more proper, as it refers to the particular accusations Bolingbroke is about to bring against Mowbray. Though of small moment, we notice the variance, because Knight lays some stress on said.

SCENE II.

"the part I had in GLOSTER's blood"-In all the editions, prior to the folio, it stands, "Woodstock's blood," which was doubtless Shakespeare's original

"SUGGEST his soon-believing adversaries,” etc. That is, Prompt, set on by wicked insinuations, as suggestion is used in the TEMPEST:

They'll take suggestion, as a cat laps milk. "Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries. Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth, To me for justice, and rough chastisement,” etc. "Note the deinon of this to me,' which is evidently felt by Richard

How high a pitch his resolution soars!— and the affected depreciation afterwardsAs he is but my father's brother's son."

COLERIDGE.

"In haste whereof, most heartily I pray

Your highness to assign our trial day." "The occasional interspersion of rhymes, and the more frequent winding up of a speech therewith-what purpose was this designed to answer? In the earnest drama, I mean. Deliberateness? An attempt, as in Mowbray, to collect himself and be cool at the close? I can see that in the following speeches the rhyme answers the end of the Greek chorus, and distinguishes the general truths from the passions of the dialogue; but this does not exactly justify the practice, which is unfrequent in proportion to the excellence of Shakespeare's plays. One thing, however, is to be observed.— that the speakers are historical, known, and so far formal, characters, and their reality is already a fact. This should be borne in mind. The whole of this scene of the quarrel between Mowbray and Bolingbroke seems introduced for the purpose of showing, by anticipation, the characters of Richard and Bolingbroke. In the latter there is observable a decorous and courtly checking of his anger, in subservience to a predetermined plan, especially in his calm speech after receiving sentence of banishment, compared with Mowbray's unaffected lamentation. In the one, all is ambitious hope of something yet to come; in the other it is desolation, and a looking backward of the heart."-COLERIDGE.

"When, Harry? when"-"When," so used, is an expression of impatience, as in the TAMING of the SHREW-"Why when, I say." Monck Mason (adds Knight) suggests a new punctuation, which is very ingenious, though we can scarcely venture to adopt it in the text, contrary to the old copies. It is this:When, Harry? When

16-

Obedience bids, I should not bid again.

-throw down; we bid; there is no BOOT"-" There is no boot," or it booteth not, is as much as to say "there is no help;" resistance would be vain, or profitless.

"BAFFLED here"-" Baffled" in this place signifies abused, reviled, reproached in base terms; which was the ancient signification of the word, as well as to deceive, or circumvent.

"-lions make leopards tame"-The allusion is to the golden Leopard, the Norfolk crest, and the Lion of English royalty.

gible to those less familiar with the story of his Plantagenets. The title is thus explained by Mr. Amyot:"He was born at Woodstock, and was always called Thomas of Woodstock, by the historians, till Richard II. created him Earl of Buckingham, and afterwards Duke of Gloster."

HE sees"-All the old copies have "they see;" retained by Collier and others. I take the they to be a typographical error for “He," (with the capital)—a reverential expression, which a Scotchman will understand, with other old English, better than his southern neighbours.

"God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,

His deputy anointed in his sight," etc. "Without the hollow extravagance of Beaumont and Fletcher's ultra-royalism, how carefully does Shakespeare acknowledge and reverence the eternal distinction between the mere individual, and the symbolic or representative, on which all genial law, no less than patriotism, depends. The whole of this second scene commences, and is anticipative of, the tone and character of the play at large."-COLEridge.

"COMPLAIN myself"-The verb is here the same as the French verb, se plaindre.

"A CAITIFF recreant”- The original meaning of this word was a prisoner. Wickliffe has, he stighynge an high ledde caityfte caityf,' (captivity captive.) As the captive anciently became a slave, the word gradually came to indicate a man in a servile condition-a mean creature-a dishonest person. The history of language is often the history of opinion; and it is not surprising that, in the days of misused power, to be weak, and to be guilty, were synonymous. The French chétif had anciently the meaning of captif."-JOHNSON and KNIGHT.

"-unfurnish'd walls"-"The usual manner, (says Percy, in his preface to the Northumberland Honse hold Book,') of hanging the rooms in the old castles, was only to cover the naked stone walls with tapestry, or arras, hung upon tenter-hooks, from which they were easily taken down, upon every removal."

