from Mr. Henslowe's MS. For
Sinklo, see vol. v. p. 367, n. 7. Malone.

Dr. Grey observes from Hall and Holinshed, that the name of
the person who took King Henry, was Cantlowe. See Mr. Tyr-
whitt's note on the first scene in The Taming of a Shrew.

I learn also from one of the Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 249, that
Giles Senctlowe was among the persons then in Scotland with
the Queen. Steevens.

One Giles Santlowe, Esquire, is among those attainted by King
Edward's first parliament, and may possibly be here meant, but
no person of that name seems to have been any way concerned
in the capture of the late king; who, according to W. Wyrcester,
was actually taken in Lancashire, by two knights named John
Talbois and Richard Tunstall, — July, 1464. Drummond of
Hawthornden observes, it was recorded " that a son of Sir Ed-
ward Talbots apprehended him as he sat at dinner in Wadding-
town-hall ; and like a common malefactor, with his legs under
the horse's belly, guarded him toward London." It is a more
certain fact, which I have from records in the Duchy Office, that
King Edward granted to Sir James Harrington a rent-charge of
one hundred pounds out of his lordship of Rowland in Lancashire,
in recompence of his great and laborious diligence about the cap-
ture and detention of the king's great traitor, rebel and enemy,
lately called Henry the Sixth, made by the said James ; and like-
wise annuities to Richard Talbot, Thomas Talbot, Esquires,

448 THIRD PART OF act iii.

* For through this laund' anon the deer will come ;

* And in this covert will we make our stand,

* Culling the principal of all the deer.

* 2! Keep. I'll stay above the hill, so both may

shoot.

* 1 Keep. That cannot be ; the noise of thy

cross-bow ^

* Will scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.

* Here stand we both, and aim we at the best :

* And, for the time shall not seem tedious,

* I'll tell thee what befell me on a day,

* In this self- place where now we mean to stand.

* 2 Keep. Here comes a man, let's stay till he be

past ^.

— — Talbot, and Livesey, for their services in the same capture.
See also, Rymer's Foedera, xi. 548. Henry had for some time

been harboured by James Maychell of Crakenthorpe, Westmore-
land, ib. .575. It seems clear, however, that the present scene
is to be placed near the Scottish border. The King himself says :
" From Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love ; "
And Hall (and Holinshed after him) tells us " He was no
sooner entered [into England] but he was knowen and taken of
one Cantlow, and brought toward the king." Ritson.

' — brake — ] A brake anciently signified a thicket. So, in
A Midsummer-Night's Dream : " This green plot shall be our
stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring house." Again : " Enter
into that brake, and so every one according to his cue." See the
latter part of a note on Measure for Measure, vol v. p. 248, n. 2.

Steevens.
* — this LAUND — ] Laund means the same as laivn; a, plain
extended betiveen woods.

So, in the old play of Orlando Furioso, 1594 :

" And that they trace the shady laionds," &c.
Again :

" Tread she these latvnds, kind Flora boasts her pride."

Steevens.

3 — the noise of thy cross-bow — ] The poet appears not to
have forgot the secrets of his former profession.

So, in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, 1608 :

" Did I not hear a bow go off, and the buck bray? "

Steevens.

4 — let's stay till he be past.] So the folio. The quartos read :

" let's listen him a while." Steevens.

sc. /. KING HENRY VI. 449

Efiter King Henry, disguised, with a Prayer-book.

K. Hen. From Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure
love,

* To greet mine own land with my wishful sight \

* No, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine ;

* Thy place is filFd, thy scepter wrung from thee,

* Thy balm wash'd off '^, wherewith thou wast

anointed :
No bending knee will call thee Caesar now,

* No humble suitors press to speak for right,

* No, not a man comes for redress of thee ;
For how can I help them, and not myself?

* 1 Keep. Ay, here's a deer whose skin's a keeper's
fee:
' This is the quondam king ^ ; let's seize upon him<

5 To greet mine own land with my wishful sight.] So the
folio. The quartos perhaps better, thus :

" And thus disguis'd to greet my native land." Steevens.
^ Thy balm wash'd off,] This is an image very frequent in the
works of Shakspeare. So again, in this scene :
" I was anointed king."
It is common in these plays to find the same images, whether
jocular or serious, frequently recurring. Johnson.
So, in King Richard II. :

" Not all the water in the rough rude sea
" Can vvash the balm from an anointed king."
It is observable that this line is one of those additions to the
original play, which are found in the folio, and not in the quarto.

Malone.
7 This is the auoNDAM king; &c.] Thus the folio. The
quartos thus :

" Ay, marry, sir, here's a deer ; his skin is a

" Keeper's fee. Sirrah stand close ; for as I think,

" This is the king, king Edward hath depos'd."

Steevens.
Quondam had not in Shakspeare's time uniformly acquired a
ludicrous sense. " Make them rjuondams (says Latimer in one of
his Sermons), out with them, cast them out of their office." And
in another place : " He will have every man a quondam, as he is.
As for my quondamship I thank God that he gaue me the grace to

VOL. XVIII. 2 a

450 THIRD PART OF ^wt iii.

* K. Hen. Let me embrace these sour adversi-

ties ^ ;

* For wise men say, it is the wisest course.

* 3 Keep. Why Hnger we ? let us lay hands upon

him.

* 1 Keep. Forbear a while ; we'll hear a little

more.
K. Hen. My queen, and son, are gone to France

for aid ;
And, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick
' Is thither gone, to crave the French king's sister

* To wife for Edward : If this news be true,

' Poor queen, and son, your labour is but lost ;
' For Warwick is a subtle orator,

* And Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.
' By this account, then, Margaret may win him ;

' For she's a woman to be pitied much :

* Her sighs will make a battery in his breast ;

* Her tears will pierce into a marble heart ;

* The tiger will be mild, while she doth mourn ^ ;

* And Nero will ^ be tainted with remorse,

* To hear, and see, her plaints, her brinish tears.

come by it, by so honest a meanes as I did; I thanke him for
myne-owne quondamship, and as for them I will not haue them
made quondams, if they discharge their office. I would luiue them
doe their duety. I would haue no more qi(o::dams, as God help
me." Fol. 53.

Again, in Warner's Albion's England, b. v, ch. 28, 1602 :

" Not knights alone, but prelates too, and queens whereof

were twain,
" The quondam ct in esse queenes — ." Holt White.

8 — these sour adversities ;] The old copy reads— i/ic soiKire
adversaries. Steevens.

Corrected by Mr. Pope. Malone.

9 The tiger will be mild, while she doth mourn;] So, in
Othello :

" — She will sing the savageness out of a bear."

Steevens.
' And Nero will — ] Perhaps we might better read — A Nero
will — . Steevens. .

sc. I. KING HENRY YI. 451

* Ay, but she's come to beg ; Warwick, to give :
She, on his left side, craving aid for Henry ;
He, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.

She weeps, and says — her Henry is depos'd ;
He smiles, and says — his Edward is install'd ;

* That she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no

more :

* Whiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the wrong,

* Inferreth arguments of mighty strength ' ;

* And, in conckision, wins the king from her,

* With promise of his sister, and what else,

* To strengthen and support king Edward's place.

* O Margaret \ thus 'twill be ; and thou, poor soul,

* Art then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn.

2 Keep. Say, what art thou, that talk'st of kings

and queens.^
' K. Hex. More than I seem, and less than I was
born to ^ :

* A man at least, for less I should not be ^ ;
And men may talk of kings, and why not I ?

' 2 Keep. Ay, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a
king.

* Inferreth arguments of mighty strength ;] In the former Act
was the same line :

" Inferring arguments of mighty force." Johnson.
This repetition, like many others in these two plays, seems to
have arisen from Shakspeare's first copying his original as it lay
before him, and afterwards in subsequent passages (added to the
old matter) introducing expressions which had struck him in pre-
ceding scenes. In the old play the line occurs but once.

Malone.

3 O Margaret, &c.] The piety of Henry scarce interests us
more for his misfortunes, than this his constant solicitude for the
welfare of his deceitful Queen. Steevens.

4 — less than I was born to :] Thus the folio. The quartos
thus :

" for less I should not be." Steevens.

5 — for less I should not be ;] Such is the reading of the
folio. The quartos thus :

" and more I cannot be." Steevens.

Q r o

ri: yi /il

452 THIRD PART OF act iii.

* K. Hen. Why, so I am, in mind ° ; and that's

enough ^.
2 Keep. But, if thou be a king, where is thy

crown ?
K. Hen. My crown is in my heart, not on my

head ;

* Not deck'd with diamonds, and Indian stones,

* Nor to be seen : ' my crown is call'd, content ;

* A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.

' 2 Keep. Well, if you be a king crown'd with
content.
Your crown content, and you, must be contented
' To go along with us ; for, as we think,

* You are the king, king Edward hath depos'd ;

* And we his subjects, sworn in all allegiance ^

* Will apprehend you as his enemy.

* K. Hen. But did you never swear, and break

an oath .^

* 2 Keep. No, never such an oath, nor will not

now.

* K. Hen. Where did you dwell, when I was

king of England ?

* 2 Keep. Here in this country, where we now

remain.

* K. Hen. I was anointed king at nine months

old;

* My father and my grandfather, weie kings ;

^ — but thou talk'st as if thou wert a king.
A". Hen. Why, so I am, in mind;] There seems to be an
allusion here, to a line in an old song by Sir Edward Dyer :
" My mind to me a kingdom is." Malone.
See Dt. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 3d edit,
vol. i. p. 293. Steevens.

' — and that's enough.] So the folio. The quartos thus :

" — — though not in show." Steevens.
® And we his subjects, &c,] So the folio. The quartos thus :
" And therefore we charge you in God's name, and the

king's,
" To go along with us unto the officers." Steevens.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 453

* And you were sworn true subjects unto me :

* And, tell me then, have you not broke your oaths ?

* 1 Keep. No ;

For we were subjects, but while you were king.

* K. Hen. Why, am I dead .^ do I not breathe a

man ?

* Ah, simple men, you know not what you swear.

* Look, as I blow this feather from my face,

* And as the air blows it to me again '^^

* Obeying with my wind when I do blow,

* And yielding to another when it blows,

* Commanded always by the greater gust ;

* Such is the Hghtness of you common men.

* But do not break your oaths ; for, of that sin

* My mild entreaty shall not make you guilty.

* Go where you will, the king shall be commanded;

* And be you kings; command, and I'll obey.

* 1 Keep. We are true subjects to the king,

king Edward.

* K. Hen. So would you be again to Henry,

* If he were seated as king Edward is.

1 Keep. We charge you, in God's name, and in

the king's \
To go with us unto the officers.

^ K. Hen. In God's name, lead ^; your king's

name be obey'd :

9 Look, as I blow this feather from my face.
And as the air blows it to rae again, &c.] So, in The Winter's
Tale :

" I am a feather for each wind that blows." Malone.
I — and IN the king's,] The preposition — in, which is want-
ing in the old copy, I have supplied for the sake of metre.

Steevens.
^ In God's name, lead ; &c.] So the folio. Instead of this
speech, the quartos have the following :

" God's name be fulfiU'd, your king's name be
" Obey'd; and be you kings ; command, and I'll obey,"

Steevens.

454 THIRD PART OF yJCT iii.

* And what God will, then let your king perform ;
^ And what he will, I humbly yield unto. [E.veunL

SCENE II.

London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King Edward, Gloster, Clarence, and

Lady Grey.

* K. Edtf. Brother of Gloster, at Saint Albans'
field

* This lady's husband, sir John Grey '^, was slain,
His lands then seiz'd on by the conqueror :
Her suit is now, to repossess those lands ;

' Which we in justice cannot well deny.
Because in quarrel of the house of York

* The worthy gentleman did lose his life *.

3 — sir John Grey,] Vid. Hall, Third Year of Edward IV.
folio 5. It was hitherto falsely printed Richard. Pope.

4 His lands then seiz'd on by the coNauEROR :
Her suit is now, to repossess those lands ;
Which we injustice cannot well deny,
Because in quarrel of the house of York

The worthy gentleman did lose his life.] This is in every
particular a falsification of history. Sir John Grey fell in the
second battle of St. Albans, which was fought on Shrove-Tuesday,
Feb. 17, 14-60-1, fighting on the side of King tlenry ; and so far
is it from being true that his lands were seized by the conqueror,
(Queen Margaret,) that they were in fact seized by the very per-
son who now speakf^, after his great victory at Towton, on the 29th
of March, 1461. The present scene is laid in 14'64>.

Shakspeare in new moulding this play followed implicitly his
author, (for these five lines, with only a slight variation in the
third, and fifth, are found in the old play,) without giving him-
self the trouble to examine the history ; but a few years after-
wards, when he had occasion to write his Richard HI. and was
not warped by a preceding misrepresentation of another writer, he
stated from the chronicles this matter truly as it was ; and this is

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 455

Glo. Your highness shall do well, to grant her
suit;

* It were dishonour, to deny it her.

K. Enrr. It were no less ; but yet I'll make a
pause.

* Glo. Yea ! is it so^ ?

I see, the lady hath a thing to grant,
Before the king will grant her humble suit.

Clu4r. He knows the game : How true he keeps
the wind ? [Aside.

Glo. Silence! {Aside.

* K. Edtf. Widow, we will consider ^ of your suit ;

* And come some other time, to know our mind.

* L. Grey. Right gracious lord, I cannot brook

delay :

* May it please your highness to resolve me now ;

* And what your pleasure is, shall satisfy me.

' Glo. [Aside.'] Ay, widow ? then I'll warrant you
all your lands,

* An if what pleases him, shall pleasure you.

' Fight closer, or, good faith, you'll catch a blow.

* Clar. I fear her not, unless she chance to fall.

[Aside.

one of the numerous circumstances that prove incontestably, in
my ap'Drehension, that he was not the original author of this and
the precedinf^ plfiy-

In King Richard III, Act I. Sc, III. Richard addressing himself
to Queen Elizabeth, (the lady Grey of the present Scene,) says:
" In all which time you, and your husband Greij,
" Were factious_/or the house of Lancaster ;
" (And Rivers so were you :) — was not your husband
" In MarmreVs battle at Saint Albans slain ? "
He calls it Margaret's battle, because she was there victorious.

Malone.
5 Glo. Yea ! is it so ? &c.] So the folio. The quartos read
with the following variations :

" Glo. \, is the wind in that door ?
" Clarence. I see the lady," &c. Steevens.
^ Widow, we will consider — ] This is a very lively and spritely
dialogue ; the reciprocation is quicker than is common in Shak-
speare. Johnson.

456 THIRD PART OF act m,

* Glo, God forbid that ! for he'll take vantages.

\^ Aside.
' K. Enrr. How many children hast thou, widow ?

tell me.
Clar. I think, he means to beg a child of her.

\As'uh.
Glo. Nay, whip me then ; he'll rather give her

two. \_Asidc.

L. Grey. Three, my most gracious lord.
Glo. You shall have four, if you'll be ruVd by

him. [Aside.

* K. EDTr. 'Twere pity, they should lose their

father's land.
L. Grey. Be pitiful, dread lord, and grant it then.
K. Edtf. Lords, give us leave; 1 11 try this widow's

wit.
Glo. Ay, good leave have you ^ ; for you will have
leave,
* Till youth take leave, and leave you to the crutch.
\Gloster and Clarence retire to the other
side.

* K. Eorr. Now tell me, madam, do you love

your children ?

* L. Grey. Ay, full as dearly as I love myself.

* K. Edtf. And would you not do much, to do

them good ?

* L. Grey. To do them good, I would sustain

some harm.

* K. Enrr. Then get your husband's lands, to do

them good.

* L. Grey. Therefore I came unto your majesty.
K. Edw. I'll tell you how these lands are to be got.

* L. Grey. So shall you bind me to your high-

ness' service.

7 — GOOD LEAVE havc you ;] So, in King John :

" Good leave; good Philip."
Good leave, are words implying readiness (i/'asaent. SxEEViiNSi.

sc. Ji. KING HENRY VI. 457

* K. Enrr. What service wilt thou do me, if I

give them ?

* L. Grey. What you command, that rests in me

to do.

* K. Edjf. But you will take exceptions to my

boon.

* L. Grey. No, gracious lord, except I cannot

do it.

* K. Enrr. Ay, but thou canst do what I mean

to ask.

* L. Grey. Why, then I will do what your grace

commands.

* Glo. He plies her hard ; and much rain wears

the marbled [Aside.

* Clar. As red as fire ! nay, then her wax must

melt. \_Amle.

L. Grey. Why stops my lord .^ shall I not hear

my task .^
K. Edw. An easy task ; 'tis but to love a king.
L. Grey. That's soon perform'd, because I am a

subject.
K. EDjr. Why then, thy husband's lands I freely

give thee.
L. Grey. I take my leave with many thousand

thanks.
Glo. The match is made ; she seals it with a

curtsy.
' K. EDTf\ But stay thee, 'tis the fruits of love I
mean.

* L. Grey. The fruits of love I mean, my loving

liege.

* K. Edw. Ay, but, I fear me, in another sense.
What love, think st thou, I sue so much to get ?

8 — much rain wears the marble.] So, in Watson's 47th
Sonnet :

'* In time the marble iveares with weakest showres."

See note in Dodslcy's Collection of Old Plays, edit. 1780^
vol. xii. p. 387. Steevens.

458 THIRD PART OF act in,

* L. Grey. My love till death ^ my humble

thanks, my prayers ;

* That love, vi^hich virtue begs, and virtue grants.

K. Edw. No, by my troth, I did not mean such
love.

* L. Grey. Why, then you mean not as I thought

you did.

* K. Edw. But now you partly may perceive my

mind.

* L. Grey. My mind will never grant what I

perceive

* Your highness aims at, if I aim aright.

K. Edw. To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with
thee.

* L. Grey. To tell you plain, I had rather lie in

prison .
K. Edw. Why, then thoushalt not have thy hus-
band's lands.
L, Grey. Why, then mine honesty shall be my
dower ;
For by that loss I will not purchase them.

' K. Edw. Therein thou wrong'st thy children

mightily.
L. Grey. Herein your highness wrongs both them
and me.
But, mighty lord, this merry inclination
' Accords not with the sadness ^ of :ny suit ;
Please you dismiss me, either with ay, or no.

K. Edw. Ay ; if thou wilt say ay, to my request :
No ; if thou dost say no, to my demand.

9 My love till death, &c.] The variation is here worth noting.
In the old play we here find —

" My humble service, such as subjects owe,
" And the laws command." Malone.
' — the SADNESS — ] i. e. the seriousness. So, in Romeo
and Juliet :

" Tell me in sadness who is she you love." Steevens.

sc. Ji. KING HENRY VI. 459

L. Grey. Then, no, my lord. My suit is at an
end.

* Glo. The widow likes him not, she knits her

brows. [Aside.

Clar. He is the bluntest wooer in Christendom.

\_Aside.

' K. Edw. [Aside^ Her looks do argue her re-
plete with modesty " ;

* Her words do show her wit incomparable ;

* All her perfections challenge sovereignty :
One way, or other, she is for a king ;

And she shall be my love, or else my queen. —
Say, that king Edward take thee for his queen ?
L. Grey. Tis better said than done, my gracious
lord :
I am a subject fit to jest withal,
But far unfit to be a sovereign.

K. Edjf. Sweet widow, by my state I swear to
thee,
I speak no more than what my soul intends ;
And that is, to enjoy thee for my love.

L. Grey. And that is more than I will yield
unto :

* 1 know, I am too mean to be your queen ;
And yet too good to be your concubine '^

* Her looks do argue her replete with modesty ;] So the
folio. The quartos read :

" Her looks are all replete with majesty."' Steevens.

3 And yet too good to be your concubine.] So, in Warner's
Albion's England, 1602, b. vii. chap, xxxiv. :

" His plea was love, my suit was land : I plie him, he plies me ;

" Too bace to be his queen, too good his concubine to be."

Shakspeare, however, adopted the words from Stowe's Chro-
nicle. Steevens.

These words, which are found in the old play, (except that we
have there bad, instead of mean,) were taken by the author of
that piece from Hall's Chronicle: " — whiche demaund she so
wyscly and with so covert speeche aunswered and re])ugned, afliyrm-
yng that as she was for his honour far unable to be his spouse

460 THIRD PART OF act in.

K. Edw. You cavil, widow; I did mean, my

queen.
L. Grey. 'Twill grieve your grace, my sons

should call you — father.
K. Edw. No more, than when thy daughters
call thee mother.
Thou art a widow ^, and thou hast some children ;
And, by God's mother, I, being but a bachelor.
Have other some : why, 'tis a happy thing
To be the father unto many sons.
* Answer no more, for thou shalt be my queen.
Glo. The ghostly father now hath done his shrift.

\As'ide.

Clar. When he was made a shriver, 'twas for

shift. \_j4side.

K. Edw. Brothers, you muse what chat we two

have had.
* Glo. The widow likes it not,' for she looks very

sad^.
K. Edw. You'd think it strange if I should marry

her.
Clar. To whom, my lord '?
K. Edw. Why, Clarence, to myself.

Glo. That would be ten days' wonder, at the least.
Clar. That's a day longer than a wonder lasts ^

and bedfellowe, so for her awne poor honestie she was to good
to be either his concubine, or sovereigne lady ; that where he
was a littel before heated with the dart of Cupido, he was nowe,"
&c. Malone.

•* Thou art a vvidow, &c.] This is part of the King's reply to
his mother in Stowe's Chronicle : " That she is a widow, and
hath already children ; by God's blessed lady I am a batchelor,
and have some too, and so each of us hath a proofe that neither
of us is like to be barrain," &c. Steevens.

It is found also in Hall's Chronicle, but is copied almost verbatim
from Sir Thomas More's History of King Richard III. Malone,

5 — she looks sad.] Old copy — very sad. For the sake of
metre I have omitted this useless adverb. Steevens,

^ That's a day longer, &c,] A nine days wonder was prover-

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 461

* Glo. By so much is the wonder in extremes.
K. Enir. Well, jest on, brothers : I can tell you
both,
Her suit is granted for her husband's lands.

Enter a Nobleman.

Nob. My gracious lord, Henry your foe is taken,

* And brought your prisoner to your palace gate.

K. Ed jr. See, that he be convey'd unto the
Tower : — ■
' And go we, brothers, to the man that took him,

* To question of his apprehension. —

* Widow, go you along; — Lords, use her honourable.

[E.veunt King Edward, Lady Grey, Cla-
rence, and Lord.
Glo. Ay, Edward will use women honourably.
'Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,

* That from his loins no hopeful branch may spring,
' To cross me from the golden time I look for !

' And yet, between my soul's desire, and me,

* (The lustful Edward's title buried,)

' Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,

* And all the unlook'd-for issue of their bodies,

* To take their rooms, ere 1 can place myself:
A cold premeditation for my purpose !

* Why, then I do but dream on sovereignty ;

* Like one that stands upon a promontory,

* And spies a far-offshore where he would tread,

* Wishing his foot were equal with his eye ;

* And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,

* Saying — he'll lade it dry to have his way :

* So do I wish the crown, being so far off;

* And so I chide the means that keep me from it;

bial. Thus, in a Sermon at Paul's Crosse, Nov. 25, 1621, bv
Henry King, p. 53 : " For mendacia diu non fallunt, and having
arrived at nine days, the age of n tvondcr, died in langhte?'."

llEEn.

462 THIRD PART OF act iii.

* And so I say — I'll cut the causes off,

* Flattering me with impossibilities. —

* My eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much,

* Unless my hand and strength could equal them.

* Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard :

* What other pleasure can the world afford ?
' I'll make my heaven ' in a lady's lap,

' And deck my body in gay ornaments,
And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.
' O miserable thought ! and more unlikely,
' Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns !
Why, love foreswore me in my mother's womb ^ :
' And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,
' She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe

* To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub '^ ;

* To make an envious mountain on my back.
Where sits deformity to mock my body;

' To shape my legs of an unequal size ;

* To disproportion me in every part,

* Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp ',

* That carries no impression like the dam.
And am I then a man to be belov'd ?

O, monstrous fault, to harbour such a thought !
Then, since this earth affords no joy to me,

%

7 I'll make my heaven, &:c.] Thus the folio. The quartos
alter and transpose the two lines, as follows :

" I will^o clad my body ixith gay ornaments,

" And lull myself tvilliin a lady's lap." Steevens.

^ — love forswore me in my mother's womb :] This line is
found also in a play entitled Wily Beguiled. The earliest edition
that 1 have seen of that piece, was printed in 1606; but it had
been exhibited on the stage soon after the year 1590. Malone.

9 — like a wither'd shrub :] So the folio. The quartos — like
a wither'd shrimp. Steevens.

' — unlick'd bear-whelp,] It was an opinion which, in spite
of its absurdity, prevailed long, that the bear brings forth only
shapeless lumps of animated flesh, which she licks into the form
of ])ears. It is now well known that the whelps of the bear are
produced in the same state with those of other creatures.

Johnson.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 463

* But to command, to check, to o'erbear such

* As are of better person than myself",

* I'll make my heaven — to dream upon the crown ;

* And, whiles I live, to account this world but hell,

* Until my mis-shap'd trunk that bears this head,

* Be round impaled with a glorious crown ^.

* And yet I know not how to get the crovATi,

* For many lives stand between me and home :

* And I, — like one lost in a thorny word,

* That rents the thorns, and is rent with the thorns ;

* Seeking a way, and straying from the way ;

* Not knowing how to find the open air,

* But toiling desperately to find it out, —

* Torment myself to catch the Enghsh crown :

* And from that torment I will free myself,

* Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.
Why, I can smile, and murder while I smile ;

^ to o'erbear such

As are of better person than myself,] Richard speaks here
the language of nature. Whoever is stigmatized with deformity
has a constant source of envy in his mind, and would counter-
balance by some other superiority those advantages which he feels
himself to want. Bacon remarks that the deformed are com-
monly daring ; and it is almost proverbially observed that they
are ill-natured. The truth is, that the deformed, like all other
men, are displeased with inferiority, and endeavour to gain ground
by good or bad means, as they are virtuous or corrupt.

Johnson.
12 3 4 5 6 7 8

J Until my mis-shap'd trunk that bears this head.
Be round impaled, ii-c] A transposition seems to be neces-
sary :

12 8 5 7 3 4 6

" Until my head, that this mis-shap'd trunk bears."
Otherwise the ' trunk that bears the head ' is to be encircled
with the crown, and not tlie head itself. Steevens.

Sir T. Hanmer reads as Mr. Steevens recommends. I believe
our author is answerable for this inaccuracy. Malone.

" — impaled — " i.e. encircled. So, in Heywood's Rape of
Lucrece, 1G30 :

" Tear off the crown that yet empales his temples."

Steevens.

464 THIRD PART OF act in.

' And cry, content, to that which grieves my heart;

* And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
''• And frame my face to all occasions.

* I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall ;

* I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;

* I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,

* Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,

* And, like a Sinon, take another Troy :
I can add colours to the cameleon ;

* Change shapes, with Proteus, for advantages,
' And set the murd'rous Machiavel to school \
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown ?

* Tut! were it further off, I'll pluck it down.

4 And set the murd'rous Machiavel to school.] As this is art
anachronism, and the old quarto reads :

" And set the aspiring Catiline to school — "
I don't know why it should not be preferred. Warburton.

This is not the first proof I have met with, that Shakspeare, in
his attempts to familiarize ideas, has diminished their propriety.

Steevens.
Catiline first occurred to the author of the old play, who was
probably a scholar : and Machiavel, who is mentioned in various
books of our author's age, as the great exemplar of profound
politicians, naturally was substituted by Shakspeare in his room.
See this play, Part I. Act V. Sc. IV. :

" Alen^on ! that notorious Machiavel ! "
In King Edward II. Marlowe, who was probably the author of
The True Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, in like manner
introduces Catiline :

" Spencer, the father of that wanton Spencer,

" That like the lawless Catiline of Rome,

" Revell'd in England's wealth and treasury." Malone.

sc. III. KING HENRY VI, 4G5

SCENE III.

France. A Room in the Palace.

Flourish. Enter Letfis the Frc??ch King, and
Lady Bon.^, attended; the King takes his State.
Then enter Queen Margaret, Prince Edtfard
her Son, and the Earl of Oxford.

' K. Letf. Fair queen of England % worthy Mar-
garet, \_Rising.

* Sit down" with us ; it ill befits thy state,

* And birth, that thou should'st stand, while Lewis

doth sit.
* Q. Mar. No, mighty king of France^; now
Margaret

* Must strike her sail, and learn a while to serve,

* Where kings command. I was, I must confess,

* Great Albion's queen in former golden days :

* But now mischance hath trod my title down,

* And with dishonour laid me on the ground ;

* Where I must take hke seat unto my fortune,

* And to my humble seat conform myself.

s Fair queen of England, &c.] Thus the folio. The quartos
give the following :

" Welcome, queen Margaret, to the court of France.
" It fits not Lewis to sit while thou dost stand.
"■ Sit by my side ; and here I vow to thee,
" Thou shalt have aid to re-possess thy right,
" And beat proud Edward from his usurped seat,
" And place king Henry in his former rule." Steevens.
^ No, mighty king of France, &c.] Instead of this speech the
quartos only supply the following :

" Qtieen. I humbly thank your royal majesty,
" And pray the God of heaven to bless thy state,
" Great king of France, that thus regard's! our wrongs."

Steevens.

VOL. XVIII. 2 II

466 THIRD PART OF act in.

* K, Lew. Why, say, fair queen, whence springs

this deep despair ?

* Q. Mar. From such a cause as fills mine eyes

with tears,

* And stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in

cares.

* K. Lew. Whate'er it be, be thou still like thy-

self,

* And sit thee by our side : yield not thy neck

\Seats her by Jiim.

* To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind

* Still ride in triumph over all mischance.

* Be plain, queen Rlargaret, and tell thy grief ;

* It shall be eas'd, if France can yield relief.

* Q. Mar. Those gracious words revive my

drooping thoughts,

* And give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.

* Now, therefore, be it known to noble Lewis, —

* That Henry, sole possessor of my love,

* Is, of a king, become a banish'd man,

* And forc'd to live in Scotland a forlorn ;

* While proud ambitious Edward, duke of York,

* Usurps the regal title, and the seat

* Of England's true-anointed lawful king.

* This is the cause, that I, poor Margaret, —

* With this my son, prince Edward, Henry's heir, —

* Am come to crave thy just and lawful aid;

* And, if thou fail us, all our hope is done :

* Scotland hath will to help, but cannot help ;

* Our people and our peers are both misled,

* Our treasure seiz'd, our soldiers put to flight,

* And, as thou see'st, ourselves in heavy plight.

* K. Letf. Renowned queen, with patience calm

the storm,

* While we bethink a means to break it off.

* Q. Mar. The more we stay, the stronger grows

our foe.

sc. in. KING HENRY VI. 467

* K. Letf. The more I stay, the more Til suc-

cour thee.

* Q. Mar. O, but impatience waiteth on true

sorrow :
* And see where comes the breeder of my sorrow.

Enter Wartfick"^ ^ attended.

' K. Letf. What's he, approacheth boldly to our
presence .^

7 Enter IVarivicIc,'] This nobleman's embassy and commission,
the insult he receives by the King's hasty marriage, and his con-
sequent resolution to avenge it, with the capture, imprisonment,
and escape of the King, Shakspeare, it is true, found in Hall
and Holinshed ; but later, as well as earlier writers, of better
authority, incline us to discredit the whole ; and to refer the
rupture between the King and his political creator, to causes
which have not reached posterity, or to that jealousy and ingra-
titude so natural, perhaps, to those who are under great obliga-
tions too great to be discharged. " Beneficia (says Tacitus,) eo
usque laeta sunt, dum videntur exsolvi posse : ubi multum ante-
venere, pro gratia odium redditur."

There needs no other proof how little our common histories
are to be depended upon than this fabulous story of Warwick
and the Lady Bona. The King was privately married to Lady
Elizabeth Widville, in 1463, and in February, 1465, Warwick
actually stood sponsor to the Princess Elizabeth their first child.
What secretly displeased him was: 1. the King's marrying one
of the Queen's sisters to the Duke of Buckingham ; 2. his con-
ferring the office of Lord Treasurer (which he had taken from the
Lord Montjoy,) upon Lord Rivers, the Queen's brother; 3. his
making a match between the son and heir of the Lord Herbert
and another of the Queen's sisters ; and between that nobleman's
daughter and the young Lord Lisle ; and creating young Herbert
Knight and Lord of Dunstar; 4. his making a match between
Sir Thomas Grey, the Queen's son, and Lady Ann, daughter and
heiress of the Duke of Exeter, the King's niece, who had been
talked of as a wife for the Earl of Northumberland, Warwick's
brother. See Wilhelmi Wyrcester Annales, which are unfor-
tunately defective from the beginning of November, 14-68, atwhich
time no open rupture had taken place between the King and
Warwick, who, for any thing that appears to the contrary, were,
at least, ttpon speaking terms." Ritson.

2n 2

468 THIRD PART OF act hi.

Q. Mar. Our earl of Warwick, Edward's greatest

friend.
K. Lejf. Welcome, brave Warwick ! What brings

thee to France ?
[Descending from his state. Queen Margaret

rises.

* Q. Mar. Ay, now begins a second storm to rise ;

* For this is he that moves both wind and tide.

' IFar. From worthy Edward, king of Albion,
My lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend,
I come, — in kindness, and unfeigned love, —
First, to do greetings to thy royal person ;
And, then, to crave a league of amity ;
And, lastly, to confirm that amity
With nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant
That virtuous lady Bona, thy fair sister,
To England's king in lawful marriage.

