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2 HER. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk,

On pain to be found false and recreant,
Both to defend himself, and to approve
Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
To God, his sovereign, and to him, disloyal;
Courageously, and with a free desire,

Attending but the signal to begin.

MAR. Sound, trumpets; and set forward, com

batants.

[A Charge sounded. Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down 2. K. RICH. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,

And both return back to their chairs again Withdraw with us :-and let the trumpets sound, While we return these dukes what we decree.

[A long flourish. To the Combatants.

Draw near,
And list, what with our council we have done.
For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd
With that dear blood which it hath fostered3;
And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect

4

Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' swords;

2.

hath thrown his WARDER down.] A warder appears to have been a kind of truncheon carried by the person who presided at these single combats. So, in Daniel's Civil Wars, &c. b. i. : "When lo, the king, suddenly chang'd his mind,

"Casts down his warder to arrest him there." STEEVENS. 3 With that dear blood WHICH IT HATH FOSTERED;] The quarto 1615, reads

"With that dear blood which it hath been foster'd." Perhaps the author wrote

"With that dear blood with which it hath been foster'd." But the other quartos and the folio read as in the text. MALONE. 4 Of CRUEL Wounds, &c.] The quarto copy now before me, 1597, and the folio, read- "Of civil wounds." But Mr. Capell's quarto copy of the same date, (now in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge,) and printed by the same printer, hascruell instead of civill; which must have been an alteration

[And for we think the eagle-winged pride' Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts, With rival-hating envy, set you on

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To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep ;]
Which so rous'd up with boisterous untun'd drums,
With harsh resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
And grating shock of wrathful iron arms *,
Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace',

* Quarto 1597, harsh resounding arms.

made while the play was working off, and therefore I imagine was made in conformity to the manuscript. However, the very contrary may have been the case; and the printer, after having worked off Mr. Capell's copy, might have discovered his mistake, and printed civil in all the subsequent copies, on finding that to be the author's word. As I have never seen another copy but these two, I have no means of ascertaining this point. However, as the word cruel furnishes a new idea, I have adopted it: "Wounds made by neighbour's swords," were necessarily civil wounds. The folio gives no additional strength to this reading; for that copy merely followed the quarto of 1608, where the reading is civil.

Swords is the reading of the folio. The original quarto has— sword. MALONE.

5 And for we think the eagle-winged pride, &c.] These five verses are omitted in the other editions, and restored from the first of 1598. POPE.

Mr. Pope is not quite correct. The first quarto was in 1597; the five lines in question are in that copy, and in all the other quartos, 1598, 1608, and 1615. They were omitted in the folio, doubtless merely for the purpose of shortening the speech.

By the omission, the speech was rendered unintelligible for the words "Which so rous'd up," &c. are immediately connected with "gentle sleep," in the preceding line, and do not afford any meaning when connected with "civil wounds," above.

MALONE.

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copy reads-
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Corrected

by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

I see no necessity for any alteration. Boswell.

7 To wake our peace, Which so rous'd up

Might fright fair PEACE,] Thus the sentence stands in the common reading absurdly enough; which made the Oxford editor, instead of "fright fair peace," read, be affrighted; as if

And make us wade even in our kindred's blood;-
Therefore, we banish you our territories:

You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of death,
Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields,
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,

But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

these latter words could ever, possibly, have been blundered into the former by transcribers. But his business is to alter as his fancy leads him, not to reform errors, as the text and rules of criticism 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 stood thus:

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the dire aspect

"Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbour swords;
"Which so rouz'd up-

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fright fair peace."

This is sense. But Mr. Pope, who carefully examined the first 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 first 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 Shakspeare himself, as not agreeing to the rest of the context; which, on revise, he thought fit to alter. On this account I have put them into hooks, not as spurious, but as rejected on the author's revise; and, indeed, with great judgment; for

"To wake our peace which in our country's cradle "Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep," as pretty as it is in the image, is absurd in the sense: for peace awake is still peace, as well as when sleep. The difference is, that peace asleep gives one the notion of a happy people sunk in sloth 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 such an appearance of taste and judgement, I am afraid every reader will not subscribe. It is true, that " peace awake is still peace, as well as when asleep; " but peace awakened by the tumults of these jarring nobles, and peace indulging in profound tranquillity, convey images sufficiently opposed to each other for the poet's purpose."To wake peace," is to introduce discord. Peace asleep," is peace exerting its natural influence, from which it would be frighted by the clamours of war. STEEVENS.

BOLING. Your will be done: This must my com

fort be,

That sun, that warms you here, shall shine on me; And those his golden beams, to you here lent, Shall point on me, and gild my banishment.

K. RICH. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier
doom,

Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:
The sly-slow hours' shall not determinate
The dateless limit of thy dear exíle ;-
The hopeless word of-never to return
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

NOR. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,

And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:
A dearer merit, not so deep a maim

As to be cast forth in the common air,

8

Have I deserved at your highness' hand.

7 The FLY-SLOW hours-] The old copies read-“ The slyslow hours." Mr. Pope made the change; whether it was necessary or not, let the poetical reader determine.

In Chapman's version of the second book of Homer's Odyssey, we have:

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and those slie hours

"That still surprise at length."

It is remarkable, that Pope, in the 4th book of his Essay on Man, v. 226, has employed the epithet which, in the present instance, he has rejected:

"All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes." See Warton's edit. of Pope's Works, vol. iii. p. 145.

STEEVENS. The latter word appears to me more intelligible:- "the thievish minutes as they pass." MALONE.

8 A dearer MERIT, not so deep a maim

Have I deserved -] To deserve a merit is a phrase of which I know not any example. I wish some copy would exhibit:

"A dearer meed, and not so deep a maim."

To deserve a meed or reward, is regular and easy. JOHNSON. As Shakspeare uses merit in this place, in the sense of reward, he frequently uses the word meed, which properly signifies reward, to express merit. So, in Timon of Athens, Lucullus says: VOL. XVI.

D

The language I have learn'd these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego:
And now my tongue's use is to me no more,
Than an unstringed viol or a harp;
Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up,
Or, being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
Doubly portcullis'd, with my teeth, and lips;
And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance
Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now;

What is thy sentence then, but speechless death, Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

K. RICH. It boots thee not to be compassionate'; After our sentence plaining comes too late.

NOR. Then thus I turn me from my country's

light,

To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.

[Retiring. K. RICH. Return again, and take an oath with

thee.

Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;
Swear by the duty that you owe to heaven,
(Our part therein we banish with yourselves ',)

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And in The Third Part of King Henry VI. Prince Edward says : "We are the sons of brave Plantagenet,

"Each one already blazing by our meeds." And again, in the same play, King Henry says:

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That's not my fear, my meed hath got me fame." M. MASON. compassionate ;] For plaintive. WARBURTon.

1 (Our part, &c.)] It is a question much debated amongst the writers of the law of nations, whether a banished man may be still tied in his allegiance to the state which sent him into exile.

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