And, as you are a king, speak in your state', KING. You are right, justice, and you weigh this Therefore still bear the balance, and the sword: So shall I live to speak my father's words;- The unstained sword that you have us'd to bear; same With the like bold, just, and impartial spirit, My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear; in your STATE,] In your regal character and office, not with the passion of a man interested, but with the impartiality of a legislator. JOHNSON. 2 - You did commit me, &c.] So, in the play on this subject, antecedent to that of Shakspeare: 3 "You sent me to the Fleet; and for revengement, "Over my realm." STEEVENS. remembrance,] That is, admonition. JOHNSON. 4 My father is gone WILD-] Mr. Pope, by substituting wail'd for wild, without sufficient consideration, afforded Mr. Theobald much matter of ostentatious triumph. JOHNSON. The meaning is-My wild dispositions having ceased on my For in his tomb lie my affections; father's death, and being now as it were buried in his tomb, he and wildness are interred in the same grave. A passage in King Henry V. Act I. Sc. I. very strongly confirms this interpretation: "The courses of his youth promis'd it not : So, in King Henry VIII. : "And when old time shall lead him to his end, A kindred thought is found in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: "And so suppose am I; for in his grave "Assure thyself my love is buried." MALONE. 5 with his SPIRIT SADLY I survive,] Sadly is the same as soberly, seriously, gravely. Sad is opposed to wild. JOHNSON. The quarto and first folio have spirits. The correction was made by the editor of the third folio. MALOne. 6 the STATE of floods,] i. e. the assembly, or general meeting of the floods: for all rivers, running to the sea, are there represented as holding their sessions. This thought naturally introduced the following: "Now call we our high court of parliament." But the Oxford editor, much a stranger to the phraseology of that time in general, and to his author's in particular, out of mere loss for his meaning, reads it backwards, "the floods of state." WARBURTON. The objection to Warburton's explanation is, that the word state, in the singular, does not imply the sense he contends for: we say an assembly of the states, not of the state. I believe we must either adopt Hanmer's amendment, or suppose that state means dignity; and that, " to mingle with the state of floods," is to partake of the dignity of floods. I should prefer the amend ment to this interpretation. M. MASON. I prefer the interpretation to the amendment. State most evidently means dignity. So, in The Tempest: And flow henceforth in formal majesty. Our coronation done, we will accite, As I before remember'd, all our state: And (God consigning to my good intents,) No prince, nor peer, shall have just cause to say,Heaven shorten Harry's happy life one day. SCENE III. [Exeunt. Glostershire. The Garden of Shallow's House. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, SILENCE, BARDOLPH, the Page, and DAVY. SHAL. Nay, you shall see mine orchard: where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year's pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of carraways, and so forth;-come, cousin Silence;-and then to bed. Highest queen of state, "Great Juno comes." STEEVENS. with the state of floods." With the majestick dignity of the ocean, the chief of floods. So before, in this scene: "And, as you are a king, speak in your state-." State and estate, however, were used in our author's time for a person of high dignity, and may in that sense be applied to the sea, supposing it to be personified. So, in King John: 7 "How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?" MALONE. -a dish of CARRAWAYS, &c.] A comfit or confection so called in our author's time. A passage in De Vigneul Marville's Melanges d'Histoire et de Litt. will explain this odd treat: "Dans FAL. 'Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling, and a rich. le dernier siecle ou l'on avoit le gout delicat, on ne croioit pas pouvoir vivre sans Dragées. Il n'etoit fils de bonne mere, qui n'eut son Dragier; et il est reporté dans l'histoire du duc de Guise, que quand il fut tué à Blois, il avoit son Dragier à la main.” WARBURTON. Mr. Edwards has diverted himself with this note of Dr. Warburton's, but without producing a happy illustration of the passage. The dish of caraways here mentioned was a dish of apples of that GOLDSMITH. name. Dr. Goldsmith and others are of opinion, that by carraways in this place apples of that name were meant. I have no doubt that comfits were intended; because at the time this play was written, they constantly made part of the desert, or banquet, as it was then called.-In John Florio's Italian and English Dialogues, which he calls Second Frutes, quarto, 1591, after a dinner has been described, the attendant is desired to bring in "apples, pears, chesnuts, &c. a boxe of marmalade, some bisket, and carrawaies, with other comfects." Again, in The Booke of Carvyng, bl. 1. no date: "Serve after meat, peres, nuts, strawberies, hurtleberies and hard cheese: also blaudrels or pipins, with caraway in cōfects." MALONE. Whether Dr. Warburton, Mr. Edwards, or Dr. Goldsmith, is in the right, the following passage in Decker's Satiromastix has left undecided: By this handful of carraways I could never abide to say grace.' by these comfits we'll let all slide." • By these comfits and these carraways; I warrant it does him good to swear." 66 you." I am glad, lady Petula, by this apple, that they please That apples, comfits, and carraways, at least were distinct things, may be inferred from the following passage in the old black letter interlude of The Disobedient Child, no date: "What running had I for apples and nuttes, "What callying for biskettes, cumfettes, and carowaies." Again, in How to Chuse a Good Wife from a Bad, 1602: For apples, carrawaies, and cheese." There is a pear, however, called a caraway, which may be corrupted from caillouel, Fr. So, in the French Roman de la Rose: Ou la poire de caillouel. Chaucer, in his version of this passage, says: "With caleweis," &c. STEEVens. It would be easy to prove, by several instances, that caraways SHAL. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, sir John :-marry, good air-Spread, Davy; spread, Davy; well said, Davy. FAL. This Davy serves you for good uses; he is your serving-man, and your husbandman'. SHAL. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet, sir John.-By the mass', I have drunk too much sack at supper:--A good varlet. Now sit down, now sit down :-come, cousin. SIL. Ah, sirrah! quoth-a,-we shall [Singing. And praise heaven for the merry year ; were generally part of the desert in Shakspeare's time. See particularly Murrel's Cookery, &c. A late writer however asserts that caraways is the name of an apple as well known to the natural inhabitants of Bath, as nonpareil is in London, and as generally associated with golden pippins. He observes also that if Shakspeare had meant comfits he would have said, a dish of last year's pippins with carraways."-With a dish, &c. clearly means something distinct from the pippins. Jackson's Thirty Letters, 8vo. vol. ii. p. 42. REED. The following passage in Cogan's Haven of Health, 4to. bl. 1. 1595, will at once settle this important question: "This is a confirmation of our use in England, for the serving of apples and other fruites last after meales. Howbeit we are wont to eate carawaies or biskets, or some other kind of comfits or seedes together with apples, thereby to breake winde ingendred by them: and surely it is a very good way for students." STEEVENS. 8 barren, barren; beggars all,-good air.] Justice Shallow alludes to a witticism frequent among rusticks, who, when talking of a healthy country, pleasantly observe: "Yes, it is a good air, more run away than die." HOLT WHITE. 9 - and your HUSBANDMAN.] Old copy-husband. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. I am not sure that the emendation is necessary. He was a wise man, and a good," was the language of our author's time. See also Falstaff's preceding speech. MALONE. ! By the mass,] So, in Springes for Woodcocks, a collection of epigrams, 1606, Ep. 221 : "In elders' time, as ancient custom was, "Men swore in weighty causes by the masse; "But when the masse went down, (as others note,) "Their oathes were, by the crosse of this same groat," &c, STEEVENS. |