Com'st thou because the anointed king is hence ? Were I but now the lord of such hot youth, BOLING. My gracious uncle, let me know my fault; On what condition stands it, and wherein ? YORK. Even in condition of the worst degree, In gross rebellion, and detested treason: In braving arms against thy sovereign. BOLING. As I was banish'd, I was banish'd Here ford; But as I come, I come for Lancaster. And, noble uncle, I beseech your grace, So folio: the quartos omit the. † So quarto 1597, and folio: the other quartos, my. i. e. forces in battle array. disposed arms: " This alteration is harsh. Sir T. Hanmer reads-despightful. Mr. Upton gives this passage as a proof that our author uses the passive participle in an active sense. The copies all agree. Perhaps the old duke means to treat him with contempt as well as with severity, and to insinuate that he despises his power, as being able to master it. In this sense all is right. JOHNSON. So, in this play: “We'll make foul weather with despised tears." STEEVENS. The meaning of this probably is-'a boastful display of arms which we despise.' M. MASON. 8 ON what condition] It should be, in what condition,' i. e. in what degree of guilt. The particles in the old editions are of little credit. JOHNSON. York's reply supports Dr. Johnson's conjecture: Even in condition," &c. MALONE. Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye": And yet my letters patent give me leave: NORTH. The noble duke hath been too much abus'd. 8 Look on my wrongs with an INDIFFERENT eye:] i. e. with an impartial eye. Every juryman (says Sir Edward Coke,) ought to be impartial and indifferent." MALONE. 9- Wherefore was I born?] To what purpose serves birth and lineal succession? I am duke of Lancaster by the same right of birth as the king is king of England. JOHNSON. To rouse his WRONGS, and chase them to the bay.] By "his wrongs," are meant the persons who wrong him.' This explanation is supported by a passage in Fletcher's Double Marriage, where Juliana says— 2 "With all my youth and pleasure I'll embrace you, 66 to SUE MY LIVERY here,] A law phrase belonging to the feudal tenures. See notes on Sc. III. STEEVENS. K. Henry IV. Part I. Act IV. Ross. It stands your grace upon, to do him right 3. WILLO. Base men by his endowments are made great. YORK. My lords of England, let me tell you I have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs, NORTH. The noble duke hath sworn, his coming is BOLING. An offer, uncle, that we will accept. But we must win your grace, to go with us 3 It STANDS your grace UPON, to do him right.] i. e. it is your interest, it is matter of consequence to you. So, in King Richard III. : To stop all hopes whose growth may danger me.” Again, in Antony and Cleopatra: 66 It only stands "Our lives upon, to use our strongest hands." STEEVENS. 4 Be his own carver, and cut out his way,] So, in Othello, vol. ix. p. 327: "He that stirs next to carve forth his own rage." BOSWELL. To Bristol castle; which, they say, is held For I am loath to break our country's laws. Nor friends, nor foes, to me welcome you are: Things past redress, are now with me past care 3. SCENE IV. A Camp in Wales. Enter SALISBURY", and a Captain. 5 [Exeunt. CAP. My lord of Salisbury, we have staid ten days, And hardly kept our countrymen together, 4 It may be, I will go WITH YOU:-but yet I'll pause ;] I suspect the words-with you, which spoil the metre, to be another interpolation. STEEVENS. 5 Things past redress, are now with me past care.] So, in Macbeth: Things without remedy, "Should be without regard." STEEVENS. ❝Scene IV.] Here is a scene so unartfully and irregularly thrust into an improper place, that I cannot but suspect it accidentally transposed; which, when the scenes were written on single pages, might easily happen in the wildness of Shakspeare's drama. This dialogue was, in the author's draught, probably the second scene in the ensuing act, and there I would advise the reader to insert it, though I have not ventured on so bold a change. My conjecture is not so presumptuous as may be thought. The play was not, in Shakspeare's time, broken into Acts; the editions published before his death, exhibit only a sequence of scenes from the beginning to the end, without any hint of a pause of action. In a drama so desultory and erratic, left in such a state, transpositions might easily be made. JOHNSON. 7- Salisbury,] Was John Montacute, Earl of Salisbury. WALPOLE, And yet we hear no tidings from the king; man; The king reposeth all his confidence in thee. The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd", These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.- The bay-trees, &c.] This enumeration of prodigies is in the highest degree poetical and striking. JOHNSON. Some of these prodigies are found in Holinshed: "In this yeare in a manner throughout all the realme of England, old baie trees wither'd," &c. This was esteemed a bad omen; for, as I learn from Thomas Lupton's Syxt Booke of Notable Thinges, 4to. bl. 1.: "Neyther falling sycknes, neyther devyll, wyll infest or hurt one in that place whereas a Bay tree is. The Romaynes calles it the plant of the good angell," &c. STEEVENS. Evelyn says, "Amongst other things, it has of old been observed, that the bay is ominous of some funest accident, if that be so accounted which Suetonius (in Galba) affirms to have happened before the death of the monster Nero, when these trees generally withered to the very roots in a very mild winter: and much later; that in the year 1629, when at Padua, preceding a great pestilence, almost all the Bay trees about that famous university grew sick and perished: 'Certo quasi præsagio, (says my author,) Apollinem Musasque, subsequenti anno urbe illa bonarum literarum domicilio excessuras.' (Sylva, 4to. 1776, p. 396.) REED. |