Therefore, the answer, when Henry asks what is the worth of ceremony, is what he himself supplies, that the soul of ceremony is nothing but adulation. P. 534. We may probably accept the next emendation in the same soliloquy. The King is comparing the happiness and sound slumbers of a slave with the restless nights of a king; the former, according to the universally received text, "Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;" but if the bread he ate were "distressful," if it were earned with misery and suffering, the simile would not hold; so that we may infer that "distressful" was not Shakespeare's word. According to a manuscript-correction in the folio, 1632, the epithet was misprinted, and we ought to read,— "Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distasteful bread;" that is to say, bread which was abundant, and well relished by the humble, but which, from its coarseness, would be distasteful to kings and princes. SCENE III. P. 542. A passage in which the King supposes that the dead bodies of the English, left in France, will putrify and infect the air, and thus pursue their enmity to the inhabitants, has never been properly understood, because never properly worded; it has been thus given in ancient as well as modern editions : "Mark, then, abounding valour in our English; That, being dead, like to the bullet's grazing, The simile of the bullet's grazing from one object, which it destroys, to another, which it also wounds, shows that we ought not to read "abounding," but "rebounding valour" of the English; and that, instead of "relapse," which ill suits the rhythm of the line, we ought to read reflex, in allusion to the power of the bullet to injure, when reflected backward from the object first struck. The four lines, therefore, ought to be printed in this manner: "Mark, then, rebounding valour in our English, Theobald printed "a bounding valour," and saw the meaning of the poet, as far as that word is concerned, though he did not give the right emendation; but Malone poorly imagined that " abounding" was only to be taken as abundant; and neither of them had any notion that "relapse" was a misprint for reflex. Both these changes are made by the corrector of the folio, 1632. SCENE VI. P. 548. Exeter giving a description of the deaths of York and Suffolk, speaking of the former, says, as the text has been always repeated, "In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie, Steevens illustrates the word "larding" by a passage in Henry IV. Part I. Act II. Scene 2, where it is humorously said of Falstaff that he "lards the lean earth as he walks along." No quotation could well be less apposite: Falstaff larded the lean earth by the perspiration which fell from his huge carcase; but it is no where said that the Duke of York was obese, nor have we any reason to suppose that it might be appropriately said of him after death that he "larded the plain;" the true word is thus given in manuscript: "In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie Loading the plain." SCENE VII. P. 551. Montjoy, the herald, after the battle comes to ask leave on behalf of the French to select and bury their dead; but hitherto the line has been given as if he asked leave to "book" the dead, and as if the French had been in a condition to take and note down a particular account of them. The fact is, that look, in the sense of search for, or select, has been misprinted “book :” "I come to thee for charitable licence, That we may wander o'er this bloody field, The manuscript-corrector merely altered the first letter of "book;" and the use of look, as above, is frequent in all our old writers. It was an English herald who made out a statement of the killed, wounded, and prisoners on both sides, and afterwards presented it to the King. ACT V. P. 559. In the Chorus which opens this Act, the first words are altered from "Vouchsafe to those," to "Vouchsafe all those ;" and in the next line, instead of "and of such as have," we are told to read, "and for such as have." A more material change was made when the celebrated lines, which relate to the return of the Earl of Essex from Ireland, were struck out. We may easily believe that they would be distasteful at any time after that nobleman's execution, but we may presume that they were not recited in the time of the corrector of the folio, 1632, if only because they could then have no application. They form, however, one of the least disputable, as well as one of the most important notes of time, to be found in any of the plays of our great dramatist. SCENE II. P. 565. The Duke of Burgundy, in the course of his long harangue, asks why peace should not, as formerly, in France,"put up her lovely visage?" An awkward phrase arising, no doubt, from the misprint of one short word for another, and the manuscript-corrector therefore has, "Should not in this best garden of the world, This change may, nevertheless, have been proposed as a mere matter of taste. P. 567. A trifling error of the press has been committed in the last line of the speech of the French King, in reply to Henry's request that he would answer, whether he re fused or accepted the articles of peace proposed. As always printed, the passage has stood,— "We will suddenly Pass our accept, and peremptory answer." "Pass our accept" seems to have been taken for “pass our acceptance," but what the French King intends to say is, that, after further consideration, he will either pass by articles to which he may object, or accept others which seem admissible: he says, "Pleaseth your grace To appoint some of your council presently Pass, or accept, and peremptory answer." The blunder here was merely "our" for or, and this use of the word "pass" was common. A few lines lower, we may feel assured that the line, "Shall see advantageable for our dignity," was written by the poet, "Shall see advantage for our dignity;" and, accordingly, able is erased by the corrector of the folio, 1632. P. 571. The corner of the leaf, containing the interview between Henry V. and Katharine, has been torn away, and there is here only one emendation that demands notice: it occurs not far from the end of the scene, where the King observes, "I dare not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage." Warburton's note is "Certainly untempting," and he was right, for a marginal correction directs us to read untempting for "untempering." P. 573. All the folios have, "girdled with maiden walls, that war hath entered," a negative having been accidentally omitted; modern editors have invariably inserted "never;" but, although the difference is not material, the true word was probably not, "that war hath not entered," because the old corrector places it in the margin. THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI. ACT I. SCENE I. Vol. v. p. 9. The subsequent imperfect couplet closes Bedford's speech just before the entrance of the Messenger :"A far more glorious star thy soul will make, Than Julius Cæsar on bright Johnson proposed to fill the blank with Berenice, which, in any point of view, could hardly be right. Malone was of opinion that the blank had been left, because the copyist could not read the name; it is improbable that the copyist could not read the name, and still more improbable, that, even if he could not read it, he would have hesitated in putting down something, whether right or wrong. The corrector of the folio, 1632, wrote Cassiopé in the margin, which, as far as regards the measure, answers the purpose; but from whence he derived the information, it is impossible to conjecture: he therefore reads, "Than Julius Cæsar on bright Cassiopé." P. 10. In the following line, the folio, 1632, omits an important word, "Reignier, duke of Anjou, doth take his part." The old corrector inserted "take," which, perhaps, he found in the folio, 1623; at all events, it was not necessary for him to go to any other authority for it, if even to that. |