* Q. Mar. If that go forward, Henry's hope is

done^.
ffAR. And, gracious madam, [To Bona.^ in our
king's behalf,

• I am commanded, with your leave and favour.
Humbly to kiss your hand, and with my tongue
To tell the passion of my sovereign's heart ;
Where fame, late entering at his heedful ears.
Hath plac'd thy beauty's image, and thy virtue ^.

^ — Henry's hope is done.] So the folio. The quartos read :
— all our hope is done. Steevens.

We have had nearly the same line in Margaret's former sj)eech,
p. 460. The line having made an impression on Shakspeare, he
introduced it in that speech, which appears (except in this in-
stance) to have been entirely his own production ; and afterwards
inadvertently suffered it with a slioht variation to remain here,
where alone it is found in the old play. Malone.

9 Hath plac'd thy beauty's image, and thy virtue.] So the
folio. The quarto thus :

" Hath plac'd thy glorious image, and thy vertues."

Steevens.

sc. in, KING HENRY VI. 4G9

Q. Mar. King Lewis, — and lady Bona, — hear me
speak,

* Before you answer Warwick. His demand ^

* Springs not from Edward's well-meant honest

love,

* But from deceit, bred by necessity ;

* For how can tyrants safely govern home,

* Unless abroad they purchase great alliance .^

* To prove him tyrant this reason may suffice, —

* That Henry liveth still : but were he dead,

* Yet here prince Edward stands, king Henry's son.

* Look therefore, Lewis, that by this league and

marriage

* Thou draw not on thy danger and dishonour :

* For though usurpers sway the rule a while,

* Yet heavens are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.

War. Injurious Margaret !

Prince. And why not queen ?

War. Because thy father Henry did usurp ;
And thou no more art prince, than she is queen.

OxF. Then Warwick disannuls great John of
Gaunt,
Which did subdue the greatest part of Spain ;
And, after John of Gaunt, Henry the fourth,

* Whose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest ' ;
And, after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth,
Who by his prowess conquered all France :
From these our Henry lineally descends.

War. Oxford, how haps it, in this smooth dis-
course.
You told not, how Henry the sixth hath lost

1 — His demand, &c.] Instead of the remainder of this
speech the old play has the following lines :

" hear me speak,

" Before you answer Warwick, or his iwrds,

" For he it is hath done us all these wrongs.'" Malone.

2 — to the wasEST ;] So the folio. The quartos — to ihmvorld.

Steevens.

470 THIRD PART OF act jij.

All that which Henry the fifth had gotten ?
Methinks, these peers of France should smile at

that.
But for the rest, — You tell a pedigree
Of threescore and two years ; a silly time
To make prescription for a kingdom's worth.

* OxF. Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against

thy liege,

* Whom thou obeyedst thirty and six years ^,

* And not bewray thy treason with a blush ?

War. Can Oxford, that did ever fence the right.
Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree .^
For shame, leave Henry, and call Edward king.

* OxF. Call him my king, by whose injurious

doom
' My elder brother, the lord Aubrey Vere,
Was done to death ^ and more than so, my father,
Even in the downfall of his mellow'd years,
' When nature brought him to the door of

death ' "^
No, Warwick, no ; while life upholds this arm,
This arm upholds the house of Lancaster.
War. And I the house of York.
K. Lew. Queen Margaret, prince Edward, and

Oxford,

* Vouchsafe, at our request, to stand aside,

* While I use further conference with Warwick.

3 — thirty and SIX years,] So the folio. The quartos — thirty
and eight years. Steevens.

The number in the old play is right. The alteration^ however,
is of little consequence. Malone.

4 When nature brought him to the door of death ?] Thus the
folio. The quartos :

*' When age did call him to the door of death."

Steevens.
This passage unavoidably brings before the mind that admirable
image of old age in Sackville's Induction :

'* His withered fist still knocking at deathe's dore," &c.

Far ME K.

sc.m. KING HENRY VI. 471

* Q. Mjr. Heaven grant, that Warwick's words

bewitch him not !

[Retiring with the Prince and Oxford

* K. Letv. Now, Warwick, tell me, even upon

thy conscience,

* Is Edward your true king ? for I were loath,

* To link with him that were not lawful chosen ^.

War. Thereon I pawn my credit and mine

honour.
AT. Letf. But is he gracious in the people's eye ?
War. The more, that Henry was unfortunate ^.
K. Letv. Then further, — all dissembling set aside,

* Tell me for truth the measure of his love

* Unto our sister Bona.

War. Such it seems.

As may beseem a monarch like himself.
Myself have often heard him say, and swear, —

s — that were not lawful chosen.] Thus the folio. The
quarto as follows :

" that is not lawful heir:' Steevens.

Here we have another instance of an impropriety into which
Shakspeare has fallen by sometimes following and sometimes de-
serting his original. After Lewis has asked in the old play whe-
ther Henry was lawful heir to the crown of England, and has
been answered in the affirmative, he next enquires whether he is
gracious, that is, a favourite with the people. Shakspeare has
preserved this latter question, though he made a variation in the
former-; not adverting that after a man has been chosen by the
voices of the people to be their king, it is quite superfluous to ask
whether he is popular or no, — Edward was in fact chosen king,
both by the parliament and by a large body of the people assem-
bled in St. John's Fields. See Fabian, wlio wrote about fifty
years after the time, p. 472^ and Stowe, p. 688, edit. 1605.

Malome.

I do not perceive the impropriety of the King's question, or the
cogency of the remark founded on it. Is it impossible that a king,
elected by his people, should soon afterwards become unpopular ?

Steevens.

^ — that Henry was unfortunate.] He means, that Heniy was
unsuccessful in war, having lost his dominions in France, &c.

Malone.

472 THIRD PART OF jcT jii.

That this his love was an eternal plant ^ ;
Whereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground,
The leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun;
Exempt from envy, but not from disdain ^,
Unless the lady Bona quit his pain.

K. Lew. Now, sister, let us hear your firm re-
solve.
Bona. Your grant, or your denial, shall be
mine : —
Yet I confess, [To JVar.~\ that often ere this day.
When I have heard your king's desert recounted.
Mine ear hath tempted judgment to desire.

* K. Letv. Then, Warwick, thus, — Our sister
shall be Edward's ;

* And now forthwith shall articles be drawn

* Touching the jointure that your king must make,

* Which with her dowry shall be counterpois'd : —
Draw near, queen Margaret ; and be a wdtness,

7 That this his love was an eternal plant ;] The old quarto
reads rightly eternal ; alluding to the plants of Paradise.

Warburton.

In the language of Shakspeare's time, by an eternal plant was
meant what we now call &. perennial one. Steevens.

The folio reads — " an external plant ; " but as that word seems
to afford no meaning, and as Shakspeare has adopted every other
part of this speech as he found it in the old i)lay, without altera-
tion, I suppose external was a mistake of the transcriber or
printer, and have therefore followed the reading of the quarto.

Malone.

^ Exempt from envy, but not from disdain.] Envjj is always
supposed to have some fascinating or blasting power ; and to be
out of the reach of envy is therefore a privilege belonging only to
great excellence. 1 know not well why envi/ is mentioned here,
or whose envij can be meant ; but the meaning is, that his love is
superior to enx\y, and can feel no blast from the lady's disdain.
Or that, if Bona refuse to quit or requite his pain, his love may
turn to disdain, though the consciousness of his own merit will
exempt him from the pangs oi envy. Johnson.

I believe envy is in this place, as in many others, put for malice
or hatred. His situation places him above these, though it cannot
secure him from female disdain. Steevens.

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 473

That Bona shall be wife to the English king.

Priixce. To Edward, but not to the English king.

* Q. M^/?. Deceitful Warwick ! it was thy de-

vice

* By this alliance to make void my suit ;

* Before thy coming, Lewis was Henry's friend.

* K. Letf. And still is friend to him and Mar-

garet :

* But if your title to the crown be weak, —

* As may appear by Edward's good success, —

* Then 'tis but reason, that I be releas'd

* From giving aid, which late I promised.

* Yet shall you have all kindness at my hand,

* That your estate requires, and mine can yield.
War. Henry now lives in Scotland, at his ease ;

Where having nothing, nothing he can lose.
And as for you yourself, our quondam queen, —
You have a father able ^ to maintain you ;
And better 'twere you troubled him than France.

* Q. Mar. Peace, impudent and shameless War-

wick, peace ^ ;

* Proud setter-up and puller-down of kings ^ ;

* I will not hence, till with my talk and tears,

* Both full of truth, I make king Lewis behold

* Thy sly conveyance \ and thy lord's false love ;

9 You have a father able— ] This seems ironical. The poverty
of Margaret's father is a very frequent topick of reproach.

Johnson.

' Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick, peace ;] The
word peace, at the end of this line, is wanting in the first folio,
but is supplied by the second. Steevens.

- Proud setter-up and puller-down of kings !] The Queen here
applies to W^arwick, the very words that Edward, p. 428, addresses
to the Deity. M. Mason. "

See p. 428, n. 7. The repetition has been already accounted
for, in p. 451, n. 2, and p. 468, n. 8, Malone.

3 Thy sly conveyance,] Conveyance, is juggling, and thence is
taken for artifice andjraud. Johnson.

474 THIRD PART OF act ui.

* For both of you are birds of self-same feather.

\A horn sounded xvithin.
K, Letv. Warwick, this is some post to us, or
thee.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My lord ambassador, these letters are for
you;
Sent from your brother, marquis Montague.
These from our king unto your majesty. —
And, madam, these for you; from whom I know not.
[To Margaret. They all read their letters.
OxF. I like it well, that our fair queen and mis-
tress
Smiles at her news, while Warwick frowns at his.
Prince. Nay, mark, how Lewis stamps as he were
nettled :

* I hope all's for the best.

K. Letv. Warwick, what are thy news .^ and
yours, fair queen .^

* Q. Mar. Mine, such as fill my heart with un-

hop'djoys.
War. Mine, full of sorrow and heart's discontent.
K. Letf. What ! has your king married the lady

Grey ?

* And now, to sooth your forgery and his*,

* Sends me a paper to persuade me patience ?

* Is this the alliance that he seeks with France ?

* Dare he presume to scorn us in this manner .^

* Q. Mar. I told your majesty as much before :
This proveth Edward's love, and Warwick's honesty.

So, in King Richard II. :

" conveijers are you all,

" That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall." Steevens.
^ — to SOOTH your forgery and his,] To soften it, to make
it more endurable : or perhaps, to sooth us, and to prevent our
being exasperated by your forgery and his. Malone.

sc. III. KING HENRY VI. 475

U'AR. King Lewis, I here protest, — in sight of
heaven,
And by the hope I have of heavenly bliss, —
That I am clear from this misdeed of Edward's ;
No more my king, for he dishonours me ;
But most himself, if he could see his shame. —
Did I forget, that by the house of York
My father came untimely to his death ^ ?
Did I let pass the abuse done to my niece ^ ?
Did I impale him with the regal crown ?
Did I put Henry from his native right '' ;

* And am I guerdon'd ^ at the last with shame ?

* Shame on himself! for my desert is honour.

* And, to repair my honour lost for him,

* I here renounce him, and return to Henry :

^ Did I forget, that by the house of York
My father came untimely to his death ?] Warwick's father
came untimely to his death, being taken at the battle of Wake-
field, and beheaded at Pomfret, But the author of the old play
imagined he fell at the action at Ferry-bridge, and has in a former
scene, to which this line refers, (see p. 426, n. 3,) described his
death as happening at that place. Sliakspeare very properly re-
jected that description of the death of the Earl of Salisbury, of
whose death no mention is made in this play, as it now stands ;
yet he has inadvertently retained this line which alludes to a pre-
ceding description that he had struck out ; and this is another
proof of his falling into inconsistencies, by sometimes following,
and sometimes deserting, his original. Malone.

^ Did I let pass the abuse done to my niece?] Thus Holin-
shed, p. 668 : " King Edward did attempt a thing once in the
earles house, which was much against the earles honestie (whe-
ther he would have defloured his daughter or his niece, the cer-
taintie was not for both their honours revealed,) for surely such a
thing was attempted by king Edward." Steevens.

' Did I put Henry from his native right ; &c.] Thus the folio.
The quartos read :

" And thrust king Henry from his native home ?
" And (most ungrateful) doth he use me thus? "

Steevens.
^ — guerdon'd — ] i. e. rewarded. So, in Part II. of this play :
" See you well guerdoned for these good deserts."

Steevens.

476 THIRD PART OF act iir.

* My noble queen, let former grudges pass,
And henceforth I am thy true servitor ;

I will revenge his wrong to lady Bona,
And replant Henry in his former state.

' Q. Mar. Warwick, these words have turn'd my
hate to love ;

* And I forgive and quite forget old faults,

' And joy that thou becom'st king Henry's friend.

War. So much his friend, ay, his unfeigned friend.
That, if king Lewis vouchsafe to furnish us
With some few bands of chosen soldiers,
I'll undertake to land them on our coast.
And force the tyrant from his seat by war.^
'Tis not his new-made bride shall succour him :

* And as for Clarence, — as my letters tell me,

* He's very likely now to fall from him ;

* For matching more for wanton lust than honour,

* Or than for strength and safety of our country.

* Bona. Dear brother, how shall Bona be re-

veng'd,

* But by thy help to this distressed queen ?

* Q. Mar. Renowned prince, how shall poor

Henry live,

* Unless thou rescue him from foul despair ?

* Bona. My quarrel, and this English's queen's,

are one.

* War. And mine, fair lady Bona, joins with

yours.

* K. Leu. And mine, with hers, and thine, and

Margaret's.
Therefore, at last I firmly am resolv'd.
You shall have aid.

* Q. Mar. Let me give humble thanks for all at

once.
K. Lew. Then England's messenger, return in
post;
And tell false Edward, thy supposed king, —

^c. III. KING HENRY VI. 477

That Lewis of France is sending over maskers.
To revel it with him and his new bride :

* Thou seest what's past, go fear thy king ^ withal.
Bona. Tell him, In hope he'll prove a widower

shortly,
I'll wear the willow garland for his sake.

Q. M.^R. Tell him. My mourning weeds are laid
aside,
And I am ready to put armour on \

JVar. Tell him from me. That he hath done me
wrong ;
And therefore I'll uncrown him, ere't be long.
There's thy reward^ ; be gone. [Ei-it Mess.

K. Letf. But, Warwick, thou,

And Oxford, with five thousand men,
Shall cross the seas, and bid false Edward battle ■'^:
*= And, as occasion serves, this noble queen

* And prince shall follow with a fresh supply.

* Yet, ere thou go, but answer me one doubt ; — ■

* What pledge have we of thy firm loyalty .^

War. This shall assure my constant loyalty : —
That if our queen and this young prince agree,
I'll join mine eldest daughter, and my joy,

9 — go FEAR thy king — ] That iSj^V/^A^ thy king. Johnson.
So, in King Henry IV. Part II. :

" The peopleyer/r me," &c. Steevens.

1 — to put armour on.] It was once no unusual thing for
queens themselves to appear in armour at the head of their
forces. The suit which Elizabeth wore, when she rode through
the lines at Tilbury to encourage the troops, on the approach of
the armada, may be still seen in the Tower. Steevens.

2 — thy reward ;] Here we are to su))pose that, according to
ancient custom, Warwick makes a present to the Herald or Mes-
senger, whom the original copies call — a Post. See vol. xvii.
p. 372, n, 8. Steevens.

3 — and BID false Edward battle:] This phrase is common
to many of our ancient writers. So, in The Misfortunes of Arthur,
a dramatick performance, 1587 :

" ■ my flesh abhors

" To hid ihe battle to my proper blood." Steevens.

478 THIRD PART OF act iii.

To him forthwith^ in holy wedlock bands.

* Q. Mar. Yes, I agree ^, and thank you for your
motion : —

4 — I'll join mine eldest daughter, and my joy,

To him forthwith — ] Surely this is a mistake of the copyists.
Hall, in the ninth year of King Edward IV. says : " Edward
prince of Wales wedded Anne second daughter to the earl of
Warwick." And the Duke of Clarence was in love with the elder,
the Lady Isabel ; and in reality was married to her five years be-
fore Prince Edward took the Lady Anne to wife. And, in King
Richard the Third, Gloster, who married this Lady Anne when a
widow, says:

" For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.
" What though I ki^l'd her husband and her father? "
i. e. Prince Edward, and King Henry VI. her father-in-law. See
likewise Holinshed, in his Chronicle, p. 671 and 674. Theobald.

This is a departure from the truth of history, for Edward Prince
of Wales (as Mr. Theobald has observed,) was married to Anne,
second daughter of the Earl of Warwick.

But notwithstanding this, his reading {^youngest daughter] has,
I think, been improperly adopted by the subsequent editors ; for
though in fact the Duke of Clarence married Isabella, the eldest
daughter of Warwick, in 1468, and Edward Prince of Wales mar-
ried Anne, his second daughter, in 1470 : neither of his daughters
was married at the time when Warwick was in France negociating
a marriage between Lady Bona and his King: so that there is
no inconsistency in the present proposal. Supposing, however,
that the original author of this play made a mistake, and imagined
that the youngest daughter of \Varvvick was married to Clarence,
I apprehend he, and not his editor, ought to answer for it.

This is one of the numerous circumstances which prove that
Shakspeare was not the original author of this play ; for though
here, as in a former passage, (p. 4.54, n. 4,) he has followed the
old drama, when he afterwards wrote his King Richard III. and
found it necessary to consult the ancient historians, he represented
Lady Anne, as she in fact was, the widow of Edward, Prince of
Wales, and the youngest daughter of the Earl of \Var.vick.

Malone.

Is it improbable then that Shakspeare should have become
more accurate as he grew older? Might he not, previous to tlie
composition of a later play, have furnished himself with that know-
ledge of history which was wanting in his dramatick performance
of an earlier date ? Steevens.

5 Yes, I agree, he.'] Instead of this speech, the quarto has
onlv the following:

6

sc. JIT. KING HENRY VI. 479

' Son Edward, she is fair and virtuous,

* Therefore delay not, give thy hand to Warwick ;
' And, with thy hand, thy faith irrevocable,

* That only Warwick's daughter shall be thine.

* Prince. Yes, I accept her, for she well deserves

it;

* And here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand.

[He gives his hand to IF^nmcK.

* K. Lejv. Why stay we now .^ These soldiers

shall be levied,

* And thou, lord Bourbon ^ our high admiral,

* Shall waft them over with our royal fleet. —

* I long, till Edward fall by war's mischance,

* For mocking marriage with a dame of France.

\Exeunt ail hut Warwick.
JVar. I came from Edward as embassador.
But I return his sworn and mortal foe :
Matter of marriage was the charge he gave me,
But dreadful war shall answer his demand.
Had he none else to make a stale \ but me .^
Then none but I shall turn his jest to sorrow.
I was the chief that rais'd him to the crown.
And I'll be chief to bring him down again :
Not that I pity Henry's misery,
But seek revenge on Edward's mockery. \_Exit.

"■ With all my heart ; I like this match full well.
*' Love her, son Edward ; she is fair and young ;
" And give thy hand to Warwick, for his love." Steevens.
^ And thou, lord Bourbon, &c.] Instead of this and the three
following lines, we have these in the old play :

" And, yoii, lord Bourbon, our high admiral,

" Shall waft them safely to the English coasts ;

" And chase proud Edimrdfrom his slumbering trance,

*' For mocking marriage with the name of France."

Malone.
"> — to make a stale,] i. e. stalking-horse, pretence. So, in
The Comedy of Errors :

" .. poor I am but his stale."'
See Act II. Sc. I. Steevens.

480 THIRD PART OF act iv.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter Gloster, Clarence, Somerset, Montague,

and Others.

* Glo. Now tell me, brother Clarence ^ what

think you

* Of this new marriage with the lady Grey ?

* Hath not our brother made a worthy choice ?

* Clar. Alas, you know, 'tis far from hence to

France ;

* How could he stay till Warwick made return ?

* SoM. My lords, forbear this talk ; here comes

the king.

Flourish. Enter King EnrrARD, attended; Lady
Grey, as Queen ; Pembroke, Stafford, Hast^
iNGs, and Others ^.

* Glo. And his well-chosen bride.

^ Now tell nie, brother Clarence,] In the old play the King
enters here along with his brothers, not after them, and opens
the scene thus :

" Edw. Brothers of Clarence and of Glocester,
" What think you of our marriage with the lady Grey?

" Glo. My lord, we think as Warwick and Lewis,
" That are so slack in judgment that they'll take
" No offence at this sudden marriage.

" Edw. Suppose they do, they are but Lewis and Warwick ;^
" And I am your king and Warwick's ; and will be
" Obey'd.

" Glo. And shall, because you are our king ;
*' But yet such sudden marriages seldom proveth well.
" Ediv. Yea, brother Richard, are you against us too ? "

Malone.
y The stage direction in the folio, \_Four stand on ond side, and
Jour on the other.'] is sufficient proof that the play, as exhibited
there, was printed from a stage copy. I suppose these eight im-
portant personages were attendants. Steevens.

SCI. KING HENRY VI. 481

* Clar. I mind to tell him plainly what I think.

* K. Eorr. Now, brother of Clarence, how like

you our choice,

* That you stand pensive, as half malcontent ?

* Clar. As well as Lewis of France, or the earl

of Warwick;

* Which are so weak of courage, and in judgment,
' That they'll take no offence at our abuse.

* K. Edtv. Suppose, they take offence without a

cause,

* They are but Lewis and Warwick ; I am Edward,

* Your king and Warwick's, and must have my will.

* Glo, And you shall have your will, because our

king:

* Yet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.

K. Edw. Yea, brother Richard, are you offended
too ' ?

* Glo. Not I :

* No ; God forbid, that I should wish them sever'd

* Whom God hath join'd together : ay, and 'twere

pity,

To sunder them that yoke so well together.

* K. Edtf. Setting your scorns, and your misHke,

aside,

* Tell me some reason, why the lady Grey

* Should not become my wife, and England's

queen : —

* And you too, Somerset -, and Montague,

* Speak freely what you think.

* Clar. Then this is my opinion^ — that king

Lewis

' — are you offended too ?] So the folio. The quartos :

" are you against us too ? " Steevens.

^ And you too, Somerset, &c.] In the old play Somerset
dees not appear in this scene. Malone.

3 Clar. Then this is my opinion, — &c.] Instead of this and
the following speech, the quartos read thus :

" Clnr. My lord, then this is my opinion ;
VOL. XVIII. 2l

482 THIRD PART OF act ly,

* Becomes your enemy, for mocking him

* About the marriage of the lady Bona.

' Glo. And Warwick, doing what you gave in
charge,
' Is now dishonoured by this new marriage.

* K. Edjf. What, if both Lewis and Warwick be

appeas'd,

* By such invention as I can devise ?

Mont. Yet to have join'd with France in such
ahiance.
Would more have strengthen'd this our common-
wealth

* 'Gainst foreign stornis, than any home-bred mar-

riage.

* Hast. Why, knows not Montague, that of itself
England is safe, if true within itself* ?

* Mgnt. Yes; but the safer, when 'tis back'd

with France \

" That Warwick, being dishonour'd in his embassage,
*' Doth seek revenge, to quit his injuries.

" Glo. And Lewis, in regard of his sister's wrongs,
*' Doth join with Warwick to supplant your state."

Steevens.

4 Why, knows not Montague, that of itself

England is safe, if true within itself?] In the old play these
lines stand thus :

" Let England be true within itself,

" We need not PVance nor any alliance with them."

It is observable that the first of these lines occurs in the old
play of King John, 1591, from which our author borrowed it, and
inserted it with a slight change in his own play with the same
title. Malone.

The original of this sentiment is probably to be found in Dr.
Andrew Borde's Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge,
bl. 1. printed for Copland, Sign. A 4.

See vol. XV. p. 375, n. 3. Neither the lapse of two centuries, nor
any circumstance which has occurred during that eventful period,
has in any degree shook the credit of this observation, or impaired
the confidence of the publick in the truth of it. " England is and
will be still safe, if true within itself." Reed.

5 Yes ; but the safer, &c.] Thus ,the second folio. Yes, in
the first, is omitted. Steevens.

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 483

* Hjst. 'Tis better using France, than trusting

France :

* Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas*^,

* Which he hath given for fence impregnable,

* And with their helps only defend ourselves ;

* In them and in ourselves, our safety lies.
Clar. For this one speech, lord Hastings well

deserves

* To have the heir of the lord Hungerford.

' K. Enrr. Ay, what of that ? it was my will, and
grant ;

* And, for this once, my will shall stand for law.

* Glo. And yet, methinks \ your grace hath not

done well,
' To give the heir and daughter of lord Scales

* Unto the brother of your loving bride ;

* She better would have fitted me, or Clarence :
' But in your bride you bury brotherhood.

* Clar. Or else vou would not have bestow'd

the heir ^

* Of the lord Bonville on your new wife's son,

* And leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.

K. Enrr. Alas, poor Clarence ! is it for a wife,
' That thou art malcontent ? I will provide thee.

^ — with the seas,] This has been the advice of every man
who in any age understood and favoured the interest of England.

Johnson.
7 And yet, methinks, &c.] The quartos vary from the folio,
as follows :

" Cla. Ay, and for such a tiling too, the lord Scales
" Did well deserve at your hands, to have the
" Daughter of the lord Bonfield, and left vour
" Brothers to go seek elsewhere ; but in your madness
" You buiy brotherhood." Steevens.
^ — you would not have bestow'd the heir — ] It must be
remembered, that till the Restoration, the heiresses of great
estates were in the wardship of the King, who in their minority
gave them up to plunder, and afterwards matched them to his
favourites. I know not when liberty gained more than by the
abolition of the court of wards. Johnson.

2 I 2

484 THIRD PART OF act iv,

' Clar. In choosing for yourself, you show'd your
judgment;

* Which being shallow, you shall give me leave

* To play the broker in mine own behalf ;

* And, to that end, I shortly mind to leave you.

K. Enw. Leave me, or tarry, Edward will be
king,

* And not be tied unto his brother's will.

' Q. Eliz. My lords, before it pleas'd his majesty

* To raise my state to title of a queen,

' Do me but right, and you must all confess

* That I was not ignoble of descent ^,

* And meaner than myself have had like fortune.

* But as this title honours me and mine,

* So your dislikes, to whom I would be pleasing,

* Do cloud my joys with danger and with sorrow.

* K. Edtf. My love, forbear to fawn upon their

frowns ^ :

* What danger, or what sorrow can befall thee,

* So long as Edward is thy constant friend,

* And their true sovereign, whom they must obey ?

* Nay, whom they shall obey, and love thee too,

* Unless they seek for hatred at my hands:

* Which if they do, yet will I keep thee safe,

' And they shall feel the vengeance of my wrath.

* Glo. I hear, yet say not much, but think the

more. [Aside.

9 — I vvas not ignoble of descent,] Her father was Sir Richard
Widville, Knight, afterwards Earl of Rivers ; her mother, Jaque-
line, Duchess Dowager of Bedford, who was daughter to Peter of
Luxemburgh, Earl of St. Paul, and widow of John Duke of
Bedford, brother to King Henry V. Malone.

» My love, forbear, &c.] Instead of this and the following
speech, the old play has only these lines :

" Edvo. Forbear, my love, to fawne upon their frowns,
"■' For thee they must obey, nay, shall obey,
" And if they look for favour at my hands.

" Mont. My lord, here is the messenger return'd from
Fraunce." Malone.

sc, I. KING HENRY VI. 485

Enter a Messenger.

* K. Edtv. Now, messenger, what letters, or what

news.
From France ?

* Mess. My sovereign liege, no letters ; and few

words,

* But such as I, without your special pardon.
Dare not relate.

* K. Edjf. Go to, we pardon thee : therefore, in

brief,

* Tell me their words as near as thou canst guess

them.

* What answer makes king Lewis unto our letters ?

Mess. At my depart, these were his very words ;
Go tell false Edzvard, thy supposed king, —
That Lewis of France is sending over maskers.
To revel it with him and his new bride.

K. Edtf. Is Lewis so brave ? belike, he thinks
me Henry.

* But what said lady Bona to my marriage ^ ?

Mess. These were her words, utter'd with mild
disdain ;
Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widozver shortly.
Til wear the willow garland for his sake.

K. Edtf. I blame not her, she could say little less ;

* She had the wrong. But what said Henry's queen ?

* For I have heard, that she was there in place ^.

Mess. Tell him, quoth she, my mourning weeds
are done ^,
And I am ready to put armour on.

* — to my marriage ?] The quartos read —

" to these wrongs." Steevens.

3 — she was there in place.] This expression, signifying,
she was there present, occurs frequently in old English writers.

Malone.
Enplace, a Gallicism. Steevens.

4 —are done,] i. e. are consumed, thrown off. The word

486 THIRD PART OF act ii\

* K. Edw. Belike, she minds to play the Amazon.
But what said Warwick to these injuries ?

' Mess. He, more incens d against your majesty
' Than all the rest, discharg'd me with these words ;
Tell him from me, that he hath done me 'wro7ig^
And therefore III uncroxvn him, ere!t he long.

K. Edw. Ha ! durst the traitor breathe out so
proud words ?
' Well, I will arm me, being thus forewarn'd :
' They shall have wars, and pay for their presump-
tion.

* But say, is Warwick friends with Margaret ?

Mess. Ay, gracious sovereign; they are so link'd
in friendship,

* That young prince Edward marries Warwick's

daughter.
Clar. Belike, the elder ; Clarence will have the
younger ^

* Now, brother king, farewell, and sit you fast,

* For I will hence to Warwick's other daughter ;

* That, though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage

* I may not prove inferior to yourself. —
You, that love me and Warwick, follow me ^.

\_Exit Clabence, and Somerset follows .

is often used in this sense by the writers of our author's age.
Soj in his Rape of Lucrece :

" And if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done,

" As is the morning's silver-melting dew." Malone.

5 Belike, the elder ; Clarence will have the younger.] I
have ventured to make elder and younger change places in this
line against the authority of all the printed copies. The reason
of it will be obvious. Theobald.

Clarence having in fact married Isabella, i\\t elder daughter of
Warwick, Mr. Theobald made elder and younger change places
in this line; in which he has been followed, I think, improperly,
by the subsequent editors : The author of the old play, where
this line is found, might from ignorance or intentionally have
deviated from history, in his account of the person whom Clarence
married. See a former note, p. 4-78, n. 4. Malone.

^ You, that love me and Warvi^ck, follow me.] That Cla-

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 487

* Glo, Not F:

* My thoughts aim at a further matter ; I

* Stay not for love of Edward, but the crown.

\\AsicIe.
K. Edw. Clarence and Somerset both gone to
Warwick !

* Yet am I arm'd against the worst can happen ;

* And haste is needful in this desperate case. —

* Pembroke, and Stafford ^, you in our behalf

rence should make this speech in the King's hearing is very im-
probable, yet I do not see how it can be palliated. The King
never goes out, nor can Clarence be talking to a company apart,
for he answers immediately to that which the Post says to the
King. Johnson.

When the Earl of Essex attempted to raise a rebellion in the
city, with a design, as was supposed, to storm the Queen's
palace, he ran about the streets with his sword drawn, crying
out, " They that love me, follow me." Steevens.

Clarence certainly speaks in the hearing of the King, who, im-
mediately after his brother has retired, exclaims, that he is gone
to join with Warwick.

This line is in the old quarto play. One nearly resembling it
is likewise found in The Battle of Alcazar, 1594 :
" Myself will lead the way,

" And make a passage with my conquering sword,
" Knee-deep in blood of these accursed Moors ;
" And they that love mij honour, follow me"
So also, in our author's King Richard III. :

" The rest that love me, rise, and follow me." Malone.
1 Glo. Not I :] After Clarence goes out, we have in the old
play the following dialogue ; part of which Shakspeare rejected,
and transposed the rest :

<' Edw. Clarence and Somerset fled to Warwick !
" What say you, brother Richard, will you stand to us ? " &c.

Maxone.
See note 9, in the following page. Steevens.
8 Pembroke, and Stafford, &:c.] The quartos give the passage
thus :

" Pembroke, go raise an army presently ;

" Pitch up my tent ; for in the field this night

" I mean to rest ; and, on the morrow morn,

" I'll march to meet proud Warwick, ere he land

" Those straggling troops which he hath got in France.

" But ere I go, Montague and Hastings, you

6

488 THIRD PART OF act JV.

* Go levy men, and make prepare for war;

* They are already, or quickly will be landed :
' Myself in person will straight follow you.

\_Exeunt Pembroke and Stafford.

* But, ere I go, Hastings, — and Montague, —

* Resolve my doubt. You twain, of all the rest,

* Are near to Warwick, by blood, and by alliance :

* Tell me if you love Warwick more than me ?

* If it be so, then both depart to him ;

' I rather wish you foes, than hollow friends ;

* But, if you mind to hold your true obedience,

* Give me assurance with some friendly vow,

* That I may never have you in suspect.

Mont. So God help Montague, as he proves true !
Hast. And Hastings, as he favours Edward's
cause !

* K. Edw. Now, brother Richard, will you stand

by us ?
Glo. Ay, in despite of all that shall withstand
you^.

* K. EDfT. Why so ; then am I sure of victory.

* Now therefore let us hence ; and lose no hour,

* Till we meet Warwick with his foreign power.

[Ei'eunt.

" Of all the rest are nearest allied in blood
" To Warwick ; therefore tell me if you favour
" Him more than me, or not ; speak truly, for
" I had rather have you open enemies
" Than hollow friends." Steevens.
9 Ay, in despite of all that shall withstand you.] The quartos
continue the speech thus :

" Ay, my lord, in despight of all that shall withstand you ;

" For why hath nature made me halt downright

*' But that I should be valiant, and stand to it?

" For if I would, I cannot run away." Steevens.

sc. II. KING HENRY VJ. 489

SCENE II.

A Plain in Warwickshire.

Enter Jf^RwicK and Oxford with French and other

Forces.

