BLANCH. O, well did he become that lion's robe, That did difrobe the lion of that robe! 8 BAST. It lies as fightly on the back of him, As great Alcides' fhoes upon an ass: 3 — But, afs, I'll take that burden from your back; Or lay on that, thall make your fhoulders crack. AUST. What cracker is this fame, that deafs our cars With this abundance of fuperfluous breath? It lies as fightly on the back of him, As great Alcides shoes upon an afs:] But why his hoes in the name of propriety? For let Hercules and his shoes have been really as big as they were ever fuppofed to, be, yet they (I mean the shoes) would not have been an overload for an afs. I am perfuaded, I have retrieved the true reading; and let us observe the juftness of the comparison now. Faulconbridge in his refentment would fay this to Auftria : That lion's fkin, which my great father King Richard once wore, looks as uncouthly on thy back, as that other noble hide, which was borne by Hercules, would look on the back of an afs. ' A double allufion was intended; firft, to the fable of the afs in the lion's fkin; then Richard I. is finely fet in competition with Alcides, as Auftria is fatirically coupled with the afs. THEOBALD. The shoes of Hercules are more than once introduced in the old comedies on much the fame occafions. So, in The Ile of Gulls, by J. Day, 1606: " are as fit, as Hercules's fhoe for the foot of a pigmy. Again, in Greene's Epifle Dedicatory to Perimedes the Blacksmith, 1588: " and fo, left I fhould fhape Hercules' fhoe for a child's foot, I commend your worship to the Almighty. Again, in Greene's Penelope's Web, 1601: "I will not make a long harveft for a fmall crop, nor go about to pull a Hercules' fhoe on Achilles' foot. Again, ibid: "Hercules Shoe will never ferve a child's foot. Again, in Stephen Goffon's School of Abuse, 1579: -to draw the lyon's fkin upon Efop's affe, or Hercules' fhoes on a childes feete. Again, in the second of William Rankins's Seven Satyres, &c. 1598: "Yet in Alcides' bufkins will he talke." STERVENS. upon an afs:] i. e. upon the hoofs of an afs. Mr. Theobald thought the fhoes must be placed on the back of the afs; and, therefore, to avoid this incongruity, reads - Alcides' fhows. MALONE. 9 K. PHI. Lewis, determine what we fhall do ftraight. LEW. Women and fools, break off your con\ference. King John, this is the very fum of all, 2 England, and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine, I claim of thee: In right of Arthur do and lay down thy arms? K. JOHN. My life as foon:-I do defy thee, France. Arthur of Bretagne, yield thee to my hand; 9 K. Phi. Lewis, determine, &c.] Thus Mr. Malone, and perhaps rightly; for the next fpeech is given in the old copy (as it ftands in the present text) to Lewis the dauphin, who was afterwards Lewis VIII. The speech itself, however, seems fufficiently appropriated to the King; and nothing can be inferred from the folio with any certainty, but that the editors of it were carelefs and ignorant. STEEVENS. In the old copy this line ftands thus: King Lewis, determine what we shall do ftraight. To the first three fpeeches fpoken in this fcene by King Philip, the word King only is prefixed. I have therefore given this line to him. The transcriber or compofitor having, I imagine, forgotten to diftinguish the word King by Italicks, and to put a full point after it, these words have been printed as part of Auftria's Speech: "King Lewis," &c. but fuch an arrangement must be erroneous, for Lewis was not king. Some of our author's editors have left Auftria in poffeffion of the line, and corrected the error by reading here, "King Philip, 'determine," &c. and giving the next fpeech to him, instead of Lewis. I once thought that the line before us might stand as part of Auftria's fpeech, and that he might have addressed Philip and the Dauphin by the words, King, Lewis, &c. but the addreffing Philip by the title of King, without any addition, feems too familiar, and I therefore think it more probable that the error happened in the way above ftated. MALONE. 2 - Anjou,] Old copy-Angiers. