twenty nine years, come peafcod-time; but an honester, and truer-hearted man,- -Well, fare thee well.

Bard. [Within.] Miftrefs Tear-sheet,

Hoft. What's the matter?

Bard. Bid miftrefs Tear-fheet come to my mafter.
Hoft. O run, Doll, run; run, good Doll.

[Exeunt.

Enter King HENRY in his nightgown, with a Page.

K. Hen. Go, call the earls of Surrey and of Warwick; But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters,

And well confider of them: Make good speed.

How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour afleep!-Sleep, gentle fleep,
Nature's foft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my fenfes in forgetfulness?

Why rather, fleep, lieft thou in fmoky cribs,
Upon uneafy pallets ftretching thee,

[Exit Page.

And hufh'd with buzzing night-flies to thy flumber;
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of coftly ftate,

And lull'd with founds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why lieft thou with the vile,
In loathfome beds; and leav'ft the kingly couch,
A watch-cafe, or a common 'larum bell? 4

Wilt 3 This first scene is not in my copy of the first edition. JOHNSON. There are two copies of the fame date; and in one of these, the fcene has been added. They are, in all other respects, alike. It should feem as if the defect in this quarto was undiscovered till most of the copies of it were fold, for only one that I have feen contains the ad. dition. STEEVENS.

4 This alludes to the watchman fet in garrifon-towns upon fome eminence, attending upon an alarum-bell, which was to ring out in cafe

of

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy maft
Seal up the fhipboy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious furge;
And in the vifitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monftrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamours in the flippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Can't thou, O partial fleep! give thy repose

6

To

of fire, or any approaching danger. He had a cafe or box to shelter him from the weather, but at his utmoft peril he was not to fleep whilft he was upon cuty. The fea larum-bells are mentioned in feveral other places of Shakspeare. HANMER.

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 fuppofes, and no doubt rightly, that laume is an error for larum. Something of this kind, I believe, is here intended by watch-cafe, fince this fpeech does not afford any other expreffions to induce the fuppofition that the King had a fentry box in his thoughts. HOLT WHITE.

5 The modern editors read browds, meaning the rope ladders by which the mafts of ships are ascended. The old copy--in the uppery clouds; but I know not what advantage is gained by the alteration, for forowds had anciently the fame meaning as clouds. I could bring many instances of this ufe of the word from Drayton. So, in his Miracles of Mofes :

"And the fterne thunder from the airy browds,

To the fad world, in fear and horror fpake."

So, in Julius Cafar:

I have feen

"Th' ambitious ocean fwell, and rage and foam

"To be exalted with the threatening clouds." STEEVENS. The inftances produced by Mr. Steevens prove that clouds were fome times called poetically airy frouds, or shrouds fufpended in air; but they do not appear to me prove that any writer fpeaking of a hip, ever called the forouds of the fhip by the name of clouds. I entirely, however, agree with him in thinking that clouds here is the true reading; and the paffage produced from Julius Cæfar, while it fully fupports it, fhows the word is to be understood in its ordinary fenfe. MALONE.

My pofition appears to have been misunderstood. I meant not to fug. geft that the browds of a fhip were ever called clouds. What I defigned to lay was, that the clouds and the shrowds of heaven were anciently fynonymous terms, fo that by the exchange of the former word for the latter, no fresh idea would, in fact, be ascertained; as the word browds might be received in the fenfe of clouds as well as that of hip-tackle. STEEVENS. Hurly is noife, derived from the French burler to howl, as burly, burly from Hurluberlu, Fr. STEVENS.

6

"I tot rather have shards; fu chec What means slippery? – The shroude are the rope ladders, of wh: the expas we cared by a heat thequeen of thin

To the wet feaboy in an hour fo rude;
And, in the calmeft and moft ftilleft night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!7
Uneafy 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 paft.

K. Hen. Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords. Have you read o'er the letters that I fent you ?

War. We have, my liege.

8

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, diftemper'd; Which to his former ftrength may be reftor'd, With good advice, and little medicine: My lord Northumberland will foon be cool'd.

