Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

His brother, archbishop late of Canterbury,3
Sir Thomas Erpingham, fir John Ramfton,

Sir John Norbery, fir Robert Waterton, and Francis
Quoint,-

All these well furnish'd by the duke of Bretagne, With eight tall fhips, three thousand men of war,

"Duke Henry,-chiefly through the earnest perfuafion of Thomas Arundell, late Archbishoppe of Canterburie, (who, as before you have heard, had been removed from his fea, and banished the realme by King Richardes means,) got him downe to Britaine :-and when all his provifion was made ready, he tooke the fea, together with the faid Archbishop of Canterburie, and his nephew Thomas Arundell, fonne and heyre to the late Earle of Arundell, beheaded on Tower-hill. There were also with him Reginalde Lord Cobham, Sir Thomas Erpingham," &c.

There cannot, therefore, I think, be the smallest doubt, that a line was omitted in the copy of 1597, by the negligence of the tranfcriber or compofitor, in which not only Thomas Arundel, but his father, was mentioned; for his in a subsequent line (His brother) must refer to the old Earl of Arundel.

Rather than leave a lacuna, I have inserted fuch words as render the paffage intelligible. In A&t V. fc. ii. of the play before us, a line of a rhyming couplet was paffed over by the printer of the firft folio:

"Ill may'ft thou thrive, if thou grant any grace." It has been recovered from the quarto. So alfo, in K. Henry VI. Part II. the first of the following lines was omitted, as is proved by the old play on which that piece is founded, and (as in the prefent inftance,) by the line which followed the omitted line: "[Suf. Jove fometimes went difguis'd, and why not I?] Cap. But Jove was never flain, as thou fhalt be.” In Coriolanus, A&t II. fc. ult. a line was in like manner omitted, and it has very properly been fupplied.

[ocr errors]

The chriftian name of Sir Thomas Ramfton is changed to John, and the two following perfons are improperly defcribed as knights in all the copies. Thefe perhaps were likewise mistakes of the prefs, but are scarcely worth correcting. MALONE.

3 archbishop late of Canterbury,] Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, brother to the Earl of Arundel who was beheaded in this reign, had been banished by the parliament, and was afterwards deprived by the Pope of his fee, at the request of the King; whence he is here called, late of Canterbury.

STEEVENS.

Are making hither with all due expedience,
And fhortly mean to touch our northern fhore:
Perhaps, they had ere this; but that they stay
The firft departing of the king for Ireland.
If then we shall shake off our flavish yoke,
Imp out 4 our drooping country's broken wing,
Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,
Wipe off the duft that hides our scepter's gilt,5
And make high majefty look like itself,
Away, with me, in poft to Ravenfpurg:
But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
Stay, and be fecret, and myself will go.

Ross. To horfe, to horfe! urge doubts to them
that fear.

WILLO. Hold out my horfe, and I will first be [Exeunt.

there.

4 Imp out-] As this expreffion frequently occurs in our author, it may not be amifs to explain the original meaning of it. When the wing-feathers of a hawk were dropped, or forced out by any accident, it was ufual to fupply as many as were deficient. This operation was called, to imp a hawk.

So, in The Devil's Charter, 1607:

"His plumes only imp the mufe's wings."

Again, in Albumazar, 1615:

[blocks in formation]

"Time's hafte, he seems to lose a match with lobsters;
"And when we with him ftay, he imps his wings
"With feathers plum'd with thought.'

Turbervile has a whole chapter on The Way and Manner howe to ympe a Hawke's Feather, how-foever it be broken or broofed.

[ocr errors]

STEEVENS.

gilt,] i. e. gilding, fuperficial difplay of gold. So, in Timon of Athens :

"When thou waft in thy gilt and thy perfume," &c.

[ocr errors]

STEEVENS.

SCENE II.

The fame. A Room in the Palace.

Enter Queen, BUSHY, and BAGOT.

BUSHY. Madam, your majefty is too much fad: You promis'd, when you parted with the king, To lay afide life-harming heavinefs,

And entertain a cheerful difpofition.

QUEEN. To please the king, I did; to please myfelf,

I cannot do it; yet I know no caufe
Why I fhould welcome fuch a gueft as grief,
Save bidding farewell to fo fweet a guest

As my sweet Richard: Yet, again, methinks,
Some unborn forrow, ripe in fortune's womb,
Is coming towards me; and my inward foul
With nothing trembles: at fomething it grieves,"
More than with parting from my lord the king.

[ocr errors]

life-harming heaviness,] Thus the quarto, 1597. The quartos 1608, and 1615-halfe-harming; the folio-felf-harming. STEEVENS.

