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The Prince was at this time but twelve years old, for he was born in 1388, and the conspiracy on which the present scene is formed, was discovered in the beginning of the year 1400.- He scarcely frequented taverns or stews at so early an age. MALONE

P, 194, 1. 11. Sheer is pellucid, transparent.

STEEVENS.

P. 194, 1. 34. The King and the Beggar seems to have been an interlude well known in the time of our author, who has alluded to it more than once. I caunot now find that any copy of it is left. JOHNSON.

The King and Beggar was perhaps once an interlude; it was certainly a song. The reader will find it in the first volume of Dr. Percy's collection. It is there entitled, King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid. STEEVENS.

P. 196, 1. 17. pardonnez moy.] That is excuse me, a phrase used when any thing is civilly denied, The whole passage is such as I could well wish away. JoHNSON.

P. 196, 1. 24. The chopping French-] Chopping, I suppose, here means jabbering, talking flippantly a language unintelligible to Englishmen; or perhaps it may mean, the French, who clip and mutilate their words. I do not remember to have met the word, in this sense, in any other place. In the universities they talk' of chopping logick. MALONE.

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P. 197, 1. 4. our trusty brother-in-law,] The brother-in-law meant, was John Duke of Exeter and Earl of Huntingdon (own brother to King Richard II.) and who had married with the lady Elizabeth, sister of Henry Bolingbroke.

THEOBALD.

P. 197 1. 5. the Abbot,] i. e. the Abbot of Westminster. THEOBALD.

P. 198, 1. 16.

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this little world;] i. e. his "the state of man;" which in our

author's Julius Caesar is said to be "like to a little kingdom." MALONE.

P 198, 1. 21. By the word, I suppose, is meant the holy word. STEEVENS.

P. 199, 1. 7. Thus play I, in one person,] Alluding, perhaps, to the necessities of our early theatres. The title-pages of some of our Moralities show, that three or four characters were frequently represented by one person. STEEVENS. P. 199, 1. 29–31. My thoughts are minutes;

and, with sighs, they jar

Their watches on to mine eyes, the outward watch, I think this passage must be corrupt, but I know not well how to make it better. The first quarto reads:

My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs

Their watches on

The quarto 1615:

My thoughts are

There watches on

they jar,

unto mine eyes the outward watch.

minutes, and with sighs they jar,

unto mine eyes the outward watch.

The first folio agrees with the second quarto. Perhaps out of these two readings the right may be made. Watch seems be used in a double sense, for a quantity of time, and for the instrument that measures time. 1 read, but with no great confidence, thus :

My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar

Their watches on; mine eyes the outward

watch,

Whereto, &c. JOHNSON.

I am unable to throw any certain light on this passage.. A few hints, however, which may tend to its illustration, are left for the service of future commentators.

The outward watch, as I am informed, was the moveable figure of a man habited like a watchman, with a pole and lantern in his hand. The figure had the word · watch written on its forehead; and was placed above the dial-plate. This information was derived from an artist after the operation of a second cup; therefore neither Mr. Tollet, who communicated it, or myself, can vouch for its authenticity, or with any degree of conůdence apply it to the passage before us. Such a figure, however, appears to have been alluded to in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour: "he looks like one of these motions in a great antique clock," &c. A motion anciently signified a puppet.

To jar is, I believe, to make that noise which is called ticking. STEEVENS.

There appears to be no reason for supposing with Dr. Johnson, that this passage is corrupt. It should be recollected, that there are three ways in which a clock notices the progress of time; viz. by the libration of the pendulum, the index on the dial, and the striking of the hour. To these, the King, in his comparison, severally alludes; his sighs corresponding to the jarring of the pendulum, which, at the same time that it watches or numbers the seconds, inarks also their

progress in minutes on the dial or outward watch, to which the King compares his eyes; and their want of figures is supplied by a succession of tears, or (to use an expression of Milton) minute drops his finger, by as regularly wiping these away, performs the office of the dial's point: his clamorous groans are the sounds that tell the hour. HENLEY,

P. 199, last lines. Now, Sir, the sound, that tells what hour it is, Should we not

Are clamorous groans.,]

read thus:

Now, Sir, the sounds that tell what hour it is,
Are clamorous groans." &c. RITSON.

P. 200, 1. 4.

is, I strike, for him. P. 200, 1. 6.

his Jack o'the clock,] That

MALONE.

though it have holpe madmen to their wits,] In what

degree musick was supposed to be useful in curing madness, the reader may receive information from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Part. II. Sect. ii. REED.

The allusion is perhaps, to the persons bit by the tarantula, who are said to be cured by musick. MALONE.

P. 200, l. 9. 10.

- and love to Richard Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.] i. e, is as strange and uncommon as a brooch which is now no longer worn. MALONE.

I believe the meaning is, this world in which I am universally hated. JOHNSON.

P. 200, l. 16. that sad dog] It should be remembered that the word sad was in the time of our author used for grave. The expression will then be the same as if he had said, that grave, that gloomy villain. STEEVENS.

P. 200, 1. 22. Sometimes was used for for merly, as well as sometime, which the modern editors have substituted. MALONE.

P. 201. 111. Jaunce and jaunt were synonymous words. STEEVENS.

P. 202, 1. 13. here to die.] Shakspeare in this scene has followed Holinshed, who took his account of Richard's death from Hall, as Hall did from Fabian, in whose Chronicle, I believe, this story of Sir Piers of Exton first appeared. Froisart, who had been in England in 1396, and who appears to have finished his Chronicle soon after the death of the King, says, "how he died, and by what meanes, I could not tell whanne I wrote this Chronicle." Had he been murdered by eight armed men, (for such is Fabian's story,} "four of whom he slew with his own hand,” and from whom he must have received many wounds, surely such an event must have reached the ears of Froisart, who had a great regard for the King, having received form him at his departure from England "a goblet of silver and gilt, waying two marke of silver, and within it a C. nobles; by the whych (he adds) I am as yet the better, and shal be as longe as I live; wherefore I am bounde to praye to God for his soule, and wyth muche sorrowe I wryte of his deathe."

Nor is this story of his murder consistent with the account (which is not controverted) of his body being brought to London and exposed in Cheapside for two hours,("his heade on a blacke quishen, and his vysage open,") where it was viewed, says Froisart, by twenty thousand persons. The account given by Stowe, who seems to have had before him a Manuscript History of the latter part of Richard's life, written by a person who

was

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