These lines want correction: perhaps one word is wanting and another superfluous: "Tis nothing but some bond he's enter'd into "For gay and fit apparel, 'gainst the triumph." A modern editor has supplied day after triumph. Boy, let me see the writing." Aum. "I do beseech you, pardon me; I may not shew it." Duch. "What is the matter, my lord?" It is not easy to repair the disorder that prevails here in the metre: some words, I suppose, have been lost, perhaps like these, supplied:" "To pardon me, my lord: I may not shew it." &c. Duch. "What is the matter?" Duch. " What is't, my lord ?" York. "Peace, foolish woman; peace." -I will not peace; "What is the matter, son? I pray thee tell me?" 149. "Give me my boots, I say." The latter words in this hemistic, "I say," should be omitted: "Peace, peace, I say, thou fond mad woman, peace." SCENE III. 151. "Takes on the point of honour." Assumes the point of honour. "So dissolute a crew." Perhaps we should regulate these lines thus: "So dissolute a crew." Perc. " Bul. Some two days since, My lord, I saw the prince, and told him "These triumphs held at Oxford." 156. "For ever will I kneel upon my knees." And again: "Our knees shall kneel." To kneel, then, appears, in these places, only to signify "to bend." 158. "Twice saying pardon, doth not pardon twain, "But makes one pardon strong." I do not know whether the queen means to say, that the repetition of the king's pardon is not to 4 be extended to any other of the conspirators, or only that it will not divide or weaken the force of that which was already pronounced. 159. "He did." SCENE IV. This fragment might be accommodated in the next line: "He did, and speaking't wistly, look'd on me.' 160. "I am the king's friend, and will rid his foes." "Rid," here, seems to stand for speed, dispatch. My brain I'll prove the female to my soul; My soul, the father" This is agreeable to the anatomical doctrine of animal procreation; which supposes the matter and substance to proceed from the female; the impulse, activity, and designation, from the male. Vide Mr. J. Hunter. 161. SCENE V. -Refuge their shame, "That many have." Take cover for their shame, in the consideration that many have, &c. 162. "I wasted time, and now doth time waste me." Again the old epitaph on a musician occurs: "Steeven and time are now bothe even, "Steeven beat time, now time beats Steeven." 165. With much ado, at length have gotten leave "To look upon my sometimes master's face." We might relieve this last line from its excess: "With much ado at length got leave to look Upon my sometime royal master's face." 166. "Would he not stumble," &c. This reminds us of Mezentius's Address to his Horse Phoebus: Aperit si nulla viam vis "Occumbes pariter: neque enim, fortissime, credo "Jussa aliena pati et dominos dignabere Teu cros." En. lib. 10, 864. LORD CHEDWORTH. FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV. 179. ACT I. SCENE I. "No more the thirsty Erinnys of this soil "Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood." Those who are not too much frightened by this monstrous personage, which Mr. M. Mason has conjured up from the infernal shades, to usurp a station in the text here, and whose terrible right Mr. Steevens has commanded us to acknowledge, will very readily, I believe, be satisfied with the plain sense of the common reading: "No more the thirsty entrance of this soil," &c. i. e. "No more the gaping fissures--the lips of this parched or thirsty soil shall be bedaubed with native blood." The personification, indeed, is a little harsh, but the very same thought is to be found in our poet's nineteenth sonnet: "Deuouring time, blunt thou the lyon's pawes, "And make the earth deuoure her own sweet brood." "No more the thirsty Erinnys of this soil "Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood." |