The ufurper Richard: who, being at Salisbury, Made fuit to come in his prefence; which if granted, As he made femblance of his duty, would Have put his knife into him.' K. HEN. A giant traitor! WOL. Now, madam, may his highness live in freedom, And this man out of prifon? I Q. KATH. God mend all! K. HEN. There's fomething more would out of thee; What fay'st ? SURV. After-the duke his father, with the knife, Have put his knife into him.] The accuracy of Holinshed, if from him Shakspeare took his account of the accufations and punishment, together with the qualities of the Duke of Buckingham, is proved in the moft authentick manner by a very curious report of his cafe in East. Term, 13 Hen. VIII. in the year books published by authority, fol. 11 and 12, edit. 1597. After, in the most exact manner, fetting forth the arrangement of the Lord High Steward, the Peers, the arraignment, and other forms and ceremonies, it says: "Et iffint fuit arreine Edward Duc de Buckingham, le derrain jour de Terme le xij jour de May, le Duc de Norfolk donques eftant Grand fenefchal: la cause fuit, pur ceo que il avoit entend l' mort de noftre Sur. le Roy. Car premierment un Moine del' Abbey de Henton in le countie de Somerset dit a lui que il fera Roy & command' luy de abtenir le benevolence del' communalte, & fur ceo il doña certaines robbes a ceft entent. Λ que il dit que le moine ne onques dit ainfi a lui, & que il ne dona ceux dones a ceft intent. Donques auterfoits il dit, fi le Roy moruft fans iffue male, il voul' eftre Roy: & auxi que il difoit, fi le Roy avoit lui commis al' prifon, donques il voul' lui occire ove fon dagger. Mes touts ceux matters il denia in effect, mes fuit trove coulp: Et pur ceo il avoit jugement comme traitre, et fuit decolle le Vendredy devant le Fefte del Pentecoft que fuit le xiij jour de May avant dit. Dieu à fa ane grant mercy-car il fuit tres noble prince & prudent, et mirror de tout courtefie." VAILLANT. He stretch'd him, and, with one hand on his dagger, K. HEN. There's his period, To sheath his knife in us. He is attach'd; 2 [Exeunt. By day and night,] This, I believe, was a phrafe anciently fignifying-at all times, every way, completely. In The Merry Wives of Windfor, Falftaff, at the end of his letter to Mrs. Ford, ftyles himself: "Thine own true knight, By day or night," &c. Again, (I muft repeat a quotation I have elsewhere employed,) in the third Book of Gower, De Confeffione Amantis : "The fonne cleped was Machayre, "The daughter eke Canace hight, By daie bothe and eke by night." The King's words, however, by fome criticks, have been confidered as an adjuration. I do not pretend to have determined the exact force of them. STEEVENS. SCENE III. A Room in the Palace. Enter the Lord Chamberlain,3 and Lord SANDS.4 CHAM. Is it poffible, the fpells of France fhould juggle Men into fuch ftrange myfteries? 5 3 Lord Chamberlain-] Shakspeare has placed this scene in 1521. Charles Earl of Worcester was then Lord Chamberlain; but when the King in fact went in masquerade to Cardinal Wolfey's houfe, Lord Sands, who is here introduced as going thither with the Chamberlain, himself poffeffed that office. MALONE. Lord Chamberlain-] Charles Somerfet, created Earl of Worcester 5 Henry VIII. He was Lord Chamberlain both to Henry VII. and Henry VIII. and continued in the office until his death, 1526. REED. 4 Lord Sands.] Sir William Sands, of the Vine, near Bafingftoke, in Hants, was created a peer 1524. He became Lord Chamberlain upon the death of the Earl of Worcester in 1526. Is it poffible, the fpells of France fhould juggle REED. Men into fuch ftrange mysteries?] Myfteries were allego rical fhows, which the mummers of thofe times exhibited in odd fantaftick habits. Myfteries are ufed, by an easy figure, for those that exhibited myfteries; and the fenfe is only, that the travelled Englishmen were metamorphofed, by foreign fashions, into fuch an uncouth appearance, that they looked like mummers in a mystery. JOHNSON. That myfteries is the genuine reading, [Dr. Warburton would read-mockeries] and that it is used in a different sense from the one here given, will appear in the following inftance from Drayton's Shepherd's Garland: even fo it fareth now with thee, The context of which fhows, that by wifards are meant poets, and by myfterie their poetick skill, which was before called SANDS. New cuftoms, Though they be never fo ridiculous, Nay, let them be unmanly, yet are follow'd. CHAM. As far as I fee, all the good our English Have got by the late voyage, is but merely A fit or two o'the face; but they are fhrewd ones; For when they hold them, you would fwear directly, Their very nofes had been counsellors To Pepin, or Clotharius, they keep ftate fo. SANDS. They have all new legs, and lame ones; one would take it, That never faw them' pace before, the spavin, CHAM. Death! my lord, "mifter artes." Hence the myfteries in Shakspeare fignify thofe fantaftick manners and fashions of the French, which had operated as Spells or enchantments. HENLEY. 6 A fit or two o'the face;] A fit of the face feems to be what we now term a grimace, an artificial cast of the counte nance. JOHNSON. Fletcher has more plainly expreffed the fame thought in The Elder Brother: 66 - learnt new tongues "To vary his face as feamen do their compass." STEEVENS. 7 That never saw them-] Old copy-fee 'em. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. A fpringhalt reign'd among them.] The Stringhalt, or Springhalt, (as the old copy reads,) is a disease incident to horfes, which gives them a convulfive motion in their paces. So, in Muleaffes the Turk, 1610: "by reafon of a general Spring-halt and debility in their hams." Again, in Ben Jonfon's Bartholomew Fair: "Poor foul, she has had a fringhalt." STEEVENS. Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors, without any neceffity, I think, for A fpringhalt, read-And springhalt. MALONE. Their clothes are after fuch a pagan cut too," That, fure, they have worn out chriftendom. How now? What news, fir Thomas Lovell ? Lov. Enter Sir THOMAS LOVELL. 'Faith, my lord, I hear of none, but the new proclamation CHAM. What is't for? Lov. The reformation of our travell'd gallants, That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors. CHAM. I am glad, 'tis there; now I would pray our monfieurs To think an English courtier may be wife, Lov. They muft either (For fo run the conditions,) leave these remnants Of fool, and feather,' that they got in France, 9 cut too,] Old copy-cut to't. Corrected in the fourth folio. MALONE. Both the first and fecond folio read-cut too't, fo that for part of this correction we are not indebted to the fourth folio. Of fool, and feather,] This does not allude to the feathers anciently worn in the hats and caps of our countrymen, (a circumftance to which no ridicule could juftly belong,) but to an effeminate fashion recorded in Greene's Farewell to Folly, 1617: from whence it appears that even young gentlemen carried fans' of feathers in their hands: ". -we ftrive to be counted womanish, by keeping of beauty, by curling the hair, by wearing plumes of feathers in our hands, which in wars, our ancestors wore on their heads." Again, in his Quip for an upftart Courtier, 1620: "Then our young courtiers ftrove to exceed one another in |