And never see day that the happy sees, Till thou give joy; until thou bid me joy, By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy. Aum. Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee. [Kneels. York. Against them both my true joints bended be. [Kneels. [Ill may'st thou thrive if thou grant any grace!]* Duch. Pleads he in earnest ? look upon his face; His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest ; His words come from his mouth, ours from our He breast: prays but faintly, and would be denied ; b We pray with heart, and soul, and all beside : His weary joints would gladly rise, I know; Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow: His prayers are full of false hypocrisy ; Nay, do not say-stand up; b Blair, in his Lectures on Rhetoric, compares this argument to a passage in Cicero, where the orator maintains that the coldness of Marcus Callidius, in making an accusation of an attempt to poison him, was a proof that the charge was false. "An tu, M. Callidi, nisi fingeres, sic ageres?" c Chopping French. Chopping is here used in the sense of changing, which is derived from cheaping, trafficking. We still say a chopping wind. Malone, we apprehend, mistakes when he explains the word by jabbering. York exhorts the king instead of saying pardon to say pardonnez moy-excuse me. The duchess will have pardon as "'tis current in our land." The chopping French-the French which changes the meaning of words-which sets "the word itself against the word," she says, "we do not under stand." Boling. Good aunt, stand up. I do not sue to stand, Duch. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee! Yet am I sick for fear: speak it again; Twice saying pardon doth not pardon twain, But makes one pardon strong. Boling. I pardon him. Duch. With all my heart A god on earth thou art. Boling. But for our trusty brother-in-law,3 and the abbot, With all the rest of that consorted crew, Duch. Come, my old son;-I pray Heaven" make thee new. SCENE IV. Enter EXTON and a Servant. [Exeunt. Exton. Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake? "Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?" Was it not so? Serv. Those were his very words. Exton. "Have I no friend?" quoth he: he spake it twice. And urg'd it twice together; did he not? Exton. And, speaking it, he wistly look'd on me; As who should say,-I would thou wert the man Heaven. This is the last passage of the play in which we have substituted, according to the authority of the folio of 1623, the word Heaven for God. It is to be observed that the editors of the folio have retained the name of the Most High when it is used in a peculiarly emphatic, or reverential manner, and have not made the change to Heaven indiscriminately. The substitution of this word, in most cases, was made in obedience to a statute of James the First; (3 Jac. I. c. 21,) and it appears to us that in many recent instances good taste has not been exercised in restoring the readings of the earliest copies, which were issued at a time when the habits of society sanctioned the habitual and therefore light employment of the Sacred Name. We have no desire to Bowdlerise Shakspere, but, on the other hand, it is desirable to avoid, if possible, giving offence to the serious. b Wistly. So the old copies. Wistly is constantly used by the writers of Shakspere's time,-by Drayton, for example, "But when more wistly they did her behold." And so I am: Then crushing penury With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd And these same thoughts people this little My thoughts are minutes; and, with sighs, they world; a In humours like the people of this world, For no thought is contented. The better sort, As thoughts of things divine,—are intermix'd As thus,-Come, little ones; and then again,— This little world. "The little world of man," as in Lear. Shakspere here uses the philosophy which is thus described by Raleigh:-"Because in the little frame of man's body there is a representation of the universal, and (by allusion) a kind of participation of all the parts there, therefore was man called microcosmos, or the little world."— (History of the World.) b We give the reading of the first quarto. The folio has "the faith itself against the faith." We must remark that, in the third scene of this Act the Duchess uses precisely the same expression; "That sett'st the word itself against the word:" the sense of the word there being, as will be seen, altogether different. jar Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my finger, like a dial's point, Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears." Now, sir, the sounds that tell what hour it is, Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart, Which is the bell: So sighs, and tears, and groans, Shew minutes, times, and hours :-but my time Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy, While I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock.b This music mads me, let it sound no more; In me it seems it will make wise men mad. It is somewhat difficult to follow this reading. Richard says, Time has made him a numbering clock. A clock and a watch were formerly the same instruments; a clock so called because it clicketh-a watch so called because it marks the watches, the ancient divisions of the day. Comparing, then, himself to such an instrument, he says, his thoughts jar-that is, tick their watches on (unto) his eyes, which are the outward part of the instrument-the dial plate on which the hours are numbered,-whereto his finger, the dial's point, is pointing. These analogies may appear forced, and somewhat obscure; but it must be observed that throughout the character of Richard, the poet has made him indulge in those freaks of the imagination which belong to weakness of character. (See Supplementary Notice.) b Jack o' the clock. An automaton, such as formerly constituted one of the wonders of London, before St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street; but which the ruthless hand of improvement has now swept away. c A strange brooch. The brooch, a valuable ornament, was, it seems, out of fashion in Shakspere's time. In All's Well that Ends Well, we have, "the brooch and the toothpick which wear not now." Love to Richard is, therefore, called a strange brooch, a thing of value out of fashion. 143 When thou wert king; who, travelling towards With much ado, at length have gotten leave K. Rich. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him? Groom. So proudly as if he had disdain'd the ground. K. Mch. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back! That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand; This hand hath made him proud with clapping him. Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down, b And to thy worth will add right worthy gains. Enter FITZWATER. Fitz. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London The mightiest of thy greatest enemies, A deed of slander, with thy fatal hand, Boling. They love not poison that do poison need, Nor do I thee; though I did wish him dead, [Exeunt. |