My prefence, like a robe pontifical,

Ne'er feen, but wonder'd at: and fo my state,
Seldom, but sumptuous, fhowed like a feast;
And won, by rareness, fuch folemnity.

The skipping king, he ambled up and down
With fhallow jefters, and rash bavin wits,

Soon kindled, and foon burn'd: carded his ftate;'

6 My prefence, like a robe pontifical,

8

Ne'er feen, but wonder'd at:] So, in our author's 52d Sonnet:
"Or as the wardrobe, which the robe doth hide,
"To make fome fpecial inftant special-bleft,

By new unfolding his imprifon'd pride." MALONE. rash bavin wits,] Rafh, is heady, thoughtless: bavin is brushwood, which, fired, burns fiercely, but is foon out.

7

JOHNSON. So, in Mother Bombie, 1594: "Bavins will have their flashes, and youth their fancies, the one as foon quenched as the other burnt." Again, in Greene's Never too late, 1606: "Love is like a bavin, but a blaze." STEEVENS.

Rafb is, I believe, fierce, violent. So, in King Richard II: "His rafh fierce blaze of riot cannot laft."

In Shakspeare's time bavin was used for kindling fires. See Florio's Second Frutes, 4to. 1591, ch. i: " There is no fire.-Make a little blaze with a bavin." MALONE.

8 - carded his fate ;] Dr. Warburton fuppofes that carded or 'fcarded, (for fo he would read,) means difcarded, threw it off. MALONE.

The metaphor feems to be taken from mingling coarse wool with fine, and carding them together, whereby the value of the latter is diminished. The King means, that Richard mingled and carded together his royal state with capering fools, &c. A fubfequent part of the fpeech gives a fanction to this explanation:

"For thou haft loft thy princely privilege

"With vile participation.”

To card is used by other writers for, to mix. So, in The Tamer Tamed, by Beaumont and Fletcher:

"But mine is fuch a drench of balderdash,

"Such a ftrange carded cunningness."

you

Again, in Greene's Quip for an upftart Courtier, 1620: " card your beer, (if you fee your guefts begin to get drunk,) half fmall, half ftrong,' &c. Again, in Nafhe's Have with you to

Mingled his royalty with capering fools;
Had his great name profaned with their fcorns;

Saffron Walden, &c. 1596: " he being constrained to betake himself to carded ale." Shakspeare has a fimilar thought in All's well that ends well: " The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together." The original hint for this note I received from Mr. Tollet. STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens very rightly fupports the old reading. The word is ufed by Shelton in his tranflation of Don Quixote. The Tinker in the introduction to The Taming of the Shrew, was by education cardmaker. FARMER.

To card does not mean to mix coarse wool with fine, as Mr. M. Mafon has juftly obferved, but fimply to work wool with a card or teazel, fo as to prepare it for fpinning. MALONE.

By carding his ftate, the King means that his predeceffor fet his confequence to hazard, played it away (as a man lofes his fortune) at cards. RITSON.

9 capering fools;] Thus the quarto, 1598, and rightly, I believe, becaufe fuch a reading requires no explanation. The other copies, however, have-carping. STEEVENS.

Carping is jefting, prating, &c. This word had not yet acquired the fenfe which it bears in modern fpeech. Chaucer fays of his Wife of Bath, Prol. 470:

"In felawfhip wele could fhe laugh and carpe."

T. WARTON. The verb, to carp, is whimfically used by Phaer in his version of the first book of the Eneid:

cithara crinitus Iopas

Perfonat aurata.

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66

and on his golden harp

Iopas with his bufhie locks in fweete fong gan to carpe."
STEEVENS.

In the fecond quarto, printed in 1599, capering was changed into
carping, and that word was tranfmitted through all the fubfequent
quartos. Hence, it is alfo the reading of the folio, which appears
to have been printed from the quarto of 1613. Had all the
quartos read capering, and the folio carping, the latter reading
might derive fome ftrength from the authority of that copy;
the change having been made arbitrarily, or by chance, in 1599,
it has no pretenfions of that kind.

but

It may be further obferved, that "capering fools" were very proper companions for a "Skipping king;" and that Falstaff in the fecond part of this play, boafts of his being able to caper, as a

And gave his countenance, against his name,2
To laugh at gibing boys,' and stand the push

proof of his youth. "To approve my youth further I will not; the truth is, I am old in judgement and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks," &c.

Carping undoubtedly might alfo have been ufed with propriety; having had in our author's time the fame fignification as at prefent; though it has been doubted. Mintheu explains it in his Dia. 1617, thus, "To taunt, to find fault with, or bite with words."

It is obfervable that in the original copy the word capring is exhibited without an apoftrophe, according to the ufual practice of that time. So, in Marlowe's Hero and Leander, 1598:

"Whereat the faphir-vifag'd god grew proud,

"And made his capring Triton found aloud."

