To-morrow, in my judgment, is too sudden; As else I would be, were the day prolong'd. Re-enter Bishop of ELY. ELY. Where is my lord protector * ? I have sent for these strawberries. HAST. His grace looks cheerfully and smooth this morning; There's some conceit or other likes him well 8, For by his face straight shall you know his heart. HAST. Marry, that with no man here he is offended; For, were he, he had shown it in his looks. *First folio, Where is the Duke of Gloster? There's some CONCEIT or other likes him well,] Conceit is thought. So, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 1609: < "Here is a thing too young for such a place, "Who, if it had conceit, would die." MALONE. Conceit, as used by Hastings, I believe signifies-pleasant idea or fancy. So Falstaff, speaking of Poins," He a good wit?there is no more conceit in him, than is in a mallet." STEEVENS. 9 - likelihood-] Semblance; appearance. JOHNSON. و STEEVENS. The passage referred to by Mr. Steevens is in Othello: 66 To vouch this is no proof, "Without more certain and more overt test, “Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods "Of modern seeming." Thus the quarto. The folio reads-livelihood. MALONE. 'I pray God he be not, I say.] This speech I have restored from the quarto 1597. MALONE. Re-enter GLOSTER and BUCKINGHAM. GLO. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve', That do conspire my death with devilish plots I pray you all, tell me what they deserve, &c.] This story was originally told by Sir Thomas More, who wrote about thirty years after the time. His History of King Richard III. was inserted in Hall's Chronicle, from whence it was copied by Holinshed, who was Shakspeare's authority: "Between ten and eleven he returned into the chamber among them with a wonderful soure, angrie, countenance, knitting the browes, frowning and fretting, and gnawing on his lippes, and so sette him downe in his place. Then when he had sitten still awhile, thus he began: What were they worthie to have that compasse and imagine the destruction of me, being so neere of bloud unto the king, and protectour of his royal person and his realme? Then the lord Chamberlaine, as he that for the love betweene them thought he might he boldest with him, answered and sayd, that they were worthy to be punished for hainous traytors, whatsoever they were; and all the other affirmed the same. That is, quoth he, yonder sorceresse, my brother's wife, and other with her, meaning the queene :-ye shall all see in what wise that sorceresse, and that other witch of her counsell, Shore's wife, with their affinitie, have by their sorcerie and witchcraft wasted my body. And therewith he plucked up his doublet slieve to his elbow upon the left arme, where he shewed a werish withered arme and small, as it was never other.-No man but was there present, but well knewe his arme was ever such since his birth. Naythelesse the lord Chamberlaine (which from the death of king Edward kept Shore's wife, on whom he somewhat doted in the king's life, saving, as it is saide, he that while forbare her of reverence toward the king, or else of a certain kind of fidelity to his friend) aunswered and said, Certainly, my lord, if they have so heinously done, they be worthy heinous punishment. What, quoth the protectour, thou servest me I wene with ifs and with ands: I tell thee they have so done; and that I will make good on thy bodie, traitour; and therewith, as in great anger, he clapped his fist upon the boord a great rap. At which token given, one cried, traison, without the chamber. Therewith a dore clapped, and in came there rushing men in harnesse, as many as the chamber might holde. And anone the protectour sayd to the lord Hastings, I arrest thee traitor.-Then were they all quickelv bestowed in diverse chambers, except the lord Chamberlaine, whom the protectour bade speede him and shrive him apace, for by S. Paul, quoth Of damned witchcraft; and that have prevail'd HAST. The tender love I bear your grace, my lord, Makes me most forward in this noble presence GLO. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil, And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch, GLO. If?! thou protector of this damned strumpet, Talk'st thou to me of ifs ?-Thou art a traitor:Off with his head :-now, by Saint Paul I swear, I will not dine until I see the same. Lovel, and Catesby, look, that it be done "; he, I will not to dinner till I see thy head off. So was he brought forth into the greene beside the chappell within the Tower, and his head laid downe upon a long log of timber, and there stricken off: and afterward his body with the head enterred at Windsor, beside the body of king Edward." M. D. i. e. Maister John Dolman, the author of the Legend of Lord Hastings, in The Mirrour for Magistrates, 1575, has thrown the same circumstances into verse. Morton, bishop of Ely, was present at this council, and from him Sir Thomas More, who was born in 1480, is supposed to have had his information. Polydore Virgil, who began his history in 1505, tells the story differently. MALONE. 