his audience; or what is equally probable, the story was then so popular that a hint was sufficient at that time to bring it to mind; and these plays were written with very little care for the approbation of posterity. JOHNSON.

`P. 18, 1. 30.* You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,] The proverb alluded to is, "Mortuo leoni et lepores insultant." Erasmi ADAG. MALONE.

P. 19, l. 1. 2. It lies as sightly on the back of

him,

As great Alcides' shoes upon an ass:] But why his shoes in the name of propriety? For let Hercules and his shoes have been really as big as they were ever supposed to he, yet they (1 mean the shoes) would not have been an overload for an ass. I am persuaded, I have retrieved the true reading; and let us observe the justness of the comparison now. Faulconbridge in his resentment would say this to Austria: "That lion's skin, which my great father King Kichard once wore, look's as uncouthly on thy back, as that other noble hide, which was borne by Hercules, would look on the back of an ass. "" A double allusion was intended; first, to the fable of the ass in the lion's skin; then Richard I. is finely set in competition with Alcides, as Austria is satirically coupled with the ass. THEOBALD.

The shoes of Hercules are more than once introduced in the old comedies on much the same occasions. STEEVENS.

i. e. upon the hoofs of an ass. Mr. Theobald thought the shoes must be placed on the back of the ass; and, therefore, to avoid this incongruity, reads Alcides' shows. MALONE.

P. 19, 1. 32. whe'r she does,

or

no!

Read: - whe'r he does, or no!-i. e. whether he weeps, or not. Constance, so far from admitting, expressly denies that she shames him.

RITSON. P. 20, 1. 22. and fol. That he's not only plagued for her sin, &c. &c.] This passage appears to me very obscure. The chief difficulty arises from this, that Constance having told Elinor of her sin-conceiving womb, pursues the thought, and uses sin through the next lines in an ambiguous sense, sometimes for crime, and sometimes for offspring.

He's not only plagued for her sin, &c. He is not only made miserable by vengeance for her sin or crime; but her sin, her offspring, and she, are made the instruments of that vengeance, on this descendant; who, though of the second generation, is plagued for her and with her; to whom she is not only the cause but the instrument of evil.

The next clause is more perplexed. All the editions read:

plagu'd for her,

And with her plague her sin; his injury Her injury, the beadle to her sin, All punish'd in the person of this child. I point thus:

—plagu'd for her

And withher. Plague her son! his injury
Her injury, the beadle to her sin.

That is; instead of inflicting vengeance on this innocent and remote descendant, punish her son, her immediate offspring: then the affliction will fall where it is deserved, his injury will be her injury, and the misery of her sin; her son will be

a beadle, or chastiser, to her crimes, which are now all punish'd in the person of this child. JOHNSON. Mr. Roderick reads:

plagu'd for her,

And with her plagu’d; her sin, his injury,— We may read:

But God hath made her sin and her the plague
On this removed issue, plagu'd for her;

And, with her sin, her plague, his injury
Her injury, the beadle to her sin.

i. e. God hath made her and her sin together, the plague of her most remote descendants, who are plagued for her; the same power hath likewise made her sin her own plague, and the injury she has done to him her own injury, as a beadle to lash that sin, i. e. Providence has so ordered it, that she who is made the instrument of punishment to another, has, in the end, converted that other into an instrument of punishment for herself. STEEVENS.

Constance observes that he (iste, pointing to King John, "whom from the flow of gall she names not,") is not only plagued [with the present war] for his mother's sin, but God hath made her sin and her the plague also on this removed issue, [Arthur,] plagued on her account, and by the means of her sinful offspring, whose injury [the usurpation of Arthur's rights] may be considered as her injury, or the injury of her sinconceiving womb; and John's injury may also be considered as the beadle or officer of correction employed by her crimes to inflict all these punishments on the person of this child. TOLLET.

Plagued in these plays generally means punished. So, in King Richard III:

"And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.

So, Holinshed, "— they for very remorse and dread of the divine plague, will either shamefully flie," &c.

Not being satisfied with any of the emendations proposed, I have adhered to the original copy. I suspect that two half lines have been lost after the words And with her. If the text be right, with, I think, means by, (as in many other passages,) and Mr. Tallet's interpretation the true one. Removed, I believe, here signifies remote. MALONE. Much as the text of this note has been belaboured, the original reading needs no alteration.

I have but this to say.

That he's not only plagued for her sin,
But God hath made her sin and her the plague
On this removed issue, plagued for her,
And with her plague, her sin; his injury,
Her injury, the beadle to her sin,

All punished in the person of this child. The key to these words is contained in the last speech of Constance, where she alludes to the denunciation in the second commandment, of "visiting the iniquities of the parents upon the children, unto the THIRD and FOURTH generation," &c.

"Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth!

*

"Thy sins are visited in this poor child;
"The canon of the law is laid on him,
"Being but the second generation
"Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb,”

--

ge

Young Arthur is here represented as not only suffering from the guilt of his grandmother; but, also, by her, in person, she being made the very instrument of his sufferings. As he was not her immediate, but REMOVED issue - the second neration from her sin-conceiving womb it might have been expected, that the evils to which, upon her account, he was obnoxious, would have incidentally befallen him; instead of his being punished for them all, by her immediate infliction.

He is not only plagued on account of her sin, according to the threatening of the commandment; but, she is preserved alive to her second generation, to be the instrument, of inflicting on her grandchild the penalty annexed to her sin; so that he is plagued on her account, and with her plague, which is, her sin, that is [taking, by a common figure, the cause for the consequence] the penalty entailed upon it. His injury, or the evil he suffers, her sin brings upon him, and HER injury, or, the evil she inflicts, he suffers from her, as the beadle to her sin, or executioner of the punishment annexed to it. HENLEY.

P. 21, first 1. Dr. Warburton has well observed on one of the former plays, that to cry aim is to encourage. I once thought it was borrowed from archery; and that aim! having been the word of command, as we now say present! to cry aim had been to incite notice, or raise attention. But I rather think, that the old word of applause was J'aime, I love it, and that to applaud was to cry J'aime, which the English, not easily pronouncing Je, sunk into aime, or aim. Our exclamations of applause are still borrowed, as bravo and encore. JOHNSON.