Re-enter King RICHARD, RATCLIFF, Attendants, and Forces. K. Rich. What said Northumberland, as touching Richmond? Rat. That he was never trained up in arms. K. Rich. He said the truth: And what said Surrey then? Rat. He smil'd and said, the better for our purpose. K. Rich. He was i' the right; and so, indeed, it is. [Clock strikes. Tell the clock there. Give me a calendar.Who saw the sun to-day? Rat. Not I, my lord. K. Rich. Then he disdains to shine; for, by the book, He should have brav'd the east1 an hour ago: A black day will it be to somebody. Ratcliff, Rat. My lord? K. Rich. The sun will not be seen to-day; The sky doth frown and lour upon our army. I would, these dewy tears were from the ground. vous but neglected satires, entitled The Scourge of Villainie, printed in 1599, Lib. III, Sat. viii: "A pox upon 't that Bacchis' name should be "The watch-word given to the souldierie. "Goe troupe to field, mount thy obscured fame, "Cry out Saint George, invoke thy mistresse' name; In Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, that admirable and early ridicule of romance-writing, where the champion Ralph is going to attack the Barber, or the huge giant Barboroso, the burlesque is heightened, when, with much solemnity, and as if a real heroick encounter had been going forward, he cries out, "Saint George! set on before, march squire and page." Act III, sc. i. And afterwards, when the the engagement begins, Ralph says, "St. George for me:" and Barbaroso, "Garagantua for me." T. Warton. 1 brav’d the east —] i. e. made it splendid. So, Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, says to the Tailor: " - thou hast braved many men [i. e. invested them with finery] brave not me." The common signification of the verb-to brave, will, in my apprehension, hardly suit the passage before us; for with what propriety can the sun be said to challenge or set the East at defiance? Steevens. More than to Richmond? for the self-same heaven, Enter NORFOLK. Nor. Arm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field. K. Rich. Come, bustle, bustle;-Caparison my horse; Call up lord Stanley, bid him bring his power: I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain, And thus my battle shall be ordered. My foreward shall be drawn out all in length,2 Our archers shall be placed in the midst: In the main battle; whose puissance on either side Nor. A good direction, warlike sovereign.— [Giving a Scrowl. 2 My foreward shall be drawn out all in length,] So Holinshed: "King Richard havyng all things in a readiness went forth with the army out of his tentes, and began to set his men in aray: first the forward set forth a marvellous length, both of horsemen and also of footemen, and to the formost part of all the bowmen as a strong fortresse for them that came after; and over this John duke of Norfolk was head captain. After him followed the king with a mighty sort of men." Malone. 3- we ourself will follow-] The word-ourself, was judiciously supplied by Sir Thomas Hanmer, to complete the verse. Steevens. This, and Saint George to boot!] That is, this is the order of our battle, which promises success; and over and above this, is the protection of our patron saint. Johnson. To boot is (as I conceive) to help, and not over and above. Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins is certainly right. So, in King Richard II: "Mine innocence, and Saint George to thrive." 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. 6 K. Rich. Jocky of Norfolk, be not too bold, [Reads. For Dickon thy master is bought and sold. A thing devised by the enemy.— Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge: If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.1. 5 This found I in my tent this morning] Sir Thomas Hanmer supplies the deficiency in the metre of this line, by reading: This paper found I &c. 6 Steevens. be not too bold,] The quarto, 1598, and the folio, readso 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. 7-- Dickon thy master &c.] Diccon 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: Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold." 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 kindness that thou offerest me? "And in thy country am I bought and sold?” Again, in Skelton's Colin Clout, 1568: "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. 8 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. 9 Conscience is but a word -] So the quarto, 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 1 If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.] So, in Macbeth: What shall I say more than I have infer'd? "That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.” Again, in King Henry VI, P. II: "If not in heaven, you'll surely sup in hell." Steevens. 2 A sort of vagabonds,] A sort, that is, a company a collection. See note on A Midsummer Night's Dream, Vol. II, p. 319, n. 2. Johnson. 3ventures] Old copies-adventures. Steevens. 4 They would restrain the one,] i. e. they would lay restrictions on the possession of your lands; impose conditions on the proprie. tors 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 non-payment 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. 5 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: Theobald. Long kept in Bretagne at his mother's cost. 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: A milk-sop, one that never in his life Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow? "You see further, how a companie 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. 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 King Henry V, print præcarissimus instead of præclarissimus? [See Vol. IX, p. 376, n 6] 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 has 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. In like manner in King Henry V, præclarissimus is exhibited as it was written by Shakspeare, instead of precarissimus, and in the same play I have followed our author in printing in Vol. IX, p. 212, Lewis the tenth, though Lewis the ninth was the person |