men,

Which by thy younger brother is supplied;
And art almost an alien to the hearts
Of all the court and princes of my blood:
The hope and expectation of thy time
Is ruin'd; and the foul of every man
Prophetically does forethink thy fall.
Had I fo lavish of my prefence been,
So common-hackney'd in the eyes of
So ftale and cheap to vulgar company;
Opinion, that did help me to the crown,
Had ftill kept loyal to poffeffion; 3
And left me in reputeless banishment,
A fellow of no mark, nor likelihood.
By being feldom feen, I could not stir,
But, like a comet, I was wonder'd at:
That men would tell their children, This is he;
Others would fay,-Where? which is Bolingbroke?
And then I ftole all courtesy from heaven,*

moved from being prefident of the council, immediately after he ftruck the judge. STEEVENS.

Our author has, I believe, here been guilty of an anachronism. The prince's removal from council in confequence of his ftriking the Lord Chief Juftice Gascoigne, was fome years after the battle of Shrewsbury (1403). His brother, Thomas Duke of Clarence, was appointed Prefident of the Council in his room, and he was not created a duke till the 13th year of K. Henry IV. (1411).

MALONE. 3 —loyal to poffeffion;] True to him that had then poffeffion of the crown. JOHNSON.

And then I ftole all courtefy from heaven,] This is an allufion to the ftory of Prometheus's theft, who ftole fire from thence; and as with this he made a man, fo with that Bolingbroke made a king. As the gods were fuppofed jealous in appropriating reason to themfelves, the getting fire from thence, which lighted it up in the mind, was called a theft; and as power is their prerogative, the getting courtesy from thence, by which power is beft procured, is called a theft. The thought is exquifitely great and beautiful. WARBURTON. Maffinger has adopted this expreffion in The great Duke of Flo

rence:

And drefs'd myself in fuch humility,

That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,'
Loud fhouts and falutations from their mouths,
Even in the prefence of the crowned king.
Thus did I keep my perfon fresh, and new;

Giovanni,

"A prince in expectation, when he liv'd here,
"Stole courtely from heaven; and would not to
"The meaneft fervant in my father's house
"Have kept such distance." STEEVENS.

Dr. Warburton's explanation of this paffage appears to me very questionable. The poet had not, I believe, a thought of Prometheus or the heathen gods, nor indeed was courtesy (even underftanding it to fignify affability) the characteristick attribute of those deities. The meaning, I apprehend, is,—I was so affable and popular, that I engroffed the devotion and reverence of all men to myfelf, and thus defrauded Heaven of its worshippers.

Courtely may be here used for the respect and obeisance paid by an inferior to a fuperior. So, in this play:

"To dog his heels and court'fy at his frowns."

In Act V. it is used for a refpectful falute, in which fenfe it was applied formerly to men as well as women:

"I will embrace him with a foldier's arm,

"That he fhall fhrink under my courtesy."

Again, in the Hiftory of Edward IV. annexed to Hardynge's Chronicle, 1543-"which thyng if I could have forfene,-I would never have wonne the courtifies of men's knees with the loss of fo many heades."

This interpretation is ftrengthened by the two fubfequent lines, which contain a kindred thought:

"And drefs'd myfelf in fuch humility,

"That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts." Henry, I think, means to fay, that he robbed heaven of its warfhip, and the king of the allegiance of his fubjects. MALONE.

s That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,] Apparently copied from Marlowe's Luft's Dominion, written before 1593: "The pope fhall fend his bulls through all thy realm, "And pull obedience from thy fubjects' hearts."

In another place in the fame play, we meet with the phrase used

here:

My prefence, like a robe pontifical,

Ne'er feen, but wonder'd at: and fo my ftate,
Seldom, but sumptuous, fhowed like a feaft;
And won, by rarenefs, fuch folemnity.
The fkipping 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,

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 fpecial-bleft,

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By new unfolding his imprifon'd pride." MALONE. -rah bavin wits,] Rafb, is heady, thoughtless: bavin is brufhwood, 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 last."

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 ftate 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 balderdafh,

"Such a ftrange carded cunningness."

Again, in Greene's Quip for an upftart Courtier, 1620: "

you

card your beer, (if you fee your guefts begin to get drunk,) half fmall, half strong," &c. Again, in Nafhe's Have with you to

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

Saffron Walden, &c. 1596: "he being constrained to betake himfelf 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 a cardmaker. FARMER.

To card does not mean to mix coarse wool with fine, as Mr. M. Mafon has justly obferved, but fimply to work wool with a card or teazel, fo as to prepare it for spinning. 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 felawship wele could she laugh and carpe.”

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

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; but the change having been made arbitrarily, or by chance, in 1599, it has no pretenfions of that kind.

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, boasts of his being able to caper, as a

And gave his countenance, against his name,1
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 also have been ufed with propriety; having had in our author's time the fame fignification as at prefent; though it has been doubted. Minfheu 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:

"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 oldest fins the newest kind of way," &c.

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

66

66

-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 Johnson'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. e. at the jefts of gibing boys.

MALONE.