War. Trust me, my lord, all hitherto goes well ;
The common people by numbers swarm to us.

Enter Clarence and Somerset.

But, see, where Somerset and Clarence come; —
Speak suddenly, my lords, are we all friends ?

Clar. Fear not that, my lord.

JVar. Then, gentle Clarence, welcome unto
Warwick ;
And welcome, Somerset: — I hold it cowardice.
To rest mistrustful where a noble heart
Hath pawn'd an open hand in sign of love ;
Else might I think, that Clarence, Edward's brother.
Were but a feigned friend to our proceedings :
But welcome, sweet Clarence ^ ; my daughter shall

be thine.
And now what rests, but, in night's coverture.
Thy brother being carelessly encamp'd.
His soldiers lurking in the towns about ^,
And but attended by a simple guard.
We may surprise and take him at our pleasure?

' But welcome, Clarence ;] Old copy, redundantly^ — stveet
Clarence. Steevens.

^ His soldiers lurking in the towns about,] Old copies — tovon.

Steevens.
Dr. Thirlby advised the reading ioxvns here ; the guard in the
scene immediately following says :

" but why commands the king,

" That his chief followers lodge in toxxins about him ? "

Theobald.

490 THIRD PART OF act if.

Our scouts have found the adventure very easy ^ :

* That as Ulysses *, and stout Diomede,

* With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents,
^ And brought from thence the Thracian fatal

steeds^ ;

* So we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle,

* At unawares may beat down Edward's guard,

* And seize himself ; I say not — slaughter him,

* For I intend but only to surprise him. —

* You, that will follow me to this attempt,

* Applaud the name of Henry, with your leader.

[They all cry, Heriry !
Why, then, let's on cur way in silent sort :
For Warwick and his friends, God and Saint
George ^ ! [Exeunt.

3 — veiy easy :] Here the quartos conclude this speech, adding
only the following lines :

" Then cry king Henry with resolved minds,
" And break we presently into his tent." Steevens.
'^ That as Ulysses, Sec] See the tenth book of the Iliad. These
circumstances, however, were accessible, witho.ut reference to
Homer in the original. Steevens.

5 — THE Thkacian fatal STEEDS ;] We are told by some of
the writers on the Trojan story, that the capture of these horses
was one of the necessary preliminaries to the fate of Troy,

Steevens.
^ — and Saint George !] After the two concluding lines of this
scene, which in the old play are given not to Warwick but to Cla-
rence, we there find the following speeches, which Shakspeare has
introduced in a subsequent place :

" War. This is his tent; and see where his guard doth stand.
" Courage, my soldiers ; now or never.
" But follow me now, and Edward shall be ours.
" AIL A Warwick, a Warwick ! " Malone.

sc.iJi. KING HENRY VI. 491

SCENE III.
Edward's Camp, near Warwick.

Enter certain IVatchmen, to guard the King's Tent.

* 1 Watch. Come on, my masters, each man

take his stand ;

* The king, by this, is set him down to sleep.

* 2 Watch. What, will he not to bed .^

* 1 Watch. Why, no : for he hath made a solemn

vow

* Never to lie and take his natural rest,

* Till Warwick, or himself, be quite suppress'd.

* 2 Watch. To-moiTow then, belike, shall be the

day,

* If Warwick be so near as men report.

* 3 Watch. But say, I pray, what nobleman is

that,

* That with the king here resteth in his tent ?

* 1 Watch. 'Tis the lord Hastings, the king's

chiefest friend.

* 3 Watch. O, is it so .^ But why commands the

king,

* That his chief followers lodge in towns about

him,

* While he himself keepeth in the cold field .^

* 2 Watch. 'Tis the more honour, because more

dangerous.

* 3 Watch. Ay ; but give me worship and

quietness,

* I hke it better than a dangerous honour^.

* If Warwick knew in what estate he stands,

* 'Tis to be doubted, he would waken him.

7 I like it better than a dangerous honour,] This honest \^'atch-
raan's opinion coincides with that of Falstaff. See vol. xvi. p. 398,

Steevens.

492 THIRD PART OF ^ict ly.

* 1 Watch. Unless our halberds did shut up his

passage,

* 2 Watch. Ay; wherefore else guard we his

royal tent,

* But to defend his person from night-foes ?

Enter PPartfick^ Clarence^ Oxford, Somerset,

and Forces.

* War. This is his tent ; and see, where stand

his guard.

* Courage, my masters : honour now, or never !

* But follow me, and Edward shall be ours.

1 Watch. Who goes there ?

* 2 Watch. Stay, or thou diest.
\JVartfick, and the rest, cry all — Warwick !

Warwick! and set upon the Guard; who
fly, crying — yirm ! Artn ! Wartfick, and
the rest, following them.

The Drum beating, and Trumpets sounding. Re-
enter Wartfick, and the rest, bringing the King
out in a Goxvn, sitting i?i a Chair : Oldster and
Hastings fly.

* SoM. What are they that fly there ?

* War. Richard, and Hastings : let them go,

here's the duke.
K. Edtf. The duke ! why, Warwick, when we

parted last^.
Thou call'dst me king !

War. Ay, but the case is alter'd :

* When you disgrac'd me in my embassade *,

* Then I degraded you from being king,
And come now to create you duke of York^.

* So folio : quarto, embassage.

* — when we parted last,] The word last, which is found in
the old i)lay, was inadvertently omitted in the folio. Malone.

9 x-^nd come now to create you duke of York.] Might we not
read, with a slight alteration ?

*' And come to nevo-creatc you duke of York." Johnson.

sc. TIT. KING HENRY VI. 493

Alas ! how should you govern any kingdom.
That know not how to use ambassadors ;
Nor how to be contented with one wife ;
Nor how to use your brothers brotherly ;

* Nor how to study for the people's welfare ;
Nor how to shrowd yourself from enemies ?

* K, Edw. Yea, brother^ of Clarence, art thou

here too ?

* Nay, then I see, that Edward needs must down. —
' Yet, Warwick, in despite of all mischance,

* Of thee thyself, and all thy complices,

* Edward will always bear himself as king :

* Though fortune's malice overthrow my state,

* My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.
JVar. Then, for his mind, be Edward England's

king^: [Takes off his Crown.

But Henry now shall wear the English crown,

* And be true king indeed ; thou but the shadow. —

* My lord of Somerset, at my request,

' See that forthwith duke Edward be convey'd

* Unto my brother, archbishop of York.

* When I have fought with Pembroke and his fellows,

* ril follow you, and tell what answer

* Lewis, and the lady Bona, send to him : —
Now, for a while, farewell, good duke of York.

* K. Edtt'. What fates impose, that men must

needs abide ;

* It boots not to resist both wind and tide.

[Exit King Edward, led out ; Somerset xvitli
him.

' Yea, brother, &c.] In the old play this speech consists of
only these two lines :

" Well, Warwick, let fortune do her worst,
" Edward in mind will bear himself a king."
Henry has made the same declaration in a former scene.

Malone.

* Then, for his mind, be Edward England's king :] That is, in
his mind ; as far as his own mind goes. M. Mason.

494 THIRD PART OF ^ct iv.

* OxF. What now remains "*, my lords, for us to
do,

* But march to London with our soldiers ?

War. Ay, that's the first thing that we have to
do;

* To free king Henry from imprisonment.

And see him seated in the regal throne. \Exeunt.

SCENE IV.
London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter Queen Elizabeth and Rivers'^.

' RiF. Madam, what makes you in this sudden
change ?

3 What now remains, &c.] Instead of this and the following
speech, the quartos have :

" Clar. What follows now? all hitherto goes well.
" But we must dispatch some letters into France,
" To tell the queen of our happy fortune ;
" And bid her come with speed to join with us.

" War. Ay, that's the first thing tliat we have to do,
" And free king Henry from imprisonment,
" And see him seated on the regal throne.
" Come, let's away ; and, having past these cares,
" I'll post to York, and see how Edward fares."

Steevens.

4 Enter — Rivers?^ Throughout this scene the quartos vary in
almost every speech from the folio. The variations, however, are
hardly such as to deserve notice. Steevens.

They are, however, so marked, as to prove decisively, I think,
that either Shakspeare wrote two distinct pieces on this subject at
different periods, or that the play as exhibited in the folio was his,
and that in quarto the production of a preceding writer. Let the
second speech of Rivers be read vvith this view:

" What losse ? of some picht battaile against \^''arwicke ?
" Tush, feare not, fair queene, but cast these cares aside.
" King Edward's noble mind his honour doth disphij',
" And ^\'arvvick may lose, though then he got the day."
Sec also tlie speech of Clarence quoted in the last note.

Malone.

sc. jr. KING HENRY VI. 495

' Q. Eliz. Why, brother Rivers, are you yet to
learn,

* What late misfortune is befall'n king Edward ?

RiF. What, loss of some pitch'd battle against
Warwick ?

* Q. Eliz. No, but the loss of his own royal

person.

* RiF. Then is my sovereign slain ?

* Q. Eliz. Ay, almost slain, for he is taken pri-

soner ?

* Either betray 'd by falsehood of his guard,

* Or by his foe surpris'd at unawares :

* And, as I further have to understand,

* Is new committed to the bishop of York,

' Fell Warwick's brother, and by that our foe.

* RiF. These news, I must confess, are full of

grief :

* Yet, gracious madam, bear it as you may;

* Warwick may lose, that now hath won the day.

* Q. Eliz. Till then, fair hope must hinder life's

decay.

* And I the rather wean me from despair,

* For love of Edward's offspring in my womb :

* This is it that makes me bridle passion,

* And bear with mildness my misfortune's cross ;

* Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear,

* And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,

* Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown

* King Edward's fruit, true heir to the English

crown.

* RiF. But, madam, where is Warwick then be-

come ?

* Q. Eliz. I am informed, that he comes towards

London,

W^ould not this prove rather too much, as a similar inference
might be drawn from the two copies of Romeo and Juliet, in 1597
and 1599? Steevens.

496 THIRD PART OF act iv.

* To set the crown once more on Henry's head :

* Guess thou the rest ; king Edward's friends must

down.

* But to prevent the tyrant's violence,

* (For trust not him that hath once broken faith,)

* I'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary,

* To save at least the heir of Edward's right ;

* There shall I rest secure from force, and fraud.

* Come therefore, let us fly, while we may fly;
' If Warwick take us, we are sure to die.

\Exeunt.

SCENE V^

A Park near Middleham^ Castle in Yorkshire.

Enter Gloster, Hjstixgs, Sir William Stanley,

and Others.

* Glo. Now, my lord Hastings ^ and sir William
Stanley,

5 Scene V.] In new forming these pieces Shakspeare transposed
not only many lines and speeches, but some of the scenes. This
scene in the original play precedes that which he has made the
fourth scene of this Act. Malone.

^ A Park near Middleham — ] Shakspeare follows his autho-
rity Holinshed, in the representation here given of King Edward's
capture and imprisonment. But honest Raphael misled him, as
he himself was misled by his predecessor Hall. The whole is
untrue: Edward was never in the hands of Warwick. Ritson.

7 Now, my lord Hastings, Sec] I shall insert the speech cor-
responding to this in the old play, as the comparison will show the
reader in what manner Shakspeare proceeded, where he merely
retouched and expanded what he found in the elder drama, with-
out the addition of any new matter :

" Glo. Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,
" Know that the cause I sent for you is this.
*' I look my brother with a slender train
" Should come a hunting in this forest here.
" The bishop of York befriends him much,
" And lets him use his pleasure in the chase.
" Now I have privily sent him word

sc. y, KING HENRY VI. 497

* Leave off to wonder why I drew you hither,

* Into this chiefest thicket of the park.

' Thus stands the case : You know, our king, my

brother,
' Is prisoner to the bishop here, at whose hands

* He hath good usage and great Hberty ;

' And often, but attended with weak guard,

* Comes hunting this way to disport himself.

* I have advertis'd him by secret means,

* That if about this hour, he make his way,

* Under the colour of his usual game,

* He shall here find his friends, with horse and men,

* To set him free from his captivity.

Enter King Edward, and a Huntsman-.

' Hunt. This way, my lord : for this way lies the

game.
K. Edw, Nay, this way, man; see, where the
huntsmen stand. — •
' Now, brother of Gloster, lord Hastings, and the
rest,

* Stand you thus close, to steal the bishop's deer ?

* Glo. Brother, the time and case requireth haste .''

* Your horse stands ready at the park corner.

* K. Edw. But whither shall we then ?

* H-isT. To Lynn, my lord ; and ship ^ from

thence to Flanders.

* Glo. Well guess'd, believe me ; for that was

my meaning.
^ K. Edw. Stanley, I will requite thy forwardness.

* Glo. But wherefore stay we ? 'tis no time to

talk .

" Now I am come with you to rescue him ;

" And see where the huntsman and he doth come."

Malone.
8 — and SHIP — ] Tlie first folio has shipt. The correction
was made by the editor of the second folio. J^Ialoxe.
VOL. XVIII. 2 K

498 THIRD PART OF act if,

K. Edw. Huntsman, what say'st thou ? wilt thou
go along ?

* Hunt. Better do so than tarry and be hang'd.

* Glo. Come then, away; let's have no more

ado.

* K. Edtf. Bishop, farewell : shield thee from

Warwick's frown ;
And pray that I may repossess the crown.

[^Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

A Room in the Tower.

Enter K'mg Henry, Clarence^ Warwick^ Somer-
set, young Richmond, Oxford, Montague, Lieu-
tenant of the Tower, and Attendants.

* K. Hen. Master lieutenant, now that God and

friends

* Have shaken Edward from the regal seat ;

* And turn'd my captive state to liberty,

* My fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys ;

* At our enlargement what are thy due fees ?

* Lieu. Subjects may challenge nothing of their

sovereigns ;

* But, if an humble prayer may prevail,

* I then crave pardon of your majesty.

* K. Hen. For what, lieutenant ? for well using

me ?

* Nay, be thou sure, I'll well requite thy kindness,

* For that it made my imprisonment a pleasure :

* Ay, such a pleasure as incaged birds

* Conceive, when, after many moody thoughts,

* At last, by notes of household harmony,

* They quite forget their loss of liberty. —

* But, Warwick, after God, thou set'st me free,

* And chiefly therefore I thank God, and thee ;

7

sc. Fi. KING HENRY VI. 499

* He was the author, thou the instrument.

* Therefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite,

* By Hving low, where fortune cannot hurt me ;

* And that the people of this blessed land

* May not be punish'd with my thwarting stars ;

* Warwick, although my head still wear the crown,
' I here resign my government to thee,

' For thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.

* ff^^R. Your grace hath still been fam'd for

virtuous ;

* And now may seem as wise as virtuous,

* By spying, and avoiding, fortune's malice,

* For few men rightly temper with the stars " :

* Yet in this one thing let me blame your grace,

* For choosing me when Clarence is in place \

* Cljr. No, Warwick, thou art worthy of the

sway,

* To whom the heavens, in thy nativity,

* Adjudg'd an olive branch, and laurel crown,

* As likely to be blest in peace, and war ;

* And therefore I yield thee my free consent.

* JV^R. And I choose Clarence only for protector.

* K. Hen. Warwick, and Clarence, give me both

your hands ;

* Now join your hands, and, with your hands, your

hearts,
*= That no dissention hinder government :

* I make you both protectors of this land;

* While I myself will lead a private life,

* And in devotion spend my latter days.
To sin's rebuke, and my Creator's praise.

9 — few men rightly temper with the stars :] I suppose the
meaning is, that few men conform their temper to their destiny ;
which King Henry did, when finding himself unfortunate, he gave
the management of publick affairs to more prosperous hands.

JoHNSOiSr.

* — in place.] i. e. here present. See p. 485, n. 3.

Steevens.

2 K 2

.600 THIRD PART OF ^ct ir.

IVau. What answers Clarence to his sovereign's
will ?

* Clar, That he consents, if Warwick yield con-

sent ;

* For on thy fortune I repose myself.

* War. Why then, though loath, yet must I be

content :

* We'll yoke together, like a double shadow

* To Henry's body, and supply his place ;

* I mean, in bearing weight of government,

* While he enjoys the honour, and his ease.

* And, Clarence, now then it is more than needful,

* Forthwith that Edward be pronounc'd a traitor,

* And all his lands and goods be confiscate '-.

Clar. What else .^ and that succession be deter-
min'd.

* War. Ay, therein Clarence shall not want his

part.

* K. Hen. But, with the first of all your chief

affairs,

* Let me entreat, (for I command no more,)

* That Margaret your queen, and my son Edward,

* Be sent for, to return from France with speed :

* For, till I see them here, by doubtful fear

* My joy of liberty is half eclips'd.

Clar. It shall be done, my sovereign, with all
speed.

* K. Hen. My lord of Somerset, what youth is

that,

^ And all his lands and goods be confiscate] For the insertion
of the vioxA. be, which the defect of the metre proves to have
been accidentally omitted in the old copy, I am answerable.

Mai.one.

Mr. Malone's emendation is countenanced by the following pas-
sage in The Comedy of Errors :

" Lest that thy goods too soon he confiscale."

^he second folio, however, reads — covfi seated ; and perhaps this
reading is preferable, because it excludes the disagreeable repeti-
tion of the auxiliarvverb — be. Steevens.

£C\ VI, KING HENRY VI. 301

* Of whom you seem to have so tender care ?

' Sum. My liege, it is young Henry, earl of Rich-
mond.

' K. Hen. Come hither, England's hope : If secret
powers \_Lays his Hand on his Head,

* Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,

* This pretty lad ^ will prove our country's bliss.

3 This pretty lad — ] He was afterwards Henry VII. a man
who put an end to the civil war of the two houses, but no other-
wise remarkable for virtue. Shakspeare knew his trade. Henry VII.
was grandfother to Queen Elizabeth, and the King from whom
James inherited. Johnson.

Shakspeare only copied this particular, togetlier with many
others, from Holinshed : — " whom when the king had a good
while beheld, he said to such princes as xvere with him : Lo,
surelie this is he, to whom both we and our adversaries, leaving
the possession of all things, shall hereafter give rooine and place."
P. 678.

" This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss." Thus the folio.
The quartos thus :

" Thou, pretty boy, shalt prove this country's bliss."

Stervens.
Holinshed transcribed this passage almost verbatim from Hall,
whom the author of the old play, as I conceive, copied. This
speech originally stood thus :

" Come hither, pretty lad. If heavenly powers

" Do aim aright, to my divining soul,

" Thou, pretty boy, shalt prove this country's bliss ;

" Thy head is made to wear a princely crown ;

*' Thy looks are all replete with majesty :

" Make much of him, my lords," &c.
Henry Earl of Richmond was the son of Edmond Earl of Rich-
mond, and Margaret, daughter to John the first Duke of Somerset.
Edmond Earl of Richmond was half-brother to King Henry the
Sixth, being the son of that King's mother Queen Catharine, by
her second husband Owen Teuther or Tudor, who was taken pri-
soner at the battle of Mortimer's Cross, and soon afterwards be-
headed at Hereford.

Henry the Seventh, to show his gratitude to Henry the Sixth
for this early presage in his favour, solicited Pope Julius to canonize
him as a saint ; but either Henry would not pay the money de-
manded, or, as Bacon supposes, the Pope refused, lest " as Henry
was reputed in the world abroad but for a simple man, the estima-
tion of that kind of honour might be diminished, if there were
not a distance kept between innocents and saints." Malone.

502 THIRD PART OF act iv,

* His looks are full of peaceful majesty ;

* His head by nature fram'd to wear a crown,

* His hand to wield a scepter ; and himself

* Likely, in time, to bless a regal throne.
Make much of him, my lords ; for this is he,

* Must help you more than you are hurt by me.

Enter a Messenger.

* What news, my friend ?

* Mess. That Edward is escaped from your

brother,

* And fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.
*War. Unsavoury news: But how made he escape .^

* Mess. He was convey'd by Richard duke of

Gloster,

* And the lord Hastings, who attended him *

* In secret ambush on the forest side,

* And from the bishop's huntsmen rescued him ;

* For hunting was his daily exercise.

* War. My brother was too careless of his

charge. —

* But let us hence, my sovereign, to provide

* A salve for any sore that may betide.

\_Exeunt King Henry, Warwick, Clarence ^
Lieutenant, and Attendants.

* SoM. My lord, I like not of this flight of

Edward's :

* For, doubtless, Burgundy will yield him help ;

* And we shall have more wars, before't be long.

* As Henry's late presaging prophecy

* Did glad my heart, with hope of this young

Richmond ;

* So doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts

* What may befall him, to his harm, and ours ;

* — ATTENDED him — ] i. c. Waited for him. So, in Corio-
lanus :

*' I am attended at the cypress grove." Steevens.

sc. VII. KING HENRY VI. 503

* Therefore, lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,

* Forthwith we'll send him hence to Brittany,

* Till storms be past of civil enmity.

* OxF. Ay; for, if Edward repossess the crown,

* Tis like, that Richmond with the rest shall down.

* SoM. It shall be so ; he shall to Brittany.

* Come therefore, let's about it speedily. \_Exeunt.

SCENE VIP.

Before York.

Enter King Rdtfard, Gloster, Hastings^ and

Forces.

* K. Edw. Now, brother Richard^ lord^ Hastings,
and the rest ;

5 Scene VII.] This scene in the old play precedes that which
Shakspeare has made the sixth of the present Act. Malone.

<5 Now, brother Richard, &c.] Instead of this and the three
following speeches, the quartos read only :

" Eyiter Edward mid Richard, tvith a troop of Hollanders.
" Edw. Thus far from Belgia have we past the seas,
" And march'd from Raunspur-haven unto York :
" But soft ! the gates are shut ; I like not this.

" liich. Sound up the drum, and call them to the walls."

Steevens.

"J — lord — ] Mr. M. Mason recommends the omission of this
word. Reed.

« _ lord Hastings, and the rest." " Leave out the word lord,"
says one of our author's commentators. If we do not closely
attend to his phraseology and metre, and should think ourselves
at liberty to substitute modern phraseology and modern metre,
almost every line in his plays might be altered. — Brother, like
many similar words, {rather, whether, either, &c.) is here used by
Shakspeare as a monosyllable, and the metre was to his ear per-
fect. Malone.

That there is a marked discrimination between ancient and
modern phraseology, no man will deny ; but, surely, ancient and
modern five-foot verses can have no corresponding difference.
Where, in general, shall we find more perfect and harmonious
metre than that of Shakspeare ? His irregular lines are therefore

504 THIRD PART OF JCT iv.

* Yet thus far fortune maketh us amends,

* And says — that once more I shall interchange

* My waned state for Henry's regal crown.

' Well have we pass'd, and now repass'd the seas,

* And brought desired help from Burgundy :

* What then remains, we being thus arrived

* From Ravenspurg haven before the gates of

York \

* But that we enter, as into our dukedom ?

* Glo. The gates made fast ! — Brother, I like not

this ;

* For many men, that stumble at the threshold,

* Are well foretold— that danger lurks within.

* K. Edw. Tush, man ! abodements must not

now affright us :
By fair or foul means we must enter in.
For hither will our friends repair to us.

*

justly suspected of having suffered from omission or interpolation.
— As to the latter part of Mr. Malone's note, in which brother is
said to be used as a monosyllable, — valeat quantum valere potest.

Steevens.

Malone says that brother is to be pronounced as one syllable ;

but that alone will not be sufficient to complete the metre. We

must also lay the accent on the last syllable of the word Richard,

and the line must run thus :

*' Now bro'r Richard, Lord Hastings and the rest."
which would not be very harmonious. M. Masov."

That brother may be pronounced in the time of a monosyllable
is shown by a former line, p. 497, where we have two redundant
syllables :

" Now, brother of Gloster, lord Hastings, and the rest, — "
That other words were used with the same license is also shown
p. 489, even with Mr. Steeven's correction :

" But welcome, Clarence, my daughter shall be thine ! "

BOSWELL.

^ From Ravenspurgh haven before the gates of York,] We
may infer from the old quarto (see note 6, in the preceding page,)
that Ravenspurph was occasionally pronounced as a dissyllable —
Rau7ispurgh. This line will therefore become strictly metrical, if
we read (adopting an elision common to Shakspeare) :

" From Ravenspurgh haven yore the gates of York."'

Steevens.
Sec the preceding note. Boswell.

sc. VII. KING HENRY VI. 505

* EUsT. My liege, I'll knock once more, to

summon them.

Enter, on the Walls, the Mayor of York, and his

Brethren,

* M^Y. My lords, we were forewarned of your

coming,
' And shut the gates for safety of ourselves ;

* For now we owe allegiance unto Henry.

' K. Edw. But, master mayor, if Henry be your
king,

* Yet Edward, at the least, is duke of York.

* JSLrtY. True, my good lord ; I know you for no

less.

* K. Enw. Why, and I challenge nothing but my

dukedom ;

* As being well content with that alone.

* Glo. But, when the fox hath once got in his

nose,

* He'll soon find means to make the body follow.

[Aside.

* H.4ST. Why, master mayor, why stand you in a

doubt ?
Open the gates, we are king Henry's friends.

* May. Ay, say you so ? the gates shall then be

open'd. \_E.veu7it from above.

* Glo. a wise stout captain, and persuaded soon ^ !

* Hast. The good old man would fain that all

were well\

* So 'twere not 'long of him : but, being enter d,

* I doubt not, I, but we shall soon persuade

9 — persuaded soon !] Old copy — soon persuaded. This
transposition, which requires no apology, was made by Sir T.
Hanmer. Steevens.

I The good old man would fain that all were well,] The
Mayor is willing we should enter, so he may not be blamed.

Johnson.

506 THIRD PART OF act ir,

* Both him, and all his brothers, unto reason.

Re-enter the Mayor, and Two Aldermen, below.

* K. Eorr. So, master mayor : these gates must

not be shut,

* But in the night, or in the time of war.

* What ! fear not, man, but yield me up the keys ;

[Takes his Keys,

* For Edward will defend the town, and thee,

* And all those friends that deign to follow me.

Drum. Enter Montgomery, andForces, marching,

Glo. Brother, this is sir John Montgomery,
Our trusty friend, unless I be deceiv'd.

' K. Edtf. Welcome, sir John ! But why come

you in arms ?
Mont. To help king Edward in his time of storm.
As every loyal subject ought to do.

' K. Edw. Thanks, good Montgomery : But we
now forget

* Our title to the crown ; and only claim

' Onr dukedom, till God please to send the rest.
' Mont. Then fare you M^ell, for I will hence
again ;
I came to serve a king, and not a duke, —

* Drummer, strike up, and let us march away.

[A March begun.
' K. Enrr. Nay, stay, sir John, a while ; and we'll
debate,

* By what safe means the crown may be recover'd.

* Mont. What talk you of debating ? in few words :

* If you'll not here proclaim yourself our king,

* I'll leave you to your fortune ; and be gone.
To keep them back that come to succour you :
Why should we fight, if you pretend no title ?

* Glo. Why, brother, wherefore stand you on nice

points ?

sc. VJJ. KING HENRY VI. 607

* K. Edtf. When we grow stronger, then we'll

make our claim :

* Till then, 'tis wisdom to conceal our meaning.

* Hast. Away with scrupulous wit ! now arms

must rule.

* Glo. And fearless minds climb soonest unto

crowns.

* Brother, we will proclaim you out of hand ;

* The bruit " thereof will bring you many friends.

* K. Edtf. Then be it as you will ; for 'tis my

right,

* And Henry but usurps the diadem.

Mont. Ay, now my sovereign speaketh like

himself;
And now will I be Edward's champion.

Hast. Sound, trumpet; Edward shall be here

proclaim'd : —

* Come, fellow-soldier, make thou proclamation.

\Gi'oes him a Paper. Flourish.
Sold. [^Reads.'] Edzoardthe fou7Hh,by the grace
of God, ki?ig of England and France, and lord of
Ireland, S^c.

Mont. And whosoe'er gainsays king Edward's right,
By this I challenge him to single fight.

[Throws down his Gauntlet.
All. Long live Edward the fourth !

* K. Edtf. Thanks, brave Montgomery ; — and

thanks unto you all ^.

* The BRUIT — ] The word hruit is found in BuUokar's English
Expositor, 8vo. 1616, and is defined " A reporte spread abroad."

Malone.

So, in Preston's Cambises :

" whose manly acts do fly

" By hruit of fame ."

See vol. xi. p. '269, n. 9. Steevens.

This French word bruit was very early made a denizen of our
language. Thus in the Bible : " Behold the noise of the bruit is
come." — Jeremiah, x. 22. Whalley.

3 Thanks, brave Montgomery ;— and thanks unto you all.]
Surely we ought to read :

508 THIRD PART OF ^ct ir,

* If fortune serve me, I'll requite this kindness.

* Now, for this night, let's harbour here in York :

* And, when the morning sun shall raise his car

* Above the border of this horizon,

* We'll forward towards Warwick, and his mates :

* For, well I wot, that Henry is no soldier.—

* Ah, froward Clarence ! — how evil it beseems thee,

* To flatter Henry, and forsake thy brother !

* Yet, as we may, we'll meet both thee and War-

wick.—

* Come on, brave soldiers ; doubt not of the day ;

* And, that once gotten, doubt not of large pay.

\_E.veunt.

SCENE VIII \

London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King Henry, IVjrwick, Clarence, Mon-
tague, Exeter, and Oxford.

War, What counsel, lords ? Edward fromBelgia,
With hasty Germans, and blunt Hollanders,
Hath pass'd in safety through the narrow seas.

" Thanks, brave Montgomery ; — and thanks to all."
Instead of this speech, the quartos have only the following :
" Edvo. We thank you all : lord mayor, lead on the way,
*' For this night we will harbour here in York ;
" And then as early as the morning sun
" Lifts up his beams above this horizon,
" We'll march to London to meet with Warwick,
" And pull false Henry from the regal throne." Steevens.
"■ Scene VIII.] This scene is, perhaps, the worst contrived in
any of these plays. \¥arwick has but just gone oft" tlie stage
when Edward says :

" And towards Coventry bend we our course,
" Where peremptory Warwick now remains."

M. Mason.
This scene in the original play follows immediately after Henry's
observation on young Richmond^ which is in the sixth scene of the
preaent play. Malone.

*c'. VIII. KING HENRY VI. .509

And with his troops doth march amain to London ;

* And many giddy people flock to him.

* OxF. Let's levy men, and beat him back again\

* Clar. a little fire is quickly trodden out ;

* Which, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.

War, In Warwickshire I have true-hearted
friends,
Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war ;
Those will I muster up : — and thou, son Clarence,

* Shalt stir up in Suffolk ^ Norfolk, and in Kent,

* The knights and gentlemen to come with thee : —

5 Let's levy men, and beat him back again,] This line ex-
presses a spirit of war so unsuitoible to the character of Henry,
that I would give the first cold speech to the King, and the brisk
answer to Warwick. This line is not in the old quarto ; and when
Henry said nothing, the first speech might be as properly given
to Warwick as to any other. Johnson.

Every judicious reader must concur in Dr. Johnson's opinion,
as far as it relates to the second of these two speeches.

Steevens.
This line is given in the folio to the King, to whom it is so un-
suitable, that I have no doubt it was merely a printer's error. I
have not, however, assigned it to Warwick, and the preceding
speech to Henry, as Dr. Johnson proposes, because it appears to
me safer to take the old play as a guide ; in which, as in Shak-
speare's piece, the first speech is attributed to Warwick. The
second speech is given to Oxford, and stands thus :
" Oxf. 'Tis best to look to this betimes ;
" Yox if this fire do kindle any further
" It will be hard for us to quench it out."
Shakspeare, in new-modelling this scene, probably divided this
speech between Oxford and Clarence, substituting the line before
us in the room of the words — " 'Tis best to look to this betimes."
I have therefore given this line to Oxford. It might with equal,
or perhaps with more propriety, be assigned to Warwick's bro-
ther, Montague. Malone.

^ Shalt STIR, in Sufiolk, &c.] The old copy — stir 2</j, But the
omission of the adverb, which hurts the metre, is justified by the
following passages in King John, &c. :

" I'll stir them to it : — Come, away, away ! ' '
Again, ibid. :

" An Ate stirring him to war and strife."
Again, in King Lear :

" If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts
" Against their father. — "■ Steevens.

510 THIRD PART OF act iv.

* Thou, brother Montague, in Buckingham,

* Northampton, and in Leicestershire, shalt find

* Men well inclin'd to hear what thou command's! : —
And thou, brave Oxford, wondrous well belov'd.

In Oxfordshire shalt muster up thy friends. —
My sovereign, with the loving citizens, —

* Like to his island, girt in with the ocean,

* Or modest Dian, circled with her nymphs, —
Shall rest in London, till we come to him. —
Fair lords, take leave, and stand not to reply. —
Farewell, my sovereign.

K. Hen. Farewell, my Hector, and my Troy's
true hope^

* Clar. In sign of truth, I kiss your Highness'

hand.

* K. Hen. Well-minded Clarence, be thou for-

tunate !

* Mont. Comfort, my lord ; — and so I take my

leave.

* OxF. And thus \_Kissing Henrys hand.~\ I seal

my truth, and bid adieu.

* K. Hen. Sweet Oxford, and my loving Mon-

tague,

* And all at once, once more a happy farewell.
War. Farewell, sweet lords ; let's meet at

Coventry.

\_E.veunt War. Clar. Oxf. and Mont.

* K. Hen. Here at the palace will I rest a while.

7 — my Hector, and my Troy's true hope.] This line having
])robably made an impression on our author, when he read over
the old play, he has applied the very same expression to the Duke
of York where his overthrow at Wakefield is described, and yet
suffered the line to stand here as he found it :
" Environed he was with many foes,
" And stood against them, as the hope of Troy
" Against the Greeks."
The two latter lines, as the reader may find in p. 405, n. S,
were new, no trace of them being there found in the old play.
Many similar repetitions may be observed in this Third Part of
King Henry VI. from the same cause. Malone.

sc. vm. KING HENRY VI. 511

* Cousin of Exeter, what thinks your lordship ?

