GLO. I cannot tell ;-The world is grown so bad, That wrens may prey where eagles dare not perch: Since every Jack became a gentleman', There's many a gentle person made a Jack. Q. ELIZ. Come, come, we know your meaning, You envy my advancement, and my friends ; Our brother is imprison'd by your means, Held in contempt; while many fair promotions * That scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble. Q. ELIZ. By Him, that rais'd me to this careful height From that contented hap which I enjoy'd, Against the duke of Clarence, but have been An earnest advocate to plead for him. My lord, you do me shameful injury, Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects. GLO. You may deny that you were not the cause Of my lord Hastings' late imprisonment. * So quarto 1597; folio, while great promotions. Here clearly a line was omitted: y et had there been no quarto copy, it would have been thought hardy to supply the omission : but of all the errors of the press omission is the most frequent ; and it is a great mistake to suppose that these lacunæ exist only in the imagination of editors and commentators. MALONE. 9 -MAY prey-] The quartos 1597 and 1598, and the folio, read-make prey. The correction, which all the modern editors have adopted, is taken from the quarto 1602. MALONE. Since every JACK became a gentleman,] This proverbial expression at once demonstrates the origin of the term Jack so often used by Shakspeare. It means one of the very lowest class of people, among whom this name is of the most common and familiar kind. DOUCE. RIV. She may, my lord; for▬▬▬▬▬▬ GLO. She may, lord Rivers ?—why, who knows not so ? She may do more, sir, than denying that: RIV. What, marry, may she? GLO. What, marry, may she? marry with a king, A bachelor, a handsome stripling too : I wis, your grandam had a worser match. Q. ELIZ. My lord of Gloster, I have too long borne Your blunt upbraidings, and your bitter scoffs: Enter Queen MARGARET, behind. Q. MAR. And lessen'd be that small, God, I beseech thee! Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me. GLO. What? threat you me with telling of the king? Tell him, and spare not: look, what I have said2 I will avouch, in presence of the king : + So quarto 1597; folio, To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at. 2 Tell him, and spare not: look, what I have said—] This verse I have restored from the old quartos. THEOBALD. Here we have another proof of a line being passed over by the transcriber, or the compositor at the press, when the first folio was printed, for the subsequent line is not sense without this. MALONE. I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower 4 3 Tis time to speak, my pains are quite forgot. GLO. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king, I was a pack-horse in his great affairs; 6 To royalize his blood, I spilt mine own. Q. MAR. Yea, and much better blood than his, or thine. GLO. In all which time, you, and your husband Grey, Were factious for the house of Lancaster ; And, Rivers, so were you :-Was not your husband In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain ? 7 Let me put in your minds, if you forget, 3 I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.] thor elliptically omitted the first-to in this line. To help thee curse," &c. i. e. to curse. See also p. 29, n. 8. 4 - my pains STEEVENS. Perhaps our au So, in p. 48: My labours; my toils. JOHNSON. 5 OUT, devil!] Mr. Lambe observes, in his notes on the ancient metrical history of The Battle of Floddon Field, that out is an interjection of abhorrence or contempt, most frequent in the mouths of the common people of the north. It occurs again in Act IV.: out on ye, owls!" STEEVENS. i. e. to make royal. So, in Claudius Tibe "Who means to-morrow for to royalize "The triumphs," &c. Was not your husband STEEVENS. In Margaret's BATTLE, &c.] It is said in Henry Vl. that he died in quarrel of the house of York. JOHNSON. The account here given is the true one. See this inconsistency accounted for in vol. xviii. p. 454, n. 3, and in the Dissertation at the end of The Third Part of King Henry VI. MALONE. Margaret's battle is-Margaret's army. RITSON. What you have been ere now, and what you are; Withal, what I have been, and what I am. Q. MAR. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art. GLÓ. Poor Clarence did forsake his father Warwick, Ay, and forswore himself,-Which Jesu pardon !Q. MAR. Which God revenge! GLO. To fight on Edward's party, for the crown; And, for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up: I would to God, my heart were flint like Edward's, Or Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine; I am too childish-foolish for this world. Q. MAR. Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world, Thou cacodæmon! there thy kingdom is. RIV. My lord of Gloster, in those busy days, Which here you urge, to prove us enemies, We follow'd then our lord, our lawful king; So should we you, if you should be our king. GLO. If I should be ?-I had rather be a pedlar: Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof! Q. ELIZ. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose You should enjoy, were you this country's king; As little joy you may suppose in me, That I enjoy, being the queen thereof. Q. MAR. A little joy enjoys the queen thereof; For I am she, and altogether joyless. So, in King Henry VI. Part I. : 8 - "What may the king's whole battle reach unto ?" STEEVENS. our LAWFUL king ;] So the quartos 1597, 1598, and the subsequent quartos. The folio has-sovereign king. In this play the variations between the original copy in quarto, and the folio, are more numerous than, I believe, in any other of our author's pieces. The alterations, it is highly probable, were made, not by Shakspeare, but by the players, many of them being very injudicious. The text has been formed out of the two copies, the folio, and the early quarto; from which the preceding editors have in every scene selected such readings as appeared to them fit to be adopted. To enumerate every variation between the copies would encumber the page with little use. MALONE. I can no longer hold me patient. [Advancing. GLO. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my sight? Q. MAR. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd; 9 Hear me, you wrangling pirates, &c.] This scene of Margaret's imprecations is fine and artful. She prepares the audience, like another Cassandra, for the following tragic revolutions. WARBURTON. Surely, the merits of this scene are insufficient to excuse its improbability. Margaret bullying the court of England in the royal palace, is a circumstance as absurd as the courtship of Gloster in a publick street. STEEVENS. I which you have PILL'D from me :] To pill is to pillage. So, in The Martyr'd Soldier, by Shirley, 1638: "He has not pill'd the rich, nor flay'd the poor." STEEVENS. To pill is literally to take off the outside or rind. Thus they say in Devonshire, to pill an apple, rather than pare it; and Shirley uses the word precisely in this sense. 2 Ah, GENTLE villain,] We should read: 66 HENLEY. ungentle villain." WARBUrton. The meaning of gentle is not, as the commentator imagines, tender or courteous, but high-born. An opposition is meant between that and villain, which means at once a wicked and a lowborn wretch. So before: 66 Since every Jack is made a gentleman, "There's many a gentle person made a Jack." JOHNSON. Gentle appears to me to be taken in its common acceptation, but to be used ironically. M. MASON. 3 - what MAK'ST thou in my sight?] An obsolete expression for-what dost thou in my sight. So, in Othello: 66 Ancient, what makes he here?" Margaret in her answer takes the word in its ordinary acceptation. MALONE. So does Orlando, in As You Like It: 66 Now, sir, what make you here? "Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing." STEEVENS. |