6

She'll gallop faft enough to her deflruction.

[Exil BUCKINGHAM.

Re-enter GLOSTER.

*GLO. Now, lords, my choler being over-blowr *With walking once about the quadrangle, * I come to talk of commonwealth affairs. *As for your spiteful falfe objections, * Prove them, and I lie open to the law: * But God in mercy fo deal with my foul, * As I in duty love my king and country! *But, to the matter that we have in hand: * I fay, my fovereign, York is meetest man * To be your regent in the realm of France. * SUF. Before we make election, give me leave To fhow fome reason, of no little force,

That York is moft unmeet of any man.

YORK. I'll tell thee, Suffolk, why I am unneet. Firft, for I cannot flatter thee in pride:

*Next, if I be appointed for the place,

My lord of Somerset will keep me here, Without difcharge, money, or furniture, *Till France be won into the Dauphin's hands. * Laft time, I danc'd attendance on his will, * Till Paris was befieg'd, famish'd, and lot. *WAR. That I can witness; and a fouler fact Did never traitor in the land commit.

SUF. Peace, head-strong Warwick!

WAR. Image of pride, why fhould I hold my peace?

the fecond folio, a book to which we are all indebted for reftorations of our author's metre. I am unwilling to publish what no car accustomed to harmony, can endure. STEEVENS.

6

fast enough

-] The folio reads farre enough. Cor redcd by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

Enter Servants of SUFFOLK, bringing in HORNER and

PETER.

SUF. Because here is a man accus'd of treafon: Pray God, the duke of York excufe himself!

* YORK. Doth any one accufe York for a traitor? K. HEN. What mean't thou, Suffolk ? tell me : What are these?

SUF. Please it your majefty, this is the man • That doth accuse his master of high treason : His words were thefe;

York,

that Richard, duke of

• Was rightful heir unto the English crown; And that your majefly was an ufurper.

K. HEN. Say, man, were thefe thy words?

HOR. An't fhall please your majesty, I never said nor thought any fuch matter: God is my witness, I am falfely accus'd by the villain.

༤་

PET. By these ten bones,' my lords, [holding

up his hands.] he did fpeak them to me in the garret one night, as we were fcouring my lord of

• York's armour.

*YORK. Bafe dunghill villain, and mechanical, * I'll have thy head for this thy traitor's fpeech:I do befeech your royal majefty,

.

7 By thefe ten bones, &c.] We have just heard a duchefs threaten

to fet her ten commandments in the face of a queen.

The jets in this

play turn rather too much on the enumeration of fingers.
So, in the myftery
This adjuration is, however, very ancient.
of Candlemas-Day, 1512:

But by their bonys ten, thei be to you untrue."
Again, in The longer thou liveft the more Fool thou art, 1570:
By these tenne bones I will, I have fworne."

ner.

It occurs likewife more than once in the morality of Hycke Scor-1
Again, in Monfieur Thomas, 1637:

By these ten bones, fir, by thefe eyes and tears."

STEEVENS,

1

Let him have all the rigour of the law.

HOR. Alás, my lord, hang me, if ever I fpake the words. My accufer is my prentice; and when I did correct him for his fault the other day, he did vow upon his knees he would be even with me: I have good witnefs of this; therefore, I beseech your majefty, do not caft away an honest man for a villain's accufation.

K. HEN. Uncle, what fhall we fay to this in law? GLO. This doom, my lord, if I may judge,

Let Somerfet be regent o'er the French,

Because in York this breeds fufpicion :
And let these have a day appointed them
For fingle combat, in convenient place;

8

For he hath witnefs of his fervant's malice:
This is the law, and this duke Humphrey's doom.
K. HEN. Then be it fo.9 My lord of Somerset,

And let thefe have a day appointed them, &c.] In the original play, quarto 1600, the correfponding lines ftand thus:

The law, my lord, is this. By case it refts fufpicious,
That a day of combat be appointed,

And these to try each other's right or wrong,
Which fhall be on the thirtieth of this month,
With ebon flaves and fandbags combating,

In Smithfield, before your royal majefty.