7 With nothing trembles: at fomething it grieves,] The following line requires that this should be read just the contrary way: With fomething trembles, yet at nothing grieves. WARBURTON.

All the old editions read:

my inward foul

With nothing trembles; at fomething it grieves.

The reading, which Dr. Warburton corrects, is itself an innovation. His conjectures give indeed a better sense than that of any copy, but copies muft not be needlefsly forfaken.

JOHNSON.

I fuppofe it is the unborn forrow which fhe calls nothing, because it is not yet brought into exiftence. STEEVENS.

Warburton does not appear to have understood this paffage,

BUSHY. Each fubftance of a grief hath twenty

fhadows,

Which show like grief itself, but are not so:
For forrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects;
Like perspectives, which, rightly gaz'd upon,
Show nothing but confufion; ey'd awry,
Diftinguish form:8 so your fweet majefty,

nor Johnfon either. Through the whole of this fcene, till the arrival of Green, the Queen is defcribing to Bufhy, a certain unaccountable defpondency of mind, and a foreboding apprehenfion which the felt of fome unforeseen calamity. She fays, "that her inward foul trembles without any apparent caufe, and grieves at fomething more than the King's departure, though she knows not what" He endeavours to perfuade her that it is merely the confequence of her forrow for the King's abfence. She fays it may be fo, but her foul tells her otherwise. He then tells her it is only conceit; but fhe is not fatisfied with that way of accounting for it, as fhe fays that conceit is ftill derived from fome fore-father grief, but what the feels was begot by nothing; that is, had no preceding caufe. Conceit is here ufed in the fame fense that it is in Hamlet, when the King fays that Ophelia's madnefs was occafioned by "" conceit upon her father." M. MASON. Like perspectives, which, rightly gaz'd upon,

Show nothing but confufion; ey'd awry,

[ocr errors]

Diftinguifh form:] This is a fine fimilitude, and the thing meant is this. Amongst mathematical recreations, there is one in optics, in which a figure is drawn, wherein all the rules of perspective are inverted: fo that, if held in the fame pofition with thofe pictures which are drawn according to the rules of perSpective, it can prefent nothing but confufion: and to be feen in form, and under a regular appearance, it must be looked upon from a contrary ftation; or, as Shakspeare fays, ey'd awry.

WARBURTON.

Dr. Plot's Hiftory of Staffordshire, p. 391, explains this perspective, or odd kind of "pictures upon an indented board, which, if beheld directly, you only perceive a confused piece of work; but, if obliquely, you fee the intended perfon's picture ;" which, he was told, was made thus: "The board being indented, [or furrowed with a plough-plane,] the print or painting was cut into parallel pieces equal to the depth and number of the indentures on the board, and they were pafted on the flats that

Looking awry upon your lord's departure,

Finds fhapes of grief, more than himself, to wail; Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows

ftrike the eye holding it obliquely, fo that the edges of the parallel pieces of the print or painting exactly joining on the edges of the indentures, the work was done." TOLLET.

The following short poem would almost persuade one that the words rightly and awry [perhaps originally written—aright and wryly,] had exchanged places in the text of our author: Lines prefixed to" Melancholike Humours, in Verfes of Diverse Natures, fet down by Nich. Breton, Gent. 1600:

In Authorem.

"That thou wouldft finde the habit of true passion,
"And fee a minde attir'd in perfect ftraines;
"Not wearing moodes, as gallants doe a fashion

"In thefe pide times, only to fhewe their braines;
"Looke here on Breton's worke, the master print,
"Where fuch perfections to the life doe rise :
"If they feeme wry, to fuch as looke afquint,
"The fault's not in the object, but their eyes.
“For, as one comming with a laterall viewe
"Unto a cunning piece-wrought perspective,
"Wants facultie to make a cenfure true :

"So with this author's readers will it thrive:

"Which, being eyed directly, I divine,

"His proofe their praise will meetê, as in this line." Ben Jonfon. STEEVENS.

So, in Hentzner, 1598, Royal Palace, Whitehall: "Edwardi VI. Angliæ regis effigies, primo intuitu monftrofum quid repræfentans, fed fi quiseffigiem rectâ intueatur, tum vera depræhenditur." FARMER.

The perspectives here mentioned, were not pictures, but round chryftal glaffes, the convex surface of which was cut into faces, like thofe of the rofe-diamond; the concave left uniformly fmooth. These chryftals-which were fometimes mounted on tortoise-shell box-lids, and fometimes fixed into ivory cafes-if placed as here reprefented, would exhibit the different appearances defcribed by the poet.

The word fhadows is here ufed, in oppofition to fubftance, for reflected images, and not as the dark forms of bodies, occafioned by their interception of the light that falls upon them.

HENLEY

« AnteriorContinuar »