Unpeopled offices"-The offices were those parts of a great house, or castle, in which the vast train of servants lived and carried on their duties. They were not out-buildings, nor subterraneous, but on the groundfloor within the house. The "unpeopled offices," therefore, of the Duchess of Gloster's desolate mansion, would present no sound of life, nor "cheer for welcome

"HEAR there for welcome"—Malone asserted, that in the first edition of this play, in 1599, "hear" stands cheer; and all modern editions have adopted his reading, until Collier showed that the word is "hear" in all the editions, quarto and folio, and that cheer has been substituted in the text, against every authority.

SCENE III.

"Lists set out, and a Throne. Heralds," etc. The narrative of Hollingshed, upon which Shakespeare has founded the third scene of this act, is most picturesque. We see all the gorgeous array of chivalry, as it existed in the age of pageants, called forth, with unusual magnificence, upon an occasion of the gravest import. The old stage of Shakespeare's time could exhibit none of this magnificence. The great company of men apparelled in silk sendall-the splendid coursers of the combatants, with their velvet housings-the king on his throne, surrounded by his peers and his ten thou. sand men in armour-all these were to be wholly im

agined upon the ancient stage. Our Poet, in his chorus to HENRY V., thus addresses his audience :

Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,

And make imaginary puissance:

Think, when you talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth.

To assist our readers in seeing the "imaginary puissance" of the lists of Coventry, we subjoin Hollingshed's description:

"The Duke of Aumerle, that day, being high constable of England, and the Duke of Surry, marshal, placed themselves between them, well armed and appointed; and when they saw their time, they first entered into the lists with a great company of men apparelled in silk sendall, embroidered with silver, both richly and curiously, every man having a tipped staff to keep the field in order. About the hour of prime came to the barriers of the lists, the Duke of Hereford, mounted on a white courser barded with green and blue velvet, embroidered sumptuously with swans and antelopes of goldsmith's work, armed at all points. The constable and marshal came to the barriers, demanding of him what he was; he answered, 'I am Henry of Lancaster Duke of Hereford, which am come hither to do mine endeavour against Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norfolk, as a traitor untrue to God, the king, his realm, and me.' Then, incontinently, he sware upon the holy evangelists, that his quarrel was true and just, and upon that point he required to enter the lists. Then he put by his sword, which before he held naked in his hand, and, putting down his visor, made a cross on his horse, and with spear in hand entered into the lists, and descended from his horse, and set him down in a chair of green velvet, at the one end of the lists, and there reposed himself, abiding the coming of his adversary.

"Soon after him, entered into the field, with great triumph, King Richard, accompanied with all the peers of the realm, and in his company was the Earl of St. Paul, which was come out of France in post to see this challenge performed. The king had there above ten thousand men in armour, least some fray or tumult might rise amongst his nobles, by quarrelling or partaking. When the king was set in his seat, which was richly hanged and adorned, a king-at-arms made open proclamation, prohibiting all men, in the name of the king, and of the high constable and marshal, to enterprise or attempt to approach, or touch any part of the lists upon pain of death, except such as were appointed to order or marshal the field. The proclamation ended, another herald cried: Behold here Henry of Lancaster Duke of Hereford appellant, which is entered into the lists royal to do his devoir against Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norfolk defendant, upon pain to be found false and recreant.'

"The duke of Norfolk hovered on horseback at the entrance of the lists, his horse being barded with crimson velvet, embroidered richly with lions of silver and mulberry trees; and when he had made his oath before the constable and marshal that his quarrel was just and true, he entered the field manfully, saying aloud: 'God aid him that hath the right;' and then he departed from his horse, and sate him down in his chair, which was of crimson velvet, curtained about with white and red damask. The lord marshal viewed their spears, to see that they were of equal length, and delivered the one spear himself to the duke of Hereford, and sent the other unto the duke of Norfolk by a knight. Then the herald proclaimed that the traverses and chairs of the champions should be removed, commanding them on the king's behalf to mount on horseback, and address themselves to the battle and combat.