* Methinks, the power, that Edward hath in field,

* Should not be able to encounter mine.

* ExE. The doubt is, that he will seduce the rest.

* K, Hen. That's not my fear, my meed hath got

me fame^.

* I have not stopp'd mine ears to their demands,
*= Nor posted off their suits with slow delays ;

* My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,

* My mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs,

* My mercy dry'd their water-flowing tears :

* I have not been desirous of their wealth,

* Nor much oppress'd them with great subsidies,

* Nor forward of revenge, though they much err'd ;

* Then why should they love Edward more than me ?

* No, Exeter, these graces challenge grace :

* And, when the lion fawns upon the lamb,

* The lamb will never cease to follow him.

[Shout within. A Lancaster ^' A Lancaster !

* ExE. Hark, hark, my lord ! what shouts are

these ?

8 — my MEED hath got me fame :] Meed signifies retvarcl.
We should read — my deed ; i. e. my manners, conduct in the ad-
ministration. Warburton.

This word signifies merit, both as a verb and a substantive :
that it is used as a verb, is clear from the following foolish couplet
which I remember to have read :

" Deem if I meed,
" Dear madam, read."
A Specimen of Verses that read the same xuay bachvard
nndjorxvard. Sir J. Hawkins.
Meed here means merit, as it did in a former passage, [p. 404,
n. 8,] when Edward says of himself and his brothers ;

•' Each one already blazing by our meeds." M. Mason,

9 Shout xiithin. A Lancaster I] Surely the shouts that
ushered King Edward should be A York ! A York ! I suppose
the author did not write the marginal directions, and the players
confounded the characters. Johnson.

We may suppose the shouts to have come from some of Henry's
guard, on the appearance of Edward. Malone.

512 THIRD PART OF act jf.

Enter King Edward, Gloster, and Soldiers.

* K. Edjf. Seize on the shame-fac'd Henry, bear

him hence,

* And once again proclaim us king of England. —

* You are the fount, that makes small brooks to

flow ;

* Now stops thy spring ; my sea shall suck them dry,

* And swell so much the higher by their ebb. —

* Hence with him to the Tower; let him not speak.

\Exeunt some with King Henry.

* And, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course,
' Where peremptory Warwick now remains ^ :

* The sun shines hot ", and, if we use delay,

* Cold biting winter mars our hop'd-for hay.

* Glo. Away betimes, before his forces join,

* And take the great-grown traitor unawares :

* Brave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.

[Exeunt.

* And, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course.

Where peremptory Warwick now remains :] Warwick, as
Mr. M. Mason has observed, [p. 508, n. 4',] has but just left the
stage, declaring his intention to go to Coventry. How then could
Edward know of that intention ? Our author was led into this
impropriety by the old j^lay, where also Edward says :

" And now towards Coventiy let's bend our course,
" To meet with VV^arwick and his confederates,"
Some of our old writers seem to have thought, that all the per-
sons of the drama must know whatever was known to the
writers themselves, or to the audience. Malone.

* The sun shines hot, &c.] These lines are formed on two
others which are found in the old play in a subsequent scene in
the next Act, being spoken by Edward, after the battle of Barnet,
and just before be sets out for Tewksbury :

" — — — Come, let us go ;

" For if we slack this fair bright summers day,

" Sliarp winters showers will mar our hope,Jor haie."

Malone.

^CT r. KING HENRY VI. 513

ACT V. SCENE I.

Coventry.

Enter upon the Walls, Jf^RWJcK, the Mayor of
Coventry, Two Messejigers, and Others.
War. Where is the post that came from valiant
Oxford .^
How far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow .^

* 1 Mess. By this at Dunsmore ^, marching hi-

therward.
War. How far off is our brother Montague ? —
Where is the post that came from Montague ?
' 2 Mess. By this at Daintry *, with a puissant troop.

Enter Sir John Somerville.

* War. Say, Somerville, what says my loving son ?

* And, by the guess, how nigh is Clarence now ?

* SoM. At Southam I did leave him with his

forces,

* And do expect him here some two hours hence.

[Drum heard.

* War. Then Clarence is at hand, I hear his drum.

* SoM. It is not his, my lord ; here Southam lies ;

* The drum your honour hears, marcheth from

Warwick.

* War. Who should that be ? belike, unlook'd-

for friends.

* SoM. They are at hand, and you shall quickly

know.

Drums. Enter King Edward, Gloster, and

Forces, marching.

* K. Edw. Go, trumpet, to the walls, and sound

a parle.

3 — at Dunsmore,] The quartos read — at Daintry : i. e.
Daventiy. Steevens.

•^ — at Daintry,] The quartos read — at Dunsmore, Steevens*
VOL. xviii. 2 L

514 THIRD PART OF act v.

* Glo, See, how the surly Warwick mans the

wall.
TV^R. O, unhid spite ! is sportful Edward come ?
Where slept our scouts \ or how are they seduc'd,
That we could hear no news of his repair ?

* K. Edv/. Now, Warwick, wilt thou ope the

city gates,

* Speak gentle words, and humbly bend thy

knee ? —

* Call Edward — king, and at his hands beg mercy,

* And he shall pardon thee these outrages.

* fVyiR. Nay, rather, wilt thou draw thy forces

hence.
Confess who set thee up and pluck'd thee down ?
Call Warwick — patron, and be penitent,
And thou shalt still remain the duke of York.
Glo. I thought, at least, he would have said —
the king ;
Or did he make the jest against his will.^

* JV.iR. Is not a dukedom, sir, a goodly gift ?

* Glo. Ay, by my faith, for a poor earl to give ;

* I'll do thee service ^ for so good a gift.

* PKiR. 'Twas I, that gave the kingdom to thy

brother.
K. Edtf. Why then 'tis mine, if but by War-
wick's gift.

* War. Thou art no Atlas for so great a weight :
And, weakling, Warwick takes his gift again ;
And Henry is my king, Warwick his subject.

* K. Edtf. But Warwick's king is Edward's pri-

soner :

* And, gallant Warwick, do but answer this, —

5 Where slept our scouts ?] So, in King John :
" O, where hath our intelligence been drunk ?
" Where hath it slepl'^"' Steevens.
^ I'll do thee service — ] i. e. enroll myself among thy depen-
dants. Cowell informs us, that servitium is " that service which
the tenant, by reason of his fee, oweth unto his lord," Steevens,

sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 515

What is the body, when the head is off?

* Gt.o. Alas, that Warwick had no more forecast,
But, whiles he thought to steal the single ten,

* The king was slily finger'd from the deck '' !
You left poor Henry at the bishop's palace ^,
And, ten to one, you'll meet him in the Tower.

K. Edw. 'Tis even so; yet you are Warwick
still \

* Glo. Come, Warwick, take the time \ kneel

down, kneel down :

* Nay, when ^ ? strike now, or else the iron cools.

* War. I had rather chop this hand off at a blow,

* And with the other fling it at thy face,

* Than bear so low a sail, to strike to thee.

7 The king was slily finger'd from the deck !] The quartos
read— ^^Hf/y finger'd.

Finely is subtly. So, in Holinshed's reign of King Henry VI.
p. 640 : " In his way he tooke by Jine force, a tower," &c.
Again, p. 649, " — and hy Jine force either to win their purpose,
or end their lives in the same."

A pack of cards was anciently termed a deck of cards, or «
pair of cards. It is still, as I am informed, so called in Ireland.
Thus, in King Edward I. 1599 : " — as it were, turned us, with
duces and trays, out oiiht deck."

Again, in The Two Maids of Moreclacke, 1609 :

" I'll deal the cards and cut you from the deeh.'"

Again, in Selimus, Emperor of the Turks, 1.591:
" Well, if I chance but once to get the deck,
" To deal about and shuffle as I would." Steevens.

An instance of a pack of cards being called a deck, occurs in
W\e: sessions paper, for January, 1788. So that the term appears
to be still in use. RITso^f.

^ — the bishop's palace,] The palace of the bishop of London.

Malone.

9 — yet you are Warwick still.] Thus the folio. The old
play reads — and yet you are oidd Warwick still. Malone.

' — TAKE the time,] So, in Macbeth :

" but we'll take to-morrow."

An expression which Mr. Malone would change for — " talk to-
morrow." See vol. xi. p. 137, n. 6. Steevens.

* Nay, WHEN?] This exclamation, expressive of impatience,
has already occurred in King Richard II. See vol. xvi.p. 15, n.3.

Steevens.

2l2

516 THIRD PART OF act v.

* K. Enw. Sail how thou canst, have wind and

tide thy friend ;
^ This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair,

* Shall, whiles the head is warm, and new cut off,
=* Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood, —

* JVind-changing Jfarwick now can change, no more.

Enter Oxford, with Drum and Colours.

* War. O cheerful colours ! see, where Oxford

comes !
OxF. Oxford, Oxford, for Lancaster !

[Oxford and his Forces enter the City.

* Glo. The gates are open, let us enter too^.

* K. Edjv. So other foes may set upon our backs.

* Stand we in good array ; for they, no doubt,

* Will issue out again, and bid us battle :

* If not, the city, being but of small defence,

* We'll quickly rouse the traitors in the same.

War. O, welcome, Oxford ! for we want thy help.

Enter Montague, with Drum and Colours.

Mont. Montague, Montague, for Lancaster I

\_He and his Forces enter the City,

* Glo. Thou and thy brother both shall buy this

treason
' Even with the dearest blood your bodies bear.

* K. Edw. The harder match'd, the greater vic-

tory;

* My mind presageth happy gain, and conquest.

3 The gates are open, let us enter too.] Thus the folio. The
quartos read :

" The gates are open, see, they enter in ;

" Let's follow them, and bid them battle in the streets.

" TLdtv. No: so some other might set upon our backs,
" We'll stay till all be enter'd, and then follow them."

Steevens.

SCI. KING HENRY VI. 517

Enter Somerset, with Drmn and Colours.

SoM. Somerset, Somerset, for Lancaster!

[He and Ins Forces enter the City.

Glo. Two of thy name, both dukes of Somerset,
Have sold their lives unto the house of York * ;
And thou shalt be the third, if this sword hold.

Enter Clarence, with Drum and Colours.
War. And lo, where George of Clarence sweeps
along,
Of force enough to bid his brother battle ^ ;

* With whom an upright zeal to right prevails,

* More than the nature of a brother's love : —

* Come, Clarence, come ; thou wilt, if Warwick

calls.
Clar. Father of Warwick, know you what this
means ?

[Taking the red Rose out of his Cap ^.

4 Two OF THY NAME, BOTH dukes of Somcrset,

Have sold their lives unto the house of York ;] The first of
these noblemen was Edmund, slain at the battle of Saint Alban's,
1455. See vol. xviii. p. 353. The second was Henry his son, be-
headed after the battle of Hexham, 1463. The present duke
Edmund, brother to Henry, was taken prisoner at Tewksbury,
1471, and there beheaded, (infra, Sc. V.) his brother John losing
his life in the same fight. Ritson.

5 — to bid his brother battle ;] Here the quartos conclude
this speech, and add the following :

" Clar. Clarence, Clarence, for Lancaster !
" Ediv. Et tu brute ! wilt thou stab Caesar too ?
" A parly, sirra, to George of Clarence."
To bid battle is a phrase that often occurs in ancient wi iters
Thus, in the Batrachomuomachia of Homer, as translated by
Chapman :

" O frogs ! the mice send threats to you of arms,
" And bid me bid ijov, battle" Steevens.
This line of the old play, Et tu Brute ! &c. is found also in
Acolastus his Afterwitte, a poem by S. Nicholson, 1600 ; and
the Latin words, though not retained here, were afterwards trans-
planted by Shakspeare into his Julius Ctesar, Act HI. Malone.
^ l\i/ciiig the red Rose out of his Cap. ^ This note of direc-

513 THIRD PART OF act v.

* Look here, I throw my infamy at thee:
I will not ruinate my father's house.

Who gave his blood to lime the stones'' together,

* And set up Lancaster. Why, trow'st thou War>

wick,

* That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural ^,
' To bend the fatal instruments of war

* Against his brother, and his lawful king^ ?

* Perhaps, thou wilt object my holy oath :

* To keep that oath, were more impiety

* Than Jephtha's\ when hesacrific'd his daughter.

* I am so sorry for my trespass made,

* That to deserve well at my brother's hands,

* I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe ;

* With resolution, wheresoe'er I meet thee,

* (As I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad,)

* To plague thee for thy foul misleading me.
And so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee.
And to my brother turn my blushing cheeks. —

* Pardon me, Edward, I will make amends ;

tion I restored from the old quarto. And, without it, it is im-
possible that any reader can guess at the meaning of this line of
Clarence :

" Look, here, I throw my infamy at thee. Theobald.
'—to lime the stones — ] That is, to cement the stones.
Lime makes mortar. Johnson.

^ That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,] This line,
(too long by a foot) was, in my opinion, interpolated by the
players, who appear the sworn enemies of an ellipsis. — Omit the
words — that and is, and no want of them will be felt by such
readers as are well acquainted with the ancient language. — " Why,
conceivest thou, Warwick, Clarence so harsh," &c. — ?

Steevens.
"—so blunt." Stupid, insensible of paternal fondness.

Johnson.
9 To bend the fatal instruments of war
Against his brother, and his lawful king?] Thus the folio.
The old play thus :

" To lift his sword aQ-ainst his brother's life." Malone.
' — Jephtha's, &c.] See the book of Judges, xi. dO.

Steevens,

sen. KING HENRY VI. 519

* And, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,

• For I will henceforth be no more unconstant.

* K. Edtf. Now welcome more, and ten times

more belov'd,
Than if thou never hadst deserv'd our hate.

* Glo. Welcome, good Clarence ; this is brother-

like.
War. O passing traitor^, perjur'd, and unjust !
K. Edtv. What, Warwick, wilt thou leave the

town, and fight "i
Or shall we beat the stones about thine ears .^

* IVar. Alas, I am not coop'd here for defence :
I will away towards Barnet presently,

And bid thee battle, Edward, if thou dar'st.

K. Edw. Yes, Warwick, Edward dares, and leads
the way : —
Lords, to the field ; Saint George, and victory.

[March. E.veunt.

SCENE II.

A Field of Battle near Barnet.

AlarmnSf and E.vcursions. Enter King Edward^
bringing in Warwick wounded.

* K. Edw. So, lie thou there : die thou, and die
our fear ;
* For Warwick was a bug, that fear'd us alP. —

^ — PASSING traitor,] Eminent, egregious; traitorous be-
yond the common track of treason. Johnson.
So, in Othello :

" 'twas strange, 'twas pas«H^ strange." Steevens.

3 — a BUGj that fear'd us all.] Bug is a bugbear, a terrifick
being. Johnson,
So, in Cymbeline :

" . are become

" The mortal bugs of the field."

520 THIRD PART OF act v.

* Now, Montague, sit fast ; 1 seek for thee,

* That Warwick's bones may keep thine company.

\_Emt.
War. Ah, who is nigh ? come to me, friend or
foe.
And tell me, who is victor, York, or Warwick ?
Why ask I that? my mangled body shows,

* My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart

shows.
That I must yield my body to the earth.
And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.
Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge.
Whose arms * gave shelter to the princely eagle.
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept ^ ;
Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree,

* And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful v/ind.

* These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's

black veil,

* Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun,

* To search the secret treasons of the world :
The wrinkles in my brows, now fili'd with blood,

Again, in Stephen Gosson's Schoole of Abuse, 1579: " These
hus:s are fitter to /^«r babes than to move men." Steevens.
To fear in old language frequently signifies, to terrify.

M ALONE.

So, in The Merchant of Venice :

" I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine
" Hath /earV/ the valiant." Steevens.
4 Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge.
Whose arms, &c.] It were better to read —
" Thus to the axe's edge the cedar yields,
" Whose arms," &c.
Othenvise " Whose arms" will refer to the axe instead of the
cedar. Steeveks.

s Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge.
Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle.
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept, &c.] It has been
observed to me, that the 31st chapter of the prophet Ezekiel .sug-
gested these images to Shakspeare. " All the fowls of heaven
made their nest in his boughs, and under his branches did all the
beasts of the field bring forth their young." Steevens.

sc. II. KING HENRY VI. 621

Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres ;

For who liv'd king, but I could dig his grave ?

And who durst smile, when Warwick bent his brow ?

Lo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood !

My parks ^, my walks, my manors that I had.

Even now forsake me ; and, of all my lands,

Is nothing left me, but my body's length ^ !

Why, what is pomp^ rule, reign, but earth and

dust ?
And, live we how we can, yet die we must.

Etiter Oxford and Somerset.

* SoM. Ah, Warwick, Warwick^! wert thou as
we are.

^ My parks, &c,]

Cedes coemptis saltibus, et domo,
Villaque. Hor.
This mention oi\\\s parks and manors diminishes the pathetick
effect of the foregoing lines. Johnson.

7 — and, of all my lands,

Is nothing left me, but my body's length !]
— — Mors sola fatetur
Quantula sint hominum corpuscula. Juv.
Camden mentions in his Remains, that Constantine, in order
to dissuade a person from covetousness, drew out with his lance
the length and breadth of a man's grave, adding, " This is all
thou shalt have when thou art dead, if thou canst happily get so
much." Malone.

8 — what is pomp, &c.] This and the following line make
no part of this speech in the old play ; but were transposed by
Shakspeare from a subsequent speech, addressed by Warwick to
Somerset. Malone.

9 Ah, Warwick, Warwick, &c.] These two speeches stand
thus in the quartos :

" Oxf. Ah, Wai-wick, Warwick ! cheer up thyself and live ;
" For yet there's hope enough to win the day.
" Our warlike queen with troops is come from France,
" And at Southampton landed hath her train ;
" And, might'st thou live, then would we never fly.

" War. Why, then I would not fly, nor have I now ;
*' But Hercules himself must yield to odds:
" For many wounds receiv'd, and many more repaid,

522 THIRD PART OF yiCT v.

* We might recover all our loss again !

* The queen from France hath brought a puissant

power ;

* Even now we heard the news : Ah, could'st thou fly!

* War. Why, then I would not fly. — Ah, Mon-

tague,

* If thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand,

* And with thy lips keep in my soul awhile !

* Thou lov St me not ; for, brother, if thou didst,

* Thy tears would wash this cold congealed blood,

* That glues my lips, and will not let me speak.

* Come quickly, Moiitague, or I am dead.

* SoM. Ah, Warwick, Montague hath breath'd

his last ;

* And to the latest gasp, cried out for Warwick,

* And said — Commend me to my valiant brother.

* And more he would have said ; and more he spoke,

* Which sounded like a cannon in a vault ',

" Hath robb'd my strong-knit sinews of their strength,
" And spite of spites needs must I yield to death,"

Steevens.
One of these lines, " But Hercvdes," &c. Shakspeare has
transposed and inserted in the Messenger's account of the death
of the Duke of York. See p. 4-05. Not being aware of this,
I had inadvertently marked that line as our author's, which I ought
not to have done. The three following lines have already been
spoken by Warwick in a former scene (seep. 425,) and therefore
were here properly rejected by Shakspeare. Malone.

* Which sounded like a cantnon in a vault,] The old quarto
reads clamour, which is undoubtedly right, i. e. a clamour of
tongues, which, as he says, could not be distinguished. This was
a pertinent similitude : the other absurd, and neither agrees with
what is predicated of it, nor with what it is intended to illustrate.

Warburton.
" Which sounded like a cannon in a vault,
" That might not be distinguish'd ;] That is, like the noise of a
cannon in a vault, ■which, &c. Shakspeare's alteration here is per-
haps not so judicious as many others that he has made. In the
old play, instead of cannon, we have clamour, and the speech
stands thus :

" Thy brother Montague hath breath'd his last,

6

sc. jf. KING HENRY VI. 523

* That might not be distinguish'd : but, at last,

* I well might hear deliver'd with a groan, —

* O, farewell Warwick !

If'^R. Sweet rest to his soul ! —

Fly, lords, and save yourselves : for Warwick bids
You all farewell, to meet again in heaven '\ [Dies.
OxF. Away, away^ to meet the queen's great
power !

\_E.veimty bearing offlfARjricKs Body.

" And at the pangs of death I heard him cry,
" And say, Commend me to my valiant brother ;
" And more he would have said, and more he said,
" Which sounded like a clamour in a vault,
" That could not be distinguish'd for the sound ;
" And so the valiant Montague gave up the ghost."

Malone.
The indistinct gabble of undertakers, while they adjust a coffin
in a family vault, will abundantly illustrate the preceding simile.
Such a peculiar hubbub of inarticulate sounds, might have at-
tracted our author's notice : it has too often forced itself on mine.

Steevens,
2 — to meet AGAIN in heaven.] I have supplied the word —
again, for the sake of metre, by the advice of Mr. Ritson, and with
countenance from the following line in King Richard III. :

" Farewell, until we meet again in heaven." Steevens,
3 Away, away, &c.] Instead of this line, the quartos have the
following :

" Come, noble Somerset, let's take our horse,
" And cause retreat be sounded through the camp ;
" That all our friends remaining yet alive
" May be forewarn'd, and save themselves by flight.
" That done, with them we'll post unto the queen,
" And once more try our fortune in the field." Steevens.
It is unnecessary to repeat here an observation that has already
been more than once made. I shall therefore only refer to former
notes, and the Dissertation at the end of this play. Malone.

524 THIRD PART OF act v,

SCENE III.

Another Part of the Field.

Flourish. Enter King Edward in triumph ; with
Clarence, Gloster, and the rest.

* K. Edtf. Thus far our fortune keeps an upward

course,

* And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory *.

' But, in the midst of this bright-shining day,

* I spy a black, suspicious, threat'ning cloud,

* That will encounter with our glorious sun,

* Ere he attain his easeful western bed :

* I mean, my lords, — those powers \ that the queen

* Hath rais'd in Gallia, have arriv'd our coast ^,

* And, as we hear, march on to fight with us.

* Clar. a little gale will soon disperse that cloud,

* And blow it to the source from whence it came :

* Thy very beams will dry those vapours up ;

4 Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course,

And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.] Thus the folio.
The quartos thus :

*' Thus still our fortune gives us victory,

" And girts our temples with triumphant joys.

" The big-bon'd traitor Warwick hath breath'd his last,

" And heaven this day hath smil'd upon us all."

Steevens.

5 I mean, my lords, — those powers, &c.] Thus the folio. The
old play thus :

" I meane those powers which the queen hath got in France,
" Are landed, and meane once more to menace us."

Malone.

* — have arriv'd our coast,] So, in Coriolanus :

" i ■ and now arrivins.

" A place of potency — ."
Again, in Julius Csesar :

" But ere we could arrive the point propos'd — ."
Milton uses the same structure. Paradise Lost, b. ii. :

*' ■ ere he arrive

" The happy isle." Steevens.

sc. IF. KING HENRY VI. 525

* For every cloud engenders not a storm.

* Glo. The queen is valu'd thirty thousand strong,
' And Somerset, with Oxford, fled to her ;

* If she have time to breathe, be well assur'd,
Her faction will be full as strong as ours.

K. Edw. We are advertised by our loving friends.
That they do hold their course toward Tewksbury ;
' We having now the best at Barnet field,

* Will thither straight. For willingness rids way ;

* And, as we march, our strength will be augmented
In every county as we go along. —

Strike up the drum ; cry — Courage ! and away ^.

{Jhlveunt.

SCENE IV.

Plains near Tewksbury.

March. Enter Queen Margaret, Prince Edtfard,
Somerset, Oxford, a fid Soldiers.

* Q. Mar. Great lords ^, wise men ne'er sit and

wail their loss,

' Strike up the drum ; cry — Courage ! and away.] Thus the
folio. The quartos have the following couplet :
" Come, let's go ;

" For if we slack this faire bright summer's day,
" Sharp winter's showers will mar our hope for haie."

Something like this has occurred in p. 512. Steevens.

^ Great lords, &c.] This speech in the old play stands thus :
" Queen. Welcome to England, my loving friends of
France,
" And welcome, Somerset and Oxford too.
'•' Once more have we spread our sails abroad ;
" And though our tackling be almost consumde,
" And Warwick as our maine-mast overthrowne,
" Yet, warlike lordes, raise you that sturdie post
" That bears the sailes to bring us unto rest.
" And Ned and I, as willing pilots should,
" For once, with careful mindes, guide on the sterne,
" To beare us through that dangerous gulfe,
" That heretofore hath swallowed up our friends."

526- THIRD PART OF act j:

* But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.

* What though the mast be now blown over-board,

* The cable broke, the holding anchor lost,

* And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood ?

* Yet lives our pilot still : 1st meet, that he

' Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad,

* With tearful eyes add water to the sea,

* And give more strength to that which hath too

much ^ ;

* Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,

* Which industry and courage might have sav'd ?

* Ah, what a shame \ ah, what a fault were this !

* Say, Warwick was our anchor ; What of that ?

* And Montague our top-mast ; What of him ?

* Our slaughter'd friends the tackles ; What of these ?

There is perhaps no speech that proves more decisively than the
above, that The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses
of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. and The True Tragedie of the Duke
of Yorke, &c. printed in 1600, were the production of some writer
who preceded Shakspeare ; and that what are now called The
Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI, were only a revisal and
amplijtcation of those pieces.

Here we have a thought which in the original play is expressed
in eleven lines, expanded by our author into thirty-seven lines.

Malone.
9 With tearful eyes add water to the sea.
And give more strength to that which hath too much ;] See
note on As You Like It, vol. vi. p. 383, n. 1. Reed.
So, in our author's Lover's Complaint :

" Upon whose weeping margent she was set,
" Like usury, applij'mg wet to wet."
Again, in As You Like It :

" Thou mak'st a testament

" As worldings do, giving the sum of more
" To that which hath too miichS'
Again, in Romeo and Juliet :

" With tears augmenting the fresh morning dew."
So also, Spenser, in his Shepherd's Calendar, 1579:
" Thou, plenteous spring, hast lull'd me oft asleep,
" Whose streames my trickling tears did oft augment."
Of this thought, which we see Shakspeare has sooften expressed,
there is no trace in the old play. See note 8. Malone.

sc. IF. KING HENRY VI. 527

* Why, is not Oxford here another anchor ?

* And Somerset another goodly mast ?

* The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings ?

* And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I

* For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge ?

* We will not from the helm, to sit and weep ;

* But keep our course, though the rough wind say —

no,

* From shelves and rocks that threaten us with

wreck.

* As good to chide the waves, as speak them fair.

* And what is Edward, but a ruthless sea ?

* What Clarence, but a quicksand of deceit ?

* And Richard, but a ragged fatal rock ?

* All these the enemies to our poor bark.

* Say, you can swim ; alas, 'tis but a while :

* Tread on the sand ; why, there you quickly sink :

* Bestride the rock ; the tide will wash you off,

* Or else you famish, that's a threefold death.

* This speak I, lords, to let you understand,

* In case some one of you would fly from us,

* That there's no hop'd-for mercy with the brothers,

* More than with ruthless waves, with sands, and

rocks.

* Why, courage, then ! what cannot be avoided,

* 'Twere childish weakness to lament, or fear.

* Prince. Methinks, a woman * of this valiant
spirit

» Methinks, a woman, &c.] In this speech there is much and
important variation in the quarto :

" Prince. And if there be (as God forbid there should)
" 'Mongst us a timorous or fearful man,
" Let him depart before the battles join ;
" Lest he in time of need entice another,
" And so withdraw the soldiers' hearts from us.
" I will not stand aloof, and bid you fight,
" But with my sword press in the thickest throngs,
" And single Edward from his strongest guard,

528 THIRD PART OF ^ct r.

* Should, if a coward heard her speak these words,

* Infuse his breast with magnanimity,

* And make him, naked, foil a man at arms.

* I speak not this, as doubting any here :

* For, did I but suspect a fearful man,

' He should have leave to go away betimes ;

* Lest, in our need, he might infect another,

* And make him of like spirit to himself.

* If any such be here, as God forbid !

* Let him depart, before we need his help.

* OxF. Women and children of so high a courage !
And warriors faint! wliy, 'twere perpetual shame. —

* O, brave young prince ! thy famous grandfather
Doth live again in thee ; Long may'st thou live.
To bear his image, and renew his glories !

' So3f. And he, that will not fight for such a hope,
' Go home to bed, and, like the owl by day, -

* If he arise, be mock'd and wonder'd at ^.

* Q. M.i/R. Thanks, gentle Somerset ; — sweet

Oxford, thanks.

* Prince. And take his thanks, that yet hath

nothing else.

Enter a Messenger.

* Mess. Prepare you, lords ^, for Edward is at

hand,

*' And hand to hand enforce him for to yield,

" Or leave my body, as witness of my thoughts."

Steevens.
Our author has availed himself of these lines in former scenes
of these plays, Malone.

^ If he arise, be mock'd and wonder'd at.] So the folio. The
old play thus :

" Be hiss'd and wonder'd at, if he arise." Malone.
3 Prepare you, lords, &c.] In the old play these speeches stand
thus :

" Mes. My lordes, duke Edward with a mightie power
" Is marching hitherward to fight with you.

sc. ir. KING HENRY VI. 529

* Ready to fight ; therefore be resoUite.

* OxF. I thought no less : it is his policy,

* To haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.

So3i, But he*s deceiv'd, we are in readiness.

Q. M^R. This cheers my heart, to see your for-
wardness.

OxF. Here pitch our battle, hence we will not
budge.

March. Enter, at a distance. King Ebtvart),
Clarence, Gloster, and Forces.

* K. Edif. Brave followers ^ yonder stands the

thorny wood,

* Which, by the heavens' assistance, and your

strength,

* Must by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.

* I need not add more fuel to your fire,

* For, well I wot, ye blaze to burn them out :
^ Give signal to the fight, and to it, lords.

Q. Mar. Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what
I should say,

* My tears gainsay ^ ; for every word I speak,

* Ye see, I drink the water of mine eyes ^

" Oxf. I thought it was his policy to take us unprovided,
" But here will we stand, and fight it to the death."

Malone.

4 K. Ediv. Brave followers;, &c.] This scene is ill-contrived,
in which the King and Queen appear at once on the stage at the
head of opposite armies. It had been easy to make one retire be-
fore the other entered. Johnson.

5 My tears gainsay ;] To gainsay is to unsay, to deny, to con-
tradict. So, in A Knack to Know a Knave, 1594 :

" — ^— . seeing my father grants,
" I will not gainsay." Steevens.
^ Ye see, I drink the water of mine eyes.] This phrase is scrip-
tural : " Thou feedest them with the bread of tears, and givest
them tears to drink." Psalm Ixxxv. 5. Steevens.
So, in our author's Venus and Adonis :

" Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok'st such weeping ?
VOL. XVIIl. ^ M

530 THIRD PART OF act V.

* Therefore, no more but this : — Henry, your sove-

reign \

* Is prisoner to the foe ; his state usurp'd,

' His realm a slaughterhouse, his subjects slain,

* His statutes cancell'd, and his treasure spent ;

* And yonder is the wolf, that makes this spoil.

* You fight injustice : then, in God's name, lords,

* Be valiant, and give signal to the fight.

l^Exeimt both Armies.

SCENE V.

Another Part of the Same.

Alarums: Exxm^sions : and afterwards a Retreat.
Then Enter King Edtfard, Clarence, Glos-
TER, and Forces ; with Queen Margaret, Oxford,
and Somerset, Pinso7iers.

* K. Edit. Now, here a period of tumultuous
broils.
Away with Oxford to Hammes' castle^ straight :

These passages were probably recollected by Rowe, when he
wrote in his Jane Shore :

*' Feed on my sighs^and drink my falling tears."
So also, Pope, in the Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard :

" And drink the falling tears each other shed."
The folio has — eye : but I imagine it was rather an error in the
transcriber than an alteration by Shakspeare. The old play reads
— eyes. . Malone.

' — Henry, your sovereign, &c.] Instead of this and the fol-
lowing lines, the original play has these :

" Henr)^ your king is prisoner in the Tower ;
" His land and all our friends are quite distrest,
" And yonder stands the wolfe that makes all this,
" Then in God's name, lords, together crie Saint George."

Maloxe.
* — to Harames'castle — ] A castle in Picardy, where Oxford
was confined for many years. Malone. *

sc. V. KING HENRY VI. 531

For Sorxierset^, off with his guilty head.

* Go, bear them hence ; I will not hear them speak.

OxF. For my part, I'll not trouble thee with
words.

* SoM. Nor I, but stoop with patience to my

fortune.

[Exeunt Oxford and Somerset, guarded.

* Q. Mar. So part we sadly in this troublous

world,

* To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.

* K. Eojr. Is proclamation made, — that, who

finds Edward,

* Shall have a high reward, and he his life ?

* Glo. It is : and, lo, where youthful Edward

comes.

Enter Soldiers, with Prince Edtfard.

*= K. Edtf. Bring forth the gallant, let us hear
him speak :

* What ! can so young a thorn begin to prick ^ ?

* Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make,

* For bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,

* And all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to - ?

9 For Somerset,] Edmond Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, the
second son of Edmond Duke of Somerset, who was killed at the
battle of Saint Albans. Malone.

' What! can so young a thorn begin to pkick ?] This
is a proverbial observation, which I find verified in " A Preaty
Interlude, called Nice Wanton " —

" Early sharpe that wyll be thorne,
" Soone yll that wyll be naught," &c. Steevens.
^ And all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to?] This
line was one of Shakspeare's additions to the original play. We
have almost the same words in The Tempest :

" O, my heart bleeds,

" To think of the teen [i. e. trouble] that I have turrCdyou to.*'
In the old play Prince Edward is not brought forth as here, but
enters with his mother ; and after Oxford and Somerset are car-
ried off, he is thus addressed by the King :

" Now, Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make,
" For stirring uj) my subjects to rebellion ? " Malone.