The original reading is alfo ftrongly confirmed by Henry's defcription of the capering fools, who, he fuppofes, will immediately after his death flock round his fon:

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Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your fcum;
"Have you a ruffian that will fwear, drink, dance,
"Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit

"The oldeft fins the newest kind of way," &c.

A carper did not mean (as has been fuppofed) a prating jefter, but a cynical fellow. So, in Timon of Athens:

-Shame not these woods

"By putting on the cunning of a carper."

It cannot be fuppofed that the King meant to reproach the luxurious Richard with keeping company with four morofe cynicks. MALONE.

2 And gave his countenance, against his name,] Made his prefence injurious to his reputation. JOHNSON.

I doubt the propriety of Johnfon's explanation of this paffage; and fhould rather fuppofe the meaning of it to be," that he favoured and encouraged things that were contrary to his dignity and reputation." To countenance, or to give countenance to, are common expreffions, and mean, to patronize or encourage.

M. MASON.

Against his name, is, I think, parenthetical. He gave his countenance, (to the diminution of his name or character,) to laugh, &c. In plain English, he honoured gibing boys with his company, and dishonoured himself by joining in their mirth.

MALONE.

3 To laugh at gibing boys,] i. c. at the jefts of gibing boys.

MALONE.

Of every beardlefs vain comparative: *
Grew a companion to the common streets,
Enfeoff'd himself to popularity: "

That, being daily fwallow'd by men's eyes,*
They furfeited with honey; and began

Of every beardlefs vain comparative:] Of every boy whofe vanity incited him to try his wit against the King's.

When Lewis XIV. was asked, why, with so much wit, he never attempted raillery, he anfwered, that he who practifed raillery ought to bear it in his turn, and that to ftand the butt of raillery was not fuitable to the dignity of a king. Scudery's Converfation

JOHNSON.

Comparative, I believe, is equal, or rival in any thing; and may therefore fignify, in this place, every one who thought himself on a level with the Prince. So, in the fecond of The Four Plays in One, by Beaumont and Fletcher:

Gerrard ever was

"His full comparative.—-—

32

STEEVENS.

I believe comparative means here, one who affects wit, a dealer in comparisons: what Shakspeare calls, fomewhere elfe, if I remember right, a fimile-monger. "The most comparative prince" has already occurred in the play before us; and the following paffage in Love's Labour's Loft, is yet more appofite in fupport of this interpretation:

The world's large tongue

"Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,

"Full of comparisons, and wounding flouts." MALONE. 9 Enfeoff'd himself to popularity:] To enfeoff is a law term, fignifying to inveft with poffeffion. So, in the old comedy of Wily Beguiled: "I protefted to enfeoffe her in forty pounds a year." STEEVENS.

Gave himfelf up abfolutely and entirely to popularity. A feofment was the ancient mode of conveyance, by which all lands in England were granted in fee-fimple for feveral ages, till the conveyance of Leafe and Release was invented by Serjeant Moor, about the year 1630. Every deed of feofment was accompanied with livery of feifin, that is, with the delivery of corporal poffeffion of the land or tenement granted in fee. MALONE.

2 That, being daily fwallow'd by men's eyes,] Nearly the fame expreffion occurs in A Warning for faire Women, a tragedy, 1599: The people's eyes have fed them with my fight."

MALONE.

To loath the taste of fweetnefs, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
So, when he had occafion to be seen,

He was but as the cuckoo is in June,

Heard, not regarded; feen, but with fuch eyes,
As, fick and blunted with community,

Afford no extraordinary gaze,

Such as is bent on fun-like majefty
When it thines feldom in admiring eyes:

But rather drowz'd, and hung their eyelids down,
Slept in his face, and render'd fuch afpect
As cloudy men ufe to their adverfaries; *
Being with his prefence glutted, gorg'd, and full.
And in that very line, Harry, ftand'ft thou: *
For thou haft loft thy princely privilege,
With vile participation; not an eye

But is a-weary of thy common fight,

Save mine, which hath defir'd to fee thee more;
Which now doth that I would not have it do,
Make blind itfelf with foolish tenderness.

P. HEN. I fhall hereafter, my thrice gracious
lord,

As thou art to this hour, was Richard then
When I from France fet foot at Ravenfpurg;

3 As cloudy men ufe to their adverfaries;] Strada, in his imitation of Statius, defcribing the look thrown by the German on his Portuguese antagonist, has the fame expreffion:

Lufiademque tuens, amaro nubilus ore. STEEVENS.

▲ And in that very line, Harry, ftand'ft thou:] So, in The Merchant of Venice:

"In this predicament, I fay, thou ftand'ft." STEEVENS. s For all the world,] Sir T. Hanmer, to complete the verfe, rcads

Harry, for all the world,. STEEVENS.

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