K. PHI. By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause To curfe the fair proceedings of this day: Have I not pawn'd to you my majefty? CONST. You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit, Refembling majefty; which, being touch'd, and tried,9 8 Proves valueless: You are forfworn, forfworn; And our oppreffion hath made up this league:Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjur'd kings! A widow cries; be husband to me, heavens ! Wear out the day3 in peace; but, ere funset, AUST. Lady' Conftance, peace, You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit, Refembling majefty;] i. e. a falfe coin. A counterfeit formerly fignified alfo a portrait.A reprefentation of the king being ufually impreffed on his coin, the word feems to be here used equivocally. MALONE. The two 9 Refembling majefty; which, being touch'd, and tried,] Being touch'd—fignifies, having the touchstone applied to it. laft words and tried, which create a redundancy of measure, fhould, as M. Ritfon obferves, be omitted. STEEVENS. You came in arms to Spill mine enemies' blood, But now in arms you ftrengthen it with yours:] I am afraid here is a clinch intended. You came in war to deftroy my enemies, but now you ftrengthen them iu embraces. JOHNSON. 3 Wear out the day-] Theobald. MALONE. 4 Set armed difcord, &c.] effe&ual. JOHNSON. Old copy days. Corre&ed by Mr. Shakspeare makes this bitter curfe CONST. War! war! no peace! peace is to me a war. O Lymoges! O Auftria! thou dost shame That bloody fpoil: Thou flave, thou wretch, thou coward; Thou little valiant, great in villainy! Thou ever ftrong upon the ftronger fide! 4 0 Lymoges! 0 Auftria!] The propriety or impropriety of thefe titles, which every editor has fuffered to pass unnoted, deferves a little confideration. Shakspeare has, on this occafion, followed the old play, which at once furnished him with the character of Faulconbridge, and afcribed the death of Richard I. to the duke of Auftria. In the perfon of Auftria, he has conjoined the two well-known enemies of Coeur-de-lion. Leopold, duke of Auftria, threw him into prifon, in a former expedition; [in 1193] but the caftle of Chaluz, before which he fell, [in 1199 ] belonged to Vidomar, viscount of Limoges; and the archer who pierced his shoulder with an arrow (of which wound he died) was Bertrand de Gourdon. The editors feem hitherto to have understood Lymoges as being an appendage to the title of Austria, and therefore enquired no further about it. Holinfhed fays on this occafion: The fame yere, Phillip, baftard fonne to king Richard, to whom his father had given the caftell and honor of Coinacke, killed the viscount of Limoges, in revenge of his father's death," &c. Auftria, in the old play [printed in 1591] is called Lymoges, the Auftrich duke. With this note, I was favoured by a gentleman to whom I have yet more confiderable obligations in regard to Shakspeare. His extenfive knowledge of hiftory and manners, has frequently fupplied me with apt and neceffary illuftrations, at the fame time that his judgement has corrected my errors; yet fuch has been his conftant folicitude to remain concealed, that I know not but I may give offence while I indulge my own vanity in affixing to this note the name of my friend HENRY BLAKE, Efq. STEEVENS. Been fworn my foldier? bidding me depend doff it for fhame,] To doff is to do of, to put off. So, in Fuimus Troes, 1633: "Sorrow muft doff her fable weeds." STEEVENS. 6 And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.] When fools were kept for diverfion in great families, they were diftinguished by a calf's-fkin coat, which had the buttons down the back; and this they wore that they might be known for fools, and escape the refentment of those whom they provoked with their waggeries. In a little penny book, intitled The Birth, Life, and Death of John Franks, with the Pranks he played though a meer Fool, mention is made in several places of a calf's-fkin. In chap. x. of this book, Jack is faid to have made his appearance at his lord's table, having then a new calf-skin, red and white spotted. This fact will explain the farcafm of Conftance and Faulconbridge, who mean to call Auftria a fool. SIR J. HAWKINS. I may add, that the cuftom is ftill preferved in