P. 51, 1. 28-30. So, by a roaring tempest on the flood

A whole armado &c.] This similitude, as little as it makes for the purpose in hand, was, I do not question, a very taking one when the play was first represented; which was a winter or two at most after the Spanish invasion in 1588. It was in reference likewise to that glorious period that Shakspeare concludes his play in that triumph

ant manner:

"This England never did, nor never shall, "Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror," &c. But the whole play abounds with touches relative to the then posture of affairs. WARBURTON.

This play, so far as I can discover, was not played till a long time after the defeat of the armado. The old play, I think, wants this simile: The commentator should not have affirmed what he can only guess. JOHNSON.

Armado is a Spanish word signifying a fleet of war. The armado in 1588 was called so by way of distinction. STEEVENS.

P. 51, last 1. but one. convicted sail,-] Overpowered, baffled, destroyed. To convict and to convince we e in our author's time synonymous. MALONE.

P. 52, 1. 12. Such temperate order in so fierce a cause, -] We should read course, i. e. march. The Oxfor editor condescends to this emendation. WARBURTON.

Change is needless. A fierce cause is a canse conducted with precipitation. "Fierce wretchedness," in Timon, is, hasty, sudden misery. STEEVENS.

4

P. 52, 1. 21. In the vile prison of afflicted breath] I think we

should read earth. The passage seems to have been copied from Sir Thomas More: "If the body be to the soule a prison, how strait a prison maketh he the body, that stuffeth it with riffraff, that the soule can have no room to stirre itself but is, as it were, enclosed not in a prison, but in a grave." FARMER.

Perhaps the old reading is justifiable. So, in Measure for Measure:

"To be imprison'd in the viewless winds."

STEEVENS.

It appears from the amendment proposed by Farmer, and by the quotation adduced by Steevens in support of the old reading, that they both consider this passage in the same light, and suppose that King Philip intended to say, "that the breath was the prison of the soul;" but I think they have mistaken the sense of it; and that by "the vile prison of afflicted breath," he means the same vile prison in which the breath is confined; that is, the body. M. MASON.

There is surely no need of change, "The vile prison of afflicted breath," is the body, the prison in which the distressed soul is confined. MALONE.

P. 52. 1. 27. To defy anciently signified to refuse. STEEVENS.

P. 53, 1. 3. The gap of breath is the mouth; the outlet from whence the breath issues. MALONE.

P. 53, 1. 15. It is hard to say what Shakspeare means by modern: it is not opposed to ancient. In All's well that ends well, speaking of a girl in contempt, he uses this word: "her modern grace. It apparently means something slight and inconsiderable. JOHNSON.

Modern, is trite, ordinary, common. STEVENS.

P. 53, last 1. but one. Bind up those tresses:] It was necessary that Constance should be interrupted, because a passion so violent cannot be borne long. I wish the following speeches had been equally happy; but they only serve to show, 'how difficult it is to maintain the pathetick long. JOHNSON.

P. 54, 1. 3. As the epithet wiry is here attributed to hair; so, in another description the hair of Apollo supplies the office of wire. In the Instruction to the commissioners for the choice of a wife for Prince Arthur, it is directed "to note the eye-browes" of the young Queen of Naples (who, after the death of Arthur, was married to Henry VIII. and divorced by him for the sake of Anna Balloygn). They answer, "Her browes are of a browne heare, very small, like a wyre of heare." HENLEY.

P. 53, 1. 7. Const. To England, if you will.] Neither the French King nor Pandulph, has said word of England, since the entry of Constance. Perhaps therefore, in despair, she means to address the absent King John: "Take my son to England, if you will;". now that he is in your power, I have no prospect of seeing him again. It is therefore of no consequence to me where he is. MALONE.

P. 54. 1. 22. To suspire in Shakspeare, I believe, only means to breathe. STEEVENS.

P. 54, 1. 23. Gracious, i. e. graceful. STEEVENS. P. 54, 1. 34. He talks to me, that never had a son.] To the same

purpose Macduff observes

"He has no children." STEEVENS.

P. 55, 1. 9. I could give better comfort than

you do.] This is a

sentiment which great sorrow always dictates. Whoever cannot help himself casts his eyes on others for assistance, and often mistakes their inability for coldness. JOHNSON.

P. 55, 1. 19. Lew. There's nothing in this world, can make me joy :] The young Prince feels his defeat with more sensibility than his father. Shame operates most strongly in the earlier years; and when can disgrace be less welcome than when a man is going to his bride? JOHNSON.

P. 55, 1. 21. Life is as tedious as a twicetold tale,] Our author, here and in another play, seems to have had the 90th Psalm in his thoughts: "For when thou art angry, all our days are gone, we bring our years to an end, as it were a tale that is told."

MALONE. P. 55. 1. 23. And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste,] sweet words. STEEVENS.

The old copy

The sweet word is life; which, says the speaker, is no longer sweet, yielding now nothing but shame and bitterness. Mr. Pope, with some plausibility, but certainly without necessity, reads the sweet world's taste. MALONE.

I prefer M. Pope's reading, which is sufficiently justified by the following passage in Hamlet: "How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable "Seem to me all the uses of this world!" STEEVENS.

P. 57, first 1.

that steeps his safety in true blood,] The blood

af him that has the just claim. JOHNSON.

The expression seems to mean no more than

innocent blood in general. RITSON.

P. 57, 1. 8. The author very finely calls monstrous birth, an escape of nature. As if it were produced while she was busy elsewhere, or intent upon some other thing. WARBURTON.

P. 57, 1. 31. they would be as a call] The image is taken from the manner in which birds are sometimes caught; one being placed for the purpose of drawing others to the net, by his note or call. MALONE.

P. 57, 1. 33. 34. as a little snow, &c.] Bacon, in his History of Henry VII. speaking of Simnel's march, observes, that "their snowball did not gather as it went." JOHNSON.

P. 58, 1. 9 Northampton.] The fact is, as has been already stated, that Arthur was first confined at Falaise, and afterwards at Rouen in Our Normandy, where he was put to death. author has deviated in this particular from the history, and brought King John's nephew to England; but there is no circumstance either in the original play, or in this of Shakspeare, to point out the particular castle in which he is The castle of Nortsupposed to be confined. hampton has been mentioned in some modern editions as the place, merely because in the first act King John seems to have been in that town. In the old copy there is no where any notice of place. MALONE.

P. 59, 1. 3-5, Yet, I remember, when I was in France,

Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, Only for wantonness,] It should seem that this affectation had found its way into England, at it is ridiculed by Ben Jonson in the character of Master Stephen in Every Man in his Humour, 1601. STRETENS.