K Hen. O heaven! that one might read the book of fate; And fee the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent

(Weary

7 Evidently corrupted from happy lowly clown. Thefe two lines making the juft conclufion from what preceded. "If fleep will fly a king and confort itself with beggars, then happy the lowly clown, and unealy the crown'd 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 fenfe of the old reading feems to be this: You, who are happy in your humble fituations, lay down your heads to rest! the head that wears a crown lies too uneafy to expect fuch a bleffing." Had not Shakfpeare thought it nec ffary to fubje& himself to the tyranny of rhyme, he would probably have faid:" then happy low, fleep on! "

STEEVENS.

8 Diftemper, that is, according to the old phyfick, a disproportionate mixture of humours, or inequality of innate heat and radical humidity, is Jefs than actual difeafe, being only the ftate which foreruns or produces difeafes. The difference between difemper and disease seems to be much the fame as between difpofition and babit. JOHNSON.

9 I believe Shakspeare wrote fibool'd; tutor'd, and brought to fub miffion. WARBURTON.

Cooled is certainly right. JOHNSON.

Weary of folid firmness,) melt itself

Into the fea! and, other times, to fee

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 feen,2

The happiest youth,-viewing his progress through,
What perils paft, what croffes to enfue,--
Would shut the book, and fit him down and die.

'Tis not ten years gone,

Since Richard, and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feaft together, and, in two years after,
Were they at wars: It is but eight years, fince
This Percy was the man nearest my foul;
Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs,
And laid his love and life under my foot;
Yea, for my fake, even to the eyes of Richard,
Gave him defiance. But which of you was by,3
(You, coufin Nevil,4 as I may remember,)

[TO WARWICK.

2 Thefe four lines are fupplied from the edition of 1600.

When

WARBURTON.

My copy wants the whole fcene, and therefore thefe lines.
There is fome difficulty in the line,

What perils paft, what creff ́s to enfu, — because it seems to make paft perils equally terrible with enfuing croffes.

JOHNSON.

This happy youth who is to foresee the future progrefs of his life, cannot be fuppofed at the time of his happin fs to have gone through many perils. Both the perils and the croffes that the King alludes to, were yet to come; and what the youth is to foresee is, the many croffes he would have to contend with, even after he has pailed through many perils. M. MASON.

3 He refers to King Richard II. A&IV. fc. ii. But whether the king's or the author's memory falls him, so it was, that Warwick was not pre. fent at that converfation. JOHNSON.

Neither was the King himself prefent, fo that he must have received information of what pailed from Northumberland. His memory, indeed, is fingularly treacherous, as, at the time of which he is now fpeaking, he had actually afcended the throne. RITSON.

4 Shakspeare has mistaken the name of the prefent nobleman. The Barld.m of Warwick was at this time in the family of Beauchamp, and

did

When Richard, with his eye brim-full of tears,
Then check'd and rated by Northumberland,-
Did fpeak these words, now prov'd a prophecy?
Northumberland, thou ladder, by the which
My coufin Bolingbroke afcends my throne ;-
Though then, heaven knows, I had no fuch intent;
But that neceffity fo bow'd the ftate,

That I and greatnefs were compell'd to kifs:
The time fhall come, thus did he follow it,
The time will come, that foul fin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption :-fo went on,
Foretelling this fame time's condition,
And the divifion of our amity.

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

Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And, by the neceffary form of this,"

King Richard might create a perfect guess,
That great Northumberland, then falfe to him,
Would, of that feed, grow to a greater falseness ;
Which fhould not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.

K. Hen.

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 defcended to Anne Beau champ, (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 fon to Richard earl of Salisbury who makes fo confpicuous a figure in our author's Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI He fucceeded to the latter title on his father's death ́in 1460, but is never diftinguished by it. RITSON,

5 I think we might better read:

the neceffary form of things,

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

And, by the necellary form of these,

i. e. the things mentioned in the preceding line.

STEEVENS.

And, by the neceffary form of this, is, I apprehend, to be understood this history of the times deceafed. HENLEY.