Scarcely have coveted what was mine own; No less in truth, than life: my first false speaking Is thine, and my poor country's, to command: Now we 'll together; And the chance, of goodness, Be like our warranted quarrel!2 Why are you silent? Macd. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once, 'Tis hard to reconcile. Enter a Doctor. Mal. Well; more anon.-Comes the king forth, I pray you? 9 thy bere-approach,] The old copy has-they here. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. Malone. 11 ten thousand warlike men, All ready at a point,] At a point, may mean all ready at a time; but Shakspeare meant more: He meant both time and place, and certainly wrote: All ready at appoint, i. e. at the place appointed, at the rendezvous. Warburton. There is no need of change. Johnson. So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B I, c. ii: 2 "A faithlesse Sarazin all arm'd to point." Malone. Be like our warranted quarrel!] The chance of goodness, as it is commonly read, conveys no sense. If there be not some more important error in the passage, it should at least be pointed thus: and the chance, of goodness, Be like our warranted quarrel! That is, may the event be, of the goodness of heaven, [pro justitia divina,] answerable to the cause. Mr. Heath conceives the sense of the passage to be rather this: And may the success of that goodness, which is about to exert itself in my behalf, be such as may be equal to the justice of my quarrel. But I am inclined to believe that Shakspeare wrote: and the chance, O goodness, Be like our warranted quarrel ! This some of his transcribers wrote with a small o, which another imagined to mean of If we adopt this reading, the sense will be: And 0 thou sovereign goodness, to whom we now appeal, may our fortune answer to our cause. Johnson. Doct. Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls, That stay his cure: their malady convinces3 The great assay of art; but, at his touch, Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, They presently amend. Mal. I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doct. Macd. What 's the disease he means? 'Tis call'd the evils A most miraculous work in this good king; 3 - convinces i. e. overpowers, subdues. See p. 74, n. 8. Steevens. 4 The mere despair of surgery, be cures;] Dr. Percy, in his notes on The Northumberland Houshold Book, says, "that our ancient kings even in those dark times of superstition, do not seem to have affected to cure the king's evil.-This mira. culous gift was left to be claimed by the Stuarts; our ancient Plantagenets were humbly content to cure the cramp." In this assertion, however, the learned editor of the above curious volume has been betrayed into a mistake, by relying too implicitly on the authority of Mr. Anstis. The power of curing the king's evil was claimed by many of the Plantagenets. Dr. Borde, who wrote in the time of Henry the VIIIth, says " The kynges of England by the power that God hath given to them dothe make sicke men whole of a sycknes called the Kynge's Evyll." In Laneham's Account of the Entertainment at Kenel worth Castle, it is said, " and also by her highness [Q. Elizabeth] accustomed mercy and charitee, nyne cured of the peynful and dangerous diseaz called the King's Evil, for that kings and queens of this realm without oother medsin, (save only by handling and prayer) only doo it." Polydore Virgil asserts the same; and Will Tooker, in the reign of queen Elizabeth, published a book on this subject, an account of which is to be seen in Dr Douglas's treatise, entitled The Criterion, p. 191. See Dodsley's Collection of old Plays, Vol. XII, p. 428, edit. 1780. Reed. 5 a golden stamp &c.] This was the coin called an angel. So, Shakspeare, in The Merchant of Venice: Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken, The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy; And sundry blessings hang about his throne, That speak him full of grace. Macd. Enter RosSE. See, who comes here? Mal. My countryman; but yet I know him not." "A coin that bears the figure of an angel Stamped in gold, but that 's insculp'd upon.' The value of the coin was ten shillings. Steevens. and 'tis spoken To the succeeding royalty be leaves The healing benediction.] It must be owned, that Shak speare is often guilty of strange absurdities in point of history and chronology. Yet here he has artfully avoided one. He had a mind to hint, that a cure of the evil was to descend to the successors in the royal line, in compliment to James the First. But the Confessor was the first who pretended to the gift: How then could it be at that time generally spoken of, that the gift was hereditary? This he has solved by telling us that Edward had the gift of prophecy along with it. Warburton. Dr. Warburton here invents an objection, in order to solve it. "The Confessor (says he) was the first who pretended to this gift: how then could it be at that time generally spoken of, that the gift was bereditary? This he [Shakspeare] has solved, by telling us that Edward had the gift of prophecy along with it." But Shakspeare does not say, that it was hereditary in Edward, or, in other words, that he had inherited this extraordinary power from his ancestors; but that "it was generally spoken, that he leaves the healing benediction to succeeding kings:" and such a rumour there might be in the time of Edward the Confessor, (supposing he had such a gift) without his having the gift of prophecy along with it. Shakspeare has merely transcribed what he found in Holinshed, without the conceit which Dr. Warburton has imputed to him: "As hath beene thought, he was inspired with the gift of prophesie, and also to have had the gift of healing infirmities and diseases. He used to helpe those that were vexed with the disease commonlie called the King's Evil, and left that virtue as it were a portion of inheritance unto his successors, the kings of this realme." Holinshed, Vol. I, p. 195. Malone. 7 My countryman; but yet I know him not.] Malcolm discovers Rosse to be his countryman, while he is yet at some distance from him, by his dress. This circumstance loses its Macd. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither. Mal. I know him now: Good God, betimes remove The means that make us strangers! Rosse. Macd. Stands Scotland where it did? Sir, Amen. Alas, poor country, Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot air,8 Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow eems Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives Macd. O, relation, Too nice, and yet too true!? propriety on our stage, as all the characters are uniformly represented in English habits. Steevens. 8 rent the air,] To rent is an ancient verb, which has been long ago disused. So, in Casar and Pompey, 1607: “With rented hair and eyes besprent with tears." Again, in The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, 1597: Steevens. "While with his fingers he his haire doth rent." Malone. A modern ecstasy;] That is, no more regarded than the contorsions that fanatics throw themselves into. The author was thinking of those of his own times. Warburton. I believe modern is only foolish or trifling. Johnson. Modern is generally used by Shakspeare to signify trite, common; as "modern instances," in As you Like it, &c. &c. See Vol. V, p. 59, n. 4. Steevens. Ecstasy is used by Shakspeare for a temporary alienation of mind. Malone. 1 Expire before the flowers in their caps,] So, in All's Well that Ends Well: "Expire before their fashions." Steevens. 2 Too nice, and yet too true!] The redundancy of this hemis tich induces me to believe our author only wrote "Too nice, yet true! Steevens. Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? Rosse. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave them. Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech; How goes it? Rosse. When I came hither to transport the tidings, Mal. That Christendom gives out. Rosse. 'Would I could answer This comfort with the like! But I have words, Macd. What concern they? 3 Why, well -Well too.] So, in Antony and Cleopatra: We use children?] Children is, in this place, used as a trip syllable. So, in The Comedy of Errors: "There are the parents to these children." See note on this passage, Act V. Steevens. 5 To doff their dire distresses.] To doff is to do off, to put off. See King John, Act III, sc. i. Steevens. 6 should not latch them,] Thus the old copy, and rightly. To latch any thing, is to lay hold of it. So, in the prologue to Gower, De Confessione Amantis, 1554: "Hereof for that thei wolden lache, "With such duresse," &c. |