An opinion has prevailed that The whole Contention, &c. printed in 1600, was an imperfed furreptitious copy of Shakspeare's play as exhibited in the folio; but what fpurious copy, or imperfec transcript taken in fhort-hand, ever produced fuch variations as these? MALONE.

Such varieties, during feveral years, were to be found in every Mf. copy of Mr. Sheridan's then unprinted Duenna, as used in country theatres. The dialogue of it was obtained piece-meal, and connected by frequent interpolations. STEEVENS.

9 K. Hen. Then be il fo. &c.] These two lines I have inferted from the old quarto; and, as I think, very neceffarily. For, without them, the king has not declared his affent to Glofter's opinion and the duke of Somerfet is made to thank him for the regency before the king has deputed him to it. THEOBALD.

We make your grace lord regent o'er the French,
SOM. I humbly thank your royal majefty.
HOR. And I accept the combat willingly..

PÉT. Alas, my lord, I cannot fight; * for God's * fake, pity my cafe! the spite of man prevaileth * against me. O, Lord have mercy upon me! I * fhall never be able to fight a blow: O Lord, my * heart!

The plea urged by Theobald for their introdu&ion is, that otherwife Somerset thanks the king before he had declared his appointment; but Shakspeare, I fuppofe, thought Henry's affent might be expreffed by a nod. Somerset knew that Humphrey's doom was final; as likewife did the Armourer, for he, like Somerfet, accepts the combat, without waiting for the king's confirmation of what Glofter had faid. Shakspeare therefore not having introduced the following speech, which is found in the firft copy, we have no right to infert it. That it was not intended to be preferved, appears from the concluding line of the present scene, in which Henry addreffes Somerfet; whereas in the quarto, Somerset goes out, on his appointment. This is one of thofe minute circumflances which may be urged to fhow that these plays, however afterwards worked up by Shakspeare, were originally the produ&ion of another author, and that the quarto edition of 1600 was printed from the copy originally written by that author, whoever he was.

MALONE.

After the lines inserted by Theobald, the king continues his fpeech thus:

over the French;

And to defend our rights 'gainft foreign foes,

And fo do good unto the realm of France.

Make hafte, my lord; 'tis time that you were gone:

The time of truce, I think, is full expir'd.

Som. I humbly thank your royal majefty,

And take my leave, to poft with speed to France.

[Exit Somerfele

King. Come, uncle Glofter; now let's have our horse,
For we will to St. Albans presently.

Madam, your hawk, they fay, is fwift of flight,
And we will try how the will fly to-day.

{ Exeunt omnes. · STEEVENS.

GLO. Sirrah, or you must fight, or else be hang'd. K. HEN. Away with them to prison: and the

day

Of combat fhall be the laft of the next month.

Come, Somerfet, we'll fee thee fent away.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

The fame. The Duke of Glofter's Garden. Enter MARGERY JOURDAIN, HUME, SOUTHWELL, and BOLINGBROKE.

*HUME. Come, my mafters; the duchefs, I tell you, expects performance of your promifes.

BOLING. Mafter Hume, we are therefore provided:

* Will her ladyflip behold and hear our exorcifms?+ HUME. Ay; What elfe; fear you not her cou

rage.

3 Enter &c.] The quarto reads:

Enter Eleanor, Sir John Hum, Roger Bolingbrook a conjurer, and

4

Margery Jourdaine a witch.

Eleanor. Here, fir John, take this fcroll of paper here, Wherein is writ the queftions you fhall afk:

And I will ftand upon this tower here,

And hear the spirit what it fays to you.

And to my queftions write the answers down.

She goes up to the tower.
STEEVENS.

our exorcifms?] The word exorcife, and its derivatives, are used by Shakspeare in an uncommon fenfe. In all other writers it means to lay fpirits, but in thefe plays it invariably means to raise them. So, in Julius Cæfar, Ligarius fays,

"Thou, like an exorcift, haft conjur'd up

"My mortified fpirit." M. MASON.

See Vol. IX. p. 193, n. 3.

MALONE.