The ufurper Richard: who, being at Salisbury, Made fuit to come in his presence; which if granted, As he made femblance of his duty, would Have put his knife into him.' K. HEN. A giant traitor! WOL. Now, madam, may his highness live in freedom, And this man out of prifon? Q. KATH. God mend all! K. HEN. There's fomething more would out of thee; What fay'ft? SURV. After-the duke his father, with the knife, Have put his knife into him.] The accuracy of Holinfhed, if from him Shakspeare took his account of the accufations and punishment, together with the qualities of the Duke of Buckingham, is proved in the most authentick manner by a very curious report of his cafe in Eaft. Term, 13 Hen. VIII. in the year books published by authority, fol.11 and 12, edit. 1597. After, in the most exact manner, fetting forth the arrangement of the Lord High Steward, the Peers, the arraignment, and other forms and ceremonies, it fays: "Et iffint fuit arreine Edward Duc de Buckingham, le derrain jour de Terme le xij jour de May, le Duc de Norfolk donques eftant Grand fenefchal: la cause fuit, pur ceo que il avoit entend l' mort de noftre Săr. le Roy. Car premierment un Moine del' Abbey de Henton in le countie de Somerset dit a lui que il fera Roy & command' luy de obtenir le benevolence del' communalte, & fur ceo il doña certaines robbes a ceft entent. A que il dit que le moine ne onques dit ainfi a lui, & que il ne dona ceux dones a ceft intent. Donques auterfoits il dit, fi le Roy moruft fans iffue male, il voul' eftre Roy: & auxi que il difoit, fi le Roy avoit lui commis al' prifon, donques il voul' lui occire ove fon dagger. Mes touts. ceux matters il denia in effect, mes fuit trove coulp: Et pur ceo il avoit jugement comme traitre, et fuit decolle le Vendredy devant le Fefie del Pentecoft que fuit le xiij jour de May avant dit. Dieu à fa ame grant mercy-car il fuit tres noble prince & pru-~ dent, et mirror de tout courtefie." VAILLANT. He stretch'd him, and, with one hand on his dagger, K. HEN. To fheath his knife in us. There's his period, He is attach'd; Call him to prefent trial: if he may Find mercy in the law, 'tis his; if none, 2 [Exeunt. By day and night,] This, I believe, was a phrase anciently fignifying-at all times, every way, completely. In The Merry Wives of Windfor, Falftaff, at the end of his letter to Mrs. Ford, ftyles himself: "Thine own true knight, Again, (I must repeat a quotation I have elsewhere employed,) "The daughter eke Canace hight, The King's words, however, by fome criticks, have been confidered as an adjuration. I do not pretend to have determined the exact force of them. STEEVENS. SCENE III. A Room in the Palace. Enter the Lord Chamberlain,3 and Lord SANDS.4 CHAM. Is it poffible, the spells of France should juggle Men into fuch ftrange myfteries ? 5. 3 Lord Chamberlain-] Shakspeare has placed this scene in 1521. Charles Earl of Worcester was then Lord Chamberlain; but when the King in fact went in masquerade to Cardinal Wolfey's houfe, Lord Sands, who is here introduced as going thither with the Chamberlain, himself poffeffed that office. MALONE. Lord Chamberlain -] Charles Somerset, created Earl of Worcester 5 Henry VIII. He was Lord Chamberlain both to Henry VII. and Henry VIII. and continued in the office until his death, 1526. REED. 4 Lord Sands.] Sir William Sands, of the Vine, near Bafingftoke, in Hants, was created a peer 1524. He became Lord Chamberlain upon the death of the Earl of Worcester in 1526. Is it poffible, the fpells of France should juggle REED. Men into fuch Strange myfteries?] Myfteries were allegorical fhows, which the mummers of thofe times exhibited in odd fantastick habits. Myfteries are used, by an eafy figure, for those that exhibited myfteries; and the fenfe is only, that the travelled Englishmen were metamorphofed, by foreign fashions, into fuch an uncouth appearance, that they looked like mummers in a mystery. JOHNSON. That myfteries is the genuine reading, [Dr. Warburton would read-mockeries] and that it is used in a different sense from the one here given, will appear in the following inftance from Drayton's Shepherd's Garland: even fo it fareth now with thee, The context of which fhows, that by wifards are meant poets, and by myfierie their poetick skill, which was before called SANDS. New cuftoms, Though they be never fo ridiculous, CHAM. As far as I fee, all the good our English Have got by the late voyage, is but merely A fit or two o'the face; but they are fhrewd ones; For when they hold them, you would fwear directly, Their very noses had been counsellors To Pepin, or Clotharius, they keep ftate fo. SANDS. They have all new legs, and lame ones; one would take it, That never faw them" pace before, the spavin, CHAM. Death! my lord, "mister artes." Hence the mysteries in Shakspeare fignify those fantastick manners and fashions of the French, which had operated as Spells or enchantments. HENLEY. A fit or two o'the face;] A fit of the face feems to be what we now term a grimace, an artificial cast of the countenance. JOHNSON. Fletcher has more plainly expreffed the fame thought in The Elder Brother: “To vary his face as seamen do their compass." STEEVENS. 7 That never faw them-] Old copy-fee 'em. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. A fpringhalt reign'd among them.] The Stringhalt, or Springhalt, (as the old copy reads,) is a difeafe incident to horfes, which gives them a convulfive motion in their paces. So, in Muleaffes the Turk, 1610: " -by reafon of a general Spring-halt and debility in their hams." Again, in Ben Jonfon's Bartholomew Fair : "Poor foul, fhe has had a ftringhalt." STEEVENS. Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors, without any neceffity, I think, for A springhalt, read-And springhalt. MALONE. Their clothes are after such a pagan cut too,9 That, fure, they have worn out chriftendom. How now? What news, fir Thomas Lovell ? Lov. Enter Sir THOMAS LOVELL. 'Faith, my lord, I hear of none, but the new proclamation CHAM. What is't for? Lov. The reformation of our travell'd gallants, That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors. CHAM. I am glad, 'tis there; now I would pray our monfieurs To think an English courtier may be wife, Lov. They muft either (For fo run the conditions,) leave these remnants Of fool, and feather,' that they got in France, 9 cut too,] Old copy-cut to't. Corrected in the fourth folio. MALONE. Both the first and second folio read-cut too't, fo that for part of this correction we are not indebted to the fourth folio. I leave thefe remnants STEEVENS. Of fool, and feather,] This does not allude to the feathers anciently worn in the hats and caps of our countrymen, (a circumftance to which no ridicule could juftly belong,) but to an effeminate fashion recorded in Greene's Farewell to Folly, 1617: from whence it appears that even young gentlemen carried fans" of feathers in their hands: ". we ftrive to be counted womanish, by keeping of beauty, by curling the hair, by wearing plumes of feathers in our hands, which in wars, our ancestors wore on their heads." Again, in his Quip for an upfiart Courtier, 1620: "Then our young courtiers ftrove to exceed one another in |