NOTES.

NOTE I.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. We have made some slight changes in the titles and order of the dramatis personæ in accordance with the suggestion of Mr George Russell French, who writes to us: "Why should Edmund Langley be placed before his elder brother John of Gaunt? The title of 'Berkely' should be simply 'Lord,' as that family were not made Earls till the time of Charles II. Shakspeare only calls him 'Lorde Barkley.' I would recommend that the name of Sir Pierce Exton' should be placed after that of 'Sir Stephen Scroop,' as the latter was actually a baron of Parliament. The 'Duchess of York' should have precedence over the 'Duchess of Gloucester,' whose husband was the youngest son of Edward III.”

NOTE II.

I. 1. 2. Band is given by Minsheu with the sense of 'obligation' (Guide into Tongues, 1617). Both words band and bond were concurrently in use with the same sense. In this play, v. 2. 65, the first four Quartos read band, the Folios and the fifth Quarto bond, while in the 67th line both Quartos and Folios agree in bond.

NOTE III.

1. 1. 149. In this place and in several others Capell in his Various Readings has attributed the reading of the fourth Quarto to the third. The same error is found 34. 5, Brittaine; 46. 22, two; 46. 31, profession; 47. 11, impresse; 48. 21, from my; 49. 26, can cannot; 78. 17, night; 88. 30, the how; 92. 18, have holp.

NOTE IV.

SCENE II. As usual, there is no division into Acts and Scenes in the Quartos. We follow generally the Folios in their arrangement, carefully noting the exceptions.

NOTE V.

I. 2. I. We retain here the reading of the Quartos which is doubtless what Shakespeare wrote. Probably it was altered for the stage, because Thomas of Woodstock' was better known to the audience by his title 'Duke of Gloucester.'

NOTE VI.

1. 2. 70. Notwithstanding the paramount authority of the first Quarto we conceive that the antithesis between there see, line 67, and hear there, is too marked to admit of a doubt that the reading of the second is to be preferred in this place.

NOTE VII.

1. 3. 7. The stage direction in the text is made up of those given in the Quartos and Folios. The first Quarto has: The trumpets sound and the King enters with his nobles; when they are set, enter the Duke of Norfolke in armes defendant.

The first Folio has: Flourish. Enter King, Gaunt, Bushy, Bagot, Greene, and others: Then Mowbray in Armor, and Harrold.

At I. 3. 25, the first Quarto gives as the stage direction, The trumpets sound. Enter Duke of Hereford appellant in armour. The first Folio has simply, Tucket. Enter Hereford, and Harold.

NOTE VIII.

1. 3. 20. Notwithstanding that the emendation of the Folios yields an easier sense, we follow the reading of the Quartos, which may be explained, inasmuch as the Duke of Norfolk's 'succeeding issue' would be involved in the forfeiture incurred by disloyalty to his king. It may also be noted that King Richard had never any issue.

NOTE IX.

1. 3. 127. Capell's copy of the first Quarto has cruell. Another copy is said, in the Variorum edition of 1821, to have the reading civil (or civill), but we have been unable to trace it. Mr George Daniel, who possesses the only known copy besides Capell's, informs us that it has cruell.

NOTE X.

I. 3. 129-133. Pope first restored to the text the five lines omitted in the Folios and the fifth Quarto. He found them in the Quarto of 1598, which he took to be the first edition.' Warburton 'put them,' as he says, 'into hooks, not as spurious, but as rejected on the author's revise.' Capell omitted the five lines next following. "Tis probable,' he says, 'that the lines now omitted were left negligently in the MS. from which the Quarto was printed; that a mark was set on them when the Folio came out, but mistook by the printer of it, who changed the sound for the unsound.'

NOTE XI.

I. 3. 150. Some commentators have quoted the second Folio as reading 'slye slow.' In Capell's copy and in Long's it is certainly 'flye slow.' Mr Collier in a letter to Notes and Queries mentions that he has found 'flye slow' in other copies.

NOTE XII.

I. 3. 239-242. Pope introduced the two last of the lines he omitted in this place at the end of Gaunt's speech after line 245. Theobald restored lines 239, 240 to their original place, but left lines 241, 242 as he found them in Pope.

NOTE XIII.

This passage,

II. I. 40-55. This royal throne...stubborn Jewry. with the exception of line 50, is quoted in England's Parnassus, p. 348 (1600), and is there attributed to M. Dr., i.e. Michael Drayton, whose England's Heroical Epistles had been published two years before. The three lines I. I. 177-179 are also quoted at p. 113 of the same collection.

VOL. IV.

Q

NOTE XIV.

II. I. 254. The Folios omitted noble, in order to correct the redundant line. But Alexandrines occur too frequently in this play to admit of the supposition that they are all due to printers' or transcribers' errors. The author probably found the occasional recurrence of a six foot line no stumbling-block in the even road of his blank verse.

NOTE XV.

II. I. 277, 278. Pope makes a bold emendation here:

'Then thus, my friends.

I have from Port le Blanc,

A bay in Bretagne, had intelligence, &c.'

The first Quarto reads thus:

'Then thus, I have from le Port Blan

A Bay in Brittaine receiude intelligence, &c.'

And, excepting that Q3 reads 'Brittanie,' the rest are substantially the

same.

The first Folio has 'Port le Blan' and 'Britaine,

The arrangement of the lines in the text agrees with Capell's.

NOTE XVI.

II. I. 279 sqq. This passage stands thus in the first Quarto:

That Harry duke of Herford, Rainold L. Cobham

That late broke from the Duke of Exeter

His brother, archbishop late of Canterburie,

Sir Thomas Erpingham, sir John Ramston

Sir John Norbery, sir Robert Waterton and Francis Coines:'

and the three following are almost the same to a letter.

For Ramston' and 'Coines' the first Folio has 'Rainston' and 'Quoint.'

According to Holinshed it was not Lord Cobham but 'Thomas Arundell' who escaped from the Duke of Exeter's house, where he was kept.

In order to make Shakespeare and the Chronicler agree, Capell reads:

'That Harry Hereford, Reignold lord Cobham;
The archbishop late of Canterbury; his nephew
That late broke from the duke of Exeter; &c.'

Malone introduces within brackets the following line:

'[The son of Richard earl of Arundel].'

His view that a line is lost seems to us more probable than Capell's transpositions, omission, and insertion. And as Shakespeare evidently wrote with Holinshed before him, it is not probable that he would have made such an error as we find in the printed

text.

Ritson proposed to fill up the gap with

"[The son and heir of the late earl of Arundel],'

which is taken almost verbatim from Holinshed.

NOTE XVII.

II. 2. 109. The Quarto of 1597 reads the lines thus:

'Gentlemen, will you go muster men?

If I know how or which way to order these affayres
Thus, &c.'

The other editions have the same arrangement (the Folios omitting 'go' in the first line).

Pope reads:

'Gentlemen, will you go and muster men?
If I know how to order these affairs,
Disorderly thrust, &c.'

Capell reads:

'Gentlemen, will you muster men? if I know
How, or which way, to order these affairs

Thus most disorderly thrust, &c.'

Mr Dyce has:

'Gentlemen, will you go muster men? if I know

How, or which way, &c.'

Mr Staunton says in a note: The redundant or which way I have always suspected to be an interlineation of the poet's, who had not decided whether to read 'how to order these affairs,' or 'which way to order.'

Perhaps the author in expressing York's agitation and perplexity, instinctively broke into irregular rhythm, and the rest of the speech might be printed as prose.