With such a heady currence scouring faults.

POSTSCRIPT, 1878.—I observe that both the Cambridge Edition and Delius revert to 'currance.'

Cant. Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,

As in this prince.

So all the old copies, i.e. the folios, for there is no quarto of this scene. So too all subsequent editions. But 'a seat,' if lost at all, is naturally lost 'all at once,' being but one. Therefore the end of the line is idle. The true reading surely is, and I propose it accordingly:

Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So soon did lose his heads, and all at once.

The metaphor is thus properly sustained; the allusion to the Hydra as the image of wilfulness is illustrated; and all ' at once' is explained as‘all its heads at once.' The inappropriate, if not ignoble, image of the Hydra-headed impersonation losing his seat is replaced by the opposite and dignified picture, which represents the effort of the self-conquering Prince as perfectly Herculean, and his performance as more than such. All at once' is intended as a contrast to the fact recorded by

Hydra secto corpore firmior

Vinci dolentem crevit in Herculem.

Nothing could be more natural than the corruption of 'his 'heads' into 'his seat.'

POSTSCRIPT, 1876.-Hanmer, I find, amended 'all' into 'fall,' not unreasonably. But the fault did not lie in 'all,' but in 'seat.'

Cant. Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,

Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences.

Rowe altered 'that' in the third line to 'then,' not having observed that 'that' in Shakespeare not seldom means 'so that.' Pope omitted 'that' altogether, in order to reduce the line to metrical regularity-wrongly, I think, because 'garter' is a monosyllabic word pronounced 'gartr.' But there is at least one error unnoticed in the passage, which should be amended thus:

Turn him to any cause of policy;

The Gordian knot of it he will unloose
Familiar as his garter, that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still;

And then mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences.

The mute wonder' is surely an unexampled phrase for 'mute wonder,' but it is not before the air is hushed into silence that men in general can hear the Prince speaking.

Further, I think it doubtful whether Shakespeare would have written so pleonastic a phrase as 'sweet and honey'd,' while the copyist who read 'honey'd' may have become thereby apt for the impression that it was preceded by 'sweete,' and so misread 'his witte' into 'his sweete.' Wit, in its Elizabethan sense, is the precise word to express the shrewdness and practical insight that would be shown in un'loosing a knotty cause of policy,' and as the king spoke a 'battle rendered in music,' so also he spoke wit steeped in 'honey.' Thus Holinshed: by wise persuasions and wittie handling of the matter, the knot &c. was dissolved.' A.D. 1439. Perhaps therefore the right reading is

To steal his wit, and honey'd sentences.

6

Cant. So that the art and practick part of life
Must be the mistress to this theorick:

Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain :

His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle; And wholesome berries thrive, and ripen best, Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality :

And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

Cant. It must be so: for miracles are ceas'd;
And therefore we must needs admit the means,
How things are perfected.

Delius understands the lines commencing

So that the art and practick part of life
Must be the mistress of this theorick-

to express and imply the affirmations, that most men learn the practical rules and principles of life from the teachings of theory, while the Prince drew his theory, or supplied the matter of theory to others, from the perfect understanding of all the practical rules and principles of life; and that this exceptional method constituted the wonder of his mind and character. I cannot see in the passage any warrant for the first of these propositions, nor for the contrast founded on it. I understand the lines, coupled with what follows, to express the Archbishop's opinion, that the Prince's accomplishments were such in nature, number, and degree, that according to all natural laws his intellectual grasp of things would be

the result of a profound contemplation of skilful practice in life through all its compass of subjects; but as this method was quite inconsistent with the whole tenor of his existence, passed as it had been in vain occupations amongst frivolous companions, and also entirely under the popular eye, without the reserve of any time for thought, his intellectual mastery of topics was either a matter for blank wonder, or for the conviction that it was the supernatural and sudden gift of grace. At this point the Bishop of Ely interposes, and proceeds to show, that, as the companions of the Prince had probably been the mere mask and cover, allowing free development to his own very different character and principles, and, as he probably devoted the hours of night to study and contemplation, his proficiency was quite consistent with the general laws of nature. To this view the Archbishop is eventually reconciled on the consideration that miracles have ceased.

I would, however, advert to another and not impossible reading of the two lines, and interpretation of the whole passage:

So that the act and practick part of life
Must be the mistress of this theorick.

The Archbishop may intend to say simply that, in accordance with general rules, a certain method of life must be the cause or instrument for producing such extraordinary intellectual accomplishment; whereas the Prince's habits had been such as to exclude him from the devotion of his time to study and contemplation, the only mistress which could impart it to him. It certainly is remarkable that the Bishop of Ely says only, and so the Prince obscured his contemplation, which 'grew chiefly by night under the veil of wildness.' He does not revert to the distinction and relation between practice and theory.

POSTSCRIPT, 1879.—The variorum edition fails to mention that Theobald proposed act' for 'art'; I learn it, therefore, from the Cambridge Edition while correcting the proof sheets.

Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty;
Save, that there was not time enough to hear
(As, I perceive, his grace would fain have done,)
The severals, and unhidden passages,

Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms;
And, generally, to the crown and seat of France.

Johnson suspected corruption here, and Monk Mason treated the passage as corrupt by proposing 'several.' But we have an analogous form and a similar use of it in Henry IV. pt. ii.

'The parcels and particulars of our grief.'—Act iv. sc. 2. 'Severals,' like 'particulars,' seems to be a substantive form gradually made by elliptical use of the corresponding adjective.

Unhidden' has much the same meaning as uncovered' would have. The negative here is, by a license not very uncommon in our language, converted into a privative; ‘un'hidden passages' are topics and accounts naturally closed up and obscure, but disclosed and made plain by explanation in detail. I would read the last line:

And generally the crown and seat of France.

'To' is superfluous and confuses the metre, and it has slipped down, I believe, from the line above.

POSTSCRIPT, 1876.-Pope, I find, omitted' and seat,' but 'seat' naturally accompanies 'crown' in the sense of 'throne.'

SCENE 2.

K. Hen. Therefore take heed how you impawn our

person,

How you awake the sleeping sword of war.

Johnson would read for 'our person' 'your person.' But even if we adopt the quoted reading of the next line, it sug