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ACT III. SCENE III.

Line 528. —that Henry was unfortunate,] He means, that Henry was unsuccessful in war, having lost his dominions in France, &c. MALONE

Line 539. Exempt from envy, but not from disdain,] Envy is always supposed to have some fascinating or blasting power; and to be out of the reach of envy is therefore a privilege belonging only to great excellence. I know not well why envy is mentioned here, or whose enty can be meant; but the meaning is, that his love is superior to enty, and can feel no blast from the lady's disdain. Or that, if Bona refuse to quit or requite his pain, his love may turn to disdain, though the consciousness of his own merit will exempt him from the pangs of envy.

JOHNSON.

Line 577. Thy sly conveyance,] Conveyance is juggling, and thence is taken for artifice and fraud.

JOHNSON.

Line 601..—to sooth your forgery and his,] To soften it, to make it more endurable: or perhaps, to sooth us, and to prevent our being exasperated by your forgery and his. MALONE.

Line 615. Did I let pass the abuse done to my niece?] Thus Holinshed, p. 668: "King Edward did attempt a thing once in the earles house, which was much against the earles honestie (whether he would have defloured his daughter or his niece, the certaintie was not for both their honours revealed,) for surely such a thing was attempted by king Edward." STEEVENS.

Line 618. And am I guerdon'd-] i. e. recompensed.

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Line 62. Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas,] This has been the advice of every man who in any age understood and favoured the interest of England. JOHNSON.

Line 78. —you would not have bestow'd the heir—] It must be remembered, that till the restoration, the heiresses of great estates were in the wardship of the king, who in their minority gave them up to plunder, and afterwards matched them to his favourites. I know not when liberty gained more than by the abolition of the court of wards.

JOHNSON.

Line 136.—she was there in place.] This expression, signifying, she was there present, occurs frequently in old English writers. MALONE.

-my mourning weeds are done,] i. e. are con

MALONE.

Line 137. sumed, thrown off. Line 162. You, that love me and Warwick, follow me.] That Clarence should make this speech in the king's hearing is very improbable, yet I do not see how it can be palliated. The king never goes out, nor can Clarence be talking to a company apart, for he answers immediately to that which the post says to the king. JOHNSON.

ACT IV. SCENE VI.

Line 426. few men rightly temper with the stars:] I sup pose the meaning is, that few men conform their temper to their destiny; which king Henry did, when finding himself unfortunate he gave the management of publick affairs to more prosperous hands. JOHNSON.

Line 480. This pretty lad-] He was afterwards Henry VII. a man who put an end to the civil war of the two houses, but no otherwise remarkable for virtue. Shakspeare knew his trade. Henry VII. was grandfather to queen Elizabeth, and the king from whom James inherited. JOHNSON.

. Henry the Seventh, to show his gratitude to Henry the Sixth for this early presage in his favour, solicited Pope Julius to canonize him as a saint; but either Henry would not pay the money demanded, or, as Bacon supposes, the Pope refused, lest as Henry was reputed in the world abroad but for a simple man, the estimation of that kind of honour might be diminished, if there were not a distance kept between innocents and saints."

MALONE.

ACT IV. SCENE VIII.

Line 642. Let's levy men, and beat him back again.] This line expresses a spirit of war so unsuitable to the character of Henry, that I would give the first cold speech to the king, and the brisk answer to Warwick. This line is not in the old quarto; and

when Henry said nothing, the first speech might be as properly given to Warwick as to any other.

JOHNSON. Line 683. my meed hath got me fame:] Meed signifies We should read—my deed; i. e. my manners, conduct in the administration. WARBURTON.

reward.

This word signifies merit, both as a verb and a substantive: that it is used as a verb, is clear from the following foolish cou

plet which I remember to have read:

"Deem if I meed,

"Dear madam, read."

A Specimen of Verses that read the same way backward and forward. Sir J. HAWKINS. Shout within. A Lancaster!] Surely the shouts that ushered king Edward should be, A York! A York! I suppose the author did not write the marginal directions, and the players confounded the characters.

JOHNSON.

We may suppose the shouts to have come from some of Henry's guard, on the appearance of Edward. MALONE.

Line 708. And, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course, Where peremptory Warwick now remains:] Warwick, as Mr. M. Mason has observed, has but just left the stage, declaring his intention to go to Coventry. How then could Edward know of that intention?

Some of our old writers seem to have thought, that all the persons of the drama must know whatever was known to the writers themselves, or to the audience. MALONE.

ACT V. SCENE I.

Line 60. The king was slily finger'd from the deck!] A pack

of cards was formerly called a deck of cards.

Line 111. -so blunt,] Stupid, insensible of paternal fond

ness.

Line 133.

JOHNSON.

-passing traitor,] Eminent, egregious; traitor

ous beyond the common track of treason.

JOHNSON.

ACT V. SCENE II.

Line 145. -a bug that fear'd us all.] Bug is a bugbear, a

terrifick being.

JOHNSON.

Line 170. My parks, &c.]

Cedes coemptis saltibus, et domo,
Villâque. Hor.

This mention of his parks and manors diminishes the pathetick effect of the foregoing lines.

Line 171.

—and,
and, of all my lands,

Is nothing left me, but my body's length!]

66 -Mors sola fatetur

JOHNSON.

"Quantula sint hominum corpuscula." Juv.

Camden mentions in his Remains, that Constantine, in order to dissuade a person from covetousness, drew out with his lance the length and breadth of a man's grave, adding, "this is all thou shalt have when thou art dead, if thou canst happily get so much." MALONE.

ACT V. SCENE IV.

Line 308. K. Edw. Brave followers, &c.] This scene is illcontrived, in which the king and queen appear at once on the stage at the head of opposite armies. It had been easy to make one retire before the other entered. JOHNSON.

Line 330.

ACT V. SCENE V.

-to Hammes' castle-] A castle in Picardy, MALONE.

where Oxford was confined for many years.

Line 362. Let Æsop &c.] The prince calls Richard, for his crookedness, Æsop; and the poet, following nature, makes Richard highly incensed at the reproach.

JOHNSON.

Line 380. -the likeness of this railer here. &c.] That thou resemblest thy railing mother. JOHNSON.

Line 417. —you have rid this sweet young prince.] The condition of this warlike queen would move compassion, could it be forgotten that she gave York, to wipe his eyes in his captivity, a handkerchief stained with his young child's blood. JOHNSON. Line 431. 'Twas sin before,] She alludes to the desertion of Clarence. JOHNSON.

Line 432.

Where is that devil's butcher,

Hard-favour'd Richard?] Devil's butcher, is a
JOHNSON.

butcher set on by the devil.

ACT V. SCENE VI.

Line 464. What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?] Roscius was certainly put for Richard by some simple conceited player who had heard of Roscius and of Rome; but did not know that he was an actor in comedy, not in tragedy. WARBURTON.

Shakspeare had occasion to compare Richard to some player about to represent a scene of murder, and took the first or only name of antiquity that occurred to him, without being very scrupulous about its propriety. STEEVENS.

Line 474. —peevish fool-] As peevishness is the quality of children, peevish seems to signify childish, and by consequence silly. Peevish is explained by childish, in a former note of Dr. Warburton. JOHNSON.

Line 496. Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear;] Who suspect no part of what my fears presage. JOHNSON.

Line 507. The raven rook'd her-] To rook means to squat down.

END OF THE ANNOTATIONS ON THE THIRD PART OF

KING HENRY VI.

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