Mowb. However heaven, or fortune, caft my lot, Caft off his chains of bondage, and embrace Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast. K. Rich. Farewell, my lord: fecurely I efpy Virtue with valour couched in thine eye... Order the trial, marfhal, and begin. Mar. Harry of Hereford, Lancafter, and Derby, Receive thy lance; and heaven defend thy right Boling. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry-Amen. Mar. Go bear this lance to Thomas duke of Norfolk. 1 Her. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Stands here for God, his fovereign, and himself, On pain to be found falfe and recreant, To prove the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray, And dares him to fet forward to the fight. 2 Her. Here ftandeth Thomas Mowbray, duke of On pain to be found falfe and recreant, • As gentle and as jocund, as to JEST, ] Not fo neither. We fhould read, to JUST; i. e. to tilt or tournay, which was a a kind of sport too. WARBURTON. The fenfe would perhaps have been better if the author had written what his commentator fubftitutes; but the rhyme, to which fenfe is too often enflaved, obliged Shakespeare to write jeft, and obliges us to read it. JOHNSON. Courageously, Courageously, and with a free defire, Attending but the signal to begin. [A charge founded. Mar. Sound, trumpets; and fet forward, combatants. -Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down. And both return back to their chairs again :- Draw near [A long flourish; after which, the king And lift, what with our council we have done. Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbour swords; To wake our peace 8, which in our country's cradle Draws And for we think, the eagle-winged pride, &c.] These five verfes are omitted in the other editions, and restored from the firft of 1598. POPE. To wake our peace,which thus rouz'd up Might fright fair peace,] Thus the fentence ftands in the common reading, abfurdly enough; which made the Oxford Editor, inftead of fright fair peace, read, be affrighted; as if thefe latter words could ever, poifibly, have been blundered into the former by tranfcribers. But his bufinefs is to alter as his fancy leads him, not to reform errors, as the text and rules of criticifm direct. In a word then, the true original of the blunder was this: the editors before Mr. Pope had taken their editions from the folios, in which the text ftcod thus, -the dire afpect Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbour Swords; VOL..V. -fright fair peace. This Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle fleep;] But tread the stranger paths of banishment. Boling. Your will be done. This must my comfort be That fun, that warms you here, fhall fhine on me ; This is fenfe. But Mr. Pope, who carefully examined the firft printed plays in quarto (very much to the advantage of his edition) coming to this place, found five lines, in the first edition of this play printed in 1598, omitted in the firft general collection of the poet's works; and, not enough attending to their agreement with the common text, put them into their place. Whereas, in truth, the five lines were omitted by Shakespeare himfelf, as not agreeing to the reft of the context; which, on revife, he thought fit to alter. On this account I have put them into hooks, not as fpurious, but as rejected on the author's revife; and, indeed, with great judgment; for, To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle as pretty as it is in the image, is abfurd in the fenfe: for peace awake is ftill peace, as well as when asleep. The difference is, that peace afleep gives one the notion of a happy people funk in floth and luxury, which is not the idea the speaker would raise, and from which state the sooner it was awaked the better. WARBURTON, To this note, written with fuch an appearance of taste and judgment, I am afraid every reader will not fubfcribe. It is true, that peace awake is ftill peace, as well as when asleep; but peace awakened by the tumults of these jarring nobles, and peace indulging in profound tranquillity, convey images fufficiently oppofed to each other for the poet's purpose. To wake peace is to introduce difcord. Peace afleep, is peace exerting its natural influence, from which it would be frighted by the clamours of war. STEEVENS. And And those his golden beams, to you here lent, K. Rich. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom, Mowb. A heavy fentence, my moft fovereign liege As to be caft forth in the common air, That knows no touch to tune the harmony. What is thy fentence then, but speechless death, "A dearer merit, not fo deep a maim, Have I deferved -] To deferve a merit is a phrafe of which I know not any example. I wish some copy would exhibit, A dearer mede, and not so deep a maim. To deferve a mede or reward, is regular and eafy. JOHNSON. compaffionate;] for plaintive. WARBURTON. Mowb. Then thus I turn me from my country's light, To dwell in folemn fhades of endless night. K. Rich. Return again, and take an oath with ye. Lay on your royal fword your banish'd hands; Swear by the duty that you owe to heaven, 2 (Our part therein we banish with yourselves) To keep the oath that we adminifter.. You never fhall, fo help you truth and heaven! This lowering tempeft of your home-bred hate, To plot, contrive, or complot any ill, 'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land. Boling. I fwear. Mowb. And I, to keep all this. Boling. 3 Norfolk-fo far, as to mine enemy- 2 (Our part, &c.] It is a question much debated amongst the writers of the law of nations, whether a banish'd man may be ftill tied in allegiance to the ftate which fent him into exile. Tully and lord chancellor Clarendon declare for the affirmative: Hobbs and Puffendorf hold the negative. Our author, by this line, seems to be of the fame opinion. WARBURTON. 3 Norfolk-fo far, &c.] I do not clearly fee what is the fenfe of this abrupt line; but fuppofe the meaning to be this. Hereford immediately after his oath of perpetual enmity addreffes Norfolk, and, fearing some mifconftruction, turns to the king and fays-fo far as to mine enemy-that is, I fhould fay nothing to bim but what enemies may say to each other. Reviewing this paffage, I rather think it should be understood thus. Norfolk, fo far I have addreffed myself to thee as to mine enemy, I now utter my laft words with kindness and tenderness, Confefs thy treafons. JOHNSON. |