PRINCE. That Julius Cæfar was a famous man; With what his valour did enrich his wit, ported; as, iniquity in general, hypocrify, ufury, vanity, prodigality, gluttony, &c. Now, as the fiend, (or vice,) who perfonated Iniquity, (or Hypocrify, for inftance) could never hope to play his game to the purpose but by hiding his cloven foot, and affuming a femblance quite different from his real character; he muft certainly put on a formal demeanour, moralize and prevaricate in his words, and pretend a meaning directly oppofite to his genuine and primitive intention. If this does not explain the paffage in question, 'tis all that I can at present suggest upon it. THEOBALD. : Of. That the buffoon, or jefter of the old English farces, was called the vice, is certain and that, in their moral reprefentations, it was common to bring in the deadly fins, is as true. thefe we have yet feveral remains. But that the vice used to affume the perfonages of those fins, is a fancy of Mr. Theobald's, who knew nothing of the matter. The truth is, the vice was always a fool or jefter: and, (as the woman, in The Merchant of Venice, calls the Clown, alluding to the character,) a merry devil. Whereas these mortal fins were fo many fad serious ones. But what misled our editor was the name, Iniquity, given to this vice But it was only on account of his unhappy tricks and rogueries. That it was given to him, and for the reason I mention, appears from the following paffage of Jonson's Staple of News, fecond intermeane : "M. How like you the vice i' the play? "T. Here is never a fiend to carry him away. Befides he has never a wooden dagger. "M. That was the old way, goffip, when Iniquity came in, like Hocas Pocas, in a jugler's jerkin, with false skirts, like the knave of clubs." And, in The Devil's an Afs, we see this old vice, Iniquity, described more at large. : From all this, it may be gathered, that the text, where Richard compares himself to the formal vice, Iniquity, must be corrupt and the interpolation of fome foolish player. The vice, or iniquity being not a formal but a merry, buffoon character. Befides, Shakspeare could never make an exact speaker refer to this character, because the fubject he is upon is tradition and antiquity, which have no relation to it; and because it appears from the turn of the paffage, that he is apologizing for his equivocation by a reputable practice. To keep the reader no longer His wit fet down to make his valour live: in fufpence, my conjecture is, that Shakspeare wrote and pointed the lines in this manner : Thus like the formal-wife Antiquity, I moralize: Two meanings in one word. Alluding to the mythologick learning of the ancients, of whom they are all, here speaking. So that Richard's ironical apology is to this effect, You men of morals who fo much extol your allwife antiquity, in what am I inferior to it? which was but an equivocator as I am. And it is remarkable, that the Greeks themfelves called their remote antiquity, Ay, or the equivocator. So far as to the general fenfe; as to that which arifes particularly out of the corrected expreffion, I fhall only obferve, that formal wife is a compound epithet, an extreme fine one, and admirably fitted to the character of the speaker, who thought all wifdom but formality. It must therefore be read for the future with a hyphen. My other observation is with regard to the pointing; the common reading I moralize two meanings is nonfense: but reformed in this manner, very fenfible: Thus like the formal-wife Antiquity I moralize: Two meanings in one word. i. e. I moralize as the ancients did. And how was that? the having two meanings to one word. A ridicule on the morality of the ancients, which he infinuates was no better than equivocating. WARBURTON. This alteration Mr. Upton very juftly cenfures. Dr. Warburton has, in my opinion, done nothing but correct the punctuation, if indeed any alteration be really neceffary. See the differtation on the old vice at the end of this play. To this long collection of notes may be added a question, to what equivocation Richard refers? The pofition immediately preceding, that fame lives long without characters, that is, without the help of letters, seems to have no ambiguity. He must allude to the former line: So young fo wife, they fay, do ne'er live long, in which he conceals under a proverb, his defign of haftening the Prince's death. JOHNSON. The Prince having caught fome part of the former line, afks Richard what he says, who, in order to deceive him, preferves in his reply, the latter words of the line, but fubftitutes other words at the beginning of it, of a different import from those he had uttered. This is the equivocation that Glofter really made Death makes no conqueft of this conqueror;2 ufe of, though it does not correfpond with his own description of it: I moralize-two meanings in one word. Word is not here taken in its literal fenfe, but means a faying, a fhort fentence, as motto does in Italian, and bon-mot in French. -So, in Jonfon's Every Man out of his Humour, Puntarvolo fays: "Let the word be, Not without mustard; thy creft is rare." M. MASON. From the following ftage direction, in an old dramatick piece, entituled, Hiftriomaftix, or The Player Whipt, 1610, it appears, that the Vice and Iniquity were sometimes distinct person,ages: "Enter a roaring devil, with the Vice on his back, Iniquity