"The duke of Hereford was quickly horsed, and closed his beaver, and cast his spear into the rest, and when the trumpet sounded, set forward courageously towards his enemy, six or seven paces. The duke of Norfolk was not fully set forward, when the king cast down his warder, and the heralds cried, 'Ho, ho!' Then the king caused their spears to be taken from

them, and commanded them to repair again to their chairs, where they remained two long hours, while the king and his council deliberately consulted what order was best to be had in so weighty a cause."

The sentence of Richard upon Bolingbroke and Norfolk was, in effect, the same as Shakespeare has described it; but the remission of a portion of the term of Bolingbroke's banishment did not take place at the lists of Coventry. Froissart says, that when Bolingbroke's day of departure approached, he came to Eltham, to the king, who thus addressed him:-" As God help me, it right greatly displeaseth me the words that hath been between you and the earl marshal; but the sentence that I have given you is for the best, and for to appease thereby the people, who greatly murmured on this matter; wherefore, cousin, yet to ease you somewhat of your pain. I release my judgment from ten year to six year. Cousin, take this aworth, and ordain you thereafter." The earl answered and said: "Sir, I thank your grace, and when it shall please you, ye shall do me more grace."-KNIGHT.

LORD Marshal"-The office of Lord Marshal was executed, on this occasion, by Thomas Holland, Duke of Surrey, inadvertently introduced as a distinct person from the Marshal, in the present drama. Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, was Earl Marshal of England; but, being himself one of the combatants, the Duke of Surrey officiated as Earl Marshal for the day."-MALONE.

"-duke of Norfolk"-Edwards observes, from Hollingshed, that the Duke of Hereford, appellant, entered the lists first; and this must have been the regular method of the combat; for the natural order of things requires, that the accuser or challenger should be at the place of appointment first.

"MY succeeding issue"-"The first folio, deviating from the three first editions, reads, his succeeding issue'—the succeeding issue of the king. My succeed. ing issue' appears to convey a higher and finer meaning. Mowbray owed to his descendants to defend his loyalty and truth to them, as well as to his God, and to his king. Their fortunes would have been ruined by his attainder; their reputations compromised by his disgrace. The sentiment, in its noblest form, is in Burke's most pathetic argument, that he owed to the memory of the son he had lost the duty of vindicating himself from unjust accusation."-(Letter to the Duke of Bedford.)— KNIGHT.

"-steel my lance's point,

That it may enter Mowbray's WAXEN coat," etc. That is, May his coat of mail be as wax to my lance. "Waxen" and waxey, whether from their metaphorical use, or their derivation, (Anglo-Saxon wax, pliable, tender,) are often used, by old writers, in a manner similar to the present use. Thus, Bishop Hall speaks of persons "waxey to persuasion."

"the king hath thrown his WARDER down"-A "warder" (says Stevens) appears to have been a kind of truncheon, carried by the person who presided at these single combats. So, in Daniel's Civil Wars," (1595,) in reference to this transaction:

"thy DEAR exile"-"Dear" is often used, by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, in modes perplexing to the modern reader. We have, just before, the "dear blood" of the kingdom, and, in ROMEO AND JULIET, "in dear employment," both in our present use. But in HAMLET we find, "my dearest foe;" in the "Sonnets," "by fortune's dearest spite,"-with many other instances of a use quite opposite. These contradictions, H. Tooke, and others on his authority, have laboured to resolve into the primitive meaning of the Saxon dere, (to hurt.) Without going back to the Saxon primitive, (whether that be the root or no.) it seems certain that the older English use of the word was applied to cost, (high in price, costly;) probably because things were "dear" in price when there was a dearth of them. It then passed to the secondary se ise of highly valued, much loved. Caldicott, in his edition of "Hamlet," to which all editors owe so much, has shown that dear and dearest, in the language of our Poet and his times, were applied to whatever excited the strongest interest, whether of liking or repugnance. Here it is, "thy exile costing thee so dearly."