2 m2

532 THIRD PART OF act v.

Prince. Speak like a subject, proud ambitious
York !
Suppose, that I am now my father's mouth ;
Resign thy chair, and, where I stand, kneel thou,
Whilst I propose the self-same words to thee.
Which, traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.
Q. Mjr. Ah, that thy father had been so resolv'd!
* Glo. That you might still have worn the petti-
coat,
And ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster.
Prince. Let yEsop'^ fable in a winter's night;
His currish riddles sort not with this place.

Glo. By heaven, brat. Til plague you for that

word.
Q. Mar. Ay, thou wast born to be a plague to

men.
Glo. For God's sake, take away this captive scold.
Prince. Nay, take away this scolding crook-back

rather.
' K. Edw. Peace, wilful boy, or I will charm your
tongue *.

3 Let iEsop, &c.] The Prince calls Richard, for his crook-
edness, ^sop ; and the poet, following nature, makes Richard
highly incensed at the reproach. Johnson.

4 — CHARM your tongue.] The quarto reads — tame your
tongue.

The former is best. So, in Sir A. Gorges' translation of Lucan,

1614:

" In hope that thy victorious arme
" Their dunghill crowing so will chnrme." Steevens,
This is the right reading. So, in Cynthia's Revels, Mercury
says to Cupid :

" How now, my dancing braggart ! charm your tongue."
And, in The Taming of the Shrew, Lucentio says:

" But I will charm him first to keep his tongue."

M. Mason.
The expression which our author substituted, is one that he has
often used. See vol. xviii. p. 286, n. 1. The meaning is, I will
compel you to be as silent, as you would be, if you were charm'd,
if you were deprived of speech by the power of inchantment.

Malone.

sc. F. KING HENRY VI. d33

Clar. Untutor'd lad, thou art too malapert.

Prince. I know my duty, you are all undutiful :
Lascivious Edward, — and thou perjur'd George, —
And thou misshapen Dick, — I tell ye all,
I am your better, traitors as ye are ; —
* And thou usurp'st my fathers right and mine.

K. Edtf. Take that, the likeness of this railer
here ^. [Stabs him,

* Glo. Sprawl'st thou ? take that, to end thy

agony. [Glo. stabs him.

* Clar. And there's for twitting me with per-

jury. [Clar. stabs him.

Q. Mar. O, kill me too !

Glo. Marry, and shall. [Offers to kill her.

' K. Enir. Hold, Richard, hold, for we have done

too much.
Glo. Why should she live, to fill the world with

words ^ ?

s — THK likeness of this railer here, &c.] That thou resem-
blest thy railing mother. Johnson.

That is, " thou who art the likeness,'" &c. Mr. Rowe and the
other modern editors read — tlioii likeness, and so we should now
v/rite ; but the other was the phraseology of Shakspeare's time.
So, in Julius Csesar :

" The last of all the Romans, fare thee well."

In that passage, as in the present, Mr. Rowe substituted thou
for the, though Shakspeare has employed the very words he found
in North's translation of Plutarch. Malone.

The old copies describe Edward as striking the first blow, and
Gloster the next ; and, I believe, rightly, for history informs us
that Edward smote the Prince with his gauntlet, on which the
rest dispatchd him. The words " sprawl'st thou ? " seem evi-
dently to belong to Richard ; and I have therefore continued them
to him on the authority of ancient editions, in preference to the
allotment of modern innovation. See edit. 1765, vol. v. p. 217.

Steevens.

6 — vvlth WORDS ?] i. e. dispute, contention. So, in a for-
mer of these plays :

" Some locrf^s there grew 'twixt Somerset and me."

Steevens.

634 THIRD PART OF .^ct r.

* K, Edw. What ! doth she swoon ? use means

for her recovery.
Glo. Clarence, excuse me to the king, my bro-
ther ;

* I'll hence to London on a serious matter :

* Ere ye come there, be sure to hear some news.

Clar. What ? what ?

* Glo. The Tower, the Tower ^ ! {Exit.

* Q. Mar. O, Ned, sweet Ned ! speak to thy
1 mother, boy !

* Canst thou not speak ! — O traitors ! murderers ! —
They, that stabb'd Ceesar, shed no blood at all.
Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame,

* If this foul deed were by, to equal it :

* He was a man ; this, in respect, a child ;
And men ne'er spend their fury on a child.

* What's worse than murderer, that I may name it "^

* No, no ; my heart will burst, an if I speak : —

* And I will speak, that so my heart may burst. —

* Butchers and villains, bloody cannibals !

* How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd !

* You have no children, butchers ^ 1 if you had,

7 The Tower, the Tower!] The quarto adds — " I'll root them
out ; " but, perhaps, injudiciously : and yet, without these words
the metre is imperfect. Steevens.

® You have no children, butchers !] The same sentiirent is
repeated by Macduff, in the tragedy of Macbeth ; and this passage
may serve as a comment on that. Blackstone.

The original play reads :

" You have no children, devils ; if you had,

" The thought of them would then have slopt your rage."

This thought occurring also (as Sir William Blackstone has
observed,) in Macbeth, " He has no children," may perhaps
be urged as a proof of Shakspeare's being the author of the first
draught, as well as of the alterations and additions to it. But
how many thoughts and even expressions has he borrowed from
preceding writers ? Having (as I suppose) greatly enlarged, and
almost new-written, this and the ])receding play, the thoughts
they contain, whether found in the first copy, or his amplification
of it, were as likely to recur in a future piece, as any of those

sc. V, KING HENRY VI. 535

* The thought of them would have stirr'd up re-

morse :

* But, if you ever chance to have a child.
Look in his youth to have him so cut off,

* As, deathsmen ! you have rid this sweet young

prince ® !
K. Edtf. Away with her ; go, bear her hence

perforce,

Q. Mar. Nay, never bear me hence, despatch me

here ;

Here sheath thy sword, I'll pardon thee my death :

What ! wilt thou not ? — then, Clarence, do it thou.

Clar. By heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.

Q. Mar. Good Clarence, do ; sweet Clarence, do

thou do it ^
Clar. Didst thou not hear me swear, I would

not do it.
Q. Mar. Ay, but thou usest to forswear thyself ;
'Twas sin before^, but now 'tis charity.

* What ! wilt thou not ? where is that devil's

butcher,
Hard-favour'd Richard ^ .^ Richard, where art thou ?

which he has employed in one originally written by himself. In
his original plays he frequently borrowed from himself. Malone.

9 — you have rid this sweet young prince.] The condition of
this warlike Queen would move compassion, could it be for-
gotten that she gave York, to wipe liis eyes in his captivity, a
handkerchief stained with his young child's blood. Johnson.

But surely it does move our compassion, though that be not
forgotten. When we see any of our fellow-creatures involved
in deep distress, from a just and tender cause we attend only to
their present sufferings, and not to their former crimes,

M. Mason.

I — do thou do it.] The old play reads — Mil me to. Malone.

* 'Twas sin before,] She alludes to the desertion of Clarence.

Johnson.

3 — where is that devil's butcher,
Hard-favour'd Richard ?] Thus all the editions. But devil's
hulchcr, in others terms, I think, is kill-devil: rare news for
the free thinkers, if there were any grounds for depending on it.

536 THIRD PART OF act v.

Thou art not here : Murder is thy alms-deed ;
Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.

* K. Edw. Away, I say ; I charge ye, bear her

hence.
Q. Mar. So come to you, and yours, as to this

prince I [^Exit, led out forcibly.

K. Edtf. Where's Richard gone .^

* Clar. To London, all in post ; and, as I guess.
To make a bloody supper in the Tower.

K. Edw. He's sudden, if a thing comes in his
head.

* Now march we hence : discharge the common sort

* With pay and thanks, and let's away to London,

* And see our gentle queen how well she fares ;

* By this, I hope, she hath a son for me. \_Exeunt.

SCENE VL

London. A Room in the Tower.

King Henry is discovered sitting with a Book in his
Hand, the Lieutenant attending. Enter Gloster,

Glo. Good day, my lord ! What, at your book so

hard ?
K. Hen. Ay, my good lord : My lord, I should
say rather ;
'Tis sin to flatter, good was little better :
Good Gloster, and good devil, were alike,
* And both preposterous ; therefore, not good lord.

But the poet certainly wrote — devil -hut chcr ; and the first part of
the compound is to be taken adjectively, meaning execrable, in-
fernal, devilish. Theobald.

" Devil's butcher," is a butcher set on by the devil. Either
reading may serve without so long a note. Johnson.

The folio adds, at the end of this line, the word — Richard. But
both the metre and the old play show that it was an accidental
repetition by the transcriber, or compositor. Malonk.

sc. Fi. KING HENRY VI. 537

* Glo. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves: we must

confer. [^Ed'it Lieutcucnit.

* K. Hen. So flies the reckless shepherd from the

wolf:

* So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece,

* And next his throat unto the butcher's knife. —
What scene of death hath Roscius now to act * ?

Glo. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind ;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

4 What scene of death hath Roscius now to act ?] Roscius
was certainly put for Richard by some simple conceited player who
had heard of Roscius and of Rome ; but did not know that he was
an actor in comedy, not in tragedy. Warburton.

Shakspeare had occasion to compare Richard to some player
about to represent a scene of murder, and took the first or only
name of antiquity that occurred to him, without being very scru-
pulous about its pro])riety.

I know not, however, that it is proved, on classical authority,
that Roscius, though generally a comedian, was no occasional
actor in tragedy. Nash, in Pierce Penniless's Supplication to the
Devil, J 592, says : " Not Roscius nor /Esope, those admired trn-
gedians, that have lived ever since before Christ was born, could
ever performemore in action than famous Ned Allen."

Again, in Acolastus his Afterwitte, 1600 :

" Through thee each murthering Roscius is appointed
" To act strange scenes of death on God's anointed."

Again, in Certainc Satyres, 1598:

" Was penn'd by Roscio the tragedian." Steevens.

" What scene of death hath Roscius now to act ?] So, in Aco-
lastus his Afterwitte, a poem, 1600;

" What bloody scene hath cruelty to act ?"

Dr. Warburton reads Richard, instead of Roscius, because
Roscius was a comedian. That he is right in this assertion, is
proved beyond a doubt by a passage in Quintilian, cited by W. R.
[probably Sir Walter Rawjinson] in The Gentleman's Maga-
zine, vol. liv. Part II. p. 886 : " Roscius citatior, ^Esopus gravior
fuit, quod ille comcedias, hie tragosdias egit." Qnintil. lib. xi. c. iii.
— But it is not in Quintilian or in any other ancient writer we are
to look in order to ascertain the text of Shakspeare. Roscius was
called a tragedian by our author s contemporaries, as appears from
the quotations in the preceding note ; and this was sufficient au-
thority to him, or rather to the author of the original play, for
there this line is found. Malone.

538 THIRD PART OF act v.

o

* K. He^x. The bird, that hath been limed in a

bush,

* With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush ^ :
And I, the hapless male ^ to one sweet bird.
Have now the fatal object in my eye.

Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and
kill'd.

* Glo. Why, what a peevish fool ^ was that of

Crete,

* That taught his son the office of a fowl ?

* And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd ^.

' K. He.v. I, Daedalus ; my poor boy, Icarus ;
Thy father, Minos, that denied our course ;

* The sun, that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy,

* Thy brother Edward ; and thyself, the sea.

5 — MISDOUBTETH eveiy bush :] To misdoubt is to suspect
danger, tojear. So, in Humour out of Breath, a comedy bv John
Day, 1608 :

" Hip. Doubt and misdoubt ! what difference is there here ?
"■ Oct. Yes, much: when men misdoubt, 'tis said theyye^ar."

Steevens.
^ — hapless male — ] The word male is here used in a very
uncommon sense, not for the male of the female, but for the
male parent : the sweet bird is evidently his son Prince Edward.

M. Mason.
7 — PEEVISH fool — ] As peevishness is the qualitij of children,
peevish seems to signify childish, and by consequence silly. Pee-
vish is explained by childish, in a former note of Dr. Warburton.

Johnson.
Shakspeare employs the word peevish in the same sense in
Cymbeline, where the reader will find many instances of this use
of it. Steevens.

This epithet, which Shakspeare has so frequently employed, was
one of his additions to the original play.

The ordinary signification of peevish in our poet's time was
Jholish. See Minsheu's Diet. 1617, in. v. Malone.
^ — the office of a fowl ?
And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.] The old
play reads :

" the office of a bird ?

" And yet for all that the \iOovfotd was drown'd."

Malone.

sc. VI. KING HENRY VI. 5:}9

* Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.

* Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words !
' My breast can better brook thy dagger's point,
Than can my ears that tragick history. —

* But wherefore dost thou come ? is't for my life ?
* Glo. Think'st thou, I am an executioner ?

K. Hen. A persecutor, I am sure, thou art ;

* If murdering innocents be executing,

* Why, then thou art an executioner.

Glq. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.
K. Hen. Hadst thou been kill'd, when first thou
didst presume,
Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.

* And thus I prophecy, — that many a thousand,

* Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear ^ ;

' And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,
' And many an orphan's water-standing eye, —

* Men for their sons, wives for their husbands' fate \

* And orphans for their parents' timeless death ^, —

* Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign ;

* The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time ;
Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down

trees ;
The raven rook'd her ^ on the chimney's top,

9 Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear ;] Who suspect no
part of what my fears presage. Johnson.

' Men for their sons, wives for their husbands' fate,] The
word— ^^e was supplied by the editor of the second folio.

Malone.

^ And orphans, &c.] The word — and, which is necessary to
the metre, and is wanting in the first folio, was supplied by the
second. Steevens

3^ The raven eook'd her — ] To rooJc, or rather to ruch, is a
north-country word, signifying to squat duimi, or lodge on any
thing.

So, in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 1310:
" What is mankind more unto you yhold,
" Than is the shepe, that rouketh in the fold ? "

Again, in the Nonnes Preestes Tale, ibid. v. 15,232 :

6

540 THIRD PART OF act v.

i)

And chattering pies in dismal discords sung.
Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,
And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope ;
' To wit, — an indigest * deformed lump,
Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.
Teeth hadst thou in thy head, when thou wast born.
To signify, — thou cam'st to bite the world :
And, if the rest be true which I have heard,
' Thou cam'st ^ —

" O false morderour, ruclchig in thy den.
Again, in the Preface to Stanyhurst's translation of Virgil,
1582:

" I cannot devine upon such bookes that happlye rotde in stu-
dentes mewes," &c.

Again, in the translation of the fourth book :
" Also on the turrets the skrich howle, &c.

" doth ruck," &c.

Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, b. vii. ch. xxxvii. :

" Have lazy wings, be ever lean, in sullen corners ruck"
Again, in Golding's translation of the 6th book of Ovid's Meta-
morphosis :

" The furies made the bridegrome's bed, and on the house

did rucJie
" A cursed owle the messenger of ill successe and lucke."
Again, in the 1.5th book :

" He ruckeih downe upon the same, and in the spices dies."

Steevens.
4 — an INDIGEST — ] The folio has — indigested. But the
metre and the old play show that it was a misprint. Shakspeare
uses the word indigest in King John. Malone.

radis indigestaque moles. Ovid. Met. i. 7. Douce.

■5 And, if the rest be true which I have heard.
Thou cam'st — ] Had our editors had but a grain of sagacity,
or true diligence, there could have been no room for this absurd
break, since they might have ventured to fill it up with certainty
too. The old quarto would have led them part of the way:

" Thou cam'st into the world ."

And that the verse is to be completed in the manner I have
given it, is incontestable ; for unless we suppose King Henry
actually reproaches him with this his preposterous birth, how can
Richard in his very next soliloquy say :

" Indeed, 'tis true, that Henry told me of;

" For I have often heard my mother say,

" I came into the world with my legs forward,"

sc. Fi. KING HENRY VI. 541

Glo. I'll hear no more ;— Die, prophet, in thy
speech ; [Stabs Idm.

. For this, amongst the rest, v/as I ordain'd.

K. Hen. Ay, and for much more slaughter after
this.
O God ! forgive my sins, and pardon thee ! [Dies.
Glo. What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster

* Sink in the ground ? I thought it would have

mounted.
See, how my sword weeps for the poor king's death !

* O, may such purple tears be always shed

* From those that wish the downfal of our house ! —

* If any spark of life be yet remaining ^,

Down, down to hell ; and say — 1 sent thee thither,

[Stabs him again.
I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear. —
Indeed, 'tis true, that Henry told me of' ;

I can easily see, that this blank was caused by the nicety of the
players, to suppress an indecent idea, But, with submission, this
was malting but half a cure, unless they had expunged the repe-
tition of it out of Richard's speech too. Theobald.

" Thou cam'st — ." Thus the folio. The old play as follows :

" Thou cam'st into the tvorld .

" Gio. Die prophet in thy speech ; — I'll hear no more."

Malone.
^ If any spark of life be yet remaining,] So. in the 6th book of
Ovid's Metamorphosis, translated by Arthur Golding, 1587 :
" If any sparke of nature do within thy hart remaine."

Steevens.
7 — that Henry told meof ;] Namely, that my birth was at-
tended with singular circumstances. — Theobald, grounding him-
self on this and the two following lines, reads in a former passage —

" Thou cam'st itito the ivorld with thy legsforivard."
for " how," (says he,) can Richard say, '' Indeed 'tis true that
Henry told me of,"' &;c. " unless we suppose King Henry re-
proached him with his preposterous birth." But surely Henry /;«s
done so in the last ten lines of his speech, though he is at length
prevented by the fatal stab from mentioning a further proof of
Richard's being born for the destruction of mankind. Theobald's
addition therefore to that line, has, I think, been adopted, too
hastily by the subsequent editors, and the interruption in the
midst of Henry's speech appears to me not only preferable, as

543 THIRD PART OF act v.

For I have often heard my mother sa}-,

I came into the world with my legs forward :

Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste,

* And seek their ruin that usurp 'd our right ?
The midwife wonder'd ; and the women cried,
0, Jtsus bless us, he is born zvitli teeth !

* And so I was ; which plainly signified —
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.

* Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,
Let hell ^ make crook'd my mind to answer it.

I have no brother, I am like no brother :

' And this word — love, which greybeards call divine.

Be resident in men like one another.

And not in me ; I am mvself alone. —

Clarence, beware : thou keep'st me from the light ;

But I will sort a pitchy day for thee ^ :

For I will buz abroad such prophecies,

' That Edward shall be fearful of his life ' :

warranted by the old copies, and by Gloster's subsequent words,
[Die, prophet, in tliy speech ;] but more agreeable to nature.

Malone.
^ Let hell, &c.] This line Dryden seems to have thought on
in his Oepidus :

" It was thy crooked mind hunch'd out thv back,
*' And wander'd in thy limbs." Steevens.
After this line, we find in the old play the following:

" I had no father, I am like no father."
It might have been omitted in the folio merely by accident, (as
some lines in The Second Part of King Heniy VI. certainly uere,)
but its restoration is not necessary, for the sense is complete with-
out it. Malone.

9 But I will SORT a pitchy day for thee:] But I will choose
out an hour whose gloom shall be as fatal to you. To sort is to
select. So, in The Spanish Tragedy, 1605 :

" for they had 5ori«/ leisure."

Again, in The Lover's Melancholy, 1629 :

" We shall sort time to take more notice of him."

Steevens.
' For I will buz abroad such prophecies,
That Edward shall be fearful of his life;] The quartos add
a line between these :

sc. VII. KING HENRY VI. 643

And then, to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.

* King Henry, and the prince his son, are gone :

* Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest ;
Counting myself but bad, till I be best. —

* I'll throw thy body in another room.

And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom. \^Ej:it.

SCENE VII.

The Same. A Room in the Palace.

King Edtt'ard is discovered sitting on his Throne;
Qiieen Elizabeth ivith the infant Prince, Cla-
RENCE^ Gloster, Hastings, and Others, near
him.

K, Edtf. Once more we sit in England's royal
throne,
Re-purchas'd with the blood of enemies.
What vahant foe-men, like to autumn's corn,
Have we mow'd down ", in tops of all their pride .^
Three dukes of Somerset ? threefold renown'd
For hardy and undoubted champions :
Two Cliffords, as the father and the son,
And two Northumberlands ; two braver men
Ne'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound :

" such prophecies,

" Under pretence of outward seemhig ill,
" That," &c. Steevens.
This line is not in the quarto printed by W. W. 1600 ; but it is
in the undated quarto, which in fact was printed in 1619, from
that printed in 1600 by V. S. Malone.
* — like to autumn's corn.
Have we mow'd down,] A kindred image occurs in King
Henry V. vol. xvii. p. 34-8 :

" mowing like grass

" Your fresh-fair virgins, and your flow'ring infants,"

Steevens.

544 THIRD PART Or act r.

* With them, the two brave bears, Warwick and

Montague,
That in their chains fetter d the kingly lion,
And made the forest tremble when they roar'd.
Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat,
And made our footstool of security. —
Come hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy : —
Young Ned, for thee, thine uncles, and myself,
Have in our armours watch'd the winter's night ;

* Went all a foot in summer's scalding heat.
That thou might'st repossess the crown in peace ;
And of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.

Glo. I'll blast his harvest, if your head were laid ;
For yet I am not look'd on in the world.
This shoulder was ordain'd so thick, to heave ;
And heave it shall some weight, or break my

back : —
Work thou the way, — and thou shalt execute \

\_Aside.
K. Edw. Clarence, and Gloster, love my lovely
queen;
And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.
Clar. The duty, that I owe unto your majesty,

3 Work thou the way^ — and thou shalt execute.] I believe
we should read :

" and this shall execute."

Richard laying his hand on his forehead says :

" Work thou the way ."

then bringing down his hand, and beholding it :

" and this shall execute."

Though that may stand, the arm being included in the shoulder.

Johnson.
The quartos read :

" Work thou the way, and thou shalt execute."
I suppose he speaks this line, first touching his head, and then
looking on his hand. Steevens.

This is the reading of the old play. The folio reads — " and
tliat shalt execute." But as the word shalt is preserved, the other
must have been an error of the transcriber or compositor.

Malone.

sc, rii. KING HENRY VI. 545

I seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.

K. Enrr. Thanks, noble Clarence ; worthy bro-
ther, thanks ^.

* Glo. And, that I love the tree from whence
thou sprang'st,

* Witness the loving kiss I give the fruit : —
To say the truth, so Judas kiss'd his master ;

* And cried — all hail ! when as he meant — all harm.

K. Edw. Now am I seated as my soul delights.
Having my country's peace, and brothers' loves.

Clar. What will your grace have done with
Margaret ?
Reignier, her father, to the king of France
Hath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,
And hither have they sent it for her ransom.

K. Edw. Away with her, and waft her hence to
France.
And now what rests, but that we spend the time
With stately triumphs ^, mirthful comick shows.
Such as befit the pleasures of the court ?
Sound, drums and trumpets ! — farewell, sour annoy!
For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy. [E.veunt.

4 Thanks, noble Clarence ; worthy brother, thanks.] The
quarto appropriates this line to the Queen. The first and second
folio, by mistake, have given it to Clarence.

In my copy of the second folio, which had belonged to King
Charles the First, his Majesty has erased — Cla. and written King,
in its stead. — Shakspeare, therefore, in the catalogue of his re-
storers, may boast of a Royal name. Steevens.

5 With stately triumphs,] Triumphs arepiMick shntvs. This
word has occurred too frequently to need exemplification in the
present instance. Steevens.

VOL. XVIII. 2 N

o4C) THIRD PART OF

The following Summary Account * of the times and places of
the several battles fought between the two houses of York and
Lancaster, and of the numbers killed on both sides, is formed on
that given bv Trussel, at the end of his History of England, a
book of little value, but in matters of this kind tolerably correct.
I have compared his account with our earliest historians, and in
some places corrected it by them.

1. The Battle of Saint Albans, fought on the 23d of May, 1455,
between Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and King Henry VI.
In this battle the Duke of York was victorious, and Henry was
taken prisoner.

Killed, on the royal side 5041, (among whom were Edmond
Duke of Somerset, Henry Earl of Northumberland, Humphrey
Earl of Staftbrd, and Thomas Clifford ;) on the side of the Duke
of York, 600. Total— 5641 .

2. The Battle of Bloarhe".th in Shropshire, fought on the 30th
of September 1459, between James Lord Audley on the part of
King Henry, and Richard Nevil Earl of Salisbury on the part of
the Duke of York ; in which battle Lord Audley was slain, and
his armv defeated.

Killed— 2411.

3. The Buttle of Northampton, 20th of July, 1460, between
Edward Plantagenet, Earl of March, eldest son of the Duke of
York, and Richard Nevil Earl of Warwick, on the one side, and
Kin"- Henry on the other ; in which the Yorkists were victorious.

Knied — ^"1035, among whom were John Talbot Earl of Shrews-
bury, Humphrey Duke of Buckingham, and Sir William Lucy.

4. The Battle of Wakefield, December 30, 1460, between
Richard Duke of York and Queen Margaret; in which the Duke
of York was defeated.

Killed— 2801, among whom vverc the Duke of York, Edmond
Earl of Rutland his second son, Sir John and Sir Hugh Mortimer,
his base uncles, and the Earl of Shrewsbury. Richard Nevil Earl
of Salisbury was in this battle taken prisoner, and afterwards be-
headed at Pomfret.

5. The Battle of Mortimer's Cross, in Herefordshire, on
Candlemas-dav, 1460-1, between Edward Duke of York on the
one side, and jasper Earl of Pembroke, and James Butler Earl of
Wiltshire, on the other ; in which the Duke of York was vic-
torious. .

Killed— 3S00, among whom was Sir Owen Tuther or iudors,
who married Queen Katharine, the widow of King Henry V.

* Mr. Ritson, among his Remarks, 1783, p. 130, has also enu-
merated the following battles, &c. but as Mr. Malone's subse-
quent account of the same occurrences is the more ample of the
two, I have adopted it. Steevens.

KING HENRY VT. 547

6. The Second Battle of Saint Albans, February 17, 1460-1,
between Queen Margaret on the one side, and the Duke of Nor-
folk and the Earl of U'arwick on the other; in which the Queen
obtained the victory.

Killed — 2303 ; among whom was Sir John Grey, a Lancastrian,
whose widow, Lady Grey, afterwards married King Edward the
Fourth.

7. The action at Ferrybridge, in Yorkshire, March 28, 1461,
between Lord Clifford on the part of King Henry, and the Lord
Fitzwalter on the part of the Duke of York.

Killed — 230, among whom were Lord Fitzwalter, John Lord
Clifford, and the bastard son of the Earl of Salisbury.

8. The Battle of Towton, four miles from York, Palm-Sunday,
March 29, 1461, between Edward Duke of York and King Henry ;
in which King Henry was defeated.

Killed — 37,046, among whom were Plenry Pcrcv Earl of Nor-
thumberland, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and the Lords Nevil, Beau-
mond, Willoughby, Wells, Roos, Gray, Dacres, and Fitzhugh.
The Earl of Devonshire was taken prisoner, and soon afterwards
beheaded at York.

9. The Battle of Hedgeley Moor, in Northumberland, April 29,
1463, between John Nevil Viscount Montague, on the part of
King Edward IV. and the Lords Hungerford and Roos on the part
of King Henry VI. : in wliich the Yorkists were victorious.

Killed — 108, among whom was Sir Ralph Percy.

10. The Battle of Hexham, May 15, 1463, between Viscount
Montague and King Henry, in which that King was defeated.

Killed— 2024. Heniy Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and the
Lord Roos and Hungerford, fighting on the side of King Henry,
were taken prisoners, and soon afterwards beheaded.

11. The Battle of Hedgecote, four miles from Banbury, July 25,
1469, between William Herbert Earl of Pembroke, on the part of
King Edward, and the lords Fitzhugh and Latimer, and Sir John
Conyers, on the part of King Henry : in which the Lancastrians
were defeated.

Killed— 5009. The Earl of Pembroke and his brother, Richard
Widville Earl of Rivers, father to King Edwards Queen, Sir
John Widville, John Tiptoft Earl of Worcester, the Lords Wil-
loughby, Stafford, and Wells, were taken prisoners, and soon
afterwards beheaded.

13. The Battle of Stamford, in Lincolnshire, October 1, 1469,
between Sir Robert Wells and King Edward ; in which the former
was defeated and taken prisoner. The vanquished who fled, in
order to lighten themselves threw away their coats, wlience
the place of combat was called Losecoaifield .

Killed— 10,000.

14. The Battle of Barnet, on Easter-Sunday, April 14, 1471,
between King Edward on one side, and the Eiirl of Warwick, the

2 N 2

548 THIRD PART OF

Marquis of Montague, and the Earl of Oxford, on the part of
King Henry VI. in which the Lancastrians were defeated.

Killed — 10,300 ; among whom were the Earl of Warwick, the
Marquis of Montague, the Lord Cromwell, and the son and heir of
Lord Say.

In a letter which was written at London four days after the
battle of Barnet, the total number killed on both sides is said to
have been " more than a thousand.'" Paston Letters, vol. ii.
p. Q5. Fabian, the nearest contemporary historian, says 1500.

The custom among our old writers of using Arabick numerals,
has been the cause of innumerable errors, the carelessness of a
transcriber or printer by the addition of a cipher converting hun-
dreds into thousands. From the inaccuracy in the present instance
we have ground to suspect that the numbers said to have fallen in
the other battles between th.e houses of York and Lancaster, have
been exaggerated. Sir John Paston who was himself at the
battle of Barnet, was probably correct.

\5. The Battle of Tewksbury, May 3, 1471, between King
Edward and Queen Margaret, in which the Queen was defeated,
and she and her son Prince Edward were taken jjrisoners.

On the next day the Prince was killed by King Edward and his
brothers, and Edmond Duke of Somerset beheaded.

Killed — 3,032. Shortly afterwards, in an action between the
bastard son of Lord Falconbridge and some Londoners, 1092 per-
sons were killed.

16. The Battle of Bosworth, in Leicestershire, August 22,
1485, between King Richard III. and Henry Earl of Richmond,
afterwards King Henry VII. in which King Richard was defeated
and slain.

Killed, on the part of Richard, 4',013, among whom were John
Duke of Norfolk, and Walter Lord Ferrers ; on the part of Rich-
mond, 181.

The Total Number of persons who fell in this contest, was
Ninety-one Thousand and Twenty-six. Malone.

The three parts of King Henry VI. are suspected, by Mr.
Theobald, of being supposititious, and are declared, by Dr. War-
burton, to be certainly not Shakspeare's. Mr. Theobald's suspi-
cion arises from some obsolete words ; but the phraseology is like
the rest of our author's style, and single words, of which however
I do not observe more than two, can conclude little.

Dr. Warburton gives no reason, but I suppose him to judge
upon deeper principles and more comprehensive views, and to
draw his opinion from the general effect and spirit of the composi-
tion, which he thinks inferior to the other historical plays.

From mere inferiority nothing can be inferred ; in the produc-
tions of wit there will be inequality. Sometimes judgment will err,
and sometimes the matter itself will defeat the artist. Of every
authors works one will be the best, and one will be the worst.

KING HENRY VI. 549

The colours are not equally pleasing, nor the attitudes equally
graceful, in all the pictures of Titian or Reynolds.

Dissimilitude of style and heterogenousness of sentiment, may
sufficiently show that a work does not really belong to the reputed
author. But in these plays no such marks of spuriousness are
found. The diction, the versification, and the figures, are Shak-
speare's. These plays, considered, without regard to characters
and incidents, merely as narratives in verse, are more happily
conceived, and more accurately finished than those of K. John,
Richard II. or the tragick scenes of King Henry IV. and V. If
we take these plays from Shakspeare, to whom shall they be
given ? What author of that age had the same easiness of ex-
pression and fluency of numbers ?

Having considered the evidence given by the plays themselves,
and found it in their favour, let us now enquire what corrobora-
tion can be gained from other testimony. They are ascribed to
Shakspeare by the first editors, whose attestation may be received
in questions of fact, however unskilfully they superintended their
edition. They seem to be declared genuine by the voice of
Shakspeare himself, who refers to the second play in his epi-
logue to King Henry V. and apparently connects the first Act of
King Richard III. with the last of The Third Part of King
Henry VI. If it be objected that the plays were popular, and
that therefore he alluded to them as well known ; it may be an-
swered, with equal probability, that the natural passions of a poet
would have disposed him to separate his own works from those of
an inferior hand. And, indeed, if an author's own testimony
is to be overthrown by speculative criticism, no man can be any
longer secure of literary reputation.

Of these three plays I think the second the best. The truth is,
that they have not sufficient variety of action, for the incidents
are too often of the same kind ; yet many of the characters are
well discriminated. King Henry, and his Queen, King Edward,
the Duke of Gloucester, and the Earl of ^\^arwick, are very
strongly and distinctly painted.

The old copies of the two latter parts of King Henry VI. and
of King Henry V. are so apparently imperfect and mutilated, that
there is no reason for supposing them the first draughts of Shak-
speare. I am inclined to believe them copies taken by some auditor
who wrote down, during the representation, what the time would
permit, then perhaps filled up some of his omissions at a second
or third hearing, and, when he had by this method formed some-
thing like a play, sent it to the printer. Johnson.

So, Heywood, in the Preface to his Rape of Lucrece, (fourth
imjjression,) 1630:

" — for though some have used a double sale of their labours,
fiist to the stage and after to the press, for my own part I here
proclaim myself ever faithful to the first, and never guilty of the

5

550 THIRD PART OF

last : yet since some of my plays have (unknown to me, and
without any of my direction,) accidentally come into the printer's
hands, and therefore so corrupt and mangled {copied only by the
ear,) that I have been as unable to know them as ashamed to
challenge them, this therefore I was the willinger," &c.

