NOR. A good direction, warlike sovereign.This found I on my tent this morning". [Giving a Scrowl. K. RICH. Jocky of Norfolk, be not too bold, [Reads. For Dickon thy master is bought and sold. The old English phrase was, Saint George to borrow. So, in A Dialogue, &c. by Dr. William Bulleyne, 1564: "Maister and maistres, come into this vallie,-untill this storme be past: Saincte George to borrowe, mercifull God, who did ever see the like?" Signat. K. 7. b. MALONE. Dr. Johnson is undoubtedly right against both his opponents, one of whom has adduced the phrase "St. George to borrow," unintentionally in support of him. To borrow is no more a verb than to boot; it means as a pledge or security, borrow being the Saxon term for a pledge. The phrase is an invocation to the saint to act as a protector. "Saint George to thrive " is evidently a misconceived paraphrase of the old mode of expression, by improperly changing the substantive to a verb. Holinshed, in the speech of Richard before the battle, introduces "St. George to borrowe." DOUCE. 7 This found I on my tent this morning.] Sir Thomas Hanmer supplies the deficiency in the metre of this line, by reading: "This paper found I," &c. STEEVENS. 8 be not Too bold,] The quartos 1597 and 1598, and the folio, read- -so bold. But it was certainly an error of the press; for in both Hall and Holinshed, the words are given as in the text. MALONE. 9 DICKON thy master, &c.] Dickon is the ancient vulgar familiarization of Richard. In Gammer Gurton's Needle, 1575, Diccon is the name of the Bedlam.-In the words-bought and sold, I believe, there is somewhat proverbial. So, in The Comedy of Errors: " It would make a man as mad as a buck, to be so bought and sold." Again, in King John : 66 Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold." 66 Again, in Troilus and Cressida, with an addition that throws more light on the phrase: Thou art bought and sold among those of any wit, like a Barbarian slave." STEEvens. Again, in Mortimeriados, a poem, by Michael Drayton, no date: "Is this the kindnes that thou offerest me? Again, in Skelton's Colin Clout, 1568; A thing devised by the enemy, Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge: What shall I say more than I have infer'd? "How prelacy is sold and bought, "And come up of nought." Again, in Bacon's History of King Henry VII.: "-all the news ran upon the duke of Yorke, that he had been entertained in Ireland, bought and sold in France," &c. The expression seems to have signified that some foul play has been used. The foul play alluded to here, was Stanley's desertion. MALONE. 1 Let not our babbling dreams, &c.] I suspect these six lines to be an interpolation; but if Shakspeare was really guilty of them in his first draught, he probably intended to leave them out when he substituted the much more proper harangue that follows. TYRWHITT. 2 Conscience is BUT a word-] So the quartos 1597 and 1598. But being accidentally omitted in a later quarto, the editor of the folio supplied the omission by reading" For conscience is a word," &c. MALONE. 3 If not TO HEAVEN, then hand in hand TO HELL.] So, in Macbeth: "That summons thee to heaven, or to hell." Again, in King Henry VI. Part II. : "If not in heaven, you'll surely sup in hell." STEEVENS. 4 A SORT of vagabonds,] A sort, that is, a company, a collec tion. JOHNSON. 5-ventures-] Old copies-adventures. STEEVENS. 6 -they bring To You unrest;] So the quarto 1597. All the subsequent copies read: 66 bring you to unrest." MALONE. You having lands, and bless'd with beauteous wives, 7 They would RESTRAIN the one,] i. e. they would lay restrictions on the possession of your lands, impose conditions on the proprietors of them. Dr. Warburton for restrain substituted distrain, which has been adopted by all the subsequent editors. "To distrain," says he, "is to seize upon; "but to distrain is not to seize generally, but to seize goods, cattle, &c. for nonpayment of rent, or for the purpose of enforcing the process of courts. The restrictions likely to be imposed by a conquering enemy on lands, are imposts, contributions, &c. or absolute confiscation." And if he [Henry Earl of Richmond] should atchieve his false intent and purpose," (says Richard in his circular letter sent to the Sheriffs of the several counties in England on this occasion; Paston Letters, ii. 321,) “ every man's life, livelihood, and goods, shall be in his hands, liberty, and disposition." MALONE. 