"A dearer MERIT"-i. e. A more valued reward. Johnson says, to deserve a merit is a phrase of which he knows not any example. Shakespeare here distinctly means to deserve a reward; for merit is strictly the part or share earned or gained. Prior, who wrote a century after, uses the word in the same sense :

Those laurel-groves, the merits of thy youth, Which thou from Mahomet did'st greatly gain. "to be COMPASSIONATE"-"Compassionate" is apparently here used in the sense of complaining, plaintive; but no other instance of the word, in this sense, has occurred to the commentators. May it not be an error of the press, for "so passionate?" which would give the required meaning to the passage; passionate being frequently used for to express passion, or griefto complain. So in the "Palace of Pleasure," (vol. ii. lib. 5)- Now leave we this amorous hermit to passionate and playne his misfortune."-SINGER.

("Our part therein we banish with yourselves,)" etc. "It is a question debated among the writers of the law of nations, whether a banished man may be still tied in his allegiance to the state which sent him into exile. Tully and Lord Clarendon declare for the affirmative: Hobbes and Puffendorf hold the negative. author, by this line, seems to be of the same opinion."

Our

“Nor NEVER look”—This reduplication of the negative was the language of Shakespeare's time, and is preserved in the quarto editions: the folio (1623) has "Nor ever,"

etc.

"Nor never by advised purpose meet,

To plot, contrive, or complot any ill," etc.

Already the selfish weakness of Richard's character opens. Nothing will such minds so readily embrace, as indirect ways softened down to their quasi-consciences by policy, expedience," etc.-COLERIDGE.

"SO FAR as to mine enemy"-Johnson's interpretation of this passage is: "Norfolk, so far as I have addressed myself to thee as to mine enemy, I now utter my last words with kindness and tenderness; confess thy reasons." The older copies have, so fare, as to mine enemy," which Collier retains, as meaning "80 fare as I wish mine enemy to fare;" which seems not possible to have been the sense intended.

"a PARTY-VERDICT gave"-i. e. You were party to the verdict given.

"A PARTIAL slander sought I to avoid," etc.-i. e. I sought to avoid being slandered for partiality.

"the presence strewed"-i. e. The royal presencechamber strewed with rushes, the humble substitute for carpets, in the halls of kings and nobles, in the good old times before (in Burke's phrase) "a tun of ancient

pomp was distilled into a vial of modern comfort." Hentzner, in his travels in England, in Queen Elizabeth's time, describes the presence-chamber, at Greenwich, thus strewed.

"O! who can hold a fire in his hand,” etc.

Stevens has pointed out a passage with some resemblance to this, in Cicero's "Tusculan Questions." Speaking of Epicurus, he says:-"Sed unâ se dicit recordatione acquiescere præteritarum voluptatum; ut si quis æstuans, cum vim caloris non facile patiatur, recordari velit se aliquando in Arpinati nostro gelidis fluminibus circumfusum fuisse. Non enim video, quomodo sedare possint mala præsentia præteritæ voluptates.” The Tusculan Questions" of Cicero had been translated early enough for Shakespeare to have seen them. Another passage in "Euphues," a book very popular in the Poet's day, has been referred to, by Malone, as having the germ of these lines:-"He that is washed in the rain drieth himself by the fire, not by his fancy," etc.

If the commentators mean that the Poet had read these passages, and that they mixed themselves with his own thoughts, and thus indirectly suggested these lines, they may or may not be right. If they mean that the Poet had either passage in his mind or memory distinctly, with the purpose of working it up into his poetry, they are very absurd.

"-a true-born Englishman"-"Here the first act ought to end, that between the first and second acts there may be time for John of Gaunt to accompany his son, return, and fall sick. Then the first scene of the second act begins with a natural conversation, interrupted by a message from John of Gaunt, by which the King is called to visit him, which visit is paid in the following scene. As the play is now divided, more time passes between the two last scenes of the first act than between the first act and the second."-JOHNSON.

It is probable that this was indeed the author's de sign, as there is no division into acts in either of the editions published during his life. But the slight advantages of so reforming the arrangement are hardly compensated for by the disadvantages of deviating from the folio, and all other later editions.

SCENE IV.

"We did observe"-These words are addressed by the king to Bagot and Green, and are the continuation of their conversation before their entrance, which, as another speech of the king, in this scene, shows, was on their observation of Hereford's "courtship to the common people."

"the tribute of his supple knee"-To illustrate this phrase, it should be remembered that courtesying (the act of reverence now confined to women) was anciently practised by men.