Collins.
There is another circumstance which may serve to strengthen
Dr. Johnson's supposition, vi?. that most of the fragments of
Latin verses, omitted in the quartos, are to be found in the folio ;
and when any of them are inserted in the former, thevare shame-
fully corrupted and misspelt. The auditor, who understood
English, might be unskilled in any other language. Steevens.

I formerly coincided with Dr. Johnson on this subject, at a
time when I had examined the two old plays published in quarto
under the title of The Whole Contention of the two famous
Houses of York and Lancaster, in two parts, with less attention
than 1 have lately done. That dramas were sometimes imper-
fectly taken down in the theatre, and afterwards published in a
mutilated state, is proved decisively by the prologue to a play en-
tilled, If you Know Not Me You Know Nobody, by Thomas
Hey wood, 1623 :

" 'Twas ill nurst,

" And yet receiv'd as well perform'd at first ;
" Grac'd and frequented ; for the cradle age
" Did throng the seats, the boxes, and the stage,
" So much, that some by stenography drew
" The plot, put it in print, scarce one word true :
" And in that lameness it has limp'd so long,
" The author now, to vindicate that wrong
" Hath took the pains upright upon its feet
" To teach it walk ; so please you, sit and see it."
But the old plays in quarto, which have been hitherto supposed
to be imperfect representations of the second and third parts of
King Heniy VI. are by no means mutilated and imperfect. The
scenes are as well connected, and the versification as correct, as
that of most of the other dramas of that time. The fact there-
fore, which Heywood's Prologue ascertains, throws no light upon
the present contested question. Such observations as I have
made upon it, I shall subjoin in a distinct Essay on the subject.

M ALONE.

I have already given some reasons, why I cannot believe, that
these plays were originally written by Shakspeare. The question,
who did write them? is, at best, but an ^rgum^wiad ignorantiam.
We must remember, that very many old plays are anonymous ;
and that play-xm-iting was scarcely yet thought reputable : nay,
some authors express for it great horrors of repentance. — I will
attempt, however, at some future time, to answer this question':
the disquisition of it would be too long for this place.

KING HENRY Vl. 551

One may at least argue, that the plays were not vvrkten by
Shakspeare, from Shakspeare himself. The Churus at the end
of King Henry V. addresses the audience —

" For their sake,

" In your fair minds let this acceptance take."

But it could be neither agreeable to the poet's judgment or
his modesty, to recommend his new play from the merit and suc-
cess of King Henry VI. His claim to indulgence is, that,

though bending and unequal to the task, he has ventured to pursue
the story : and this sufficiently accounts for the connection of the
whole, and the allusions of particular passages. Farmer.

It is seldom that Dr. Farmer's arguments fail to enforce con-
viction ; but here, perhaps, they may want somewhat of their
usual weight. I think that Shakspeare's bare mention of these
pieces is a sufficient proof they were his. That they were so,
could be his only motive for inferring benefit to himself from the
spectators recollection of their past success. For the sake of
three historical dramas of mine which have already afforded you
entertainment, let me (says he) intreat your indulgence to a
fourth. Surely this was a stronger plea in his behalf, than any
arising from the kind reception which another might have already
met with in the same way of writing. Shakspeare's claim to
favour is founded on his having previously given ])leasure in the
course of three of those histories; because \\q '\fi i\. bending, sup-
plicatory author, and not a literary bully, like Ben Jonson ; and
because he has ventured to exhibit a series of annals in a suite of
plays, an attempt which till then had not received the sanction of
the stage.

1 hope Dr. Farmer did not wish to exclude the three dramas
before us, together with The Taming of the Slirew. from the
number of those produced by our author, on account of the Latin
quotations to be found in them. His proofs of Snakspeare's want
of learning are too strong to stand in need of such a supj)ort.

Steevens.
Though the objections which have been raised to the genuine-
ness of the three plays of Henry the Sixth have been fully con-
sidered and answered by Dr. Johnson, it may not be amiss to add
here, from a contemporary writer, a passage, which not only
points at Shakspeare as the author of them, but also shows, that,
however meanly we may now think of them in comparison with
his latter productions, they had, at the time of their appearance,
a sufficient degree of excellence to alarm the jealousy of the older
play-wrights. The passage, to which I refer, is in a pamphlet,
entitled, Greene's Groatsworth of Witte, supposed to have been
written by that voluminous author, Robert Greene, M. A. and
said, in the title-page, to he. published at his dying request ; pro-
bably about 159?. The conclusion of this piece is an address to
his brother poets, to dissuade them from writing any more for the

552 THIRD PART OF KING HENRY VI.

stage, on account of the ill treatment which they were used to
receive from the players. It begins thus : " To those gentlemen,
his quondam acquaintance, that spend their wits in making playes,
R. G. wisheth a better exercise," &c. After having addressed
himself particularly to Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Lodge,
(as I guess from circumstances, for their names are not men-
tioned ;) he goes on to a third, (perhaps George Peele ;) and
having warned him against depending on so mean a stay as the
players, he adds : " Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart
crow beautified with our feathers ; that with his tygres head
ivrapt in a players hyde, supposes hee is as well able to bom-
baste out a blanke verse as the best of you ; and being an dib^o-
\ute Johannes Jac totum is, in his own conceit, the onely Shake-
scene in a countrey." There can be no doubt, I think, that
Shake-scene alludes to Shaksneare ; or that his tygres head urapt
in a players hyde, is a parodie upon the following line o York's
speech to Margaret, Third Part of King Henry VI. Act I. So. IV.:
" Oh tygres heart, ivrapt in a woman's hide."

Tyrwhitt.

DISSERTATION

ON

THE THREE PARTS

OF

KING HENRY VI,

CONTENTS.

THE subject stated. The inferior parts in these three plays
being of a different complexion from the inferior parts of Shak-
speare's undoubted performances, a proof that they were not
written originaUy and entirely by him. — Mr. Malone's hypothe-
sis. The First Part of K. Henry VI. not written by him, p. 557.
The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. formed by Shak-
speare on two elder plays, the one entitled the First Part of the
Contention of the Two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster,
with the Death of the good Duke Humphrey, &c. the other. The
true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, and the Death of
good King Henry the Sixt. p. 558.

The First Part of King Henry VI.

The diction, versification, and allusions, of this piece all dif-
ferent from the diction, versification, and allusions of Shakspeare,
and corresponding with those of the dramatists that preceded him,
p. 558 — 56'h. Date of this play some years before 1592 ; p. 5G'\!.
Other internal evidence (beside the diction, &c.) that this piece
was not written by Shakspeare ; nor by the author of The First
Part of the Contention of the Two Houses, &c. nor by the au-
thor of The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, p. 5Q5
— 567. Presumptive proof that this play was not written by
Shakspeare, from its not containing any similarities of thought
to his undisputed plays, nor of expression, (except in a single in-
stance,) and from its general paucity of rhymes, p. 568.

The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI.

I. External Evidence. 1. The entry of The First Part of
the Contention of the Two Houses &c. at Stationers' Hall in 1594,
anonymous. 2. That piece, and the True Tragedie of Richard
Duke of Yorke, printed at first, anonymoudi/. Shakspeare's
name afterwards fraudulently affixed to these pieces, and why.
The same artifice practised with respect to other plays on tvJiich
he liad constructed dramas, p. 569, 570. 3. These two old plays
performed by Lord Pembroke's Servants, by whom Titus Andro-
nicus, and The old Taming of a Shrew were performed, and by
whom not one of Shakspeare's undisputed plays were represented,
p. 570. 4. Reasons assigned for supposing Robert Greene, or
George Peele, or both, the author or authors of the old plays,
p. 570 — 572. 5. These pieces nexv-modelled and re-ivritten by
Shakspeare, with great additions, which in the present edition

6

c.

556 CONTENTS.

are distinguished by a peculiar mark, p. 572. The mode
taken by Shakspeare, p. 572 — 576. 6. The fraud of Favier the
bookseller, who in the year 1619, after the death of Shaskpeare,
affixed his name to these two old plays, accounted for, p. 576.
7. These two old pieces being printed and reprinted, and The
First Part of King Henry W. not being printed, in Sh;ikspeare's
life time, a presumptive proof that he new-modelled the former,
and had little or no concern with the latter, p. 577.

II. Internal Evidence. 1. The F6(?7Vi^/o?JS between the two
old plays in quarto, and the corresponding pieces in the folio
edition of our author's dramatick works, of so peculiar a nature,
as to mark iv:o distinct hands. Several passages and circum-
.stances found in the old plays, of which there is no trace in
Shakspeare's new modification of them ; others materially vary-
ing. These insertions andvariations could not have arisen from
unskilful copyists or sliort-hand writers, who sometimes cur-
tail and mutilate, but do not invent and amplify, p. 578.

2. The Resemblances between certain passages in Shakspeare s
Second and Third Part of King Henry W. and his undisputed
works, a proof that he wrote a large portion of those plays ; and

3. The Discordancies between them and his undisputed plays,
a proof that he did not write the whole ; these resemblances
being found ordy in tlie folio, that is, in the plays as new-
modelled by Shakspeare ; and these discordancies being found
in the old quarto plays, from whence it must be presumed
that they were adopted through carelessness or haste, p. 583.

4. The peculiar Inaccuracies of Shakspeare ; and 5. his peculiar
Phraseology, which are found in The Second and Third Part of
King Henry VI. as exhibited in folio, and not in the old quarto
plays printed in 1600, prove that there were two distinct hands in
these pieces. So also do, 6. The Transpositions; and 7. the
Ecpeiitions : and 8. the Inconsistencies arising from sometimes
following, and sometimes departing from, an original model,
p. 585 — 591. 9. Hall, the historian on whose Chronicle the old
plays in quarto were constructed ; but Holinshed and not Hall,
Shakspeare's historian, p. 589.

The whole plays on which Shakspeare formed his Secord and
Third Parts of King Henry VI. probably written by the author of
King John, printed in 1591, whoever he was: p. 591. An
attempt made to account for The First Part of King Henry VI.
being printed in the first folio edition of our poet's dramatick
works, p. 591. Objections of Dr. Johnson and others, enu-
merated. Recapitulation, p. .'592. A considerable part of the
English History dramatized before the time of Shakspeare ; and
many of his historical and other plays formed on those of preceding
writers, p. 561. Conclusion, p. 563.

«••

DISSERTATION

ON

THE THREE PARTS

OF

KING HENRY VI.

TENDING TO SHOW

TJiat those Plai/s rpere not 7vritten ohiginally
by SHAKSPEARE.

oEVERAL passages in The Second and Third Part of Kiiig^
Henry VI. appearing evidently to be of the hand of Shakspeare,
I was long of opinion that the three historical dramas which are
the subject of the present disquisition, were properly ascribed to
him ; not then doubting that the whole of these plays was the
production of the same person. But a more minute investigation
of the subject, into which I have been led by the revision of all
our author's works, has convinced me, that, though the premises
were true, my conclusion was too hastily drawn ; for though the
hand of Shakspeare is unquestionably found in the two latter of
these plays, it does not therefore necessarily follow, that they
were originally and entirely composed by him. My thoughts
upon this point have already been intimated in the foregoing
notes ; but it is now necessary for me to state my opinion more
particularly, and to lay before the reader the grounds on which,
after a very careful inquiry, it has been formed.

What at present I have chiefly in view is, to account for the
visible inequality in these pieces ; many traits of Shakspeare being
clearly discernible in them, while the inferior parts are not merely
unequal to the rest, (from which no certain conclusion can be
drawn,) but of quite a different complexion from the inferior
parts of our author's undoubted performances.

My hypothesis then is, that The First Part of King Henry VI.
as it now appears, (of which no quarto copy is extant,) was the
entire or nearly the entire production of some ancient dramatist;

558 DISSERTATION ON

that The Whole Contention of the Two Houses of York and Lan-
caster, &c. written probably before the year 1590, was also the
composition of some writer wlio preceded Shakspeare ; and that
from this piece, which is in two parts, (the former of which is
entitled. The First Part of the Contention of the Two famous
Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the Death of the good
Duke Humphrey, &c. first printed in 1594; and the latter.
The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, and the Death of
good King Henrie the Sixt, which originally appeared in J 595,
and both parts printed together in 1600;) our ])oet formed the
two plays, entitled. The Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI.
as they appear in the first folio edition of his works.

Mr. Upton has asked, " How does the painter distinguish
copies from originals but by manner and style ? And have not
authors their peculiar style and manner, from which a true critick
can form as unerring a juagment as a painter?" Dr. Johnson,
though he has shown, with his usual acuteness, that, " this illu-
stration of the critick's science will not prove what is desired,"
acknowledges in a preceding note, that " dissimilitude of style
and heterogeneousness of sentiment may sufficiently show that a
work does not really belong to the reputed author. But in these
plays (he adds) no such marks of spuriousness are found. The
diction, versification, and the figures, are Shakspeare's." — By
these criterions then let us examine The First Part of K. Henry VI.
(for I choose to consider that piece separately ;) and if the dic-
tion, the figures, or rather the allusions, and the versification of
that play, (for these are our surest guides) shall appear to be
difte'rent from the other two parts, as tlicy are exhibited in the
folio, and from our authors other plays, we may fairly conclude
that he was not the writer of it.

I. With respect to the diction and the allusions, which I shall
consider under the same head, it is very observable that in The
First Part of King Henry VI. there are more allusions to mytho-
logy, to classical authors, and to ancient and modern history,
than, I believe, can be found in any one piece of our author's,
written on an English story ; and that these allusions are intro-
duced very much in the same manner as they are introduced in
the plays of Greene, Peele, Lodge, and other dramatists who pre-
ceded Shakspeare ; that is, they do not naturally arise out of the
subject, but seem to be inserted merely to show the writer's learn-
ing *. Of these the following are the most remarkable :

* — to show the writer's learning.] This appearance of pe-
dantry, if not assumed in imitation of Greene, &c. (see p. 4,)
would only induce me to think that the piece now under conside-
tion might be the work of a juvenile writer ; and why not one of
Shakspeare's earliest dramatick effusions ? The first themes

KING HENRY VI. 559

1. Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens.
So in the earth, to this day is not known.

2. A far more glorious star thy soul will make
Than Julius Caesar, or bright —

This blank. Dr. Johnson with the highest probability conjec-
tures, should be filled up with " Berenice ; " a word that the
transcriber or compositor probably could not make out. In the
same manner he left a blank in a subsequent passage for the name
of "Nero," as is indubitably proved by the following line, which
ascertains the omitted word. See No. 6.

3. Was Mahomet inspired with a dove ?

4. Helen, the mother of great Constantine,

Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters, were like thee,

5. Froisard, a countryman of ours, records, &c.
6, and, like thee, [Nero,]

Play on the lute, beholding the towns burning.
[In the original copy there is a blank where the word Nero is
now placed.]

7. The spirit of deep prophecy she hath,
Exceeding the nine Sybils of old Rome.

8. A witch, by fear, not force, like Hannibal,
Drives back our troops — .

9. Divinest creature, Astrsea's daughter—.
10. Adonis' gardens,

That one day bloom'd, and fruitful were the next.
1 1 . A statelier pyramis to her I'll rear.

Than Rhodope's, or Memphis', ever was.
12. an urn more precious

Than the rich-jewel'd coffer of Darius.
13. I shall as famous be by this exploit.

As Scythian Thomyris, by Cyrus' death,
li. I thought I should have seen some Hercules,

A second Hector, for his grim aspect.

15. Nestor-like aged, in an age of care.

16. Then follow thou thy desperate sire of Crete,
Thou Icarus.

17. Where is the great Alcides of the field ?

18. Now am I like that proud insulting ship,
That Csesar and his fortune bare at once.

composed by schoolboys are always stuffed with a tritical parade
of literature, such as is found in antiquated plays, vsome of which,
our author, while yet immature, might have taken for his model.

Steevens.
To show how little foundation there is for Mr. Steevens's
notion, let this play be compared with our author's earliest com-
positions, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and the Comedy of
Errors. Bo swell.

560 DISSERTATION ON

19. Is Talbot slain ; the Frenchman's only scourge.
Your kingdom's terror, and black Nemesis ?

20. Thou may'st not wander in that labyrinth ;
There Minotaurs, and ugly treasons lurk.

21. See, how the ugly witch doth bend her brows.
As if, with Circe, she would change my shape.

22. ■— — — thus he goes.

As did the youthful Paris once to Greece ;
With hope to find the like event in love.

Of particular expressions there are many in this play, that seem
to me more likely to have been used by the authors already
named, than by Shakspeare ; but I confess, with Dr. Johnson,
that single words can conclude little. However, I will just men-
tion that the words proditor and immnnity, which occur in this
piece, are not, I believe, found in any of Shakspeare's undisputed
performances.

The versification of this play appears to me clearly of a different
colour from that of all our author's genuine dramas, while at the
same time it resembles that of many of the plays produced before
the time of Shakspeare.

In all the tragedies written before his time, or just when he
commenced author, a certain stately march of versification is very
observable. The sense concludes or pauses almost uniformly at
the end of every line ; and the verse has scarcely ever a redundant
syllable. As the reader may not have any of these pieces at hand,
(by the possession of which, however, his library would not be
much enriched,) I shall add a few instances, — the first that

occur

" Most loyal lords, and faithful followers,

" That have with me, unworthy general,

*' Passed the greedy gulph of Ocean,

" Leaving the confines of fair Italy,

" Behold, your Brutus draweth nigh his end.

" And I must leave you, though against my will.

" My sinews shrink, my numbed senses fail,

" A chilling cold possesseth all my bones ;

" Black ugly death, with visage pale and wan,

" Presents himself before my dazzled eyes,

*' And with his dart prepared is to strike."

Locrine, 1595.
" My lord of Gloucester, and lord Mortimer,
*' To do you honour in your sovereign's eyes,
" That, as we hear, is newly come aland,
" From Palestine, with all his men of war,
*' (The poor remainder of the royal fleet,
" Preserv'd by miracle in Sicil road,)
*' Go mount your coursers, meet him on the way ;
" Pray him to spur his steed, minutes and hours,

KING HENRY VI. 561

" Untill his mother see her princely son,
" Shining in glory of his safe return."

Edward I. by George Peele, 1593.
•' Then go thy ways, and clime up to the clouds,
** And tell Apollo that Orlando sits
" Making of verses for Angelica.
" And if he do deny to send me down
" The shirt which Deianira sent to Hercules,
" To make me brave upon my wedding day,
" Tell him lil pass the Alps, and up to Meroe,
•' (I know he knows that watry lakish hill)
'* And pull the harp out of the minstrels hands,
*' And pawne it unto lovely Proserpine,
" That she may fetch the faire Angelica."

Orlando Furioso, by Robert Greene, printed in
1.599 ; written before 1592.
" The work that Ninus rear'd at Babylon,
" The brazen walls fram'd by Semiramis,
" Carv'd out like to the portal of the sunne,
'* Shall not be such as rings the English strand

" From Dover to the market-place of Rye."

* * -x-

" To plain our questions, as Apollo did."

* * *

" Facile and debonaire in all his deeds,
" Proportion'd as was Paris, when in gray,

" He courted Oenon in the valebv Troy."

* * '*

" Who dar d for Edward's sake cut through the seas,

" And venture as Agenor's damsel through the deepe,"

* * *

" England's rich monarch, brave Plantagenet,
" The Pyren mountains swelling above the clouds,
" That ward this wealthy Castile in with walls,
" Could not detain the beauteous Eleanor;
" But hearing of the fame of Edward's youth,
" She dar'd to brave Neptunus' haughty pride,

" And brave the brunt of froward Eolus."

* * *

" Daphne, the damsel that caught Phoebus fast,
" And lock'd him in the brightness of her looks,
" Was not so beauteous in Apollo's eyes,

" As is fair Margaret, to the Lincoln earl."

* * *

" We must lay plots for stately tragedies.

•' Strange comick shews, such as proud Roscius

" Vaunted before the Roman emperours."

* * *

VOL. XVIII. 2 o

662 DISSERTATION ON

" Lacy, thou can'st not shrovvd thy traitorous thoughts,
•' Nor cover, as did Cassius, all his wiles ;
" For Edward hath an eye that looks as far

" As Lynceus from the shores of Greecia."

* * *

" Pardon, my lord : If Jove's great royalty

" Sent me such presents as to Danae ;

" If Phoebus tied to Latona's webs,

*' Came courting from the beauty of his lodge ;

" The dulcet tunes of frolick Mercurie,

" Nor all the wealth heaven's treasury affords

" Should make me leave lord Lacy or his love."

* * *

« What will thou do?—
" Shew thee the tree leav'dwith refined gold,
" Whereon the fearful dragon held his seate,
" That watch'd the garden call'd Hesperides,

" Subdued and wonne by conquering Hercules."

* * *

" Margaret,

■&■■
" That overshines our damsels, as the moone

" Darkens the brightest sparkles of the night."
* * It

*' Should Paris enter in the courts of Greece,

" And not lie fetter'd in fair Helen's looks ?

" Or Phoebus scape those piercing amorists,

" That Daphne glanced at his deitie?

" Can Edward then sit by a flame and freeze,

" Whose heats put Hellen and fair Daphne down? "

The Honourable Historic oj" Friar Bacon, &c. by Robert
Greene; written before 1592, printed in 1598.

" King. Thus far, ye English Peers, have we display'd
" Our waving ensigns with a happy war ;
" Thus nearly hath our furious rage reveng'd
" My daughter's death upon the traiterous Scot ;
" And now before Dunbar our camp is pitch'd,
" Which if it yield not to our compromise,
" The place shall furrow where the palace stood,
" And fury shall envy so high a power,
" That mercy shall be banish'd from our svvord.

" Doug. What seeks the English king ?

•' King. Scot, ope those gates, and let me enter in.
" Submit thyself and thine unto my grace,
" Or I will put each mother's son to death,
" And lay this city level with the ground."

James IV. by Robert Greene, printed in 1598 ;
written before 1592.

" Valeria, attend ; I have a lovely bride

KING HENRY VI. 563

" As bright as is the heaven chrystaline ;
" As faire as is the milke-white way of Jove,
" As chaste as Phoebe in her summer sports,
" As soft and tender as the azure downe
" That circles Citherea's silver doves ;
*' Her do I meane to make mv lovelv bride,
" And in her bed to breathe the sweet content
" That I, thou know'st, longtime have aimed at."

The Taming of a Shreiv, written before 159i.

" Pol. Faire Emilia, summers bright sun queene,
" Brighter of hew than is the burning clime
" Where Phoebus in his bright equator sits,
" Creating gold and pretious minerals,
" What would Emilia doe, if I were fond
" To leave faire Athens, and to range the world ?

" Emil. Should thou assay to scale the seate of Jove,
" Mounting the subtle airie regions,
" Or be snacht up, as erst was Ganimede,
•' Love should give wings unto my swift desires,
" And prune my thoughts, that I would follow thee,
" Or fall and perish as did Icarus." Ibid.
** Barons of England, and my noble lords,
" Though God and fortune hath bereft from us
" Victorious Richard, scourge of infidels,
" And clad this land in stole of dismal hue,
" Yet give me leave to joy, and joy you all,
" That from this wombe hath sprung a second hope,
'' A king that may in rule and virtue both
*' Succeed his brother in his emperie."

The troublesome Raig7ie of King John, 1591.
" — — as sometimes Phaeton,
" Mistrusting silly Merops for his sire — ." Ibid.
" As cursed Nero with his mother did,
'•' So I with you, if you resolve me not." Ibid.

* * *

" Peace, Arthur, peace ! thy mother makes thee wings,

" To soar with peril after Icarus." Ibid.

" How doth Alecto whisper in my ears,

" Delay not, Philip, kill the villaine straight." Ibid.

■K- * *

" Philippus atavis edite regibus,

" What saist thou, Philip, sprung of ancient kings, —

" Qmo me rapit tempestas ?" Ibid.

* * *

" Morpheus, leave here thy silent ebon cave,
" Besiege his thoughts with dismal phantasies ;
" And ghastly objects of pale threatning Mors,
" Affright him every minute with stern looks." Ibid.

2 o 2

534 DISSERTATION ON

" Here is theransome tliat allaieshis rage

" The first tVet'hoki tliat Richard left his sonne,

*' With which 1 shall surprize his living spies,

'• As Hector's statue did the tainting Greeks." Ibid.

* * *

" This cursed country, where the traitors breathe,

" Whose perjurie (as proud Briareus)

" Beleaguers all the skv with misbelief." Ihul.

•' Must Constance speak ? let tears prevent her talk.
" Must I discourse? let Dido sigh, and say,

" She weeps again to hear the wrack of Troy." Ibid.

* * *

" John, 'tis thy sins that n^ake it miserable,

" Qnicqiiid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi." Ibid.

* * *

" King. Robert of Artoys, banish'd though thou be,
" From France, thy native country, yet with us
" Thou shalt retain as great a signorie,
" For we create thee earle of Richmond here :
" And now go forwards with our pedigree ;
" Who next succeeded Philip of Bew?

" Art. Three sonnes of his, which, all successfully,
" Did sit upon their father's regal throne ;
*' Yet died, and left no issue of their loynes.

" King. But was my mother sister unto these ?
" Art. She was, my lord, and only Isabel
" Was all the daughters that this Philip had."

'J^ie Rctigne of King Edward III. 1596.
The tragedies of Marius and Sylla, byT. Lodge, 1594', .\ Look-
ing Glass for London and England, by T. Lodge and R. Greene,
L598, Solyman and Perseda, written before 1792, Selimus, Em-
perour of the Turks, 1594', The Spanish Tragedy, 1592, and Titus
Andronicus, will all furnish examples of a similar versification ;
a versification so exactly corresponding with that of the First Part
of King Henry VI. and The Whole Contention of the Two Houses
of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. as it originally appeared, that I have
no doubt these plays were the production of some one or other of
the authors of the pieces above quoted or enumerated.

A passage in a pamjjhlet written by Thomas Nashe, an intimate
friend of Greene, Peele, &c. shows that The First Part of King
Henrv VI. had been on the stao:e before 1592 ; and his favourable
mention of this piece inclines me to believe that it was written by
a friend of his, " How would it have joyed brave Talbot, (says
Nashe in Pierce Pennilesse his Supplication to the Devil, 1592,)
the ter or of the French, to thinke that after he had lyen two hun-
dred yt are in his tombe, he should triumph again on tlie stage ;
and have his bones new embalmed with the teares often thousand

KING HENRY VI. 565

spectators at least, (at several times) who in the tragedian that re-
presents his person behold him fresh bleeding."

This passage was several years ago pointed out by my friend
Dr. Farmer, as a proof of the hypothesis which I am now endea-
vouring to establish. That it related to the old play of King-
Henry VI. or, as it is now called, The First Part of King Henry VI.
cannot, I think, be doubted. Talbot appears in the First part,
and not in the second or third part ; and is expressly spoken of in
the play, (as well as in Hall's Chronicle,) as " the terror of the
French." Holinshed, who was Shakspeare's guide, omits the
passage in Hall, in which Talbot is thus described ; and this is an
additional proof that this play was not our author's. But of this
more hereafter.

The First Part of King Heniy VI. (as it is now called) furnishes
us with other internal proofs also of its not being the work of
Shakspeare.

1. The author of that play, whoever he was, does not seem to
have known precisely how old Henry the Sixth was at the time of
his father's death. He opens his play indeed with the funeral of
Henry the Fifth, but no where mentions expressly the young
king's age. It is clear, however, from one passage, that he sup-
posed him to have passed the state of infancy before he lost his
father, and even to have remembered some of his sayings. In
the fourth Act, Sc. IV. speaking of the famous Talbot, he says :
•' When / xjoas young (as yet I am not old,)
" I do remember hoiv 7ni/JJit/ier said,
" A stouter champion never handled sword "
But Shakspeare, as appears from two passages, one in the second,
and the other in the Third Part of King Henry VI. knew that
that king could not possibly remember any thing his father had
said ; and therefore Shakspeare could not have been the author of
the Ji?'st part.

" No sooner was I crept out of my cradle,
" But I was made a king at 7iine months old."

King Henri/ VI. Part II. Act IV. Sc. IX.
" When I wfvs crown'd, I was but nine months old."

King Henri/ VI. Part HI. Act I. Sc. I.
The first of these passages is found in the folio copy of The Se-
cond Part of King Henry VI. and not in The First Part of the
Contention, &c. printed in quarto ; and according to my hypo-
thesis, was one of Shakspeare's additions to the old play. This
therefore does not prove that the or/o-/»rt/ author, whoever he was,
was not likewise the author of The First Part of King Henry VI. ;
but, what is more m.aterial to our present question, it proves that
Shakspeare could not be the author of that play. The second of
these passages is found in The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of
Yorke, &c. and is a decisive proof that The First Part of King
Henry VI. was written neither by the author of that tragedy, nor
by Shakspeare.

5Q6 DISSERTATION ON

2. A second internal proof that Shakspeare was not the author
of the Jirst part of these three plays, is furnished by that scene,
(Act II. Sc. V. p. 75, n. 3,) in which it is said, that the Earl of
Cambridge raised an army against his sovereign. But Shak-
speare in his play of King Henry V. has represented the matter
truly as it was ; the Earl being in the second Act of that histori-
cal piece condemned at Southampton for conspiring to assassinate
Henry.

3. I may likewise add, that the author of The First Part of King
Henry VI. knew the true pronunciation of the word Hecate, and
has used it as it is used by the Roman writers :

" I speak not to that railing Heca-te."
But Shakspeare in his Macbeth always uses Hecate as a dissyl-
lable ; and therefore could not have been the author of the other
piece *. .

* It may perhaps appear a minute remark, but I cannot help
observing that the second speech in this play ascertains the writer
to have been very conversant with Hall's Chronicle :

" What should I saij f? his deeds exceed all speech."
• This phrase is introduced on almost every occasion by that wri-
ter, when he means to be eloquent. Holinshed, and not Hall,
was Shakspeare's historian (as has been already observed) ;
this therefore is an additional proof that this play was not our au-
thor's.

" — Shakspeare in his Macbeth always uses Hecate as a dissyl-
lable ; and therefore could not have been the author of the other
piece." By similar reasoning we might infer that Shakspeare was
not author of The Tempest ; for in this play Stephano is properly
accented, but erroneously \_Stephano~\ in The Merchant of Venice ;
and that because Prosper occurs in one scene, and Prospero in
another, that both scenes were not of Sliakspeare's composition.
The same might be said of Antony and Cleopatra, in which both
Enoharbe and Enobarbiis are found. This argument also might
lead us to imagine that part of the Iliad which passes under the
name of Mr. Pope, was not in reality translated by him ; because
in one book we have Idomeneus, MerTones, and CebrTones, and in
another Idomen, Merlon, and Cebrlon. Most certainly, both
Shakspeare and Pope occasionally accommodated their proper
names to the structure of their verses. The abbreviation — Hecat'
is therefore no proof of our author's ignorance that Hecate was
usually a trisyllable. Steevens.

t " What should I say ? " In page 611 of Mr. Malone's [former]
edition of King Richard III. vol. vi. this phrase occurs :
" What shall I say more than I have inferr'd ? "

Steevens.

The passage quoted is by no means in point. In Richard III.
a question is asked ; and the words are not as in Henry VI. merely
expletives used by the v.'riter as a rhetorical {iourish. Boswell.

KING HENRY VI. 567

Having now, as I conceive, vindicated Shakspeare from being
tlie writer of The Fust Part of King Henry VI. it may seem un-
necessary to enquire who was the author ; or whether it was the
production of the same person or persons who wrote the two pieces,
entitled, The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses, &c.
and The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. However,
I shall add a word or two on that point.

We have already seen that the author of the play last named
could not have written The First Part of King Henry VI. The fol-
lowing circumstances prove that it could not have been written by
the author of The First Part of the Contention, 8ic. supposing for
a moment that piece, and The true Tragedie of the Duke of
Yorke, &c. to have been the work of difierent hands.

1 . The writer of The First Part of the Contention, &c. makes
Salisbury say to Richard Duke of York, that the person from
whom the Duke derived his title, (he means his maternal uncle
Edmund Mortimer, though he ignorantly gives him a different
appellation,) was " done to death by that monstrous rebel Owen
Glendower ;" and Shakspeare in this has followed him :

" Sal. This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke,

" As I have read, laid claim unto the crown ;

" And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king,

" Who kept him in captivity, till he died."
On this false assertion the Duke of York makes no remark. But
the author of The First Part of King Henry VI. has represented
this Edmund Mortimer, not as put to death, or kept in captivity
to the time of his death, by Owen Glendower, (who himself died
in the second year of King Henry V.) but as a stale prisoner, who
died in the Tower in the reign of King Henry VI. in the presence
of this very Duke of York, who was then only Richard Plantage-
n€t *.

2. A correct statement of the issue of King Edward the Third,
and of the title of Edmund Mortimer to the crown, is given in The
First Part of King Henry VI. But in the First Part of the Con-
tention, &c. we find a very incorrect and false statement of
Edward's issue, and of the title of Mortimer, whose father, Roger
Mortimer, the author of that piece ignorantly calls the Jifth son
of that monarch. Those two plays therefore could not have been
the work of one hand.

On all these grounds it appears to me clear, that neither Shak-
speare, nor the author of The First Part of the Contention, &c. or
The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. could have been
the author of The First Part of King Henry VI.

It is observable that in The Second and Third Part of King

* See The First Part of King Henry VI. p. 77, and the Second
Part, p. 217.

