Pray, that their burdens may not fall this day, 2 Conft. You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit, And our oppreffion hath made up this league:- Wear out the day in peace; but, ere sunset, Auft. O Lymoges ! i.e. be disappointed by the production of a prodigy, a monster. STEEVENS. That is except on this day. JOHNSON. In the ancient almanacks (feveral of which I have in my poffeffion} the days fuppofed to be favourable or unfavourable to bargains, are dif tinguished among a number of other particulars of the like importance. STEEVENS, 2 i. e. falfe coin. A counterfeit formerly fignified alfo a portrait.-A reprefentation of the king being ufually impreffed on his coin, the word feems to he here ufed equivocally. MALONE. 3 Being touch'd fignifies, having the touchstone applied to it. STEEVENS. 4 I am afraid here is a clinch intended. You came in war to destroy my enemies, but now you firengthen them in embraces. JOHNSON. Shakspeare makes this bitter curfe effectual. JOHNSON. Lymoges! O Auftria! 6 thou doft shame That bloody fpoil: Thou flave, thou wretch, thou coward; Thou ever ftrong upon the ftronger fide! D 2 Auf, The propriety or impropriety of the fe titles, which every editor has fuffered to pafs unnoted, deferves a little confideration. Shakspeare has, on this occasion, 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, vifcount of Limoges; and the archer who pierced his fhoulder with an arrow (of which wound he died) was Bertrand de Gourdon. The editor feem hitherto to have understood Lymoges as being an appendage to the title of Auftria, 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 vifcount 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 history 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. 7 To deff is to do off, to put off. STEEVENS. 8 When fools were kept for diverfion in great families, they were diftinguished Auft. O, that a man fhould fpeak those words to me? Enter 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 be played though a meer Fool, mention is made in feveral places of a calf's-skin. ~ In chap. x. of this book, Jack is said 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 Constance and Faulconbridge, who mean to call Auftria a fool. SIR J. HAWKINS. I may add, that the custom is still preferved in Ireland; and the fool in any of the legends which the mummers act at Christmas, always appears in a calf's or cow's fkin. STEEVENS. It does not appear that Conftance means to call Auftria a fool, as Sir John Hawkins would have it; but he certainly means to call him coward, and to tell him that a calf's skin 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 school-boy is ufually called a great calf. RITSON. 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. 9 Here Mr. Pope inferts the following speeches from the old play of King John, printed in 1591, before Shakspeare appears to have commenced a writer : "Auft. Methinks, that Richard's pride, and Richard's fall, "Faulc. What words are thefe how do my finews shake! "How doth Alecto whisper in my ears, "Delay not, Richard, kill the villain straight; Thy father's triumph o'er the favages ! — And fplit 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 should rather be inferted in the firft fcene of the fecond act, at the time of the firft altercation between the Bastard and Auftria, But indeed the ground of their quarrel feems to Enter PANDULPH. K. Phi. Here comes the holy legate of the pope. I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal, Why thou against the church, our holy mother, K. John. What earthly name to interrogatories, Tell him this tale; and from the mouth of England, D 3 Add to be as clearly expreffed in the first scene as in these lines; fo that they are unneceffary 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 reason in Act III. fc. ii; Thus bath king Richard's, &c. TYRWHITT. 2 This must have been at the time when it was written, in our ftruggles with Popery, a very captivating scene. 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 fufpect that time has obfcured much of his art, and that many allufions yet remain undiscovered, which perhaps may be gradually retrieved by fucceeding 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, fp I fcorne to be fubject to the greatest 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 tvthe, toll, or polling penny out of England; but as I am king, fo will I tign next under God, fupreme head both over fpiritual and temporal: and he that contradi&s me in this, I'll make him hop headless." STEEVENS, Add thus much more,-That no Italian priest K. Phi. Brother of England, you blafpheme in this. Dreading the curfe that money may buy out; Againft the pope, and count his friends my foes. Conft. 3 This may allude to the bull published against Queen Elizabeth. Or we may fuppofe, fince we have no proof that this play appeared in its prefent ftate before the reign of King James, that it was exhibited foon after the popish plot. I have feen a Spanish book in which Garnet, Faux, and their accomplices, are registered as faints. JOHNSON. If any allufion to his own times was intended by the author of the old play, (for this fpeech is formed on one in King John, 1591,) it must have been to the bull of Pope Pius the Fifth, 1569: "Then I Pandulph of Padua, legate from the Apoftolike fea, doe in the name of Saint Peter, ard his fucceffor, cur holy father Pope Innocent, pronounce thee acsurfed, difcharging every of thy fubjects of all dutie and fealtie that they do owe to thee, and pardon and forgiveneffe of finne to thofe or them whatfoever which fhall carrie armes against theç or murder thee. This I pronounce, and charge all good men to abhorre thee as an excommunicate perfon," ALONE. |