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. ELI. Come to thy grandam, child. CONST. Do, child, go to it' grandam, child; Give grandam kingdom, and it' grandam will Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig: There's a good grandam. Good my ARTH. mother, peace! I would, that I were low laid in my grave; 1 am not worth this coil, that's made for me. ELI. His mother fhames him fo, poor boy, he weeps. CONST. Now fhame upon you, whe'r fhe does, or no! 3 His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's fhames, Draw those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes, Which heaven fhall take in nature of a fee; Ay, with thefe cryftal beads heaven fhall be brib'd To do him juflice, and revenge on you. ELI. Thou monftrous flanderer of heaven and earth! CONST. Thou monftrous injurer of heaven and earth! Call not me flanderer; thou, and thine, ufurp The dominations, royalties, and rights, Of this oppreffed boy: This is thy eldest fon's fon,4 3 Now Shame upon you, whe'r fhe does, or no!] Whe'r for whether So, in an Epigram, by Ben Jonson : "Who fhall doubt, Donne, whe'r I a poet be, "When I dare fend my epigrams to thee?" Again, in Gower's De Confeffione Amantis, 1532: "That maugre where the wolde or not,-." MALONE. Read: - whe'r he does, or no!-i. e. whether he weeps, or not. Conftance, so far from admitting, exprefsly denies that he fhames him. RITSON, 4 Of this oppreffed boy: This is thy eldeft fon's fon,] Mr. Ritfon would omit the redundant words-This is, and read: Of this oppreffed boy: thy eldeft fon's fon. STEEVENs. Infortunate in nothing but in thee; I have but this to fay, That he's not only plagued for her fin, 4 I have but this to say,—— That he's not only plagued for her fin, 4 But God hath made her fin and her the plague, &c.] This paffage appears to me very obscure. The chief difficulty arifes from this, that Constance having told Elinor of her fin-conceiving womb, pursues the thought, and uses fin through the next lines in an ambiguous feufe, fometimes for crime, and fometimes for offspring. He's not only plagued for her sin, &c. He is not only made miferable by vengeance for her fin or crime; but her fin, her offspring, and fhe, are made the inftruments of that vengeance, on this defcendant; who, though of the fecond generation, is plagued for her and with her; to whom he is not only the caufe but the inftrument of evil. The next claufe is more perplexed. All the editions read: plagu'd for her, And with her plague her fin; his injury Her injury, the beadle to her fin, All punish'd in the perfon of this child. point thus: plagu'd for her And with her Plague her fon! his injury That is; inftead of inflicting vengeance on this innocent and remote defcendant, punish her fon, her immediate offspring: then the affliction will fall where it is deferved; his injury will be her injury, and the mifery of her fin; her fon will be a beadle, or chaftifer, to her crimes, which are now all punish'd in the person of this child. JOHNSON, Mr. Roderick reads: plagu'd for her, And with her plagu'd; her fin, kis injury. We may read: But God hath made her fin and her the plague On this removed iffue, plagu'd for her, And, with her fin, her plague, 'his injury Her injury, the beadle to her fin. i. e. God hath made her and her fin together, the plague of her mo remote defcendants, who are plagued for her the fame power hath likewife made her fin her own plague, and the injury fhe has done to him her own injury, as a beadle to lash that fin. i. e. Providence has so ordered it, that he who is made the inftrument of punishment to another, has, in the end, converted that other into an inftrument of punishment for herself. STEEVENS. "whom Conftance obferves that he (ifte, pointing to King John, from the flow of gall fhe names not,") is not only plagued [with the prefent war] for his mother's fin, but God hath made her fin and her the plague alfo on this removed iffue, [Arthur,] plagued on her account, and by the means of her finful offspring, whofe injury [the ufurpation of Arthur's rights may be confidered as her injury, or the injury of her fin-conceiving womb; and John's injury may also be confidered as the beadle or officer of correction employed by her crimes to infli& all these punishments on the perfon of this child, TOLLET. Plagued in these plays generally means punished. So, in King Richard 111: "And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed." So, Holinfhed: "-- they for very remorfe and dread of the divine plague, will either fhamefully flie," &c. Not being fatisfied with any of the emendations propofed, I have adhered to the original copy. I fufpect that two half lines have been loft after the words-And with her. If the text be right, with, I think, means by, (as in many other paffages,) and Mr, Tollet's interpretation the true one. Removed, I believe, here fignifies remote. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: From Athens is her houfe remov'd feven leagues." MALONE. Much as the text of this note has been belaboured, the originaļ reading needs no alteration. I have but this to fay, That he's not only plagued for her fin, 1 |