Where ever Englishman durst set his foot. Disclaiming here the kindred of the king 2; Or chivalrous design of knightly trial: And, when I mount, alive may I not light*, K. RICH. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge? It must be great, that can inherit us * * Quarto 1608,-And when I mount alive, alive may I not light. So also, Braithwaite, in his Survey of Histories, 1614: "Others, in imitation of some valiant knights, have frequented desarts and inhabited provinces." MALONE. 2 - the king ;] So the first quarto. The second quarto reads a king, and was followed by all subsequent editors. MALONE. 3 What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.] So the quarto 1597. Quarto 1598, "What I have spoke, or thou canst devise." Quarto 1608, "What I have spoke, or what thou canst devise." Folio, "What I have spoken, or thou canst devise." BOSWELL. 4 that can INHERIT us, &c.] To inherit is no more than to possess, though such a use of the word may be peculiar to Shakspeare. Again, in Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Sc. II.: 66 66 such delight Among fresh female buds shall you this night "Inherit at my house." STEEVENS. BOLING. Look, what I speak my life shall prove it true; That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles, Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring. Upon his bad life, to make all this good,- K. RICH. How high a pitch his resolution soars!— for LEWD employments,] Lewd here signifies wicked. It is so used in many of our old statutes. MALONE. Thus, in King Richard III. : "But you must trouble him with lewd complaints." STEEVENS. the duke of Gloster's death;] Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward III.; who was murdered at Calais, in 1397. MALONE. See Froissart's Chronicle, vol. ii. cap. CC. xxvi. STEEVENS. 6 SUGGEST his soon-believing adversaries;] i. e. prompt, set them on by injurious hints. Thus, in The Tempest: "They'll take suggestion, as a cat laps milk." STEEVENS. Till I have told this slander of his blood". How God, and good men, hate so foul a liar. K. RICH. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes, and ears: Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir, NOR. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart, For that my sovereign liege was in my debt, Since last I went to France to fetch his queen": 7 - this slander of his blood,] i. e. this reproach to his ancestry. STEEVENS. To the king's ancestry, as Richard's answer shows. MALONE. my scepter's awe-] The reverence due to my scepter. 8 JOHNSON. 9 Since last I went to France to fetch his queen :] The Duke of Norfolk was joined in commission with Edward Earl of Rutland (the Aumerle of this play) to go to France in the year 1395, in the king's name, to demand in marriage (Isabel, the queen of our present drama) the eldest daughter of Charles the Sixth, then between seven and eight years of age. The contract of marriage was confirmed by the French King in March, 1396; and on November, 1396, Richard was married to his young consort in the chapel of St. Nicholas, in Calais, by, Archbishop of Canterbury. His first wife, Anne, daughter to the Emperor of Germany, Charles the Fourth, whom he had married in 1382, died at Shene, on Whitsunday, 1394. His marriage with Isabella, as is manifest from her age, was merely political; and accordingly it was accompanied with an agreement for a truce between France and England, for thirty years. MALONE. Now swallow down that lie. -For Gloster's death, I slew him not; but to my own disgrace, Once did I lay an ambush for your life, Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom : Your highness to assign our trial day. K. RICH. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul❜d by me; Let's purge this choler without letting blood: This we prescribe, though no physician; &c.] I must make one remark in general on the rhymes throughout this whole play; they are so much inferior to the rest of the writing, that they appear to me of a different hand. What confirms this, is, that the context does every where exactly (and frequently much better) connect, without the inserted rhymes, except in a very few places; and just there too, the rhyming verses are of a much better taste than all the others, which rather strengthens my conjecture. РОРЕ. "This observation of Mr. Pope's (says Mr. Edwards) happens to be very unluckily placed here, because the context, without the inserted rhymes, will not connect at all. Read this passage as it would stand corrected by this rule, and we shall find, when the rhyming part of the dialogue is left out, King Richard Forget, forgive; conclude, and be agreed; Throw down, my son, the duke of Norfolk's gage. K. RICH. And, Norfolk, throw down his. GAUNT When, Harry 3? when? Obedience bids, I should not bid again. K. RICH. Norfolk, throw down; we bid; there is no boot 4. NOR. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot: My life thou shalt command, but not my shame : The one my duty owes; but my fair name, begins with dissuading them from the duel; and in the very next. sentence, appoints the time and place of their combat." Mr. Edwards's censure is rather hasty; for in the note, to which it refers, it is allowed that some rhymes must be retained to make out the connection. STEEVENS 2 Our doctors say this is no MONTH to bleed.] Richard alludes to the almanacks of the time, where particular seasons were pointed out as the most proper time for being bled. Thus the first quarto, 1597. The folio has-" no time.—” But the above mentioned allusion shows that the original is the true reading. MALONE. 3 When, Harry?] This obsolete exclamation of impatience is likewise found in Heywood's Silver Age, 1613: "Fly into Affrick; from the mountains there, "Chuse me two venomous serpents: thou shalt know them: By their fell poison and their fierce aspect. When, Iris? "Iris. I am gone." Again, in Look About You, 1600: 4 66 I'll cut off thy legs, "If thou delay thy duty. When, proud John ?" STEEVENS. -no boot.] That is, no advantage, no use, in delay, or refusal. JOHNSON. |