"EXPEDIENT MANAGE must be made"-i. e. Expedi tious conduct, or arrangements. (See KING JOHN, note on act ii. scene 1.)

"This is a striking conclusion of a first act,-letting the reader into the secret;-having before impressed us with the dignified and kingly manners of Richard, yet by well-managed anticipations leading us on to the full gratification of pleasure in our own penetration. In this scene a new light is thrown on Richard's character. Until now he has appeared in all the beauty of royalty; but here, as soon as he is left to himself, the inherent weakness of his character is immediately shown. It is a weakness, however, of a peculiar kind, not arising from want of personal courage, or any specific defect of faculty, but rather an intellectual feminineness, which feels a necessity of ever leaning on the breast of others, and of reclining on those who are all the while known to be inferiors. To this must be attributed as its consequences all Richard's vices, his tendency to concealment, and his cunning; the whole operation of which is directed to the getting rid of present difficulties.

Richard is not meant to be a debauchee; but we see in him that sophistry which is common to man, by which we can deceive our own hearts, and at one and the same time apologize for, and yet commit, the error. Shakespeare has represented this character in a very peculiar manner. He has not made him amiable with counterbalancing faults; but has openly and broadly drawn those faults without reserve, relying on Richard's disproportionate sufferings and gradually emergent good qualities for our sympathy; and this was possible, because his faults are not positive vices, but spring entirely from defect of character."-COLERIDGE.

ACT II.-SCENE I.

"The setting sun and music at the close,

(As the last taste of sweets is sweetest,) last," etc. The ordinary reading of this passage is as follows:The setting sun, and music at the close,

As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last; Writ in remembrance more than things long past. We follow Knight, the only preceding editor who has adopted the change in the punctuation, which was suggested by Monck Mason; by which slight alteration the word "last," at the end of the second line, is read as a verb, of which the "sun" and "music" form the nominative case.

"Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard." That is, "Where the will rebels against the notices of the understanding."-JOHNSON.

"whose way himself will choose”—i. e. "Do not attempt to guide him who, whatever thou shalt say, will take his own course."-JOHNSON.

"Against INFECTION, and the hand of war," etc. This passage, in itself apparently clear, as meaning that islanders were secured by their situation both from pestilence and war, has yet long been a text for controversial commentary, since Johnson suggested that "infection" might be read invasion. As it happens that, in Alyot's "Parnassus," (1600,) this passage is quoted and misprinted against intestion," Farmer and Malone supposed that the word was infestion, an abbreviation (for which there is no authority) for infestation-a troubling, or molesting. This, however, adds nothing to the sense; and as all the old editions have "infection," there seems no sound reason for changing it. Knight, however, thus maintains the propriety of a change:-" Infection, in Shakespeare's time, was used as now, to express the taint of some pernicious quality; and was particularly applied to that frightful disease, the plague, to whose ravages London was annually subject. For Shakespeare, therefore, to call England— This fortress, built by nature for herself, Against infection

would sound very unreasonable to an audience who were constantly witnesses of the ravages of infection. The silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall

was then unavailing to keep out the pestilence whicn walketh in darkness.' On the other hand, England had been long free from foreign invasion. Infestion is taken, by Malone, to be an abbreviation of infestation, in the same way that in Bishop Hall, acception is used for acceptation. Infestation appears to have designated those violent incursions of an enemy-those annoying, joy: depriving (in-festus) ravages to which an unprotected frontier is peculiarly exposed; and from which the sea, as a moat defensive to a house,' shut out this scepter'd isle.' After all, it is probable, as Jackson has suggested, that the word should be insection, the printer having substituted an ƒ for an s. But, in this case, insection would not be, as Jackson thinks, a cutting, a division; but an abbreviation of insectation-assault, attack."

"PELTING farm"-"Whatever doubts there may be as to the origin of this word, its application is clear. It invariably means something petty of little worth.

The pelting farm' in this passage, and the 'poor pelting villages' of LEAR, would leave no doubt as to its use, even if we had not a 'pelting little town,' and a 'pelting village of barbarous people,' in North's Plutarch.' The epithet was not confined to inanimate things. In MEASURE FOR MEASURE, we have the famous passage— Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer,

Would use his heaven for thunder.