2 If! &c.] For this circumstance see Holinshed, Hall, and The Mirrour for Magistrates. FARMER. 3 Lovel, and CATESBY, look, that it be done ;] In former copies : "Lovel, and Ratcliff, look, that it be done." The scene is here in the Tower; and Lord Hastings was cut The rest, that love me, rise, and follow me *. [Exeunt Council, with GLOSTER and BUCK INGHAM. HAST. Woe, woe, for England! not a whit for me; For I, too fond, might have prevented this: off on that very day, when Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan suffered at Pomfret. How then could Ratcliff be both in Yorkshire and the Tower? In the scene preceding this, we find him conducting those gentlemen to the block. In the old quarto we find it, Exeunt: Manet Catesby with Hastings. And in the next scene, before the Tower walls, we find Lovel and Catesby come back from the execution, bringing the head of Hastings. THEOBALD. Mr. Theobald should have added, that, in the old quarto, no names are mentioned in Richard's speech. He only says— some see it done." Nor, in that edition, does Lovel appear in the next scene; but only Catesby, bringing the head of Hastings. The confusion seems to have arisen, when it was thought necessary that Catesby should be employed to fetch the Mayor, who, in the quarto, is made to come without having been sent for. As some other person was then wanted to bring the head of Hastings, the poet, or the players, appointed Lovel and Ratcliff to that office, without reflecting that the latter was engaged in another service on the same day at Pomfret. TYRWHITT. I have adopted the emendation, because in one scene at least it prevents the glaring impropriety mentioned by Mr. Theobald. But unfortunately, as Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed, this very impropriety is found in the next scene, where Ratcliff is introduced, and where it cannot be corrected without taking greater liberties than perhaps are justifiable. For there, in consequence of the injudicious alteration made, I think, by the players, instead of "Here comes the Mayor," the reading of the quarto, we find in the folio "Rich. But what, is Catesby gone? "He is, and see he brings the Mayor along." Catesby being thus employed, he cannot bring in the head of Hastings; nor can that office be assigned to Lovel only; because Gloster in the folio mentions two persons: "Be patient, they are friends; Ratcliff, and Lovel." MALONE. The rest, that love me, rise, and follow me.] So, in The Battle of Alcazar, 1594: "And they that love my honour, follow me." MAlone. Stanley did dream, the boar did rase his helm ; Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble, s Three times to-day my FOOT-CLOTH horse did STUMBLE, &C.] So, in The Legend of Lord Hastings, by M. D. 1563 [Master Dolman]: "My palfrey in the playnest paved streete, "Thryse bow'd his boanes, thryse kneled on the flower, "Thryse shonnd (as Balams asse) the dreaded tower." To stumble was anciently esteem'd a bad omen. So, in The Honest Lawyer: "And just at the threshold Master Bromley stumbled. Signs! signs!" The housings of a horse, and sometimes a horse himself, were anciently denominated a foot-cloth. So, in Ben Jonson's play called The Case is Altered: "I'll go on my foot-cloth, I'll turn gentleman." Again, in A fair Quarrel, by Middleton, 1617: "thou shalt have a physician, "The best that gold can fetch upon his foot-cloth." Again, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1610: 66 nor shall I need to try "Whether my well-greas'd tumbling foot-cloth nag "Stanley did dream, the boar did rase his helm ; STEEVENS. "Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble." So Holinshed, after Sir Thomas More; "A marvellous case it is to heare, either the warnings of that he should have voided, or the tokens of that he could not voide, for the selfe night next before his death the L. Stanley sent a trustie secret messenger unto him at midnight, in all the haste, &c. [See p. 110, n. 9.]-Certain it is also, that in riding towards the Tower the same morning in which he [Hastings] was beheaded, his horse twise or thrise stumbled with him, almost to the falling: which thing, albeit each man wot well daily happeneth to them to whome no such mischance is toward: yet hath it beene of an old rite and custome observed as a token oftentimes notablie foregoing some great misfortune." I question if there is any ground for Mr. Steevens's assertion that a foot-cloth ever signified a horse; a foot cloth nag, is a nag covered with a foot cloth. MALONE. |