8 Long kept in BRETAGNE AT OUR mother's cost?] This is spoken by Richard, of Henry Earl of Richmond; but they were far from having any common mother, but England: and the Earl of Richmond was not subsisted abroad at the nation's public charge. During the greatest part of his residence abroad, he was watched and restrained almost like a captive; and subsisted by supplies conveyed from the Countess of Richmond, his mother. It seems probable, therefore, that we must read: 66 Long kept in Bretagne at his mother's cost." THEOBALD. "Our mother's cost?" Mr. Theobald perceives to be wrong: he reads, therefore, and all the editors after him: Long kept in Bretagne at his mother's cost." But give me leave to transcribe a few more lines from Holinshed, and you will find at once, that Shakspeare had been there before me: "You see further, how a company of traitors, theeves, outlaws, and runagates be aiders and partakers of this feate and enterprize. -And to begin with the erle of Richmond, captaine of this rebellion, he is a Welch milksop-brought up by my moother's meanes and mine, like a captive in a close cage in the court of Francis Duke of Britaine." P. 756. Holinshed copies this verbatim from his brother chronicler, Hall, edit. 1548, fol. 54, but his printer has given us by accident the word moother instead of brother; as it is in the original, and ought to be in Shakspeare. FARMER. A milk-sop, one that never in his life Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow? See a Letter of King Richard III. persuading his subjects to resist Henry Tydder, &c. in Sir John Fenn's Collection of the Paston Letters, vol. ii. p. 318. HENLEY. Henry Earl of Richmond was long confined in the court of the Duke of Britaine, and supported there by Charles Duke of Burgundy, who was brother-in-law to King Richard. Hence Mr. Theobald justly observed that mother in the text was not conformable to the fact. But Shakspeare, as Dr. Farmer has observed, was led into this error by Holinshed, where he found the preceding passage in an oration which Hall, in imitation of the ancient historians, invented, and exhibited as having been spoken by the King to his soldiers before the battle of Bosworth. If, says a Remarker, [Mr. Ritson,] it ought to be so in Shakspeare, why stop at this correction, and why not in K. Henry V. print præcarissimus instead of præclarissimus? And indeed if brother is to be substituted for mother here, there can be no reason why all other similar errors should not be corrected in like manner. But the Remarker misunderstood Dr. Farmer's words, which only mean-as it is in the original, and as Shakspeare ought to have written. Dr. Farmer did not say-" as it ought to be printed in Shakspeare.” In all the other places where Shakspeare had been led into errors by mistakes of the press, or by false translations, his text has been very properly exhibited as he wrote it; for it is not the business of an editor to new-write his author's works. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV. Sc. I. we have-" Let the old ruffian know, I have many other ways to die; " though we know the sense of the passage in Plutarch there copied is, that "he [the old ruffian] hath many other ways to die." Again, in Julius Cæsar, Antony is still permitted to say, that Cæsar had left the Roman people his arbours and orchards on this side Tyber," though it ought to be-" on that side Tyber: " both which mistakes Shakspeare was led into by the ambiguity and inaccuracy of the old translation of Plutarch. 66 In like manner in King Henry V. præclarissimus is exhibited as it was written by Shakspeare, instead of præcarissimus; and in the same play I have followed our author in printing in vol. xvii. p. 270, Lewis the tenth, though Lewis the ninth was the person meant an error into which he was led, as in the present instance, by a mistake of the press. For all such inaccuracies, the poet, and not his editor, is responsible and in the passage now under our consideration more particularly the text ought not to be disturbed, because it ascertains a point of some moment; namely, that Holinshed, and not Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again; If we be conquer'd, let men conquer us, And not these bastard Bretagnes; whom our fathers Hall, was the historian that Shakspeare followed. Of how much consequence this is, the reader may ascertain by turning to the Dissertation on the Plays of King Henry VI. where this circumstance, if I do not deceive myself, contributes not a little in addition to the other proofs there adduced, to settle a long-agitated question, and to show that those plays were re-written by Shakspeare, and not his original composition. MALONE. It has been already stated by Dr. Farmer that the mistake here of mother for brother must be placed to the account of the book which Shakspeare followed, viz. Holinshed's chronicle; but the doctor has omitted to notice that in the first edition of Holinshed the word is rightly printed brother. It is no otherwise worth while to mention this fact, than that it points out the particular edition of the above historian which Shakspeare used. Nothing can be more judicious nor decisive than Mr. Malone's argument for retaining the historical errors of Shakspeare, and Mr. Ritson's desire of changing the text does not correspond with those principles of accuracy on which he laid so much stress. DOUCE. 9 A milk-sop, &c.] So, in The Mirrour for Magistrates, already quoted: "First with our foe-mens captaine to begin, "A weake Welch milksop-." Alluding perhaps to goat's milk, of which anciently the Welsh were fonder than they are at present. STEEVENS. I BOLD Yeomen!] So the quarto 1597. All the other ancient copies-boldly. MALONE. |