568 DISSERTATION ON

Henry VI. many thoughts and many modes of expression are
found, which likewise occur in Shakspeare's other dramas: but in
the First Part I recollect but one marked expression, that is also
found in one of his undisputed performances :

" As I am sick with working of my thoughts^
So, in King Henry V. :

" Work, tvork your thoughts, and therein see a siege."
But surely this is too slight a circumstance to overturn all the
other arguments that have now been urged to prove this play not
the production of our author. The co-incidence might be acci-
dental, for it is a co- incidence not of thought but of language ; —
or the expression might have remained in his mind in consequence
of his having often seen this play ; (we know that he has bor-
rowed many other expressions from preceding writers ;) — or lastly,
this might have been one of the very few lines that he wrote on
revising this piece ; which, nowever few they were, might, with
other reasons, have induced the first publishers of his works in
folio to print it with the second and third part, and to ascribe it to
Shakspeare.

Before I quit this part of the subject, it may be proper to men-
tion one other circumstance that renders it very improbable that
Shakspeare should have been the author of The First Part of K.
Henry VI. In this play, though one scene is entirely in rhyme,
there are very few rhymes dispersed through the piece, and no
alternate rhymes ; both of which abound in our author's undis-
puted early plays. This observation indeed may likewise be ex-
tended to the second and third part of these historical dramas ;
and perhaps it may be urged, that if this argument has any
weight, it will prove that lie had no hand in the composition of
those plays. But there being no alternate rhymes in those two
plays may be accounted for, by recollecting that in 1591, Shak-
speare had not written his Venus and Adonis, or his Rape of Lu-
crece ; the measures of which perhaps insensibly led him to em-
ploy a similar kind of metre occasionally in the dramas that he
wrote shortly after he had composed those poems. The paucity
of regular rhymes must be accounted for differently. My solu-
tion is, that working up the materials which were furnished by a
preceding writer, he naturally followed his mode : and in the ori-
ginal plays from which these two were formed very few rhymes
are found. Nearly the same argument will apply to the first
part ; for its date also, were that piece Shakspeare's, would ac-
count for the want of alternate rhymes. The paucity of regular
rhymes indeed cannot be accounted for by saying that here too
our author was following the track of another poet ; but the solu-
tion is unnecessary; for from the beginning to the end of that
play, except perhaps in some scenes of the fourth Act, there is not
a single print of the footsteps of Shakspeare.

I have already observed, that it is highly imi)robable that The

KING HENRY VI. 569

First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses of York find Lan-
caster, &c. and The true Tragedie of" Richarde Duke of Yorke,
&c. were written by the author of The First Part of King
Henry VI. By whom these two phiys were written, it is not here
necessary to inquire ; it is sufficient, if probable reasons can be
produced for supposing this two-part piece not to have been the
composition of Shakspeare, but the work of some preceding writer,
on which he formed those two plays which appear in the first
folio edition of his works, comprehending a period of twenty-six
years, from the time of Henry's marriage to that of his death.

II. I now therefore proceed to state my opinion concerning The
Second and Third Part of King Henry VI.

" A book entituled, The First Part of the Contention of the
Two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the Death of
the good Duke Humphrie, and the Banishment and Deathe of the
Duke of Yorke, and the tragical Ende of the proud Cardinal of
Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Jack Cade, and the
DukeofYorke's first Claime unto the Crowne, was entered at
Stationers' Hall, by Thomas Millington, March 12, 159.S-4-. The
true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the Death of good
King Henry the Sixt, &c. (on which Shakspeare's Third Part of
King Henry VI. is founded) was entered at Stationers' Hall at the
same time. They were printed, as I have before observed, sepa-
rately, in 1594 and 1595; and reprinted together for the same
person, T. Millington, in 1600 *.

The first thing that strikes us in this entry is, that the name of
Shakspeare is not mentioned, nor is it in the early editions ; nor,
when the two plays were published in 1600, did the printer
ascribe them to our author in the title-page, (though his reputa-
tion was then at the highest,) as surely as he would have done,
had they been his compositions.

In a subsequent edition indeed of the same pieces, printed by
one Pavier, without date, but in reality in 1619, after our great
poet's death, the name of Shakspeare appears ; but this was a
bookseller's trick, founded upon our author's celebrity ; on his
having new-modelled these plays ; and on the proprietors of the
Globe and Blackfriars' theatre "not having published Shakspeare's
Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. The very same de-
ception was practised with respect to King John. The old play
(written perhaps by the same person who was the author of The
Contention of the Two famous Houses. &c.) was printed in 1591,
like that piece, a?zoHj/»?o2«(y. In 1611, (Shakspeare's King John,

* They were probably reprinted in 1600, because Shakspeare's
alterations of them were'then populnr, as King Leir and his Three
Daughters was printed in 1605, because our author's play was
probably at that time first produced.

570 DISSERTATION ON

founded on the same story, having been probably often acted and
admired,) the old piece in two parts was reprinted ; and, in order
to deceive the purchaser, was said in the title-page to be written
by IV. Sh. A subsequent printer in 1622 grew more bold, and
affixed Shakspeare's name to it at full length.

It is observable that Millington, the bookseller, by whom The
First Part of the Contention of the Two famous Houses, &c. was
entered at Stationers' Hall, in 1593-4, and for whom that piece
and The Tragedie of the Duke of York, &c. were printed, was
not the proprietor of any one of Shakspeare's undisputed plays,
except King Henry V. of which he published a spurious copy,
that, I think, must have been imperfectly taken down in short
hand in the play-house.

The next observable circumstance, with respect to these two
quarto plays, is, that they a'-e said, in their title-pages, to have
been " sundry times acted by the earle of Pembrooke his ser-
vantes." Titus Andronicus and The old Taming of a Shrew, were
acted by the same company of comedians ; but not one of our
author's plays is said, in its title-page, to have been acted by any
but the Lord Chamberlain's or the Queen's, or King's servants *.
This circumstance, alone, in my opinion, might almost decide the
question.

This much appears on the first superficial view of these pieces ;
but the passage quoted by Mr. Tyrwhitt from an old pamphlet, en-
titled Greene's Groatsworth of Witte, &c, affords a still more de-
cisive support to the hypothesis that I am endeavouring to main-
tain ; which, indeed, that pamphlet first suggested tome. As this
passage is the chief hinge of my argument, though it has already
been printed in a preceding page, it is necessary to lay it again
before the reader. — " Yes," says the writer, Robert Greene, (ad-
dressing himself, as Mr. Tyrwhitt conjectures with great probabi-
lity, to his poetical friend, George Peele,) "trust them [the
players] not ; for there is an upstart crowe beautified with our
FEATHERS, that with his tygres heart tvrnpt in n plaijefs hide
supposes hee is as well able to bombaste out a blank verse as the
best of you ; and being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is, in his
own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country." — " O tyger's

* The first edition of Romeo and Juliet, 1597, is said in its
title-page to have been acted " By the right honourable the L. of
Hunsdon his servants." Steevens.

It is to be hoped that Mr. Steevens wrote this note in a moment
of forgetful ness, and that he did not intend to mislead the reader
by what is only a seeming contradiction to what is stated by Mr.
Malone, that our author's plays were only acted by the Lord
Chamberlain's, or the Queen's, or King's servants : Lord Huns-
don was Lord Chamberlain. lioswELX..
6

KING HENRY VI. 571

heart, wrapt in a woman's hide ! " is a line of the old quarto play,
entitled The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses, &'c.
That Shakspeare was here alluded to, cannot, I think, be
doubted. But what does the writer mean by calling him " a
crow beautified with our feathers ? " My solution is, that Greene
and Peele were the joint authors of the two quarto plays, entitled
The first part of the Contention of the Two famous Houses of
Yorke and Lancaster, &c. and The true Tragedie of Richarde
Duke of Yorke, &c, or that Greene was the author of one, and
Peele of the other. Greene's pamphlet, from whence the fore-
going passage is extracted, was written recently before his death,
which happened in September, 1592. How long he and Peele
had been dramatick writers, is not precisely ascertained. Peele
took the degree of Master of Arts at Oxford, in 1579 : Greene
took the same degree in Cambridge, in 15S3. Each of them has
left four or five plays, and they wrote several others, which have
not been published. The earliest of Peele's printed pieces, The
Arraignment of Paris, appeared in 1584^ ; and one of Greene's
pamphlets was printed in 1583. Between that year and 1591 it
is highly probable that the two plays in question were written.
I suspect they were produced in 1.588 or 1589. We have un-
doubted proofs that Shakspeare was not above working on the
materials of other men. His Taming of the Shrew, his King
John, and other plays, render any arguments on that point unne-
cessary. Having therefore, probably not long before the year
1592, when Greene wrote his Dying Exhortation to a Friend,
new-modelled and amplified these two pieces, and produced on
the stage what, in the folio edition of his works, are called The
Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. and having acquired
considerable reputation by them, Greene could not conceal the
mortification that he felt at his own fame and that of his associate,
both of them old and admired play-wrights, being eclipsed by a
new upstart writer, (for so he calls our great poet,) who had then
first, perhaps, attracted the notice of the publick by exhibiting
two plays, formed upon old dramas written by them, considerably
enlarged and improved. He therefore, in direct terms, charges
him with having acted like the crow in the fable, beautified him-
self ivith tlteir Jealhers ; in other words, with having acquired
iiimQ flirt ivis coloribiis, by new-modelling a work originally pro-
duced by them, and wishing to depreciate our author, he very
naturally quotes a line from one of the pieces which Shakspeare
had thus re-voritten ; a proceeding which the authors of the
original plays considered as an invasion both of their literary pro-
perty and character. This line, with many others, Shaksjjeare
adopted without any alteration. The very term that Greene uses
— " to bombast out a blank verse," exactly corresponds with what
has been now suggested. This new poet, says he, knows as well
as any man how to amplifij and swell out a blank verse. Bumbasi

672 DISSERTATION ON

was a soft stuff of a loose texture, by which garments were rendered
more swelling and protuberant.

Several years after the death of Boiardo, Francesco Berni un-
dertook to new-versify Boiardo's poem, entitled Orlando Innamo-
rato. " Berni (as Baretti observes) was not satisfied with merely
making the versification of that poem better; he interspersed it
with many stanzas of his own, and changed almost all the begin-
nings of the cantos, introducing each of them with some moral
reflection arising from the canto foregoing." What Berni did
to Boiardo's poem after the death of its author, and more, I sup-
pose Shakspeare to have done to The First Part of the Con-
tention of the Two Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. and The
true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. in the life time
of Greene and Peele, their literary parents ; and this lUfachnento
(as the Italians call it) of th^se two plays I suppose to have been
executed by Shakspeare, and exhibited at the Globe or Blackfriars
theatre, in the year 1591.

I have said Shakspeare did what Berni did, and more. He
did not content himself vi'ith writing new beginnings to the acts ;
he new-versified, he new-modelled, he transposed many of the
parts, and greatly amplified and improved the whole. Several
lines, however, and even whole speeches which he thought suf-
ficiently polished, he accepted, and introduced into his own work,
without any, or with very slight, alterations.

In the present edition, all those lines which he adopted without
any alteration, are printed in the usual manner; those speeches
which he altered or expanded, are distinguished by inverted
commas ; and to all the lines entirely composed by himself, aste-
risks are prefixed. The total number of lines in our author's
Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. is Six Thousand and
Forty-three : of these, as I conceive, 1771 lines were written by
some author or authors who preceded Shakspeare ; 2373 were
formed by him on the foundation laid by his predecessors ; and
1899 lines were entirely his own composition.

That the reader may have the whole of the subject before him,
I shall here transcribe the fourth scene of the fourth Act of The
Third Part of King Henry VI. (which happens to be a short one,)
together with the corresponding scene in the original play ; and
also a speech of Queen Margaret, in the fifth Act, with the
original speech on which it is formed. The first specimen will
serve to show the method taken by Shakspeare, where he only
new-polished the language of the old play, rejecting some part of
the dialogue, and making some slight additions to the part which
he retained ; the second is a striking proof of his facility and
vigour of composition, which has happily expanded a thought
comprized originally in a very short speech, into thirty-seven
lines, none of which appear feeble or superfluous.

KING HENRY VI. 573

The tkue Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c.

Sign. F. 4-. edit. 1600.

Enter the Queene, and the Lord Rivers,

Riv. Tell me, good madam,
Why is your grace so passionate of late.

Queene. Why brother Rivers, heare you not the news
Of that success king Edward had of late ?

Riv. What ? losse of some pitcht battaile against Warwick ?
Tush ; fear not, fair queen, but cast these cares aside.
King Edwards noble minde his honours doth display ;
And Warwicke may lose, though then he got the day.

Queene. If that were all, my griefes were at an end ;
But greater troubles will, I feare, befall.

Riv. What ? is he taken prisoner by the foe.
To the danger of his royal person then ?

Queene. I, there's my griefe ; king Edward is surprisde.
And led away as prisoner unto Yorke.

Riv. The newes is passing strange, I must confesse ;
Yet comfort yourselfe, for Edward hath more friends
Than Lancaster at this time must perceive, —
That some will set him in his throne aguine.

Queene. God grant they may ! but gentle brother, come.
And let me leane upon thine arm a while,
Until I come unto the sanctuarie ;
There to preserve the fruit within my womb,
King Edwards seed, true heir to Englands crowne. lExeunt.

King Henry VI. Part III. Act IV. Scene IV.

Enter the Queen and Rivers.

Riv. Madam, what makes you in this sudden change?

Queen. Why, brother Rivers, are you yet to learn,
What late misfortune is befall'n king Edward ?

Riv. What, loss of some pitch'd battle against Warwick ?

Queen. No, but the loss of his own royal person.

Riv. Then is my sovereign slain ?

Queen. Ay, almost slain, for he is taken prisoner ;
Either betray'd by falshood of his guard.
Or by his foe surpriz'd at unawares :
And, as I further have to understand.
Is new committed to the bishop of York,
Fell Warwick's brother, and by that our foe.

Riv. These news, I must confess, are full of grief;
Yet, gracious madam, bear it as you may ;
Warwick may lose, that now hath won the day.

574 DISSERTATION ON

Queen. Till then, fair hope must hinder life's decay.
And I the rather wean me from despair.
For love of Edward's oflspring in my womb :
This is it that makes me bridle passion,
And bear with mildness my misfortune's cross ;
Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear.
And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs.
Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown
King Edwards fruit, true heir to the English crown.

Riv. But, madam, where is Warwick then become ?

Queen. I am informed, that he comes towards London
To set the crown once more on Henry's head :
Guess thou the rest ; king Edward's friends must down.
But, to prevent the tyrant's violence,
(For trust not him that once hath broken faith,)
I'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary.
To save at least the heir of Edward's right ;
There shall I rest secure from force, and fraud.
Come therefore, let us fly, while we may fly ;
If Warwick take us, we are sure to die. \_Exeunt.

The true Tragedif, of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c.

Sign. G. 4. edit. 1600.

Enter the Qiiecue, Prince Echvard, Oxford, Somerset, xvith

drumme and souldiers.

Queen. Welcome to England, my loving friends of France ;
And welcome Somerset and Oxford too.
Once more have we spread our sailes abroad ;
And though our tackling be almost consumde,
And Warwicke as our main-mast overthrowne.
Yet, warlike lordes, raise you that sturdie post.
That bears the sailes to bring us unto rest ;
And Ned and I, as willing pilots should,
For once with careful mindes guide on the sterne.
To bear us thorough that dangerous gulfe.
That heretofore hath swallowed up our friendes.

King Henry VI. Part III. Act V. Scene IV.

March. Enter Queen Margaret, Prince Edward, Somerset,
Oxford, and Soldiers.

Q. Mar. Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
What though the mast be now blown over-board.
The cable broke, the holding anchor lost.

KING HENRY VI. 575

And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood ?

Yet lives our pilot still : Is't meet, that he

Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad.

With tearful eyes add water to the sea.

And give more strength to that which hath too much ;

Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock.

Which industry and courage might have sav'd ?

Ah, what a shame ! ah, what a fault were this !

Say, Warwick was our anchor ; What of that ?

And Montague our top-mast ; What of him ?

Our slaughter'd friends the tackles ; What of these?

Why, is not Oxford here another anchor ?

And Somerset another goodly mast ?

The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings ?

And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I

For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge ?

We will not from the helm, to sit and weep ;

But keep our course, though the rough wind say — no,

From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck.

As good to chide the waves, as speak them fair.

And what is Edward, but a ruthless sea ?

What Clarence, but a quick-sand of deceit ?

And Richard, but a ragged fatal rock ?

All these the enemies to our poor bark.

Say, you can swim ; alas, 'tis but awhile :

Tread on the sand ; why, there you quickly sink :

Bestride the rock ; the tide will wash you off.

Or else you famish, that's a threefold death.

This speak J, lords, to let you understand.

In case some one of you would fly from us.

That there's no hop'd for mercy with the brothers.

More than with ruthless waves, with sands, and rocks.

Why, courage, then ! what cannot be avoided,

'Twere childish weakness to lament, or fear *.

If the reader wishes to compare The First Part of the Contention
of the Two Houses, &c. with The Second Part of King Henry VI.
which was formed upon it, he will find various passages quoted
from the elder drama in the notes on that play. The two cele-
brated scenes, in which the dead body of the Duke of Gloster is
described, and the death of Cardinal Beaufort is represented,
may be worth examining with this view ; and will sufficiently
ascertain how our author proceeded in new-modelling that play ;

* Compare also the account of the death of the Duke of York
(p. 405) and King Henry's soliloquy (p. 4'31) with the old play
as quoted in the notes. — Sometimes our author new-versilied the
old, witliout the addition of any new matter. See p. 496, n. 7.

576 DISSERTATION ON

with what expression, animation, and splendour of colouring,
he filled up the outline that had been sketched by a preceding
writer*.

Shakspeare having- thus given celebrity to these two old dramas,
by altering and writing several parts of them over again, the
bookseller, Millington, to avail himself of the popularity of
the new and admired poet, got, perhaps from Peele, who was
then living, or from the author, whoever he was, or from some
of the comedians belonging to the Earl of Pembroke, the
original play on which The Second Part of King Henry VI. was
founded ; and printed it either with a view to lead the common
reader to suppose that he should purchase two plays as altered and
new-modelled by Shakspeare, or, without any such fraudulent
intention, to derive a profit from the exhibition of a work that so
great a writer had thought proper to retouch, and form into those
dramas which for several years had without doubt been performed
with considerable applause. In the same manner the old
Taming of a Shrew, on which our author formed a play, had
been entered at Stationers' Hall in I59i; and was printed in
I607t, without doubt with a view to pass it on the publick as the
production of Shakspeare.

When William Pavier republished The Contention of the Two
Houses, &c. in 1619 :{:. lie omitted the words in the original title-
page, — " as it was acted by the earl of Pembrooke his servantes; "
— ^justas, on the republication of King John in two parts, in 1611,
the words, — " as it was acted in the honourable city of London," —
were omitted; because the omitted words in both cases marked the
respective pieces not to be the production of Shakspeare §. And as
in King John the letters W. Sh. were added in 1611 to deceive
the purchaser, so in the republication of The Whole Contention,
&c. Pavier, having dismissed the words above mentioned: inserted
these, " Newly corrected and enlarged by William Shakspeare ; "
knowing that these pieces had been made the ground work of

* See p. 262, n. 6 ; and p. 276, n. 8. Compare also Cliftbrd's
speech to the rebels in p. 323, Buckingham's address to King
Henry in p. 212, and Iden's speech in p. 331, with the old play,
as quoted in the notes.

t Also, as it has lately been discovered, by Cuthbert Burbie, in
1596. Reed.

X Pavier's edition has no date, but it is ascertained to have
been printed in 1619, by the signatures; the last of which is
Q. The play of Pericles was printed in 1619, for the same book-
seller, and its^/irst signature is R. The undated copy, therefore,
of The Whole Contention, &c, and Pericles must have been
printed at the same time.

§ See An Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays,
vol. ii. article. King John.

KING HENRY VI.

577

two other plays ; that they had in fact been corrected and en-
larged, (though not in that copy which Pavier printed, which is a
mere republication from the edition of JGOO,) and exhibited under
the titles of The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. ;
and hoping that this new edition of the original plays would pass
for those altered and augmented by Shakspeare, which were then
unpublished.

If Shakspeare had originally written these three plays of King
Henry VI. would they not probably have been found by the book-
seller in the same MS ? Would not the three parts have been
procured, whether surreptitiously or otherwise, all together?
\Vould they not in that MS. have borne the titles of The First
and Second and Third Part of King Henry VI.? And would not
the bookseller have entered them on the Stationers' books, and
published such of them as he did publish, under those titles, and
with the name of Shakspeare ? On the other hand, if that which
is now distinguished by the name of The First Part of King
Henry VI. but which I suppose in those times was only called
" Tlse Historical Play of King Henry VI." if this was the produc-
tion of some old dramatist, if it had appeared on the stage some
years before 1591, (as from Nashe's mention of it seems to be
implied,) perhaps in 15S7 or 1588, if its popularity was in 1594'
in its wane, and the attention of the publick was entirely taken up
by Shakspeare's alteration of two other plays which had likewise
appeared before 1591, would not the superior popularity of these
two pieces, altered by such a poet, attract the notice of the book-
sellers ? and finding themselves unable to procure them from the
theatre, would they not gladly seize on the originals on which
this new and admired writer had worked, and publish them as soon
as they could, neglecting entirely the preceding old play, or First
Part of Hing Henry VT. (as it is now called,) which Shakspeare had
not embellished with his pen ? — Such, as we have seen, was ac-
tually the process ; for Thomas Millington, neglecting entirely
The First Part of King Henry VI. entered the original of The
Second Part of King Henry VI. at Stationers' Hall in 1593-4,
and published the originals of both that and The Third part toge-
ther in 1600. When Heminge and Condell printed these three
pieces in folio, they were necessarily obliged to name the old
play of King Henry VI. i\\^ Jirst part, to distinguish it from the
two following historical dramas, founded on a later period of the
same king's reign.

Having examined such external evidence as time has left us
concerning these two plays, now denominated The Second and
Third Parts of King Henry VI. let us see whether we cannot by
internal marks ascertain how far Shakspeare was concerned in
their composition.

It has long been a received opinion that the tv.-o quarto plays,
one of which was published under the title of The First Part of

VOL. XVIIT. 2 P

578 DISSERTATION ON

the Contention of the Two Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c,
anil the other under the title of The true Tragedie of Richarde
Duke of Yorke, &c. were spurious and imperfect copies of Shak-
speare's Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. ; and many
passages have been quoted in the notes to the late editions of
Shakspeare, as containing merely the various readings of the
quartos and the folio : the passages being supposed to be in sub-
stance the same, only variously exhibited in different copies.
The variations have been accounted for, by supposing that the
im])erfect and spurious copies (as they were called) were taken
down either by an unskilful short-hand writer, or by some au-
ditor who picked up " during the representation what the time
would permit, then filled up some of his omissions at a second or
third hearing, and when he had by this method formed something-
like a play, sent it to the printer." To this opinion, I with
others for a long time subscribed : two of Heywood's pieces fur-
nishing indubitable proofs that plays in the time of our author
were sometimes imperfectly copied during the representation, by
the ear, or by short-hand writers *. But a minute examination
of the two pieces in question, and a careful comparison of them
with SJiakspeare's Second and Third Part of King Henry VI.
have convinced me that this could not have been the case with
respect to them. No fraudulent copyist or short- hand writer
would invent circumstances totally different from those which
appear in Shakspeare's new-modelled draughts as exhibited in the
first folio ; or insert tvholc speeches, of which scarcely a trace is
found in that edition. In the course of the foregoing notes many
of these have been particularly pointed out. I shall now bring
into one point of view all those internal circumstances which
prove in my apprehension decisively, that the quarto plays were
not spurious and imperfect copies of Shakspeare's pieces, but
elder dramas on which he formed his Second and Third Part of
King Henry VI.

1. In some places a speech in one of these quartos consists of
ten or twelve lines. In Shakspeare's folio the same speech con-
sists of perhaps only half the number f. A copyist by the ear, or
an unskilful short-hand writer, might mutilate and exhibit a poet's
thoughts or expressions imperfectly ; but would he dilate and am-
plify them, or introduce totally new matter ? Assuredly he would
not.

2. Some circumstances are mentioned in the old quarto plays,
of which there is not the least trace in the folio ; and many
minute variations are found between them and the folio, that
prove the pieces in quarto to have been original and distinct com-
positions.

* See p. 549.

t See p. 183, n, 8 ; p. 219, n. 3.

KING HENRY VI. 579

In the last Act of The First Part of the Contention, &c. the
puke of Buckingham after the battle of Saint Albans, is brought
in wounded, and carried to his tent ; but in Shakspeare's play he
is not introduced on the stage after that battle.

In one of the original scenes between Jack Cade and his fol-
lowers, which Shakspeare has made the seventh scene of the
fourth Act of his Second Part of King Henry VI. Dick Butcher
drags a serjeant, that is, a catch-pole, on the stage, and a dia-
logue consisting of seventeen lines passes between Cade, &c. at
the conclusion of which it is determined that the serjeant shall be
" brain'd with his own mace." Of this not one word appears in
our author's play *. In the same piece Jack Cade, hearing that
a knight, called Sir Humphrey Stafford, was coming at the head
of an army against him, to put himself on a par with him makes
himself a knight ; and finding that Stafford's brother was also a
knight, he dubs Dick Butcher also. But in Shakspeare's play the
latter circumstance is omitted.

In the old play Somerset goes out immediately after he is ap-
pointed regent of France. In Shakspeare's Second Part of King
Henry VI. he continues on the stage with Henry to the end of the
scene, (Act I. Sc. III.) and the King addresses him as they go out.
In the old play, the Duchess of Gloster enters with Hume,
Bolingbroke, and iMargery Jourdain, and after some conversation
with them, tells them that while they perform their rites, she will
go to the top of an adjoining tower, and there write down such an-
swers as the spirits, that they are to raise, shall give to her ques-
tions. But in Shakspeare's play, Hume, Southxveli (who is not
introduced in the elder drama), and Bolingbroke, &c. enter with-
out the Duchess ; and after some conversation the Duchess ap-
pears above, (that is^ on the tower,) and encourages them to pro-
ceed f.

In Shakspeare's play, when the Duke of York enters, and finds
the Duchess of Gloster, &c. and her co-adjutors performing their
magick rites, (p. 201,) the Duke seizes the paper in which the
answers of the spirit to certain questions are written down, and
reads them aloud. In the old play the answers are not here
recited by York ; but in a subsequent scene Buckingham reads
them to the King; (see p. 201, n. 7 ; and p. 212, n. 1;) and this
is one of the many transpositions that Shakspeare made in new-
modelling these pieces, of which I shall speak more fully here-
after.

In the old play, when the King pronounces sentence on the
Duchess of Gloster, he particularly mentions the mode of her

* See p. 320, n. 4 ; and The First Part of the Contention, &c.
1600, sign. G 3.
t Seep. 196, n. 8.

2 P 2

580 DISSERTATION ON

penance ; and the sentence is pronounced in prose : " Stand forth
dame Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloster, and hear the sen-
tence pronounced against thee for these treasons that thou hast
committed against us, our state and peers. First, for thy haynous
crimes thou shalt two daies in London do penance barefoot in the
streets, ivith a ivhite sheete about thybodie, and a tvax taper burn-
ing in thy hand : that done, thou shalt be banished for ever into
the Isle of Man, there to end thy wretched daies ; and this is our
sentence irrevocable. — Away with her." But in Shakspeare's
play, (p. 220,) the King pronounces sentence in uerse against the
Duchess and her confederates at the same time ; and only says in
general, that "after //^ree days open penance, she shall be ba-
nished to the Isle of Man."

In Shakspeare's play, (p. 248,) when the Duke of York under-
takes to subdue the Irish rebels, if he be furnished with a suffi-
cient army, Suffolk says, that he "will see that charge per-
formed." But in the old play the Queen enjoins the Duke of
Buckingham to attend to this business, and he accepts the office.

In our author's play Jack Cade is described as a clothier, in the
old play he is " the dyer of Ashford." In the same piece, when
the King and Somerset appear at Kenelworth, a dialogue passes
between them and the Queen, of which not one word is preserved
in the corresponding scene in The Second Part of King Heniy VI.
(p. 325.) In the old play, Buckingham states to the King the
grounds on which York had taken up arms ; but in Shakspeare's
piece, (p. 339,) York himself assigns his reasons for his conduct

In the old play near the conclusion, young Clifford, when he is
preparing to carry off the dead body of his father, is assaulted by
Richard, and after putting him to flight, he makes a speech con-
sisting of four lines. But in Shakspeare's play, (p. 350,) there
is no combat between them, nor is Richard introduced in that
scene. The four lines therefore above mentioned are necessarily
omitted.

In the old play the Queen drops her glove, and finding the
Duchess of Gloster makes no attempt to take it up, she gives her
a box on the ear :

" Give me my glove; tvhy, minion, can you not see?"

But in Shakspeare's play, (p. 191,) the Queen drops not a
glove, but a. fan :

*' Give me my fan : What, minion, can you not ? "

In Shakspeare's Second Part of King Henry VI. (p. 2S3,) Suf-
folk discovers himself to the Captain who had seized him, by
showing his George. In the old play he announces his quality by
a ring, a seal ring we may suppose, exhibiting his arms. In the
same scene of Shakspeare's play, he observes that the Captain
threatens more —

" Than Bargrdus, the strong Illyrian pyrate."

But in the elder drama Suffolk says, he —

KING HENRY Vl. 581

" Threatens more plagues than mighty Abradas,
" The great Macedonian pirate."

In the same scene of the original play the Captain threatens to
sink Suffolk's ship ; but no such menace is found in Shakspeare's
play.

In The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. Richard
(afterwards Duke of Gloster,) informs Warwick that \\\?, father
the Earl of Salisbury was killed in an action which he describes,
and which in fact took place at Ferrybridge in Yorkshire. But
Shakspeare in his Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 426,) formed
upon the piece above mentioned, has rightly deviated from it, and
for father substituted brother, it being the natural brother of
Warwick, (the bastard son of Salisbury,) that fell at Ferrybridge.
The Earl of Salisbury, Warwick's father, was beheaded at Pom-
fret.

In the same old play a son is introduced who has killed his
father, and afterwards a father who has killed his son. King
Heniy, who is on the stage, says not a word till they have both
appeared, and spoken ; he then pronounces a speech of seven
lines. But in Shakspeare's play (p.^S^, n. 5,) this speech is enlarged,
and two speeches formed on it ; the first of which the King speaks
after the son has appeared, and the other after the entry of the
father.

In our author's play, (p. 480,) after Edward's marriage with
Lady Grey, his brothers enter, and converse on that event. The
King, Queen, &c. then join them, and Edward asks Clarence how
he approves his choice. In the elder play there is no previous
dialogue between Gloster and Clarence ; but the scene opens with
the entry of the King, &c. who desires the opinion of his brothers
on his recent marriage.

In our author's play (p. 464,) the following line is found :
" And set the murderous Machiavel to school."

This line in The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c.
stood thus :

" And set the aspiri)ig Catiline to school."

Catiline was the person that would naturally occur to Peele or
Greene, as the most splendid classical example of inordinate am-
bition ; but Shakspeare, who was more conversant with P^nglish
books, substituted Machiavel, whose name was in such frequent
use in his time that it became a specifick term for a consummate
politician ; and accordingly he makes his host in The Merry
Wives of Windsor, when he means to boast of his own shrewdness,
exclaim, " Am I subtle? am I a Machiavel* ?"

* Of the odium attached to the name of Machiavel, we have an
amusing instance in Gill's Logonomia Anglica, 1621 : " Et ne

582 DISSERTATION ON

Many other variations beside those already mentioned might
be pointed out ; but that I may not wearj^ the reader, I will only
refer in a note to the most striking diversities that are found be-
tween Shakspeare's Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. and
the elder dramas printed in quarto *.

The supposition of imperfect or spurious copies cannot account
for such numerous variations in the circumstances of these pieces;
(not to insist at present on the language in which they are
clothed;) so that we are compelled (as I have already observed)
to maintain, either that Shakspeare wrote tivo plays on the story
which forms his Second Part of King Henry VI. a hasty sketch,
and an entirely distinct and more finished performance ; or else
we must acknowledge that he formed that piece on a foundation
laid by another writer, that is, upon the quarto copy of The First
Part of the Contention of the Two Houses of Yorkeand Lancaster,
&c. — and the same argument precisely applies to The Third Part
of King Henry VI. which is founded on The true Tragedie of
Richard Duke of Yorke.

Let us now revert to the Resemblances that are found in these
pieces as exhibited in the folio, to passages in our author's undis-
puted plays ; and also to the Inconsistencies that may be traced
between them ; and, if I do not deceive myself, both the one and
the other will add considerable support to the foregoing observa-
tions.

In our author's genuine plays, he frequently borrows from
himself, the same thoughts being found in nearly the same ex-

semper Sidneios loquamur et Spenseros, audi epilogum fabulce
quam docuit Boreali dialecto poeta titulumque fecit reus Machi-
avellus :

" Machil iz hanged

" And brened iz his buks

'* Though Machil iz hanged

" Yet he iz not wranged

" The Di'el haz him fanged

" In hiz cruked cluks

" Machil iz hanged

" And brened in his buks." Boswell.
* See the Second Part of King Henry VI. p. 183, n. 8;
p. 212, n. 1 ; p. 2I4-, n. 4- ; p. 215, n. 7 ; p. 216, n. 8 ; p. 219,
n. 3 ; p. 220, n. 4 ; p. 232, n. 4 ; p. 246, n. 6 ; p. 248, n. 7 ;
p. 252, n. 6 ; p. 262, n. 6 ; p. 269, n. 7 ; p. 276, n. 8 ; p. 280,
n. 8 ; p. 289, n. 3 and 4 ; p. 292, n. 2 ; p. 293, n. 3 and 4 ;
p. 323, n. 8 ; p. 325, n. 3 ; p. 326, n. 4 ; p. 331, n. 4 ^ p. 334,
n. 1 ; p. 337, n. 7 ; p. 338, n. 6 ; p. 339, n. 1 and 2 ; p. 340,
n. 3; p. 341, n. 5; p. 342, n. 7; p. 355, n. 3; p. 350, n. 7 ;
p. 353, n. 4 ; and p. 358, n. 4 and 5.

