: [The son of Richard Earl of Arundel, ] That late broke from the duke of Exeter, 4 [The Son of Richard earl of Arundel, ] That late broke from the duke of Exeter,] I suspect that some of these lines are transposed, as well as that the poet has made a blunder in his enumeration of persons. No copy that I have seen, will authorize me to make an alteration, though according to Holinshed, whom Shakspeare followed in great measure, more than one is neceffary. " All the perfons enumerated in Holinshed's account of those who embark'd with Bolingbroke, are here mentioned with great exactness, except "Thomas Arundell, sonne and haire to the late earle of Arundell, beheaded at the Tower-hill. See Holinshed. And yet this nobleman, who appears to have been thus omitted by the poet, is the perfon to whom alone that circumftance relates of having broke from the duke of Exeter, and to whom alone, of all mentioned in the lift, the archbishop was related, he being uncle to the young lord, though Shakspeare by mistake calls him his brother. See Holinshed, p. 496. From these circumstances here taken notice of, which are applicable only to this lord in particular, and from the improbability that Shakspeare would omit so principal a personage in his historian's lift, I think it can scarce be doubted but that a line is lost in which the name of this Thomas Arundel had originally a place. Mr. Ritson, with fome probability, supposes Shakspeare could not have neglected so fair an opportunity of availing himself of a rough ready-made verse which offers itself in Holinthed: [The Son and heir to the late earl of Arundel, STEEVENS. For the infertion of the line included within crotchets, I am answerable; it not being found in the old copies. The paffages in Holinshed relative to this matter run thus: "Aboute the same time the Earl of Arundell's sonne, named Thomas, which was kept in the Duke of Exeter's house, escaped out of the realme, by meanes of one William Scot," &c. " Duke Henry, - chiefly through the earnest perfuafion of Thomas Arundell, late Archbishoppe of Canterburie, (who, as before you have heard, had been removed from his fea, and banished the realme by King Richardes means,) got him downe to Britaine: and when all his provision was made ready, he tooke the fea, together with the faid Archbishop of Canterburie, and his nephew Thomas Arundell, sonne and heyre to the late Earle of Arundell, beheaded on Tower hill. There were also with him Reginalde Lord Cobham, Sir Thomas Erpingham, &c. " 1 His brother, archbishop late of Canterbury, 5 Sir John Norbery, fir Robert Waterton, and Francis Quoint, All these, well furnish'd by the duke of Bretagne, 6 There cannot, therefore, I think, be the smallest doubt, that a line was omitted in the copy of 1597, by the negligence of the transcriber or compositor, in which not only Thomas Arundel, but his father, was mentioned; for his in a subsequent line (His brother) must refer to the old Earl of Arundel. Rather than leave a lacuna, I have inserted such words as render the passage intelligible. In A& V. fc. ii. of the play before us, a line of a rhyming couplet was paffed over by the printer of the first folio: " Ill may'st thou thrive, if thou grant any grace." It has been recovered from the quarto. So also, in K. Henry VI. Part II. the first of the following lines was omitted, 25 is proved by the old play on which that piece is founded, and (as in the present instance) by the line which followed the omitted line: [Suf. Jove sometimes went disguis'd, and why not I?] Cap. But Jove was never flain, as thou shalt be. " In Coriolanus, A& II. sc. ult. a line was in like manner omitted, and it has very properly been supplied. The christian name of Sir Thomas Ramfton is changed to John, and the two following persons are improperly described as knights in all the copies. These perhaps were likewise mistakes of the press, but are scarcely worth corre&ing. MALONE. 5 archbishop late of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, brother to the Earl of Arundel who was beheaded in this reign, had been banished by the parliament, and was afterwards deprived by the Pope of his fee, at the request of the King; whence he is here called, late of Canterbury. STEEVENS. * Imp out] As this expression frequently occurs in our author, T Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown, Ross. To horse, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear. WILLO. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there. ( [Exeunt. it may not be amiss to explain the original meaning of it. When 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. So, in The Devil's Charter, 1607: "His plumes only imp the muse's wings. " Again, in Albumazar, 1615: " Time's haste, he seems to lose a match with lobsters; " And when we wish him ftay, he imps his wings "With feathers plum'd with thought. 10 Turbervile has a whole chapter on The Way and Manner howe to ympe a Hawke's Feather, how-foever it be broken or broofed. STEEVENS. gilt,] i. e. gilding, superficial display of gold. So, in 7 Timon of Athens: "When thou wast in thy gilt and thy perfume, " &c. STEEVENS. BUSHY. Madam, your majesty is too much sad: QUEEN, To please the king, I did; to please my- I cannot do it; yet I know no cause 7 life - harming heaviness,] Thus the quarto, 1597. The quartos 1608, and 1615 - halfe-harming; the folio - felf - harming. STEEVENS. • With nothing trembles: at something it grieves, The following line requires that this should be read just the contrary way: With fomething trembles, yet at nothing grieves. All the old editions read: my inward foul With nothing trembles; at something it grieves. WARBURTON. The reading, which Dr. Warburton correas, is itself an innovation. His conjectures give indeed a better sense than that of any copy, but copies must not be needlessly forsaken. JOHNSON. I suppose it is the unborn forrow which she calls nothing, because it is not yet brought into existence. STEEVENS. Warburton does not appear to have understood this passage, nor Johnson neither. Through the whole of this scene, till the arrival 1 BUSHY. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows, Which show like grief itself, but are not fo: 1 of Green, the Queen is defcribing to Bushy, a certain unaccount. able despondency of mind, and a foreboding apprehenfion which she felt of fome unforeseen calamity. She says, "that her inward foul trembles without any apparent cause, and grieves at something more than the King's departure, though she knows not what. He endeavours to perfuade her that it is merely the confequence of her forrow for the King's abfence. She says it may be so, but her foul tells her otherwise. He then tells her it is only conceit; but she is not fatisfied with that way of accounting for it, as she says that conceit is still derived from fome fore-father grief, but what she feels was begot by nothing; that is, had no preceding caufe. Conceit is here used in the same sense that it is in Hamlet, when the King says that Ophelia's madness was occafioned by upon her father. M. MASON. 9 Like pérspectives, which, rightly gaz'd upon, Show nothing but confusion; ey'd awry, "conceit Distinguish form:) This is a fine fimilitude, and the thing meant is this. Amongst mathematical recreations, there is one in optics, in which a figure is drawn, wherein all the rules of perspective are inverted: fo that, if held in the same position with those piaures which are drawn according to the rules of perspective, it can present nothing but confufion: and to be seen in form, and under a regular appearance, it must be looked upon from a contrary flation; or, as Shakspeare says, ey'd awry. WARBURTON. Dr. Plot's History of Staffordshire, p. 391, explains this perspective, or odd kind of " pictures upon an indented board, which, if beheld direaly, you only perceive a confused piece of work; but, if obliquely, you see the intended perfon's picture;" which he, was told, was made thus: " The board being indented, ( or furrowed with a plough-plane, the print or painting was cut into parallel pieces equal to the depth and number of the indentures on the board, and they were pafted on the flats that strike the eye holding it obliquely, so that the edges of the parallel pieces of the print or painting exactly joining on the edges of the indentures, the work was done. " TOLLET. |