mishearing. The passage is where Faulconbridge is addressing the French, and charging them with having been made "To thrill, and shake,

Even at the crying of your nation's crow."

What is the French nation's crow? Malone strangely thought that the allusion was to the "caw of the French crow ;" but Douce's suspicion, that the crowing of the cock might be meant, is fully confirmed by the emendation which we find in manuscript in the folio, 1632, where the passage is thus given,

"To thrill, and shake,

Even at the crowing of your nation's cock,

Thinking this voice an armed Englishman."

There can, we apprehend, be no dispute that this must be the true text.

SCENE IV.

P. 92. Discussion has arisen respecting a line in which the dying Melun advises Salisbury and Pembroke to return to their duty to their Sovereign, and to

"Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,"

as the line stands in the ancient, and in most modern, editions. Theobald was not far wrong when he changed "Unthread" to untread, and "eye" to way; but he missed the emendation of another word, which, with the others, is thus altered by the corrector of the folio, 1632:

"Untread the road-way of rebellion,"

i. e. return by the road you took when you rebelled against King John. In confirmation, we may notice, that, very soon afterwards, Salisbury himself repeats nearly the same terms:

"We will untread the steps of damned flight."

To misprint untread the road-way, "unthread the rude eye," seems an excess of carelessness, which we cannot in any way explain. The fault must, in this instance, lie with the compositor.

P. 93. Salisbury tells the expiring Melun,—

"For I do see the cruel pangs of death

Right in thine eye;"

and some commentators, would for "right" read fright, or pight, and others fight: bright appears, from the old corrector's insertion of the necessary letter in the margin, to be the word, in reference to the remarkable brilliancy of the eyes of many persons just before death:

"For I do see the cruel pangs of death

Bright in thine eye."

Editors guessed at almost every word but the right one.

SCENE V.

P. 94. For the line, as it stands in the folios,—

"And wound our tott'ring colours clearly up,"

the old corrector has,

"And wound our tott red colours closely up."

Tattered was then usually spelt "tottered," and he preferred the passive to the active participle, though we may doubt if Shakespeare exercised any such discretion. Neither are we prepared to say that we like closely better than “ clearly," the latter, perhaps, indicating the winding up of the colours without obstruction from the enemy.

SCENE VII.

P. 97. Much contention has arisen upon a question, which the amended folio, 1632, will set at rest, founded upon this passage, where Prince Henry refers to the King's fatal illness :

"Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,

Leaves them, invisible; and his siege is now
Against the mind.”

In the old copies, "mind" is misprinted wind; and besides setting right this obvious blunder, the old corrector remedies another defect of greater importance. It has been suggested by different annotators that "invisible," ought to be insensible, invincible, &c. There is no doubt that "invisible" is wrong, and the corrector converts it into unvisited, which may, we think, be adopted without hesitation-death has abandoned the King's external form, and has laid siege to his understanding :

"Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,
Leaves them unvisited; and his siege is now
Against the mind.”

P. 98. It appears that the practice of the theatre in the time of the corrector of the folio, 1632, was to bring the dying King in, sitting in a chair, and the manuscript stagedirection is in those terms, which are added to the printed stage-direction, "John brought in." We are not told, in any of the old copies, when he dies, but those words are written in the margin, just after the Bastard has concluded his statement of the loss of "the best part of his power" in the washes of Lincolnshire. This accords with the modern representation of the fact.

KING RICHARD II.

ACT I. SCENE I.

P. 112. At the very beginning of Bolingbroke's first speech, a word has dropped out, the absence of which spoils the metre: it is found in a manuscript-correction of the folio, 1632, and we have printed it in Italic type:

"Full many years of happy days befal

My gracious sovereign," &c.

P. 113. In Bolingbroke's next speech, an error of the press of some consequence is noticed: it is where he denies that he is actuated by any private malice against Mowbray :—

"In the devotion of a subject's love,

Tendering the precious safety of my prince,
And free from other misbegotten hate,
Come I appellant," &c.

What "other misbegotten hate" does he refer to? The corrector of the folio, 1632, tells us to read the third line,

"And free from wrath or misbegotten hate,
Come I appellant," &c.

Bolingbroke appeals his antagonist, not out of anger or hatred, but out of loyal affection to his King. We may question the necessity for this change. Lower down, "reins and spurs" are in the singular, but this is a matter of less

moment.

P. 116. Mowbray answers the pecuniary part of the charge against him, by asserting that the King was in debt to him

---

"Upon remainder of a dear account,

Since last I went to France."

For "dear account," the old corrector has "clear account," which has a distinct meaning-the account was clear-while the epithet "dear" seems ill applied to "account," in any of the senses which that word bears in Shakespeare.

SCENE II.

P. 121. We may feel assured that the word "farewell" was repeated in the following line, and we find it in manuscript in the margin of the folio, 1632, though not in any extant printed copy of the play :

"Why then, I will. Farewell, farewell, old Gaunt."

The repetition of the word led to the accidental omission of it by the old scribe or compositor. In the preceding line, the first and second folios have "the widow's champion to defence," instead of "and defence."

P. 122. The repetition of the word "desolate," in the subsequent couplet, which ends the Duchess of Gloucester's speech, is unlike Shakespeare:

"Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die :

The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye."

The carelessness of the printer, or of the copyist, occasioned the blunder, for in the corrected folio, 1632, the first line stands thus:

Desolate, desperate, will I hence and die."

She was "desolate" because a helpless widow, and desperate because she could not move Gaunt to revenge the death of her husband.

P. 125. It deserves remark that, whereas in the line,

"And furbish new the name of John of Gaunt,"

the folios have "furnish new;" the manuscript corrector restores the older and better reading of the earlier quarto impressions. A few lines farther on, the second folio has captain for "captive," which did not pass unnoticed.