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Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamours in the slippery clouds,*
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Can'st thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And, in the calmest and most stillest night,

In an ancient inventory cited in Strutt's ponda Angel cynnan, Vol. III, p. 70, there is the following article: "Item, a laume or WATCHE of iron, in an iron CASE, with 2 leaden plumets." Strutt supposes, and no doubt rightly, that laume is an error for larum. Something of this kind, I believe, is here intended by watch-case, since this speech does not afford any other expressions to induce the supposition that the King had a sentry-box in his thoughts. H. White.

8 ▪ slippery clouds,] The modern editors read shrowds, meaning the rope ladders by which the masts of ships are ascended. The old copy-in the slippery clouds; but I know not what advantage is gained by the alteration, for shrowds had anciently the same meaning as clouds. I could bring many instances of this use of the word from Drayton. So, in his Miracles of Moses: "And the sterne thunder from the airy shrouds, "To the sad world, in fear and horror spake."

Again, in Ben Jonson's Poem on Inigo Jones:

"And peering forth of Iris in the shrowds."

Again, in Chapman's version of the twentieth Iliad: casting all thicke mantles made of clouds,

"On their bright shoulders. T'oppos'd gods sat hid in other shrouds."

A moderate tempest would hang the waves in the shrouds of a ship; a great one might poetically be said to suspend them on the clouds, which were too slippery to retain them.

So, in Julius Cæsar:

<< I have seen

"Th' ambitious ocean swell, and rage and foam
"To be exalted with the threatening clouds."

Again, in Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book XI:

"The surges mounting up aloft did seeme to mate the skie, "And with their sprinkling for to wet the clouds that hang on hie." Steevens.

9 That, with the hurly,] Hurly is noise, derived from the French hurler to howl, as hurly-burly from Hurluberlu, Fr. Steevens.

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With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down! 2
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Enter WARWICK and SURREY.

War. Many good morrows to your majesty!
K. Hen. Is it good morrow, lords?

War. 'Tis one o'clock, and past.

K. Hen. Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.3

1 Deny it to a king?] Surely, for the sake of metre, we should read

Deny 't a king? Steevens.

2 Then, happy low, lie down!] Evidently corrupted from happy lowly clown." These two lines making the just conclusion from what preceded. "If sleep will fly a king and consort itself with beggars, then happy the lowly clown, and uneasy the crowned head." Warburton.

Dr. Warburton has not admitted this emendation into his text: I am glad to do it the justice which its author has neglected. Johnson.

The sense of the old reading seems to be this: "You, who are happy in your humble situations, lay down your heads to rest! the head that wears a crown lies too uneasy to expect such a blessing." Had not Shakspeare thought it necessary to subject himself to the tyranny of rhyme, he would probably have said: "then happy low, sleep on!"

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Sir W. D'Avenant has the same thought in his Law for Lovers:

"How soundly they sleep, whose pillows lie low!"

Steevens.

3 Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.] In my regulation of this passage I have followed the late editors; but I am now persuaded the first line should be pointed thus:

Why then good morrow to you all, my lords.

This mode of phraseology, where only two persons are addressed, is not very correct, but there is no ground for reading-

Why, then, good morrow to you. Well, my lords, &c. as Theobald and all the subsequent editors do; for Shakspeare, in King Henry VI, Part II, sc. ii, has put the same expression into the mouth of York, when he addresses only his two friends, Salisbury and Warwick; though the author of the original play, printed in 1600, on which The Second Part of King Henry VI, was founded, had, in the corresponding place, employed the word both: 66 Where as all you know,

"Harmless Richard was murder'd traiterously."

This is one of the numerous circumstances that contribute to prove that Shakspeare's Henries were formed on the work of a preceding writer. Malone.

Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?
War. We have, my liege.

K. Hen. Then you perceive, the body of our kingdom How foul it is; what rank diseases grow, And with what danger, near the heart of it. War. It is but as a body, yet, distemper'd; Which to his former strength may be restor❜d, With good advice, and little medicine:

My lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.5

K. Hen. O heaven! that one might read the book of fate;

And see the revolution of the times

Make mountains level, and the continent
(Weary of solid firmness) melt itself
Into the sea! and, other times, to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean

Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration

With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,"

4 It is but as a body, yet, distemper'd;] Distemper, that is, according to the old physick, a disproportioned mixture of humours, or inequality of innate heat and radical humidity, is less than actual disease, being only the state which foreruns or produces diseases. The difference between distemper and disease seems to be much the same as between disposition and habit. Johnson.