in one hand, and Juventus in the other." The devil likewise makes the diftinction in his first speech : Ho, ho, ho! these babes mine are all, 66 "The Vice, Iniquitie, and Child Prodigal." The following part of this note was obligingly communicated by the Rev. Mr. Bowle, of Idmestone near Salisbury. I know no writer who gives fo complete an account of this obfolete character, as Archbishop Harfnet, in his Declaration of Popish Impoftures, p. 114, Lond. 1608: "It was a pretty part (he tells us) in the old church-playes, when the nimble Vice would fkip up nimbly like a jackanapes into the devil's necke, and ride the devil a course, and belabour him with his wooden dagger, till he made him roare, whereat the people would laugh to fee the devil fo vice-haunted." STEEVENS. Dr. Warburton has endeavoured to fupport his capricious and violent alteration of the text by a very long note, which in my apprehenfion carries neither conviction, nor information with it. The Vice, Iniquity, cannot with propriety, be faid to moralize in general; but in the old Moralities he, like Richard, did often "moralize two meanings in one word." Our author has again used moralize as a verb active in his Rape of Lucrece : "Nor could the moralize his wanton fight, "More than his eyes were open to the light." In which paffage it means, " to interpret or investigate the latent meaning of his wanton looks," as in the prefent paffage, it fignifies either to extract the double and latent meaning of one word or fentence, or to couch two meanings under one word or fentence. So moral is used by our author in Much Ado about I'll tell you what, my coufin Buckingham. BUCK. What, my gracious lord? PRINCE. An if I live until I be a man, I'll win our ancient right in France again, Or die a foldier, as I liv'd a king. GLO. Short fummers lightly 3 have a forward fpring. [Afide. Nothing, for a fecret meaning: "There is fome moral in this Benedictus." See Vol. VI. p. 112, n. 1; and Vol. XII. p. 522, n. 9. The word which Richard ufes in a double fenfe is live, which in his former fpeech he had ufed literally, and in the present is used metaphorically. Mr. Mafon conceives, because what we now call a motto, was formerly denominated the mot or word, that word may here fignify a whole feutence. But the argument is defective. Though in tournaments the motto on a knight's fhield was formerly called The word, it never at any period was called " One word." The Vice of the old moralities was a buffoon character, [See Cotgrave's Dict. " Badin, A foole or Vice in a play.-Mime, A vice, foole, jefter, &c. in a play."] whofe chief employment was to make the audience laugh, and one of the modes by which he effected his purpofe was by double meanings, or playing upon words. In thefe moral representations, Fraud, INIQUITY, Covetousness, Luxury, Gluttony, Vanity, &c. were frequently introduced. Mr. Upton in a differtation which, on account of its length, is annexed at the end of the play, has shown, from Ben Jonfon's Staple of News, and The Devil's an Afs, that Iniquity was fometimes the Vice of the Moralities. Mr. Steevens's note in the foregoing page, shows, that he was not always fo. The formal Vice perhaps means, the Shrewd, the fenfible Vice. -In The Comedy of Errors, " a formal man" feems to mean, one in his fenfes; a rational man. Again, in Twelfth-Night, Vol. V. p. 330, n. 2: 66 - this is evident to any formal capacity." MALONE. 2 of this conqueror ;] For this reading we are indebted to Mr. Theobald, who derived it from the original edition in 1597. All the fubfequent ancient copies read corruptly-of his conqueror. MALONE. 3 lightly-] Commonly, in ordinary courfe. JOHNSON. So, in the old Proverb: "There's lightning lightly before thunder." See Ray's Proverbs, p. 130, edit. 3d. Enter YORK, HASTINGS, and the Cardinal. BUCK. Now, in good time, here comes the duke of York. PRINCE. Richard of York! how fares our loving brother? YORK. Well, my dread lord ;4 fo must I call now. you PRINCE. Ay, brother; to our grief, as it is yours: Too late he died,5 that might have kept that title, Which by his death hath loft much majesty. GLO. How fares our coufin, noble lord of York? YORK. I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord, Again, in Penny-wife and Pound-foolish, &c.-" Misfortunes feldome walke alone; and fo when bleffings doe knocke at a man's dore, they lightly are not without followers and fellowes." Again, Holinfhed, p. 725, concerning one of King Edward's concubines: " one whom no one could get out of the church lightly to any place, but it were to his bed," Again, in Ben Jonfon's Cynthia's Revels: STEEVENS. "He is not lightly within to his mercer." Short fummers lightly have a forward fpring.] That is, fhort fummers are usually preceded by a forward fpring; or in other words, and more appofitely to Glöfter's latent meaning, a premature spring is ufually followed by a short summer. MALONE. 4 dread lord;] The original of this epithet applied to kings has been much disputed. In fome of our old ftatutes the king is called Rex metuendiffimus. JOHNSON. 5 Too late he died,] i. e. too lately, the lofs is too fresh in our memory. WARBURTON. So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece : I did give that life, "Which she too early, and too late hath spill'd." Again, in King Henry V: "The mercy that was quick in us but late," &c. MALONE. |
