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eyc and prospect

of

Before the
your town,
Have hither march'd to your endamagement:
The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,
And ready mounted are they, to spit forth
Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls :
All preparation for a bloody siege,

And merciless proceeding by these French,
Comfort your city's eyes, your winking gates;
And, but for our approach, those sleeping stones,
That as a waist do girdle you about,
By the compulsion of their ordnance
By this time from their fixed beds of lime
Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made
For bloody power to rush upon your peace.
But, on the sight of us, your lawful king,
Who painfully, with much expedient march,
Have brought a countercheck before your gates,
To save unscratch'd your city's threaten'd cheeks,
Behold, the French amaz'd vouchsafe a parle ;
And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire,

To make a shaking fever in your walls,

They shoot but calm words, folded up in smoke,
To make a faithless error in your ears:

Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,

And let us in, your king; whose labour'd spirits,
Forewearied in this action of swift speed,

Crave harbourage within your city walls."

"So all the old copies: King John is evidently speaking ironically. Rowe altered comfort' to confront, and such has since been the received reading." COLLIER.

"Con

Mr. Knight was the first who suggested that "Comfort might be used by John in irony" (though he printed front" in his own text); and if this suggestion had been thrown out by Steevens, I should have supposed that it had originated in the hope of inducing the next editor to adopt a reading, which "the malicious George" would afterwards have had great satisfaction in pronouncing to be an absurdity.

I have extracted the whole speech; and I appeal to the plain sense of the most uncritical reader, if he can discover in it even a shadow of irony;-a rhetorical figure, indeed, which

would naturally be avoided by King John, whose object in the present address is to gain over the citizens of Angiers.

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In the next scene we find;

Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted power."

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SCENE 1.-C. p. 39; K. p. 291.

"And though thou now confess, thou didst but jest
With my vex'd spirits, I cannot take a truce,

But they will quake and tremble all this day."

So the passage is pointed in the old eds., and, I believe, by all the modern editors,—directly against the sense. proper punctuation is,

"And though thou now confess thou didst but jest,

With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce,

But they will quake and tremble all this day."

To take truce with is a common expression;

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With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd,
Could not take truce with the unruly spleen

The

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Of Tybalt," &c.

Romeo and Juliet, act iii. sc. 1.

And with my father take a friendly truce."

Marlowe's Tamburlaine (Part First), act iv. sc. 4.

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Take truce a while with these immoderate mournings."

Beaumont and Fletcher's Corcomb, act iv. sc. 4.

Mean while (since hope hath taken race [read, says the list of
Errata, truce] with sorrow)

For some few dayes that little time Ile borrow," &c.

Wither's Crums and Scraps, &c., 1661, p. 79.

SCENE 1.-C. p. 43; K. p. 295.

O, that a man should speak those words to me !"

I am rather surprised that the commentators, in their rage for discovering parallel passages, should have overlooked the following one in Sydney's Arcadia: "O God (cried out Pyrocles) that thou wert a man that vsest these words vnto me!" Lib. iii. p. 315, ed. 1598.

SCENE 1.-C. p. 44.

What earthy name to interrogatories

Can task the free breath of a sacred king?"

'Modern editors, since the time of Pope, have substituted earthly for earthy,' an alteration not required." COLLIER.

Not required!-In Richard the Second, act i. sc. 3, vol. iv. 125, Mr. Collier gives,

"O! thou, the earthly author of my blood;"

It

and observes in a note, "The folio of 1623 reads earthy." happens that in the latter passage only one old copy has the misprint, which in the former passage all the old copies exhibit.

In Massinger's Duke of Milan, act v. sc. 2, Sforza says to the Doctors, according to the old eds.,

'O you earthy gods,

You second natures," &c.:

but in a copy of 4to, 1623 (now in my possession), Massinger has crossed out "earthy" with a pen, and written "earthly" on the margin.

SCENE 1.-C. p. 46.

"O Lewis, stand fast! the devil tempts thee here,

In likeness of a new untrimmed bride."

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"A misprint may be suspected here. Theobald reads, and trimmed,' in reference to Blanch's adornments." COLLIER.

Here Mr. Knight has no note.

On the word "untrimmed" we have about two pages of annotation in the Var. Shakespeare. First comes Theobald's conjecture. Then Warburton declares that "untrimmed” means unsteady, and that the term is taken from navigation. Next, Johnson, rejecting Warburton's explanation, seems to approve of Theobald's alteration. We have then a long note by Steevens, who pronounces the meaning of "an untrimmed bride" to be a bride undrest, unattired,' that is (he modestly says), "not absolutely naked:" he adds that Mr. Collins supposes "untrimmed" to be equivalent to 'unadorned with the usual pomp and formality of a nuptial habit,' and that Mr. Tollet is of the same opinion. Malone brings up the rear, and knows not whether to approve of Theobald's correction or Collins's explanation.

Let the next editor of Shakespeare merely state that “untrimmed" means 'virgin :'-without any comment, though I now think it right to adduce the following passage, among many others which might be cited;

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That would have burnt his city here, and your house too,

Purloin'd your lordship's plate the duke bestow'd on you
For turning handsomely o' the toe, and trimm'd your virgins,
Trimm'd'em of a new cut, an't like your lordship,

'Tis ten to one, your wife too, and the curse is,

You had had no remedy against these rascals," &c.

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Fletcher's Loyal Subject, act ii. sc. 1.

SCENE 1.-C. p. 48; K. p. 298.

France, thou may'st hold a serpent by the tongue,
A cased lion by the mortal paw,

A fasting tiger safer by the tooth," &c.

"So the old copies, taking 'cased' in the sense of caged, for which it was perhaps a misprint, the g having been read for a long s by the compositor. Some editors would read chafed, but this supposes a double error in the word." COLLIER.

With a full recollection of the passages cited by Steevens and Malone to support this reading (" cas'd"), I think it decidedly wrong. Shakespeare would not have used "cased" in the forced sense of caged, because in his time “ a cased lion" meant properly, a lion stript of his skin, flayed:' so in All's well that ends well, "We'll make you some sport with the fox, ere we case him," Act iii. sc. 6; and in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady,

6

"then with my tiller

Bring down your gibship, and then have you cas'd,
And hung up in the warren."

Act v. sc. 1.

Mr. Knight prints, "A chased lion." But the right reading is undoubtedly "chaf'd:" in the following passage of Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, where the 4to of 1620 has "Chaf'd," the other eds. have "Chast," and (let it be particularly observed) "Cast;"

"And what there is of vengeance in a lion

Chaf'd among dogs or robb'd of his dear young," &c.

Act v. sc. 3.

I may add, that in Shakespeare's Henry VIII. we find,

so looks the chafed lion

Upon the daring huntsman that has gall'd him," &c.

and in Fletcher's Loyal Subject,

"He frets like a chaf'd lion."

Act iii. sc. 2.

Act v. sc. 3.

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SCENE 4.-C. p. 55; K. p. 305.

So, by a roaring tempest on the flood,

A whole armado of convicted sail

Is scatter'd, and disjoin'd from fellowship."

"i. e. of conquered sail. In Minshew's Dictionary, 1617, as quoted by Malone, we read To convict or convince:' a Lat. convictus, overcome. In 'Love's Labour's Lost,' vol. ii. p. 377, we have convince,

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