5 My lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.] I believe Shakspeare wrote school'd; tutor'd, and brought to submission.

Cool'd is certainly right. Johnson.

Warburton.

So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: “ my humour shall not cool."

Steevens.

6 O heaven! that one might read the book of fate;

And see the revolution of the times

Make mountains level, and the continent

(Weary of solid firmness) melt itself

Into the sea! and, other times, to see &c.] So, in our author's 64th Sonnet:

7

"When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

"Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
"And the firm soil win of the watry main,

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Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;

"When I have seen such interchange of state," &c.

Malone.

O, if this were seen, &c.] These four lines are supplied from the edition of 1600.

Warburton

The happiest youth,-viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,-

Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.

'Tis not ten years gone,

Since Richard, and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feast together, and, in two years after,
Were they at wars: It is but eight years, since
This Percy was the man nearest my soul;
Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs,
And laid his love and life under my foot;
Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard,
Gave him defiance. But which of you was by,
(You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember,)
When Richard, with his eye brimfull of tears,

[to WAR,

My copy wants the whole scene, and therefore these lines.
There is some difficulty in the line-

What perils past, what crosses to ensue,

because it seems to make past perils equally terrible with ensuing crosses. Johnson.

This happy youth, who is to foresee the future progress of his life, cannot be supposed, at the time of his happiness, to have gone through many perils. Both the perils and the crosses that the King alludes to were yet to come; and what the youth is to foresee is, the many crosses he would have to contend with, even after he has passed through many perils. M. Mason.

8 But which of you was by, &c.] He refers to King Richard II, Act IV, sc. ii. But whether the king's or the author's memory fails him, so it was, that Warwick was not present at that conversation. Johnson.

9

Neither was the King himself present, so that he must have received information of what passed from Northumberland. His memory, indeed, is singularly treacherous, as, at the time of which he is now speaking, he had actually ascended the throne. Ritson cousin Nevil,] Shakspeare has mistaken the name of the present nobleman. The earldom of Warwick was at this time in the family of Beauchamp, and did not come into that of the Nevils till many years after, in the latter end of the reign of King Henry VI, when it descended to Anne Beauchamp, (the daughter of the earl here introduced) who was married to Richard Nevil, Earl of Salisbury. Steevens.

Anne Beauchamp was the wife of that Richard Nevil, (in her right) Earl of Warwick, and son to Richard Earl of Salisbury, who makes so conspicuous a figure in our author's Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. He succeeded to the latter title on his father's death, in 1460, but is never distinguished by it.

Ritsons

Then check'd and rated by Northumberland,-
Did speak these words, now prov'd a prophecy?
Northumberland, thou ladder, by the which

My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne ;—

Though then, heaven knows, I had no such intent;1
But that necessity so bow'd the state,

That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss:-
The time shall come, thus did he follow it,
The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption :-so went on,
Foretelling this same time's condition,
And the division of our amity.

War. There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceas'd:
The which observ'd, a man may prophecy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life; which in their seeds,
And weak beginnings, lie intreasured.

Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And, by the necessary form of this,2

King Richard might create a perfect guess,
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would, of that seed, grow to a greater falseness;
Which should not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.
K. Hen,

11

Are these things then necessities?3

I had no such intent;] He means, "I should have had no such intent, but that necessity" &c. or Shakspeare has here also forgotten his former play, or has chosen to make Henry forget his situation at the time mentioned. He had then actually accepted the crown. See King Richard II, Act IV, sc. i:

"In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne." Malone. 2 And, by the necessary form of this,] I think we might better read:

the necessary form of things..

The word this has no very evident antecedent. Johnson.
If any change were wanting, I would read:

And, by the necessary form of these,

i. e. the things mentioned in the preceding line. Steevens. And, by the necessary form of this, is, I apprehend, to be under stood this history of the times deceased. Henley.

3 Are these things then necessities?] I suspect that-things then are interpolated words. They corrupt the measure, do not im

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