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Line 136.

she was there in place.] This expression, signifying, she was there present, occurs frequently in old English writers. MALONE.

Line 137. my mourning weeds are done,] i. e. are conMALONE.

sumed, thrown off.

Line 162. You, that love me and Warwick, follow me.] That Clarence should make this speech in the king's hearing is very improbable, 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.

Line 426.

ACT IV. SCENE VI.

JOHNSON.

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. JOHNSON.

Line 480. This pretty lad) He was afterwards Henry VII. a man who put an end to the civil war of the two houses, but no otherwise remarkable for virtue. Shakspeare knew his trade. Henry VII. was grandfather to queen Elizabeth, and the king from whom James inherited. JOHNSON.

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 demanded, or, as Bacon supposes, the Pope refused, lest "as Henry was reputed in the world abroad but for a simple man, the estimation of that kind of honour might be diminished, if there were not a distance kept between innocents and saints."

MALONE.

ACT IV. SCENE VIII.

Line 642. Let's levy men, and beat him back again.] This line expresses a spirit of war so unsuitable 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.

Line 683. my meed hath got me fame:] Meed signifies reward. We should read-my deed; i. e. my manners, conduct in the administration.

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:

Shout within.

"Deem if I meed,

"Dear madam, read."

A Specimen of Verses that read the same way back-
ward and forward.
Sir J. HAWKINS.

A Lancaster!] 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 MALONE.

Henry's guard, on the appearance of Edward.

Line 708. And, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course, Where peremptory Warwick now remains:] Warwick, as Mr. M. Mason has observed, has but just left the stage, declaring his intention to go to Coventry. How then could Edward know of that intention?

Some of our old writers seem to have thought, that all the persons of the drama must know whatever was known to the writers themselves, or to the audience. MALONE.

ACT V. SCENE I.

Line 60. The king was slily finger'd from the deck!] A pack of cards was formerly called a deck of cards.

Line 111. so blunt, Stupid, insensible of paternal fond

ness.

JOHNSON.

Line 133.passing traitor, Eminent, egregious; traitorJOHNSON.

ous beyond the common track of treason.

ACT V. SCENE II.

Line 145. -a bug that fear'd us all.] Bug is a bugbear, a terrifick being.

JOHNSON.

Line 170. My parks, &c.]

Cedes coemptis saltibus, et domo,

Villaque. Hor.

This mention of his parks and manors diminishes the pathetick

effect of the foregoing lines.

Line 171.

and, of all my lands,

Is nothing left me, but my body's length!]
"Mors sola fatetur

JOHNSON.

"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.

ACT V. SCENE IV.

Line 308. K. Edw. Brave followers, &c.] This scene is illcontrived, 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 before the other entered. JOHNSON.

ACT V. SCENE V.

Line 330. -to Hammes' castle-] A castle in Picardy, where Oxford was confined for many years.

MALONE.

Line 362. Let Esop &c.] The prince calls Richard, for his crookedness, Esop; and the poet, following nature, makes Richard highly incensed at the reproach.

JOHNSON,

Line 380.- the likeness of this railer here. &c.] That thou JOHNSON.

resemblest thy railing mother.

Line 417.

you have rid this sweet young prince.] The condition of this warlike queen would move compassion, could it be forgotten that she gave York, to wipe his eyes in his captivity, a handkerchief stained with his young child's blood. JOHNSON. Line 431. 'Twas sin before,] She alludes to the desertion of Clarence. JOHNSON.

Line 432.

Where is that devil's butcher,
Hard-favour'd Richard?] Devil's butcher, is a

butcher set on by the devil.

JOHNSON. ACT V. SCENE VI.

Line 464. 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 scrupulous about its propriety. STEEVENS.

Line 474.

peevish fool-) As peevishness is the quality of children, peevish seems to signify childish, and by consequence silly. Peevish is explained by childish, in a former note of Dr. Warburton. JOHNSON.

Line 496. Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear;] Who

suspect no part of what my fears presage.

JOHNSON.

Line 507. The raven rook'd her-] To rook means to squat down.

END OF THE ANNOTATIONS ON THE THIRD PART OF

KING HENRY VI.

[blocks in formation]

Line 2. this sun of York;] ALLUDING to the cognizance of Edward IV. which was a sun, in memory of the three suns which are said to have appeared at the battle which he gained over the Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross. STEEVENS.

Line 7. Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds, &c.] It is

not improbable that Shakspeare was indebted on this occasion to the following lines in The tragical Life and Death of King Richard the Third, which is one of the metrical monologues in a collection entitled, The Mirrour of Magistrates, the preface to which is dated 1586.

"the battles fought in fields before
"Were turn'd to meetings of sweet amitie;
"The war-god's thundring cannons dreadful rore,
" And rattling drum-sounds warlike harmonie,
"To sweet-tun'd noise of pleasing minstrelsie.

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