Is all too wanton, and too full of gawds,'
To give me audience:-If the midnight bell
Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth,
Sound one unto the drowsy race of night;"

S -full of gawds,] Gawds are any fhowy ornaments. in The Dumb Knight, 1633:

"To caper in his grave, and with vain gards
"Trick up his coffin."

So,

See Midfummer Night's Dream, Vol. V. p. 7. n. 8. STEEVENS. 6 Sound one unto the drowy race of night;] Old copy-Sound on-. STEEVENS.

We fhould read-Sound one WARBURTON.

I fhould fuppofe the meaning of-found on, to be this: If the midnight bell, by repeated ftrokes, was to baflen away the race of beings who are busy at that bour, or quicken night itself in its progrefs; the morning bell (that is, the bell that ftrikes one) could not, with ftrict propriety, be made the agent; for the bell has ceafed to be in the fervice of night, when it proclaims the arrival of day. Sound on may alfo have a peculiar propriety, because by the repetition of the ftrokes at twelve, it gives a much more forcible warning than when it only strikes one.

Such was once my opinion concerning the old reading; but on re-confideration, its propriety cannot appear more doubtful to any one than to myself.

It is too late to talk of haftening the night when the arrival of the morning is announced; and I am afraid that the repeated ftrokes have lefs of folemnity than the fingle notice, as they take from the horror and awful filence here defcribed as fo propitious to the dreadful purposes of the king. Though the hour of one be not the natural midnight, it is yet the moft folemn moment of the poetical one; and Shak speare himself has chofen to introduce his Ghoft in Hamlet:

"The bell then beating one." STEEVENS.

The word one is here, as in many other paffages in these plays, written on in the old copy. Mr. Theobald made the correction. He likewife fubftituted unto for into, the reading of the original copy; a change that requires no fupport. In Chaucer and other old writers one is ufually written on. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's Gloffary to The Canterbury Tales. So once was anciently written ons. it should feem from a quibbling paffage in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, that one, in fome counties at leaft, was pronounced in our author's time as if written on. Hence the tranfcriber's ear might eafily have deceived him. One of the perfons whom I employed

And

If this fame were a churchyard where we stand, And thou poffeffed with a thousand wrongs;

to read aloud to me each fheet of the prefent work [Mr. Malone's edition of our author] before it was printed off, conftantly founded the word one in this manner. He was a native of Herefordshire.

The inftances that are found in the original editions of our author's plays, in which on is printed inftead of one, are fo numerous, that there cannot, in my apprehenfion, be the smallest doubt that one is the true reading in the line before us. Thus, in Coriolanus, edit. 1623, p. 15:

66

This double worship,

"Where on part does disdain with cause, the other
" Infult without all reason."

Again, in Cymbeline, 1623, p. 380:

66

-perchance he spoke not; but,

"Like a full-acorn'd boar, a Jarmen on," &c.

Again, in Romeo and Juliet, 1623, p. 66:

"And thou, and Romeo, prefs on heavie bier,"

Again, in The Comedy of Errors, 1623, p. 94:

"On, whofe hard heart is button'd up with fteel."

Again, in All's well that ends well, 1623, p. 240: "A good traveller is fomething at the latter end of a dinner,—but on that lies three thirds," &c.

Again, in Love's Labour's Loft, quarto, 1598:

On, whom the mufick of his own vain tongue-.'

Again, ibid. edit. 1623, p. 133:

"On, her hairs were gold, cryftal the other's eyes." The fame fpelling is found in many other books, So, in Holland's Suetonius, 1606, p. 14: - he caught from on of them a trumpet," &c.

66

I fhould not have produced fo many paffages to prove a fact of which no one can be ignorant, who has the flightest knowledge of the carly editions of thefe plays, or of our old writers, had not the author of Remarks, &c. on the laft Edition of Shakspeare, afferted, with that modefty and accuracy by which his pamphlet is diftinguished, that the obfervation contained in the former part of this note was made by one totally unacquainted with the old copies, and that "it would be difficult to find a fingle inftance" in which on and one are confounded in thofe copies.

I fufpect that we have too haftily in this line fubftituted unto for into; for into feems to have been frequently used for unts in Shakfpeare's time. So, in Harfnet's Declaration, &c. 1603: "—when the nimble Vice would fkip up nimbly-into the devil's neck,”

Or if that furly spirit, melancholy,

Had bak'd thy blood, and made it heavy, thick;
(Which, elfe, runs tickling up and down the veins,
Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes,
And ftrain their cheeks to idle merriment,
A paffion hateful to my purposes ;)

Or if that thou could'ft fee me without eyes,
Hear me without thine ears, and make reply
Without a tongue, ufing conceit alone,"

Without eyes, ears, and harmful found of words;
Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,

8

Again, in Daniel's Civil Wars, B. IV. folio, 1602:
"She doth confpire to have him made away,
"Thruft thereinto not only with her pride,

"But by her father's counsel and confent."

