Can't thou, O partial fleep! give thy repose Enter WARWICK and SURREY. WAR. Many good morrows to your majesty! WAR. 'Tis one o'clock, and past. K. HEN. Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords." 3 That with the hurly,] Hurly is noise, derived from the French burler to howl, as burly-burly from Hurluberlu, Fr. STEEVENS. 4-Then, happy low, lie down!] Evidently corrupted from happy lowly clown. Thefe two lines making the just conclufion from what preceded. "If fleep will fly a king and confort itself with beggars, then happy the lowly clown, and uneafy the crown'd head." WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton has not admitted this emendation into his text: I am glad to do it the juftice 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 reft! the head that wears a crown lies too uneafy to expect fuch a bleffing." Had not Shakspeare thought it neceffary to fubject himself to the tyranny of rhyme, he would probably have said :"then happy low, fleep on!" So, in The Misfortunes of Arthur, a tragedy, 1587: "Behold the peasant poore with tattered coate, "Whofe eyes a meaner fortune feeds with fleepe, "How fafe and found the careleffe fnudge doth fnore." Sir W. D'Avenant has the fame thought in his Law for Lovers: "How foundly they fleep whofe pillows lie low!" STEEVENS. s Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.] In my regulation VOL. IX. I Have you read o'er the letters that I fent you? K. HEN. Then you perceive, the body of our kingdom How foul it is; what rank difeafes grow, of this paffage I have followed the late editors; but I am now perfuaded the first line should be pointed thus: Why then good morrow to you all, my lords. This mode of phrafeology, where only two perfons 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 fubfequent editors do; for Shakspeare in King Henry VI. Part II. Act II. fc. ii. has put the fame expreffion into the mouth of York, when he addreffes 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: Where as all you know, "Harmless Richard was murder'd traiterously." This is one of the numerous circumftances that contribute to prove that Shakspeare's Henries were formed on the work of a preceding writer. See the Differtation on that fubject in Vol. X. MALONE. 6 It is but as a body, yet, diftemper'd;] Diftemper, that is, according to the old phyfick, a difproportionate mixture of humours, or inequality of innate heat and radical humidity, is lefs than actual difeafe, being only the ftate which foreruns or produces diseases. The difference between diftemper and disease seems to be much the fame as between difpofition and habit. JOHNSON. 7 My lord Northumberland will foon be cool'd.] I believe Shakfpeare wrote fchool'd; tutor'd, and brought to fubmiffion. Cool'd is certainly right. JOHNSON. WARBURTON. So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "my humour shall not cool." STEEVENS. 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 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," O heaven! that one might read the book of fate; And fee the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent (Weary of folid firmness,) melt itself Into the fea! and, other times, to fee &c.] So, in our author's 64th Sonnet: "When I have feen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, MALONE. O, if this were feen, &c.] Thefe four lines are fupplied from the edition of 1600. WARBURTON. My copy wants the whole scene, and therefore thefe lines. What perils paft, what croffes to enfue, because it seems to make paft perils equally terrible with enfuing croffes. JOHNSON. This happy youth who is to foresee the future progress of his life, cannot be fuppofed at the time of his happiness 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 paffed through many perils. M. MASON. In answer to Dr. Johnfon's objection it may be observed, that paft perils are not described as equally terrible with enfuing croffes, but are merely mentioned as an aggravation of the fum of human calamity. He who has already gone through fome perils, might hope to have his quietus, and might naturally fink in defpondency, on being informed that "bad begins, and worfe remains behind." The happieft youth,-viewing his progrefs through, Since Richard, and Northumberland, great friends, Even past perils are painful in retrospect, as a man fhrinks at the fight of a precipice from which he once fell.-To one part of Mr. M. Mafon's obfervation it may be replied, that Shakspeare does not fay, the happy, but the happieft, youth; that is, even the happieft of mortals, all of whom are deftined to a certain portion of mifery. Though what I have now ftated may, I think, fairly be urged in fupport of what feems to have been Dr. Johnson's sense of this paffage, yet I own Mr. M. Mason's interpretation is extremely ingenious, and probably is right. The perils here fpoken of may not have been actually paffed by the perufer of the book of fate, though they have been paffed by him in "viewing his progress through;" or, in other words, though the register of them has been perufed by him. They may be faid to be paft in one sense only; namely with refpect to thofe which are to enfue; which are prefented to his eye fubfequently to thofe which precede. If the fpirit and general tendency of the paffage, rather than the grammatical expreffion, be attended to, this may be faid to be the most obvious meaning. The conftruction is, "What perils having been past, what craffes are to enfue." MALONE. 2 But which of you was by, &c.] He refers to King Richard II. A&t IV. fc. ii. But whether the king's or the author's memory fails him, fo it was, that Warwick was not prefent at that converfation. JOHNSON. Neither was the King himself prefent, fo that he must have received information of what paffed 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. (You, coufin Nevil,' as I may remember,) [TO WARWICK. When Richard,-with his eye brim-full of tears, My coufin Bolingbroke afcends my throne ;- But that neceffity fo bow'd the state, That I and greatnefs were compell'd to kifs :- WAR. There is a history in all men's lives, 3 -coufin Nevil,] Shakspeare has mistaken the name of the prefent 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 defcended 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 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. 4 - I had no fuch intent ;] He means, "I should have had no fuch intent, but that neceffity" &c. or Shakspeare has here alfo forgotten his former play, or has chofen to make Henry forget his fituation at the time mentioned. He had then actually accepted the crown. Sce King Richard II. Act IV. fc. i: "In God's name, I'll afcend the regal throne." MALONE. |