X

Achilles, and appears equally liable to the cen sure which the Greek poet has perhaps justly incurred upon that score.

(Douglas fleeth.)

To flee, in the days of ancient heroism, was less disgraceful (however paradoxical it may seem) than later times have made it; but Shakspeare had traditional authority, as appears by Holingshead's Chronicle, for the flight of Douglas, and the disastrous circumstance which attended it, and which the poet intimates at the close of the drama; and is it not probable that Homer was authorised in the same manner?

CAPEL LOFFT.

422. Cheerly, my lord; how fares your grace." This line wants a foot; perhaps it ran,

"Now cheerly, good my lord! how fares your Grace?

66

Stay, and breathe a while."

More mutilation; perhaps we might supply,

Stay, Harry, yet, forbear and breathe awhile."

423. "I might have let alone

"The insulting hand of Douglas over you."

The prince "might have let alone" this display of his affection, which had already been acknowledged.

Think not, Percy,

"To share with me in glory any more."

But heretofore the glory was altogether Percy's.

429. "If a lie may do thee grace,

“İ'll gild it with the happiest terms I

have."

t

The Prince, indeed, is generally not very tenacious of veracity, but his accommodation, in this instance, is unnatural.

SCENE V.

430. "Had been alive this hour."

Something has been lost; perhaps like this: --And many a creature else, "Now stiff in death, had been alive this hour.

"How goes the field?"

This is a strange question here: from the prince's words, the king might be enquiring about Douglas. It is in vain to think of supplying the genuine words in such a case, but they might be to this effect:

"Where is that fierce insurgent of the North?" But, indeed, as the hemistic or the question is wholly useless, it is most probably interpolated.

SECOND PART OF

KING HENRY IV.

9.

66

ACT I. SCENE I.

- Every minute now

"Should be the father of some stratagem."

I cannot see any occasion for annexing to stratagem," either here or in the instances quoted by Mr. M. Mason, from K. Henry VI. a meaning different from the obvious one, device, contrivance, to oppose or prevent the enemy.

12. "He seem'd, in running, to devour the

way."

Besides the instances quoted by the editors, of similar expressions, the writer of the work called Ossian's Poems says,

"He consumed the battle in his rage."

Carric Thura.

15. "That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet

speak, Morton.”

The prosody requires a transposition :
"Yet, Morton, speak."

"Tell thou thy earl," &c.

The quarto, 1600, reads " an earle."

15. "Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead."

Dr. Johnson would give this line to the Lord Bardolph, and the conclusion of the speech to Morton; but, surely, without necessity or improvement: the contradictions which the change is meant to remove are well suited to the distraction of the speaker's mind.

16. "If he be slain, say so.”

Say so" was added by the folio editors, and something, certainly, was wanting; perhaps this supplement may be better:

"If he be slain, indeed."

"Remember'd knolling."

Remembered as knolling':-there should be a

comma after "remember'd."

17. "Then

66

Douglas-did grace the shame

"Of those that turn'd their backs."

This is beautifully expressed.

18. "These news,

"Having been well, that would have made
me sick."

A slight transposition seems necessary here :
"That would, having been well, have made me

sick."

20. " And darkness be the burier of the dead."

The latter part of Dr. Johnson's remark on this passage is, I believe, the true expression of the poet's meaning, and seems necessary to the magnificence of the idea.

۱

23. “Turns insurrection to religion."

"Religion," here, is of equal length with "insurrection;" but the instances are endless of the poet's lengthening or contracting the sound of vowels to suit the metre.

"Doth enlarge his rising."

Doth increase the band of insurgents.

SCENE II.

35. " I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog."

Dr. Johnson says he does not understand the joke; he knows that dogs sometimes lead the blind, but asks, Why should a dog lead the fat? Dr. Farmer answers, "If the fellow's great belly prevented him from seeing his way, he would want a dog as well as the blind man." But this reply is by no means satisfactory; the definite article repeated in "the" man, and "the" great belly, seems to denote a reference to some wellknown object at that time.

37. "Your wit single."

"Single," perhaps, means unique: I imagine the chief justice designs an emphatic compliment to Falstaff's wit; he depreciates every other quality, and, by saying "your wit is single," means, your wit is the only thing that you can fairly boast of: yet single may mean small, as Mr. Steevens explains.

42. " Iwill turn diseases to commodity."

"Commodity," as Mr. Steevens says, is gain, profit, sordid advantage: thus Faulconbridge, having dilated this sense of the word in King John, concludes :