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effigiem rectâ intueatur, tum vera depraehenditur." FARMER.

The perspectives here mentioned, were not pictures, but round chrystal glasses, the convex surface of which was cut into faces, like those of the rose-diamond; the concave left uniformly smooth. These chrystals which were sometimes mounted on tortoise-shell-box-lids, and

sometimes fixed into ivory cases if placed as here represented, would exhibit the different appearances described by the poet.

The word shadows is here used, in oppsition to substance, for reflected images, and not as the dark forms of bodies, occasioned by their interception of the light that falls upon them. HENLEY. P. 136, 1. 28 As, though, in thinking, on no thought I think,] Old copy: -on thinking: but we should read As though in thinking; that is, though, musing, I have no distinct idea of calamily. The involuntary and unaccountable depression of the mind, which every one has sometime felt, is here very forcibly described. JOHNSON.

P. 156, 1. 30. Conceit is here, as in K. Henry VIII. and many other places, used for a fanciful conception. MALONE.

P. 136, the two last 1. but one. For nothing hath begot my something grief;

Or something hath the nothing that I

grieve;] With these lines I know not well what can be done. The Queen's reasoning as it now stands, is this: my trouble is not conceit, for conceit is still derived from some antecedent cause, some fore-father grief; but with me the case is, that either my real grief hath no real cause, or some real cause has produced a fancied

grief. That is, my grief is not conceit, because it either has not a cause like conceit, or it has a cause like conceit. This can hardly stand. Let us try again, and read thus:

For nothing hath begot my something grief; Not something hath the nothing that I grieve That is, my grief is not conceit; conceit is an imaginary uneasiness from some past occurrence. But, on the contrary, here is real grief without a real cause; not a real cause with a fanciful sorrow. This, I think, must be the meaning; harsh at the best, yet better than contradiction or absurdity. JOHNSON.

P. 136, last 1. and P. 137, first 1. 'Tis in reversion that I do possess;

But what it is, is not yet known;] I am about to propose an interpretation which many will think harsh, and which I do not offer for certain. To possess a man, in Shakspeare, is to inform him fully, to make him comprehend. To be possessed, is to be fully informed. Of this sense the examples are numerous.

I therefore imagine the Queen says thus:

'Tis in reversion- that I do possess; The event is yet in futurity--that I know with full conviction but what it is, that is not yet known. In any other interpretation she must say that she possesses what is not yet come, which, though it may be allowed to be poetical and figurative language, is yet, I think, less natural thanmy explanation. JOHNSON.

As the grief the Queen felt, was for some event which had not yet come to pass, or at least yet come to her knowledge, she expresses this by saying that the grief which she then actually possessed, was still in reversion, as she had no right

to feel the grief until the event should happen which was to occasion it. M. MASON.

P. 137, 1. 11. might have retir'd his power,] Might have drawn it back. A French sense. JOHNSON.

P. 138, 1. 2. The author seems to have used heir in an improper sense, an heir being one that inherits by succession, is here put for one that succeeds, though he succeeds but in order of time, not in order of descent. JOHNSON.

Johnson has mistaken the meaning of this passage also. The Queen does not in any way allude to Bolingbroke's succession to the crown, an event, of which she could at that time have had no idea. She had said before, that "some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb, was coming towards her." She talks afterwards of her unknown griefs "being begotten;" she calls Green "the midwife of her woe;" and then means to say, in the same metaphorical jargon, that the arrival of Bolingbroke was the dismal offspring that her foreboding sorrow was big of; which she expresses by calling him her "sorrow's dismal heir," and explains more fully and intelligibly in the following line:

.

Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy. M. MASON.

See

P. 139, 1. 6. The lordship of Plashy, was a town of the Duchess of Gloster's in Essex. Hall's Chronicle, p. 13. THEOBALD.

P. 139, I. 18. my untruth disloyalty, treachery. JOHNSON.

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P. 139, 1. 19. The King had cut off my head

None of York's brothers either by the King or any

with my brother's.] had his head cut off, one else. The Duke

of

of Gloster, to whose death he probably alludes, was secretly murdered at Calais, being smother ed between two beds. RITSON.

P. 139, 1.22 Come, sister,

cousin, I would say] This is one of York is talking

Shakspeare's touches of nature. to the Queen his cousin, but the recent death of his sister is uppermost in his mind. STEEVENS. P. 141, 1. 27. And hope to joy, is little less

in joy,] To joy is, I believe, here used as a verb. MALONE.

P. 144, I. 7. My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.] I suspect that our author designed this for a speech rendered abrupt by the impatience of Bolingbroke's reply; and therefore wrote:

My Lord of Hereford, my message isThe words to you only serve to destroy the metre.

STEEVENS.

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P. 144, 1. 8. My Lord, my answer is Lancaster;] Your message, you say, is to my Lord of Hereford, My answer is, It is not to him; it is to the Duke of Lancaster. MALONE.

P. 144, l. 15. To raze one title of your ho nour out: "How the names of them which for capital crimes against majestie were erazed out of the publicke records, tables, and registers, or forbidden to be borne by their posteritie, when their memorie was damned, I could show at large." Camden's Remains, p. 136, édit. 1605. MALONE.

19.

P. 144, 1. the King's absence. VOL. VIII.

absent time,] i. e. time of JOHNSON.

21

P. 145, 1. 4. But then more why:] This seem; to be wrong. We might read:

But more than this; why, &c. TYRWAITT. The expression of the text, though a singular one, was, I have no doubt the author's. It is of a colour with those immediately preceding

Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle

MALONE. P. 145, 1. 7. 8. Frighting her pale-fac'd villages with war,

And ostentation of despised arms?] But sure the ostentation of despised arms would not fright any one. We should read:

disposed arms, i. e. forces in battle array. WARBURTON.

This alteration is harsh. Sir T. Hanmer reads

despiteful. Mr. Upton gives this passage as a proof that our author uses the passive participle in an active sense. The copies all agree.

Per

haps the old Duke means to treat him with contempt as well as with severity, and to insinuate that he despises his power, as being able to master it. In this sense all is right. JOHNSON.

P. 145, 1. 22. On what condition stands it,] It should be, in what condition, i. e. in what degree of guilt. The particles in the old editions are of little credit. JOHNSON.

P. 145. 1. 32. with an indifferent eye: i. e. with an impartial eye. "Every juryman (says Edward Coke) ought to be impartial and indifferent." MALONE.

P. 146, 1, 2-4.

Wherefore was I born? &c.] To what purpose serves birth and lineal succession? I ain Duke of Lancaster by the same right of birth as the King is King of England.

JOHNSON.

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