With flaughter's pencil; where revenge did paint My reverend father, let it not be so: PAND. All form is formless, order orderless, Save what is oppofite to England's love. Therefore, to arms! be champion of our church! Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse, A mother's curfe, on her revolting fon. France, thou may'st hold a serpent by the tongue, A cafed lion by the mortal paw, 7 5 -Softrong in both,] I believe the meaning is, love fo firong in both parties. JOHNSON. Rather, in hatred and in love; in deeds of amity or blood. HENLEY. 6 this kind regrect?] A regreet is an exchange of falutation. So, in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632: "So bear our kind regrets to Hecuba." STEEVENS. A cafed lion-] The modern editors read-a chafed lion. I fee little reafon for change. A cafed lion is a lion irritated by confinement. So, in King Henry VI. P. III. Act I. fc. iii : "So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch "That trembles under his devouring paws;" &c. STEEVENS. Again, in Rowley's When you fee me you know me, 1621: "The lyon in his cage is not fo fterne "As royal Henry in his wrathful fpleene." A fafting tiger fafer by the tooth, Than keep in peace that hand which thou doft hold. K. PHI. I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith. PAND. So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith; And, like a civil war, fet'ft oath to oath, Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform'd; That is, to be the champion of our church! What fince thou fwor'ft, is fworn against thyself, And may not be performed by thyself: For that, which thou haft fworn to do amifs, Is not amifs, when it is truly done;' Our author was probably thinking on the lions, which in his time, as at present, were kept in the Tower, in dens fo fmall as fully to juftify the epithet he has ufed. MALONE. 8 Is not amifs, when it is truly done;] This is a conclufion de travers. We should read: Is yet amifs, The Oxford editor, according to his usual custom, will improve it further, and reads—most amiss. WARBURTON. I rather read: Is't not amifs, when it is truly done? as the alteration is lefs, and the fense which Dr. Warburton firft discovered is preferved. JOHNSON. The old copies read: Is not amifs, when it is truly done. Pandulph, having conjured the King to perform his firft vow to heaven, to be champion of the church,-tells him, that what he has fince fworn is fworn against himself, and therefore may not be performed by him: for that, fays he, which you have fworn to do amifs, is not amifs, (i. e. becomes right) when it is done truly (that is, as he explains it, not done at all;) and being not done, where it would be a fin to do it, the truth is moft done when you do it not. So, in Love's Labour's Loft: "It is religion to be thus forfworn." RITSON. Again, in Cymbeline: 66 fhe is fool'd "With a moft falfe effect, and I the truer And being not done, where doing tends to ill, And falfehood falfehood cures; as fire cools fire, By placing the fecond couplet of this fentence before the first, the paffage will appear perfectly clear. Where doing tends to ill, where an intended act is criminal, the truth is moft done, by not doing the act. The criminal act therefore which thou haft fworn to do, is not amifs, will not be imputed to you as a crime, if it be done truly, in the fenfe I have now affixed to truth; that is, if you do not do it. MALONE. 9 But thou haft fworn against religion; &c.] The propofitions, that the voice of the church is the voice of heaven, and that the pope utters the voice of the church, neither of which Pandulph's auditors would deny, being once granted, the argument here ufed is irrefiftible; nor is it easy, notwithstanding the gingle, to enforce it with greater brevity or propriety: But thou haft fworn against religion: By what thou fwear'ft against the thing thou fear'ft: To fear, fwear only not to be for/worn. By what. Sir T. Hanmer reads-By that. I think it fhould be rather by which. That is, thou fwear'ft against the thing, by which thou fwear'ft; that is, against religion. The most formidable difficulty is in thefe lines: This Sir T. Hanmer reforms thus: And mak'ft an oath the furety for thy truth, Dr. Warburton writes it thus: Against an oath the truth thou art unfure which leaves the paffage to me as obscure as before. By what thou fwear'ft, fwear'st; against the thing thou And mak'st an oath the furety for thy truth I know not whether there is any corruption beyond the omiffion of a point. The fenfe, after I had confidered it, appeared to me only this: In fwearing by religion against religion, to which thou baft already fworn, thou makeft an oath the fecurity for thy faith against an oath already taken. I will give, fays he, a rule for confcience in these cafes. Thou may'st be in doubt about the matter of an oath; when thou fweareft, thou mayft not be always fure to fwear rightly; but let this be thy fettled principle, wear only not to be forfworn; let not the latter oaths be at variance with the former. Truth, through this whole speech, means recitude of conduct. JOHNSON. By I believe the old reading is right; and that the line what," &c. is put in appofition with that which precedes it: "But thou haft fworn againft religion; thou haft fworn, by what thu fweareft, i. e. in that which thou haft fworn, against the thing thea fweareft by; i. e. religion. Our author has many fuch elliptical expreffions. So, in K. Henry VIII: 66 Whoever the king favours, "The cardinal will quickly find employment [for], Again, ibidem: "This is about that which the bishop fpake" [f]. Again, in K. Richard III : "True ornaments to know a holy man" [by]. Again, in The Winter's Tale: "A bed-swerver, even as bad as those Again, ibidem: 2 66 the queen is fpotlefs "In this that you accuse her" [f]. MALONE. fwear only not to be forfworn;] The old copy reads― fwears, which in my apprehenfion fhews that two half lines have been loft, in which the perfon fuppofed to wear was mentioned. When the fame word is repeated in two fucceeding lines, the eye of the compofitor often glances from the first to the fecond, and in confequence the intermediate words are omitted. For what has Elfe, what a mockery fhould it be to fwear? And better conqueft never canft thou make, So heavy, as thou shalt not shake them off, BAST. Will't not be? Will not a calf's-skin stop that mouth of thine? LEW. Father, to arms! BLANCH. Upon thy wedding day? Against the blood that thou haft married? What, fhall our feast be kept with flaughter'd men? Shall braying trumpets,' and loud churlish drums, been loft, it is now in vain to feek; I have therefore adopted the emendation made by Mr. Pope, which makes fome kind of sense. MALONE. 3braying trumpets,] Bray appears to have been particularly applied to exprefs the harsh grating found of the trumpet. So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. IV. c. xii. ft. 6: "And when it ceaft fhrill trompets loud did bray." Again, B. IV. c. iv. ft. 48: "Then fhrilling trompets loudly 'gan to bray." And elsewhere in the play before us: Hard-refounding trumpets' dreadful bray.” Again, in Hamlet: "The trumpet fhall bray out. Gawin Douglas, in his Tranflation of the Æneid, renders « fub axe tonanti- (Lib. V. v. 820:) "Under the brayand quhelis and affiltre." Blackmore is ridiculed in the Dunciad, (B. II.) for endeavouring |