Gabriel Harvey, it seems, wrote the word paulting; and as palt is the Teutonic word for scrap, (a rag,) some say that paulting, pelting, and paltry, are the same. Pelt, as is well known, is a skin. The fur trade is still called the peltry trade. But skins, (peltries,) in former times, might have been considered comparatively worthless. A dead fowl thrown to a hawk was, according to Grose, a pelt. Thus, pelling may have been derived directly from pelt, although it may have had some original affinity with paltry."-KNIGHT.

"Can sick men play so nicely with their names?`

"Yes! on a death-bed there is a feeling which may make all things appear but as puns and equivocations. And a passion there is that carries off its own excess by plays on words as naturally, and, therefore, as appropriately to drama, as by gesticulations, looks, or tones. This belongs to human nature as such, independently of associations and habits from any particular rank of life or mode of employment; and in this consist Shakespeare's vulgarisms, as in Macbeth's

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon! etc. This is (to equivocate on Dante's words) in truth the nobile volgare eloquenza. Indeed it is profoundly true that there is a natural, an almost irresistible, tendency in the mind, when immersed in one strong feeling, to connect that feeling with every sight and object around it; especially if there be opposition, and the words addressed to it are in any way repugnant to the feeling itself, as here in the instance of Richard's unkind language:

- misery makes sport to mock itself.

"No doubt, something of Shakespeare's punning must be attributed to his age, in which direct and formal combats of wit were a favourite pastime of the courtly and accomplished. It was an age more favourable, upon the whole, to vigour of intellect than the present, in which a dread of being thought pedantic dispirits and flattens the energies of original minds. But, independently of this, I have no hesitation in saying that a pun, if it be congruous with the feeling of the scene, is not only allowable in the dramatic dialogue, but oftentimes one of the most effectual intensives of passion."-COLE

RIDGE.

"Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd, Which art possess'd now to depose thyself." He plays on the varied sense of the verb possess— taken first as "possessed of the crown," and then again in the sense of demoniac possessions, or lunacy.

"Thy state of law is bondslave to the law," etc. "The reasoning of Gaunt is this: By setting the roy alties to farm, thou hast reduced thyself to a state below sovereignty; thou art now no longer king, but landlord of England, subject to the same restraint and limitations as other landlords. By making thy condition a state of law, a condition upon which the common rules of law can operate, thou art become a bondslave to the law; thou hast made thyself amenable to laws from which thou wert originally exempt."-JOHNSON.

"And thou a lunatic lean-witted fool," etc. So the folio. The quartos read thus:

"-like crooked AGE"-Stevens maintains that "age" here means Time; and that "crooked age" is not bending age, but Time armed with a crook, by which name

a sickle was anciently called. The natural meaning of the passage seems to be, "like bent old age, which crops the flower of life."

46

'Right, you say true; as Hereford's love, so his :
As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is."

The depth of this compared with the first scene-
How high a pitch, etc.

There is scarcely any thing in SHAKESPEARE, in its degree, more admirably drawn than York's character;his religious loyalty struggling with a deep grief and indignation at the king's follies; his adherence to his word and faith, once given in spite of all, even the most natural, feelings. You see in him the weakness of old age, and the overwhelmingness of circumstances, for a time surmounting his sense of duty,-the junction of both exhibited in his boldness in words and feebleness in immediate act; and then again his effort to retrieve himself in abstract loyalty, even at the heavy price of the loss of his son. This species of accidental and adventitious weakness is brought into parallel with Richard's continually increasing energy of thought, and as constantly diminishing power of acting;—and thus it is Richard that breathes a harmony and a relation into all the characters of the play."-COLERIDGE.

"-rough rug-headed KERNS"-Kernes were Irish peasantry, serving as light-armed foot soldiers. Shakespeare makes York say, in the second part of KING HENRY V., that Cade, when in Ireland, used to disguise himself as a shag-haired crafty kerne. "The kerne is an ordinary foot soldier, according to Stanyhurst; kerne (kigheyren) signifieth a shower of hell, because they are taken for no better than rake hells, or the devil's blackgarde."-(Description of Ireland, chap. viii. fol. 28.) "Which live like venom, where no venom else," etc. The tradition that St. Patrick expelled all venomous reptiles from Ireland was very familiar in that age, and is often alluded to in contemporary poets and dramatists.

"Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage," etc.

"When the duke of Hereford, after his banishment, went into France, he was honourably entertained at that court, and would have obtained in marriage the only daughter of the duke of Berry, uncle to the French king, had not Richard prevented the match."-STEVENS.

By his attornies-general to sue

His LIVERY, and deny his offer'd homage," etc. The " attornies-general" do not mean the officers of the crown, but Bolingbroke's own attorneys in fact, appointed by him to represent him generally, on all matters, during his absence, according to the authority given by letters-patent to Bolingbroke. "On the death of every person, (says Malone,) who held by Knight's service, the escheator of the court in which he died summoned a jury, who inquired what estate he died seized of, and of what age his next heir was. If he was under age, he became a ward of the king; but if he was found to be of full age, he then had a right to sue out a writ of ouster le main, (i. e. his 'livery,') that the king's hand might be taken off, and the land delivered to him." To" deny his offered homage" was to refuse that homage which would recognise his title to his lands and dignities.

we STRIKE not"-To "strike" sail is to lower sail. "Reginald lord Cobham"-There is either an omission of another name after this, in all the old copies, or else the author has accidentally confounded this Lord Cobham with the heir of Lord Arundel, to whom the next line applies. Malone, therefore, inserted a lineThe son of Richard, earl of Arundel

which he thus supplied, on the authority of Hollingshed:-" About the same time the earle of Arundel's sonne, named Thomas, which was kept in the duke of Exeter's house, escaped out of the realme, by means of one William Scot," etc. "Duke Henry, chiefly through the earnest persuasion of Thomas Arundell, late arch

bishop of Canterburie, (who, as you have before heard, had been removed from his see, and banished the realme by King Richard's means,) got him down to Britaine; and when all his provision was made ready, he tooke the sea, together with the said archbishoppe of Canterburie, and his nephew Thomas Arundelle, son and heyre to the late earle of Arundelle, beheaded on Tower-hill. There were also with him Regenalde Lord Cobham, Sir Thomas Erpingham," etc.

"IMP out our drooping country's broken wing," etc.

"When (says Stevens) the wing-feathers of a hawk were dropped, or forced out by any accident, it was usual to supply as many as were deficient. This operation was called to "imp" a hawk. Tuberville has a whole chapter on "The Way and Manner howe to ympe a Hawke's Feather, how-soever it be broken or bruised."

SCENE II.

"-LIFE-harming heaviness"—The reader may choose between the reading of the two earliest editions, and that of the folio, "self-harming;" both of them poetical and Shakespearian epithets.

"—yet I know no cause

Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,
Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest
As my sweet Richard," etc.

"It is clear that Shakespeare never meant to represent Richard as a vulgar debauchee, but a man with a wantonness of spirit in external show-a feminine friendism-an intensity of woman-like love of those immediately about him, and a mistaking of the delight of being loved by him for a love of him. And mark in this scene Shakespeare's gentleness in touching the tender superstitions, the terræ incognita of presentiments, in the human mind; and how sharp a line of distinction he commonly draws between these obscure forecastings of general experience in each individual, and the vulgar errors of mere tradition. Indeed, it may be taken once for all as the truth, that Shakespeare, in the absolute universality of his genius, always reverences whatever arises out of our moral nature; he never profanes his muse with a contemptuous reasoning away of the genuine and general, however unaccountable, feelings of mankind.

As a long parted mother with her child
Plays fondly with her tears and smiles, in meeting
So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,
And do thee favour with my royal hands.

With this is combined a constant overflow of emotions from a total incapability of controlling them, and thence a waste of that energy, which should have been reserved for actions, in the passion and effort of mere resolves and menaces. The consequence is moral exhaustion. and rapid alternations of unmanly despair and ungrounded hope,-every feeling being abandoned for its direct opposite upon the pressure of external accident. And yet, when Richard's inward weakness appears to seek refuge in his despair, and his exhaustion counterfeits repose, the old habit of kingliness, the effect of flatterers from his infancy, is ever and anon producing in him a sort of wordy courage which only serves to betray more clearly his internal impotence."-COLERIDGE.