The words make haste should be omitted, or else the reading of the quarto restored: "Come sons away, and look unto the main." SCENE II. 198. "We'll both together lift our heads to heaven; "And never more abase our sight so low, "As to vouchsafe one glance unto the ground." This thought is introduced in Julius Cæsar: -Young Ambition's ladder, "To which the climber upward turns his face; "But when he once attains the utmost round, "He then unto the ladder turns his back, "Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend." 200. "Whereas". for "where." In the third act we find " for "whereas." "where" Here's none but thee, and I." "Thee" should be silently corrected in the text to "thou." SCENE III. 206. I would, the college of cardinals." A syllable is wanting to the metre, We might read: 207. I "I would, the college, now, of cardinals.' suppose this is a typographical error, her (in the second instance) for our. 219. SCENE IV. That I had said and done !" i. e. O that I had said and done. It is optative. 220. "False fiend, avoid!" · Make a void, by removing yourself; or, as Oliver says to Orlando, "be nought." The word, in this neutral use, occurs in other places, as in Cymbeline : "Thou basest thing, avoid," 224. ACT II. SCENE I. - Fain of climbing high.' There appears to be little need of explanation in this passage, and still less for supposing, as Mr. Steevens does, that fain has a meaning different from the obvious and common one, eagerly desirous. 227." Thy two-hand sword." The old English warriors used a large twohanded sword, not much unlike the present pinking iron. B. STRUTT. Milton mentions a sword with "Fell two-handed sway." 229. "Come to the king, and tell him what miracle." It is not easy to decide who is the more censurable, the early transcriber, or the modern editor, for admitting into the text so clumsy, discordant, and useless a hypermeter as the word him makes here. 234. "You made, in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly." The gross violations of metre so often occurring in this play, and those other two which immediately precede and follow it, are less to be wondered at, than that the modern editors, so tenacious as they often seem to be of minute accuracy, should suffer such barbarism to continue. The present line might be read thus: "You in a day, my lord, made whole towns fly." Justice' equal scales, 237. "Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails." This appears to me one among very few instances in which Dr. Johnson's good sense and ingenuity descends to petty and absurd emendation. He would have the verbs to stand and to prevail in the optative mood: "Whose beam stand sure! whose rightful cause prevail !" But there can be no doubt the sense of the expression is consequence, deduction; the equal scales of Justice, whose beam is firm, and whose cause is sure ultimately to prevail. Justice' equal scales, "Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails." Whose rule of equity is stedfast, and who is sure to maintain it. There seems to be no need of Dr. Johnson's emendation. LORD CHED WORTH. SCENE IV. 253. "Mail'd up in shame." Covered, cased-up in disgrace, as with armour. 255. "Entreat her not the worse.". Treat her, use her not the worse, &c. 263. " ACT III. SCENE I. These faults are easy. i. e. Tolerable to be endured quietly. It is strange that Mr. Steevens should dissent here from Dr. Johnson's explanation of easy, and think, with Mr. Ritson, that it is put adverbially we find the word used just in the present sense in Henry IV. Second Part, Act 5—was this easy? 267. "Free lords." Free is merely at liberty, unrestrained; as in Macbeth, Act 1: "Let us speak our free hearts each to other." 271. "It skills not greatly who impugns our doom." Perhaps it requires not skill to determine who are to be our opposers, since what we resolve upon cannot be counteracted. This is all I can do towards reconciling the expression. The sense intended seems merely-it matters not-it is of no moment. The phrase itself was common. 275. " Tedious snares." "Tedious" seems to mean vexatious, cumbrous." "John Cade of Ashford." embarrassing, Something has been lost here. Perhaps, "with a headlong crew." SCENE II. 289. "Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost." A timely-parted ghost is put to express a body from which the ghost or spirit had recently parted. I would read, with Dr. Johnson, corse. 297. "Would curses kill.". Jaffier makes the same reflection in Venice Preserved: 306. "Died he not in his bed? where should he die? "Can I make men live ?" &c. |