MoWB. I think, it is my lord of Westmoreland. WEST. Health and fair greeting from our general, The prince, lord John and duke of Lancaster. ARCH. Say on, my lord of Westmoreland, in Then, my lord, Unto your grace do I in chief address 6 1 "Dares more, than fury well-appointed." STEEVENS. 5 Led on by bloody youth,] I believe Shakspeare wrote heady youth. WARBURTON, Bloody youth is only fanguine youth, or youth full of blood, and of those passions which blood is supposed to incite or nourish. JOHNSON. So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "Luft is but a bloody fire." 6 MALONE. guarded with rage, Guarded is an expreffion taken from dress; it means the fame as faced, turned up. Mr. Pope, who has been followed by succeeding editors, reads goaded. Goaded is the reading both of quarto and folio. Shakspeare uses the same expreffion in the former part of this play: " Velvet guards and Sunday citizens," &c. Again, in The Merchant of Venice: "More guarded than his fellows." STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens is certainly right. We have the fame allusion in a former part of this play: "To face the garment of rebellion " With some fine colour, that may please the eye "Of fickle changelings," &c. So again, in the speech before us: to dress the ugly form "Of base and bloody insurrection-," MALONE. I fay, if damn'd commotion so appear'd,' 8 With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop, - 2 1 Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood, 7 --fo appear'd,) Old copies-fo appear. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 8 a Whose fee is by civil peace maintain'd; } Civil is grave, decent, folemn. So, in Romeo and Juliet : Come civil night, 66 "Thou fober-fuited matron, all in black." STEEVENS. • Whose white investments figure innocence, ) Formerly, (fays Dr. Hody, History of Convocations, p. 141,) all bishops wore white even when they travelled. GREY. By comparing this passage with another in p. 91, of Dr. Grey's notes, we learn that the white investment meant the epifcopal ro. chet; and this should be worn by the theatrick archbishop. 2 TOLLET, graves, For graves Dr. Warburton very plausibly reads glaives, and is followed by Sir Thomas Hanmer. JOHNSON. We might perhaps as plausibly read greaves, i. e. armour for the legs, a kind of boots. In one of The Discourses on the Art Military, written by Sir John Smythe, Knight, 1586, greaves are mentioned as necessary to be worn; and Ben Jonson employs the fame word in his Hymenai : upon their legs they wore silver greaves." Again, in The Four Prentices of London, 1615: " Arm'd with their greaves and maces Again, in the second Canto of The Barons Wars, by Drayton: "Marching in greaves, a helmet on her head." 1 Your pens to lances; and your tongue divine ARCH. Wherefore do I this? _ so the question flands. Briefly to this end: - We are all diseas'd; Warner, in his Albions England, 1602, B. XII. ch. 1xix. fpells the word as it is found in the old copies of Shakspeare: "The taithes, cushes, and the graves, ftaff, penfell, baifes, all." I know not whether it be worth adding, that the ideal metamorphofis of leathern covers of looks into greaves, i. e. boots, feems to be more appofite than the converfion of them into instruments of war. Mr. M. Mafon, however, adduces a quotation (from the next scene) which feems to support Dr. Warburton's conjecture: Turning the word to fword, and life to death." STEEVENS. The emendation, or rather interpretation, proposed by Mr. Steevens, appears to me extremely probable; yet a following line in which the Archbishop's again addressed, may be urged in favour of glaives, i. e. fwords: Chearing a rout of rebels with your drum, The latter part of the second of these lines, however, may be adduced in fupport of graves in its ordinary sense. Mr. Steevens observes, that " the metamorphosis of the leathern covers of books into greaves, i. e. boots, seems to be more appofite than the converfiou of them into fuch inftruments of war as glaives;" but furely Shakspeare did not mean, if he wrote either greaves or glaives, that they actually made boots or fwords of their books; any more than that they made lances of their pens. The passage already quoted, "turning the word to sword," fufficiently proves that he had no such meaning. MALONE. I am afraid that the expression " turning the word to sword," will be found but a feeble support for "glaives, if it be confidered as a mere jeu de mots. DOUCE. Nor do I, as an enemy to peace, fuffer, 3 And find our griefs heavier than our offences. When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs, 2 our griefs-] i. e. our grievances. See Vol. XII. p. 378, n. 5. MALONE. 3 And are enforc'd from our most quiet sphere -] tions: In former edi And are enfordd from our most quiet there. This is faid in answer to Westmoreland's upbraiding the Archbishop for engaging in a course which so ill became his profeffion: you, my lord archbishop, "Whose fee is by a civil peace maintain'd; " &c. So that the reply must be this: And are enforced from our most quiet sphere. WARBURTON. The alteration of Dr. Warburton destroys the sense of the paffage. There refers to the new channel which the rapidity of the flood from the stream of time would force itself into. HENLEY. 4 We are denied access - The Archbishop says in Holinshed: "Where he and his companie were in armes, it was for feare of the king, to whom he could have no free acceffe, by reafon of fuch a multitude of flatterers, as were about him." STEEVENS. ( Even by those men that most have done us wrong. WEST. When ever yet was your appeal deny'd? Wherein have you been galled by the king? What peer hath been fuborn'd to grate on you? That you should feal this lawless bloody book Of forg'd rebellion with a feal divine, And confecrate commotion's bitter edge?" 5 Of every minute's instance, ) The examples of an instance does not convey, to me at least, a very clear idea. The frequent corruptions that occur in the old copies in words of this kind, make me suspect that our author wrote, Of every minute's instants, | i. e. the examples furnished not only every minute, but during the most minute division of a minute. Instance, however, is elsewhere used by Shakspeare for example; and he has fimilar pleonasms in other places. MALONE. Examples of every minute's instance are, I believe, examples which every minute supplies, which every minute presses on our notice. STEEVENS. 6 Not to break peace, ] " He took nothing in hand against the king's peace, but that whatsoever he did, tended rather to advance the peace and quiet of the commonwealth." Archbishop's speech in Holinshed. STEEVENS. 7 And confecrate commotion's bitter edge? It was an old custom, continued from the time of the firft croifades, for the Pope to confecrate the general's fword, which was employed in the service of the church. To this custom the line in question alludes. WARBURTON. commotion's bitter edge?] i. e. the edge of bitter ftrife and commotion; the sword of rebellion. So, in a fubfequent scene : "That the united vessel of their blood," inftead of the veffel of their united blood." MALONE. |