Again, in our poet's King Henry V:

"Which to reduce into our former favour-.”

Again, in his Will:-" I commend my foul into the hands of God,
my creator."

Again, in King Henry VIII:

Yes, that goodness

"Of gleaning all the land's wealth into one."

i. e. into one man. Here we fhould now certainly write "unto one."
Independently indeed of what has been now ftated, into ought
to be restored. So, Marlowe in his King Edward II. 1598 :

"I'll thunder fuch a peal into his eares," &c. MALONE.
Shakspeare may be reftored into obfcurity. I retain Mr.
Theobald's correction; for though "thundering a peal into a
man's ears" is good English, I do not perceive that fuch an ex-
preffion as "founding one into a drowsy race," is countenanced by
any example hitherto produced. STEEVENS.

7

-ufing conceit alone,] Conceit here, as in many other
places, fignifies conception, thought. So, in K. Richard III :
"There's fome conceit or other likes him well,
"When that he bids good-morrow with fuch fpirit."
MALONE.
-brooded-] So the old copy. Mr. Pope reads-broad-
ey'd, which alteration, however elegant, may be unneceffary. All
animals while brooded, i. e. with a brood of young ones under their
protection, are remarkably vigilant.The King fays of Hamlet:
-fomething's in his foul

"O'er which his melancholy fits at brood."

Plin

In the region't I. Holland's Franslation of
Nat. Hist. a broodie hen the term for a hen
See p. 301. edit. 1601.

That sits on

の

އ

I would into thy bofom pour my thoughts:
But ah, I will not:-Yet I love thee well;
And, by my troth, I think, thou lov'ft me well..
HUB. So well, that what you bid me undertake,
Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
By heaven, I'd do't.

K. JOHN.
Do not I know, thou would'f?
Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
On yon young boy: I'll tell thee what, my friend,
He is a very ferpent in my way;

And, wherefoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,
He lies before me: Doft thou understand me?
Thou art his keeper.

K. JOHN.

My lord?

A grave.

He shall not live.

Enough,

I could be merry now: Hubert, I love thee;
Well, I'll not fay what I intend for thee:

Remember.9

Madam, fare you well:

I'll fend those powers o'er to your majesty.

Milton alfo, in L'Allegro, defires Melancholy to

Find out fome uncouth cell

"Where brooding darkness fpreads his jealous wings:"

plainly alluding to the watchfulness of fowls while they are fitting - Broad-e

STEEVENS.

Brooded, I apprehend, is here ufed, with our author's ufual licence, for brooding; i. e. day, who is as vigilant, as ready with open eye to mark what is done in his prefence, as an animal at brood. MALONE.

Remember.] This is one of the fcenes to which may be

reconciled to

I am not thoroughly reconce

to be found Iliad:

"And"

this reading; but it would be somewhat improved the words brooded & watchful, by a

by joining

hyphen - brooded - watchful. M. Mason

ELI. My bleffing go with thee!

K. JOHN.

Hubert shall be your man, attend on you

For England, coufin:*

[Exeunt.

With all true duty.—On toward Calais, ho!

SCENE IV.

The fame. The French King's Tent.

Enter King PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH, and
Attendants.

K. PHI. So, by a roaring tempeft on the flood, A whole armado3 of convicted fail 4

Is fcatter'd, and disjoin'd from fellowship.

promised a lafting commendation. Art could add little to its perfection; and time itself can substract nothing from its beauties.

faste can injure "it; and

For England, coufin:] The old copy

For England, coufin, go:

STEEVENS.

I have omitted the last useless and redundant word, which the eye of the compofitor feems to have caught from the preceding hemiftich. STEEVENS.

King John, after he had taken Arthur prifoner, fent him to the town of Falaife in Normandy, under the care of Hubert, his Chamberlain; from whence he was afterwards removed to Rouen, and delivered to the cuftody of Robert de Veypont. Here he was fecretly put to death. MALONE.

3 A whole armado-] This fimilitude, as little as it makes for the purpose in hand, was, I do not queftion, a very taking one when the play was firft reprefented; which was a winter or two at moft after the Spanish invafion in 1588. It was in reference likewife to that glorious period that Shakspeare concludes his play in that triumphant manner:

"This England never did, nor never shall, "Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror," &c. But the whole play abounds with touches relative to the then pofture of affairs. WARBURTON.

This play, fo far as I can difcover, was not played till a long time after the defeat of the armade. The old play, I think, wants