Ireland; and the fool in any of the legends which the mummers ad at Christmas, always appears in a calf's or cow's kin. In the prologue to Wily Beguiled, are the two following paffages: "I'll make him do penance upon the ftage in a calf's-skin.” Again: "His calf's-fkin jefts from hence are clean exil'd. " Again, in the play: "I'll come wrapp'd in a calf's-fkin, and cry bo, bo.". Again: : ——“ I'll wrap me in a roufing calf-fkin fuit, and come like fome Hobgoblin. "I mean my Christmas calf's-fkin fuit. STEEVENS. It does not appear that Conftance means to call Auftria a fool, as Sir John Hawkins would have it; but the certainly means to call him coward, and to tell him that a calf's-fkin would fuit his recreant limbs better than a lion's. They ftill fay of a daftardly perfon that he is a calf-hearted fellow; and a run-away fchool boy is ufually called a great calf. RITSON. The fpeaker in the play [Wily Beguiled] is Robin Goodfellow. Perhaps, as has been fuggefted, Conftance, by cloathing Auftria in a calf's-skin, means only to infinuate that he is a coward. The word recreant feems to favour fuch a fuppofition. MALONE, AUST. O, that a man should speak those words , to me! BAST. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs. AUST. Thou dar'ft not fay fo, villain, for thy life. BAST. And hang a calf's-fkin on those recreant limbs." K. JOHN. We like not this; thou doft forget thyfelf. 7 Here Mr. Pope inferts the following speeches from the old play of King John, printed in 1991, before Shakspeare appears to have commenced a writer: "Auft. Methinks, that Richard's pride, and Richard's fall, Should be a precedent to fright you all. "Faulc. What words are these? how do my finews shake! "My father's foe clad in my father's fpoil! How doth Aledo whisper in my ears, "Delay not, Richard, kill the villain fraight; Difrobe him of the matchless monument, ་་ Thy father's triumph o'er the favages! · Now by his foul I fwear, my father's foul, Twice will I not review the morning's rife, "Till I have torn that trophy from thy back, And split thy heart for wearing it fo long. STEEVENS. I cannot by any means approve of the infertion of thefe lines from the other play. If they were neceffary to explain the ground of the Baftard's quarrel to Auftria, as Mr. Pope fuppofes, they fhould rather be inferted in the firft fcene of the fecond act, at the time of the firft altercation between the Baftard and Austria. But indeed the ground of their quarrel feems to be as clearly 'expreffed in the firft fcene as in thefe lines; fo that they are unneceflary in either place; and therefore, I think, should be thrown out of the text, as well as the three other lines, which have been inferted with as little reafon in A& III. fc. ii: Thus hath king Richard's, &c. TYRWHITT. Enter PANDULPH. K. PHI. Here comes the holy legate of the pope. PAND. Hail, you anointed deputies of heaven!To thee, king John, my holy errand is. I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal, Why thou against the church, our holy mother, K. JOHN. What earthly name to interrogatories,* Can tafk the free breath of a facred king? What earthly, &c.] This muft have been at the time when it was written, in our struggles with popery, a very captivating fcene. So many paffages remain in which Shakspeare evidently takes his advantage of the facts then recent, and of the paffions then in motion, that I cannot but fufped that time has obfcured much of his art, and that many allufions yet remain undifcovered, which perhaps may be gradually retrieved by succeeding commentators. JOHNSON. The fpeech ftands thus in the old fpurious play: " And what haft thou, or the pope thy mafter to do, to demand of me how I employ mine own? Know, fir prieft, as I honour the church and holy churchmen, fo I fcorne to be fubject to the greateft prelate in the world. Tell thy mafter fo from me; and fay, John of England faid it, that never an Italian priest of them all, fhall either have tythe, toll, or polling penny out of England; but as I am king, fo will I reign next under God, fupreme head both over spiritual and temporal and he that contradi&s me in this, I'll make him hop headlefs. STEEVENS. What earthly name to interrogatories, Gan talk the free breath, &c.] i. e. What earthly name, fubjoined |