The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, and the Coronation of King Henry' the Fifth.

P. 209. And I will take as a sweet difgrace.

T

We should correct the flip of the printer by reading,

And I will take it as a fweet difgracevo

P. 212. And doth enlarge bis rifing with the blood Offair King Richard.

Mr. Warburton thinks it probable that Shakespear wrote, enlard, that is, fatten and encourage his caufe.' I must beg leave to think differently, and that the poet would not have used fo homely a metaphor, to exprefs the effect of fomething represented as holy, and full of fanctity, the blood of Richard. The cafe is very different in the paffage quoted as parallel from Henry V. befides, it is not the caufe, as Mr. Warburton mifreprefents it, but the rifing, that is, the number of followers, which is faid to be enlarded, with what propriety let the reader judge. See the Canons of Criticifm, p. 54.

P. 220. Fillip me with a three-man beetle.

The 'humourous allufion to a catch in three parts, which Mr. Warburton hath difcovered in this expreffion, is, I will undertake for it, incomprehen- fible to every imagination but his own. They have nothing common to both but the bare number three.

P. 234. Iwill imitate the honourable Roman in brevity. I believe Mr. Warburton may be right in his correction, Roman, for Romans, but I conceive he is

wrong in his application. The poet's reprefentation of Falstaff's character is fcarce reconcileable to the fuppofition, that he had learning enough ever to have heard, that M. Brutus affected great brevity of tile. I fuppofe by the honourable Roman' is intended Julius Cæfar, whofe veni, vidi, vici, seems to be alluded to in the beginning of the letter, I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee.' The very words of Cæfar are exprefsly quoted by Falstaff a little farther on in the play, p. 279. that I may juftly fay with the hooknofed fellow of Rome there, Cæfar, I came, faw, ⚫ and overcame.'

P. 235. That's to make him eat plenty of his words. I think the common reading, twenty of his words,” is much more natural, a certain number for an uncertain. But Mr. Warburton hath found out a joke in the word, plenty, which is indeed too flender for my apprehenfion, and fo I leave it to the difcovery of the reader.

P. 236. From a God to a bull? a heavy defcenfion. It was Jove's cafe. From a Prince to a prentice? a low transformation; that shall be mine.

Mr. Upton, Critic. Obferv. p. 229. thinks, if the words defcenfion and transformation were tranfpofed, the expreffion would be more accurate. Undoubt

edly it would; but I fuppofe Shakespear himself mutually transferred the proper appellation of each to the other, with the view to make the two cafes tally the better, and render the difference less fenfible between a transformation to a bull, and a defcenfion to a prentice.

P. 237. But he did long in vain!

I entirely concur with Mr. Theobald in opinion S

that

that Shakespear more probably wrote, but he did. Look in vain."

P. 240. Your brooches,

This word is rightly interpreted in the Canons of Criticism, p. 193. a bodkin, or fome fuch ornament, from the French, broche.

P. 243. What? your poor, base, rafcally, &c. Read, you poor, bafe, rafcally, &c. agreeably to Mr. Pope's edition.

P. 253. It is but as a body flight diflemper'd. The common reading was,

It is but as a body yet diftemper'd.

That is, It is but as a body not yet quite recovered from its distemper. And now let me afk Mr. Warburton in my turn, What would he have lefs? or, What occafion for amendment?

Ibid. My lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd. Doth not this reading give us a very juft and pertinent fenfe? Why then muft we be tampering with it, and obtruding on the reader our own imaginations, in the place of the genuine expreffions of Shakespear?

P. 264. That his dimenfions to any thick fight were invincible.

Read, according to Mr. Pope's edition, invisible.

Ibid. This vice's dagger.

See this phrafe explained in Upton's Critic. Obferv.

P. 265.

P. 265. I will make him a philofopher's two stones

to me.

That is, twice the worth of the philofopher's ftone, as it is rightly explained in the Canons of Criticism, P. 86.

P. 266. Let us way on.

To way, for to march, is a word of Mr. Warbur ton's own coining, unknown, I believe, to every other writer. The common reading was, fway on; and the verb, fway, fignifying nearly the fame as to wave, as when we fay, to fway a feepter, or fword, (See Lye's Etymologicon) it may perhaps be used not improperly to exprefs the fluctuating march of an army. However, even wag on, though it be rather a burlefque expreffion, and upon that account lefs proper in ferious difcourfe, is ftill better than Mr. Warburton's conjecture, as it is at least English,

P. 269. My brother general, the common-wealth,
To brother born an boufehold cruelty,
I make my quarrel in particular.

The fenfe is, As to my own particular quarrel, or ground of my complaint, I avouch it to be founded upon the injuries done to the commonwealth; to which I confider myself as connected by that general relation of brotherhood, which unites all those who live under the fame government; and upon the private cruelty exercised upon my own family, by the tumultuary, and illegal, execution of my own born brother. That this laft provocation was the archbishop's principal motive for taking up arms, ap from the First Part of Henry IV. p. 119. pears

Worc. Th' archbishop.
Hotfp. York, is't not?

S 2

Worc,

Worc. True, who bears hard

His brother's death at Bristol, the lord Scroop. Mr. Warburton, who did not recollect this circumftance, hath with great pains hammered out an interpretation, the moft ftrange and nonfenfical that ever entered into the moft unhappy critick's imagination.

P. 271. And prefent executions of our wills

To us, and to our properties, confin'd.

For properties, the other editions gave us, purposes, which Mr. Warburton mifunderstanding to mean, appetites and paffions, whereas in truth nothing else is meant by that word but the propofals contained in the schedule, he made this, at leaft unneceffary, alteration. Indeed this gentleman is not very confiftent with himfelf. For he first lays down this pofition, that this line contains fome demands of ad

vantage for the rebels,' and then at the conclufion tells us, it means no more than fome fecurity for ⚫ their liberties and properties;' which being before fufficiently provided for in the condition for their acquittal and pardon, gives them in truth no advantage at all, but leaves them juft as it found them.

P. 275. The time miforder'd deth in common fenfe. That is, in the feeling we have of the common and national grievances. There is therefore no need of Mr. Warburton's fanciful amendment, in common fence.

P. 277. And, good my Lord, fo pleafe you, let our trains March by us, that we may perufe the men We should have cop'd withal.

This fpeech is addreffed to the archbishop, for the Earl of Westmorland had just before quitted the

ftage.