KING HENRY VI. 583

pressions in diil'erent pieces. In The Second and Third Part of
King Henry VI. as in other dramas, these coincidencies with his
other works may be found*; and this was one of the circum-
stances that once weighed much in my mind, and convinced me
of their authenticity. But a collation of these plays with the old
pieces on which they are founded, has shewn me the fallacy by
which I was deceived : for the passages of these two parts of
King Henry VI. which correspond with others in our author's
undisputed plays, exist onlij in the folio copy, and not in the
quarto; in other words, in those parts of these new-modelled
pieces, which were of Shakspeare's writing, and not in the ori-
ginals by another hand, on which he worked. This, I believe,
will be found invariably the case, except in three instances.

The first is, " You have no children, butchers;" which is, it
must be acknowledged, in The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke
of Yorke, &c. 1600; (as well as in The Third Part of King
Henry VI.) and is also introduced with a slight variation in Mac-
beth.

Another instance is found in King John. That king, when
charged with the death of his nephew, asks —

" Think you, I bear the shears of destiny?
" Have I commandment on the pulse of life ? "
which bears a striking resemblance to the words of Cardinal
Beaufort in The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses,
&c. which Shakspeare has introduced in his Second Part of King
Henry VI.:

" Died he not in his bed?

" Can I make men live whe'r they will or no ? "
The third instance is found in The true Tragedy of Richarde
Duke of Yorke, &c. In that piece are the following lines, which
Shakspeare adopted with a very slight variation, and inserted in
his Third Part of King Henry VI. :

" . doves will peck in rescue of their brood. —

" Unreasonable creatures feed their young ;
" And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,
" Yet, in protection of their tender ones,
" Who hath not seen them even with those same wings
" Which they have sometimes used in fearful flight,
" Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest,
" Oft'ering their own lives in their young's defence ? "
So, in our author's Macbeth :

* See The Second Part of King Henry VI. p. 169, n. 6 ;
p. 249, n. 8 ; p. 272, n. 5 ; p. 273, n. 7 ; p. 278, n. 2; p. 284.,
n. 5; p. 291, n. 6; p. 321, n.5; p. 352, n.9, n. 1, n. 2; p. 355,
n. 8. Third Part, p. 4-27, n, 5 ; p. 438, n. 3 ; p. 449, G.

684 DISSKRTATION ON

" — — the poor wren —
" The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
" Her young ones in the nest, against the owl."
But whoever recollects the various thoughts that Shakspeare
has borrowed from preceding writers, will not be surprised that
in a similar situatiou, in Macbeth, and King John, he should have
used the expressions of an old dramatist, with whose writings he
had been particularly conversant ; expressions too, which he had
before embodied in former plays : nor can, I think, these three
instances much diminish the force of the foregoing observation.
That it may have its full weight, I have in the present edition
distinguished by asterisks all the lines in The Second and Third
Part of King Henry VI. of which there is no trace in the old
quarto plays, and which therefore I suppose to have been written
by Shakspeare. Though thiehas not been effected without much
trouble, yet, if it shall tend to settle this long-agitated question,
I shall not consider my labour as wholly thrown away.

Perhaps a similar coincidency in The First Part of King
Henry VI. may be in-ged in opposition to my hypothesis relative to
that play. " Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire,"
are in that piece called the attendants on the brave Lord Talbot ;
as, in Shakspeare's King Henry V, " famine, sword, and fire, are
leash'd in like hounds, crouching under the martial Henry for
employment." If this image had proceeded from our author's
imagination, this coincidency might perhaps countenance the
supposition that he had some hand at least in that scene of The
First Part of King Henry VI. where these attendants on war are
personified. But that is not the case ; for the fact is, that Shak-
speare was furnished with this imagery by a passage in Holinshed,
as the author of the old play of King Henry VI. was by Hall's
Chronicle : " The Goddesse of warre, called Bellonas — hath
these three hand-maides ever of necessitie attendyng on her,
blond, fyre, awA famine *."

In our present inquiry, it is undoubtedly a very striking circum-
stance that almost all the passages in The Second and Third Part
of King Henry VI. which resemble others in Shakspeare's undis-
puted plays, are not found in the original pieces in quarto, but
in his Rifacimento published in folio. As these Resemblances to
his other plays, and a peculiar Shakspearian phraseology, ascer-
tain a considerable portion of these disputed dramas to be the
production of Shakspeare, so on the other hand certain passages
which are discordant (in matters of fact) from his other plays,
are proved by this discordancij, not to have been composed by
him ; and these discordant passages, being found in the original
quarto plays, prove that those pieces were composed by another
writer.

* Hall's Chron. Henry VI. fol. xxix.

KING HENRY VI. 585

Thus, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 454-,) Sir
John Grey is said to have lost " his life in quarrel of the house
of York ; " and King Edward stating the claim of his widow,
whom he afterwards married, mentions, that his lands after the
battle of Saint Albans, (February 17, 1460-1,) " were seized on
by the conqueror. Whereas, in fact, they were seized on by
Edward himself after the battle of Towton, (in which he was
conqueror,) March 29, 1461. The conqueror at the second
battle of Saint Albans, the battle here meant, was Queen Mar-
garet. This statement was taken from the old quarto play ; and,
from carelessness was adopted by Shakspeare without any material
alteration. But at a subsequent period when he wrote his King
Richard III. he was under a necessity of carefully examining the
English chronicles ; and in that play. Act I. So. III. he has re-
presented this matter truly as it was :

" In all which time, you, and your husband Grey,
" VJ eve factious for the House qf Lancaster ; —
" (And, Rivers, so were you ;) — Was not your husband
" In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain? "
It is called "Margaret's battle," because she was there victorious.
An equally decisive circumstance is furnished by the same play.
In The Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 478,) Warwick pro-
poses to marry his eldest daughter {Isabella) to Edward Prince of
Wales, and the proposal is accepted by Edward ; and in a sub-
sequent scene Clarence says, he will marry the younger daughter
(Arme). In these particulars Shakspeare has implicitly followed
the elder drama. But the fact is, that the Prince of Wales married
Anne the younger daughter of the Earl of Warwick, and the
Duke of Clarence married the elder, Isabella. Though the
author of The true Tragedie of the Duke of Yorke, &c. was
here inaccurate, and though Shakspeare too negligently followed
his steps, — when he wrote his King Richard III. he had gained
better information ; for there Lady Anne is rightly represented
as the widow of the Prince of Wales, and the youngest daughter
of the Earl of Warwick :

" Which done, God take king Edward to his mercy,
'* And leave the world to me to bustle in.
" For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter;
" What though I kill'd her husband, and her father," &c.
i. e. Edward Prince of Wales, and King Henry VI.

King Richard III, Act I. Sc. I.
I have said that certain passages in The Second and Third Part
of King Henry VI. are ascertained to be Shakspeare's by a pecu-
liar phraseology. This peculiar phraseology, without a single ex-
ception, distinguishes such parts of these plays as are found in
the folio, and not in the elder quarto dramas, of which the phra-
seology, as well as the versification, is of a different colour.
This observation applies not only to the new original matter pro-

586 DISSERTATION ON

duced by Shakspeare, but to his alteration of the old. Our au-
thor in his undoubted compositions has fallen into an inaccuracy,
of which I do not recollect a similar instance in the works of any
other dramatist. When he has occasion to quote the same paper
twice, (not from memory, but verbatim,) from negligence he
does not always attend to the words of the paper which he has
occasion to quote, but makes one of the persons of the drama
recite them with variations, though he holds the very paper
quoted before his eyes. Thus, in All's Well that Ends Well,
Act V. Sc. Ill, Helena says :

" here's your letter : This it says :

" Whenjrom my finger you can get this ring,
" And are by me with child," —
Yet, as I have observed in vol. xi. p. 420, n. 6, Helena in
Act III. Sc. II. reads this very 'ctter aloud, and there the words
are different, and in plain prose : " When thou canst get the
ring from my finger, which never shall come oft', and show me
a child begotten of thy body," &c. In like manner, in the first
scene of The Second Part of King Henry VI. Suffolk presents to
the Duke of Gloster, protector of the realm, the articles of
peace concluded between France and England. The protector
begins to read the articles, but when he has proceeded no further
than these words, — " Item, that the dutchy of Anjou and the
county of Maine shall be released and delivered to the king her
father," — he is suddenly taken ill, and rendered incapable of pro-
ceeding : on which the Bishop of Winchester is called upon to
read the remainder of the paper. He accordingly reads the
whole of the article, of which the Duke of Gloster had only read
a part : " Item, It is Jiirther agreed betiveen them, that the didchies
of Anjou and Maine shall be released and delivered over to the
king her father, and she sent," &c. Now though Maine in our
old chronicles is sometimes called a county, and sometimes a
dutchy, yet words cannot change their form under the eyes of
two readers : nor do they in the original play, entitled The First
Part of the Contention of the Two Houses, &c. for there the
article as recited by the protector corresponds with that recited by
the Bishop, without the most minute variation. " Item, It is fur-
ther agreed between them, that the (/z<ic/«>s of Anjou and nf Maine
shall be released and delivered over to the king her father, and
she sent," &c. Thus in the old play says the Duke, and so says
the Cardinal after him. This one circumstance, in my appre-
hension, is of such weight, that though it stood alone, it might
decide the present question. Our author has fallen into a similar
inaccuracy in the fourth scene of the same Act, where the Duke
of York recites from a paper the questions that had been put to
the Spirit, relative to the Duke of Suflblk, Somerset, &c*.

* See p. 201, n, 8.

KING HENRY VI. 587

Many minute marks of Shakspeare's hands may be traced
in such parts of the old plays as he has new- modelled. I at pre-
sent recollect one that must strike every reader who is conversant
with his writings. He very frequently uses adjectives adverbially ;
and this kind of phraseology, if not peculiar to him, is found
more frequently in his writings than those of any of his contem-
poraries. Thus — " I am myself indifferent honest;" — " as
dishonournhle ragged as an old faced ancient ; " — " equal raven-
ous ; " — " leaves them invisible ; " &c *. In The true Tragedie
of the Duke of Yorke, &c. the King, having determined to marry
Lady Grey, injoins his brothers to use her honourably. But in
Shakspeare's play the words are, — " use her honourable." So,
in Julius Csesar :

" Young man, thou could'st not die more honourable."
In like manner, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. we find
this line :

•' Is either slain, or wounded dangerous.''
but in the old play the words are — " wounded dangerously."

In the same play the word handkerchief is used ; but in the
corresponding scene in The Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 406,)
Shakspeare has substituted the northern term napkin, which
occurs so often in his works, in its room *.

The next circumstance to which I wish to call the attention of
those who do not think the present investigation wholly incurious,
is, the Transpositions that are found in these plays. In the pre-
ceding notes I have frequently observed that not only several lines,
but sometimes whole scenes \, were transposed by Shakspeare.

In p. 405, a Messenger, giving an account of the death of
the Duke of York, says :

" Environed he was with many foes ;

" And stood against them, as the hope of Troy

" Against the^Greeks, that would have enter'd Troy.

«' But Hercules himself must yield to odds — ; "
When this passage was printed, not finding any trace of the
last three lines in the corresponding part of the old play, I marked
them inadvertently as Shakspeare's original composition in my
former edition ; but I afterwards found that he had borrowed them
from a subsequent scene on a quite different subject, in which
Henry, taking leave of Vl^arwick, says to him —

" Farewell my Hector, and my Troys true hope!"
and the last line, " But Hercules," &c. is spoken by Warwick,

* In Othello both the words — naphin, and handkerchief, may
be found. Steevens.

t See p. 496, n. 5; p. 508, n. 4.

588 DISSERTATION ON

near the conclusion of the piece, after he is mortally wounded
in the battle of Barnet.

So, in The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. after
the Duke has slain Clifford, he says —

" Now, Lancaster, sit sure : — thy sinews shrink."
Shakspeare has not made use of that line in that place, but
availed himself of it afterwards, where Edward brings forth War-
wick wounded ; King Henry VI. Part III. Act V, Sc. II. :
" iVoto, Montague, sit fast : I seek for thee," &c.

Many other transpositions may be traced in these plays, to
which I shall only refer in a note*.

Such transpositions as I have noticed, could never have arisen
from any carelessness or inaccuracy of transcribers or copyists;
and therefore are to be added to the many other circumstances
which prove that The Seconfi and Third Parts of K. Henry VL
as exhibited in the folio, were formed from the materials of a
preceding writer.

It is also observable, that many lines are repeated in Shakspeare's
Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. but no such repeti-
tions are found in the old quarto plays. The repetition undoubt-
edly arose from Shakspeare's not always following his original
strictly, but introducing expressions which had struck him in other
parts of the old plays ; and afterwards, forgetting that he had
before used such expressions, he suffered them to remain in their
original places also.

Another proof that Shakspeare was not the author of The
Contention of the Two Houses, &c. is furnished by the incon-
sistencies into which he has fallen, by sometimes adhering to, and
sometimes deviating from, his original : an inaccuracy which may
be sometimes observed in his undisputed plavs.

One of the most remarkable instances of this kind of incon-
sistency is found in The Second Part of King Henry VI. p. 306,
where he makes Henry say :

" I'll send some holy bishop to intreat," &c.
a circumstance which he took from Holinshed's Chronicle;
whereas in the old play no mention is made of a bishop on this
occasion. The King there says, he will himself come and parley
with the rebels, and in the mean time he orders Clifford and
Buckingham to gather an army. In a subsequent scene, how-
ever, Shakspeare forgot the new matter which he had introduced
in the former; and Clifford and Buckingham only parley with
Cade, &c. conformably to the old play.

In Romeo and Juliet he has fallen into a similar inaccuracy.
In the poem on vvhich that tragedy is founded, Romeo, in his

* See p. 271, n. 4 ; p. 298, n. 8 ; p. 345, n. 3 ; p. 490, n.

KING HENRY VI. 589

interview with the Friar, after sentence of banishment has been
pronounced against him, is described as passionately lamenting
his fate in the following- terms :

" First nature did he blame, the nnthnr of his life,

*' In which his joys had been so scant, and sorrows aye so rife ;

" The time and place of birth he fiercely did reprove ;

" He cryed out with open mouth against the stars above.

" Ox\ fortune eke he rail'd," &c.

The Friar afterwards reproves him for want of patience. In
forming the corresponding scene Shakspeare has omitted Romeo's
invective against his fate, but inadvertently copied the Friar's re-
monstrance as it lay before him :

"■ Why raiVst thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth ? "

If the following should be considered as a trifling circumstance,
let it be remembered, that circumstances which, separately consi-
dered, may appear unimportant, sometimes acquire strength, when
united to other proofs of more efficacy : in my opinion, however,
vvhat I shall now mention, is a circumstance of considerable
weight. It is observable that the priest concerned with Eleanor
Cobham, Duchess of Glocester, in certain pretended operations of
magick, for which she was tried, is called by Hall, John Hum.
So is he named in The First Part of the Contention of the Two
Houses of Yorke, &c. the original, as I suppose, of The Second
Part of King Henry VI. Our author, probably thinking the name
harsh or ridiculous, softened it to Hume ; and by that name this
priest is called in his play printed in folio. But in Holinshed he is
named Hun ; and so undoubtedly, or perhaps for softness, Hiine,
he would have been called in the original quarto play just men-
tioned, if Shakspeare had been the author of it ; for Holinshed
and not Hall was his guide, as I have shown incontestably in a note
on King Henry V. vol. xvii. p. 270, n.4. But Hall was undoubtedly
the historian who had been consulted by the original writer of The
Contention of the Two Houses of Yorke and Lancaster ; as ap-
pears from his having taken a line from thence, "That Alexander
Iden, an esquire ofKeitt*,'' and from the scene in which Cardinal
Beaufort is e.xhibited on his death-bed. One part of the particu-
lar description of the Cardinal's death and dying words, in the old
quarto play, is founded on a passage in Hall, which Holinshed,
though in general a servile copyist of the former clironicler, has
omitted. The passage is this : " Dr. John Baker, his pryvie coun-
sailer and hys chapellayn, wrote, that lying on his death-bed he
[Cardinal Beaufort] said these words : ' Why should I dye, havyng
so much ryches ? If the whole realme would save my lyfe, I am

* See Hall, Henry V. fol. Ixxix. Holinshed .says, " a gentle-
man of Kent, named Alexander Iden, awaited so his time," &c.

590 DISSERTATION ON

able either by pollicie to get it, or by riches to bye it. Fye ! will
not death be hyered, nor will money do nothynge? " From this
the writer of the old play formed these lines :
" O death, if thou wilt let me live
" But one whole year, I'll give thee as much gold
" As will purchase such another island."
which Shakspeare new-modelled thus :

" If thou be'st death, I'll give thee England's treasure,
" Enough to purchase such another island,
" So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain."
If Shakspeare had been the author of The First Part of the Con-
tention, &c. finding in his Holinshed the name Hun, he would
either have preserved it, or softened it to Hune. Working on the
old play, where he found the name of Hum, which sounded ridi-
culous to his ear, he changed it. to Hume. But whoever the ori-
ginal writer of the old play was, having used the name of Hum,
he must have formed his play on Hall's Chronicle, where alone
that name is found. Shakspeare therefore having made Holin-
shed, and not Hall, his guide, could not have been the writer
of it.

It may be remarked, that by the alteration of this priest's name,
he has destroyed a rhyme intended by the author of the original
play, where Sir John begins a soliloquy with this jingling line :
" Now, Sir John Hum, no word but mum:
" Seal up your lips, for you must silent be."
which Shakspeare has altered thus :

" But how now. Sir John Hume?

" Seal up your lips, and give no words butHZ?OTZ."
Lines rhyming in the middle and end, similar to that above
quoted, are often found in our old English plays^ (previous to the
time of Shakspeare,) and are generally put into the mouths of
priests and friars.

It has already been observed, that in the original play on which
The Second Part of King Henry VI. is founded, " Ahradas, the
Macedonian pirate," is mentioned. This hero does not appear in
Shakspeare's new-modelled play, " Bargulus, the strong Illyrian
pirate," being introduced in his room. Ahradas is spoken of (as
Mr. Steevens has remarked) by Robert Greene, the very person
whom I suppose to have been one of the joint authors of the origi-
nal plays, in a pamphlet, entitled Penelope's Web, 1589 : — Ahra-
das, the great Macedonean pirate, thought every one had a letter
of mart that bare sayles in the ocean." Of this pirate or his
achievements, however celebrated he may have been, I have not
found the slightest trace in any hook whatsoever, except that above
quoted : a singular circumstance, which appears to me strongly
to confirm my hypothesis on the present subject ; and to support
my interpretation of Greene's words in his Groatsworth of Witte,
in a former part of the present disquisition.

KING HENRY VI. 591

However this may be, there are certainly very good grounds for
believing that The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses
of York and Lancaster, &c. and The true Tragedie of Richard Duke
of Yorke, were written by the author or authors of the old King
John, printed in 1591.

In The true Tragedie, &c. we find the following lines :
'' Let England be true xiithin itself,
" We need not France, nor any alliance with her."
The first of these lines is found, with a very minute variation,
in the old King John, where it runs thus :

" Let England live but ixviQ \v\i\\\i\ itself — ."
Nor is this the only coincidence. In the deservedly admired
scene in which Cardinal Beaufort's death is represented, in the
original play, (as well as in Shakspeare's Second Part of King
Henry VI.) he is called upon to hold up his hand, as a proof of his
confidence in God :

" Lord Cardinal,

" If thou diest assured of heavenly blisse,

" Hold up thy hand, and make some sign to us.

[The Cardinal dies.
" O see, he dies, and makes no sign at all :
" O God, forgive his soule ! "
I quote from the original play. — It is remarkable that a similar
proof is demanded in the old play of King John also, when that
king is expiring :

" Then, good my lord, if you forgive them all,
" Lift up your hand, in token you forgive."
Again :

" — — in token of thy faith,
" And signe thou diest the servant of the Lord,
" Lift up thy hand, that we may witnesse here
" Thou diest the servant of our Saviour Christ. —
" Now joy betide thy soul ! "
This circumstance appears to me to add considerable support
to my conjecture.

One point only remains. It may be asked, if The First Part of
King Henry VI. was not written by Shakspeare, why did Heminge
and Condell print it with the rest of his works ? The only way
that I can account for their having done so, is by supposing, either
that their memory at the end of thirty years was not accurate con-
cerning our authors pieces, as appears indeed evidently from their
omitting Troilus and Cressida, which was not recollected by them,
till the whole of the first folio, and even the table of contents,
(which is always the last work of the press,) had been printed; or,
that they imagined the insertion of this historical drama was neces-
sary to understanding the two pieces that follow it ; or lastly, tliat
Shakspeare, for the advantage of his own theatre, having written a
few lines in The First Part of King Henry VI. after his own Second

592 DISSERTATION ON

and Third Part had been played, they conceived this a sufficient
warrant for attributing- it, along with the others, to him, in the ge-
neral collection of his works. If Shakspeare was the author of
any part of this play, perhaps the second and the following scenes
of the fourth Act were his; which are for the most part written in
rhyme, and appear to me somewhat of a different complexion from
the rest of the play. Nor is this the only instance of their pro-
ceeding on this ground ; for is it yjossible to conceive that they
could have any other reason forgiving Titus Andronicus a place in
their edition of Shakspeare's works, than his having written twenty
or thirty lines in that piece, or having retouched a few verses of it ;
if indeed he did so much ?

Shakspeare's referring in the Epilogue to King Henry V. which
was produced in 1599, to these three parts of King Henry VI. of
which the first, by whom soever it was written, appears from the
testimony of a contemporary 'to have been exhibited with great
applause * ; and the two latter having been, as I conceive, eight
years before new-modelled and almost re-written by our author,
we may be confident were performed with the most brilliant suc-
cess ; his supplicating the favour of the audience to his new play
of King Henry V. : *^for the sake" of these old and popular
dramas, which were so closely connected with it, and in the com-
position of which, as they had for many years been exhibited, he
had so considerable a share ; the connection between the last
scene of King Henry VI. and the first scene of King Richard III.
the Shaksperian diction, versification, and figures, by which The
Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. are distinguished;
" the easiness of expression and the fluency of numbers," which,
it is acknowledged, are found here, and were possessed by no
other author of that age ; all these circumstances are accounted
for by the theory now stated, and all objections f that have been
founded upon them, in my apprehension, vanish away.

On the other hand, the entry on the Stationers' books of the
old play, entitled The First Part of the Contention of the Two
Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. without the name of the au-
thor ; that piece, and The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke,
&c. being printed in 1600, anonymously; their being founded
on the Chronicle of Hall, who was not Shakspeare's historian,
and represented by the servants of Lord Pembroke, by whom
none of his uncontested dramas were represented ; the colour,
diction, and versification of these old plays, the various circum-
stances, lines and speeches, that are found in them, and not in
our author's new-modification of them, as published in folio by
his original editors ; the resemblances that have been noticed be-

* See p. 5Q^ of this Dissertation.

t See these several objections stated by Dr. Johnson in the
notes at the end of The Third Part of Kins: Henrv VI.

KING HENRY VI. 593

tween his other works and such parts of these dramas as are only
exhibited in their folio edition ; the discordances (in matters of
fact) between certain parts of the old plays printed in quarto,
and Shalvspeare's undoubted performances : the transpositions
that he has made in these pieces ; the repetitions ; and the pecu-
liar Shaksperian inaccuracies, and phraseology, which may be
traced in the folio, and not in the old quarto plays ; these and
other circumstances, which have been stated in the foregoing
pages, form, when united, such a body of argument and proofs,
in support of my hypothesis, as appears to me, (though I will not
venture to assert that " the probation bears no hinge or loop to
hang a doubt on,") to lead directly to the door of truth.

It is observable that several portions of the English History
had been dramatized before the time of Shakspeare. Thus, we
have King John in two parts, by an anonymous writer; Edward I.
by George Peele ; Edward II. by Christopher Marlowe ; Edward
III. anonymous ; Henry IV. containing the deposition of Richard
II. and the accession of Henry to the crown, anonymous * Henry
V. and Richard III. both by anonymous authors f. Is it
not then highly probable, that the x\jhole of the story of
Henry VI. had also been brought upon the scene ? and that the
first of the plays now in question, formerly (as I believe) called
The Historical Play of King Henry VI. and now named The First
Part of King Henry VI. as well as The First Part of the Conten-
tion of the Two Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. and The
True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, (which three pieces
comprehend the entire reign of that King from his birth to his
death,) were the composition of some of the authors, who had
produced the historical dramas above enumerated ?

In consequence of an hasty and inconsiderate opinion formed
by Mr. Pope, without any minute examination of the subject.
King John in two parts, printed in 1.591, and The old Taming
of the Shrew, which was entered at Stationers' Hall in 159i,
and printed in 1607, passed for half a century for the compo-
sition of Shakspeare. Further inquiries liave shown that they
were the productions of earlier writers ; and perhaps a more pro-
found investigation of this subject than I have been able to
make, may hereafter prove decisively, that \\\q first of the three
Henries printed in folio, and both the parts of The Whole Conten-
tion of the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, as exhibited
in quarto, ought to be classed in the same predicament with the
two old plays above mentioned. For my own part, if it should ever
be thought proper to reprint the old dramas on which Shakspeare
founded some of his plays, which were published in two volumes

* See the Prolegomena to King Richard II. vol. xi.
t Entered on the Stationers' books in 1594'.
VOL. XVllI. 3 «

594 DISSERTATION ON

a few years ago, I have no doubt that The First Part of the Con-
tention of the Two Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. and The
True Tragedie of the Duke of Yorke, &c. should be added to the
number.

Gildon somewhere says, that " in a conversation between Shak-
speare and Ben Jonson, Ben asked him the reason why he wrote
his historical plays." Our author (we are told) replied, that
" finding the nation generally very ignorant of history, he wrote
them in order to instruct the people in that particular." This
anecdote, like many other traditional stories, stands on a very
weak foundation ; or, to speak more justly, it is certainly a fiction.
The malignant Ben does indeed, in his Devil's an Ass, 1616,
sneer at our author's historical pieces, which for twenty years pre-
ceding had been in high reputation, and probably were theyi the
only historical dramas that had possession of the theatre ; but
from the list above given, it is clear that Shakspeare was not the
first who dramatized our old chronicles ; and that the principal
events of the P^nglish History were familiar to the ears of his
audience, before he commenced a writer for the stage * : though

* This point is established not only by the list referred to, but by
a passage in a pamphlet already quoted, entitled Pierce Pennilesse
his Supplication to the Devil, written by Thomas Nashe, quarto,
1.592 : " Whereas the afternoone being the eldest time of the
day, wherein men that are their own masters (as gentlemen of the
court, the Innes of court, and the number of captaines and sol-
diers about London) do wholly bestow themselves upon pleasure,
and that pleasure they divide (how virtuously it skilles not,) into
gaming, following of harlots, drinking, or seeing a play ; is it
not then better, since of foure extreames all the world cannot
keepe them, but they will choose one, that they should betake
them to the last, which is Playes'i Nay, what if I prove playes
to be no extreame, but a rare exercise of vertue ! First, for the
subject of them ; for the most part it is horroived out of our En-
glish Chronicles, wherein our fore-fathers' valiant actes, that have
been long buried in rustic brasse, and worme eaten bookes, are
revived, and they themselves raised from the grave of oblivion,
and brought to plead their aged honours in open presence ; than
which, what can be a sharper reproofe to these degenerate days
of ours ? "

After an elogium on the brave Lord Talbot, and on the actor
who had personated him in a popular play of that time, " before
ten thousand spectators at the least ; " (which has already been
printed in a former page), and after observing " what a glorious
thing it is to have King Henry the Fifth represented on the stage,
leading the French king prisoner, and forcing both him and the
Dolphin to swear fealty," — the writer adds these words :

KING HENRY VI. 595

undoubtedly at this day, whatever knowledge of our annals is dis-
persed among the people, is in a great measure derived from the
frequent exhibition of our author's historical plays.

He certainly did not consider writing on fables that had already
been formed into dramas, as any derogation from his fame ; if
indeed fame was ever an object of his thoughts. We know that
plays on the subjects of Measure for Measure, The Taming of the
Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, King John, King Richard II.
King Henry IV. King Henry V. King Richard III. King Lear,
Antony and Cleopatra, and, I strongly suspect, on those of
Hamlet, Timon of Athens, and Julius Csesar*, existed before he
commenced a dramatick author ; and perhaps in process of time
it may be found, that many of the fables of his other plays also
had been unskilfully treated, and produced upon the stage, by
preceding writers.

Such are the only lights that I am able to throw on this very
dark subject. The arguments which I have stated have entirely
satisfied my own mind ; whether they are entitled to bring con-
viction to the minds of others, I shall not presume to determine.
I produce them, however, with the more confidence, as they
have the approbation of one who has given such decisive proofs
of his taste and knowledge, by ascertaining the extent of Shak-
speare's learning, that I have no doubt his thoughts on the pre-
sent question also, will have that weight with the publick to
which they undoubtedly entitled. It is almost unnecessary to
add, that I mean my friend Dr. Farmer ; who many years ago

" In playes, all cousenages, all cunning drifts, over-guilded
with outward holinesse, all stratagems of warre, all the canker-
wormes that breed in the rust of peace, are most lively anato-
mized. They show the ill successe of treason, the fall of hasty
climbers, the wretched end of usurpers, the miserie of civil dis-
sension, and how just God is evermore in punhh'ing murder. And
to prove every one of these allegations, could I propound the cir-
cumstances of this play and that, if I meant to handle this theame
otherwise than obiter."

It is highly probable that the words, " the miserie of civil dis-
sension," allude to the very playes which are the subjects of the
present disquisition, The First Part of the Contention of the
Two Houses, &c. and The True Tragedy of Richarde Duke of
Yorke; as, by " the wretched end of Usurpers," and the justice
of God in " punishing murder," old plays on the subject of King
Richard III. and that of Hamlet, prior to those of Shakspeare,
were, I believe, alluded to.

* See An Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakspeare's
Plays, vol. ii.

2 Q 2

596 DISSERTATION ON

delivered it as his opinion, that these plays were not written ori-
ginally by Shakspeare *. Malone,

* Mr. Theobald's and Dr. Warburton's idea on which the
foregoing Dissertation is founded, had received countenance from
the opinion of Dr. Farmer. Mr. Malone, with much labour and
ingenuity, has given support to the sentiments of these gen-
tlemen ; but, in my judgment, if he proves any thing, it is a
position hazarded by me long ago ; viz. that our author had as
much hand in the present dramas, as in several others that pass
under his name ; for, as I observed in Mr. Malone's Attempt to
ascertain, &c. (article, Macbeth) " a time may arrive, in which
it will become evident, from books and manuscripts yet undis-
covered and unexamined, tV.at Shakspeare did not attempt a
single play on any subject, till the effect of the same story, or at
least the ruling incidents in it, had been tried on the stage, and
familiarized to his audience ; " — a conjecture which in some in-
stances has been already confirmed.

Of the first part of these three Histories, however, it is asserted,
that in colour of style, &c. it bears no resemblance to the other
works of our author. As I think, among the notes on that piece,
I have advanced some proofs to the contrary, in this place I shall
be content to add, that it as strongly resembles the latter dramas
of Shakspeare, as the Dream of Raphael resembles his Transfigu-
ration. Between the first and last performances of great masters,
there is often but a small, if any, degree of resemblance. Sir
Joshua Reynolds studied under Hudson, and at first imitated his
manner; but is a trace of the almost forgotten master discover-
able in the mature and applauded works of the pupil ?

Steevens.

Mr. Steevens seems to have been in considerable embarrass-
ment with regard to this Dissertation. He is at first in doubt
whether it proves tiny thing ; but if the reader should be con-
vinced that it is well founded, he puts in his claim to the merit of
the discovery. It must, however, be obvious, that there is a very
great difference between hazarding a general opinion that Shaks-
peare may have been preceded by other writers in the subjects
of his dramas, and proving that this has actually happened in
a particular instance. I have mentioned in the Preliminary Re-
marks that Mr. Malone was in doubt as to the date of the
second and third parts of Henry VI. which he formerly placed so
early as 1591, but which he afterwards thought might have been
as late as 1600. The grounds of this opinion I have only found
stated in a few short memoranda. They are as follows. The
silence of Meres, in the list he has given of Shakspeare's works,
the praise which our poet has bestowed upon these plays in the

KING HENRY VI. 597

last chorus to Henry V. which he considered as being incon-
sistent with his usual modesty, and the probability that the
original pieces were republished in 1600, on account of the
popularity of Shakspeare's alterations, in the hope that the
reader might on that account be more anxious to peruse them.
With all my respect for my late friend's opinions, I cannot think
any of these reasons conclusive. Meres, in mentioning our
author's performances, might not think it worth his while to
specify two dramas of which so much belonged to others, as
witnessing Shakspeare's excellence : the chorus to Henry V, says
nothing inconsistent with the utmost modesty; it merely hopes
that the audience will show the same indulgence which they had
done before. The reasons assigned for the republication in 1600
might as well be given for their being first committed to the
press in ISQi and 1.595. In the Essay on the Chronology of
Shakspeare's Plays, he has altered his opinion with regard to the
original author of the pieces which he took as his groundwork on
the present occasion. But as this volume has already grown to
an unusual bulk, and that question isimmaterial to the great object
of this Essay, I have left what he has said upon that point in its
former place, and have contented myself with giving here what
in its original state was pronounced by the late Professor Porson
to be one of the most convincing pieces of criticism he had ever
met with. Boswell.

END OF VOL. XVIII.

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