Critical Notes.

BY ISRAEL GOLLANCZ.

I. i. 20. According to the Cambridge editors the line must probably be scanned as an Alexandrine, reading the first controlment' in the time of a trisyllable and the second as a quadrisyllable. This seems very doubtful; the irregularity of the line is not remarkable; there is merely an extra syllable before the pause:

Contról/ment fór/contrólment//so áns/wer Fránce./

I. i. 28. 'sullen presage of your own decay'; there is perhaps an allusion here to the dismal passing-bell, as Steevens suggested; according to Delius, the trumpet of doom is alluded to. There is, however, no difficulty in the thought as it stands, without these references to a secondary idea.

I. i. 49. 'expedition's'; first Folio, expeditious; an obvious misprint.

I. i. 54. Cœur-de-lion'; 'Cordelion' in the Folios and old play; perhaps the spelling should be kept as the popular form of the

name.

'knighted in the field'; in 'The Troublesome Raigne' he is knighted at the siege of Acon or Acre, by the title of Sir Robert Fauconbridge of Montbery.

I. i. 85. 'trick'; it has been suggested that 'trick' is used here in the heraldic sense of 'copy'; it would seem, however, to be used in a less definite sense.

I. i. 139. ‘sir Robert's his, so the Folios; Theobald proposed 'sir Robert his,' regarding 'his' as the old genitive form; Vaughan, ‘ just sir Robert's shape'; Schmidt takes the ''s his' as a reduplicative possessive. Surely 'his' is used substantively with that rollicking effect which is so characteristic of Faulconbridge. There is no need to explain the phrase as equivalent to his shape, which is also his father Sir Robert's'; 'sir Robert's his''sir Robert's shape,' 'his' emphasizing substantively the previous pronominal use of the word.

L

DON

From an engraving by Fairholt.

I. i. 143. Look, where threefarthings goes'; three-farthing pieces of silver were coined in 1561 (discontinued in 1582); they were very thin, and were distinguished from the silver pence by an impression of the queen's profile, with a rose behind her ear. (Cp. illustration.)

I. i. 147. 'I would not'; Folio 1 reads 'It would not,' probably a misprint, though Delius makes 'it' refer to 'His face.'

I. i. 234-5. eat his part upon Good-Friday'; evidently a popular proverb, cp. Heywood's Dialogue upon Proverbs:—

'He may his part on Good Friday eat,

And fast never the wurs, for ought he shall geat' (i.e. get).

I. i. 244. 'Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like'; an allusion to the old play called 'Soliman and Perseda' (printed 1599, written probably some ten years before); Piston the buffoon, representing the old Vice of the Morality Plays, jumps on the back of Basilisco, the bragging coward, and makes him take oath on his dagger :

BAS. 'I, the aforesaid Basilisco,-knight, good fellow, knight, knight,

PIST. 'Knave, good fellow, knave, knave.'

(Cp. Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, Vol. v. 271-2.)

II. i. 2. that great forerunner of thy blood'; Shakespeare, by some oversight, here makes Arthur directly descended from Richard.

II. i. 5. by this brave duke, so the old play. Richard was, however, slain by an arrow at the siege of Chaluz, some years after the Duke's death.

II. i. 64. her niece, the Lady Blanch of Spain,' i.e. her granddaughter; Blanch was the daughter of John's sister Eleanor and Alphonso VIII., King of Castile.

II. i 65. of the king's deceased, i.e. of the deceased king'; Folios 2, 3, 4, 'king'; but Folio 1, 'kings'' king's' is idiomatically correct.

II. i. 103. huge'; Rowe read 'large,' doubtless a misprint for 'huge' restored by Capell.

II. i. 113. breast'; Folio 1, 'beast.'

II. i. 119. Excuse; it is, etc.; Malone's correction of the Folios, 'Excuse it is'; Rowe (ed. 2) 'Excuse it, 'tis.'

II. i. 137. of whom the proverb goes, ɩ.e. 'Mortuo leoni et lepores insultant'; cp. Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, Hares may pull dead lions by the beard.'

II. i. 144. Great Alcides' shows upon an ass'; alluding to the skin of the Nemean lion won by Hercules. The Folios read 'shooes'; the reading of the text was first proposed by Theobald.

II. i. 149. 'King Philip, etc.; the line is printed in the Folios as part of Austria's speech, with King Lewis' instead of 'King Philip'; the error was first corrected by Theobald.

II. i. 152. 'Anjou,' Theobald's correction of 'Angiers' of the Folios.

II. i. 156. Bretagne'; Folios 1, 2, 'Britaine'; Folio 3, 'Britain'; Folio 4, ‘Brittain.'

II. i. 159. ll. 159 to 197 considered as spurious by Pope.

II. i. 160, 161. 'it,' old form of possessive, so Folios 2, 3, 4; Folio 1, yt . . . it'; Johnson, 'it' . . it''; Capell, 'it's it's. In the Lancashire dialect 'hit' is still common form of the possessive, an archaism used here in imitation of the language of the nursery.

II. i. 167. 'whether, monosyllabic; Folios 1, 2, 3, 'where'; Folio 4, where.'

6

II. i. 177. 'this is thy eld'st'; Capell's emendation of the Folios, 'this is thy eldest'; Fleay proposed 'this' thy eld'st'; Ritson, ‘thy eld'st,' omitting 'this is.'

II. i. 180. the canon of the law,' cp. Exodus xx. 5.

II. i. 187. 'And with her plague; her sin his injury,' etc.; the Folios, And with her plague her sin: his injury,' etc. The punctuation adopted was first proposed by Mr. Roby, who explains the passage thus:-"God hath made her sin and herself to be a plague to this distant child, who is punished for her and with the punishment belonging to her: God has made her sin to be an injury to Arthur, and her injurious deeds to be the executioner to punish her sin: all which (viz., her first sin and her now injurious deeds) are punished in the person of this child."

II. i. 196. 'aim'; Folio 1, 'ayme'; Folios 2, 3, 4, 'ay me'; Rowe conjectured 'amen'; Moberley, 'hem'; Jackson, 'shame'; Johnson, 'j'aime.'

II. i. 215. ‘Confronts your'; Capell's emendation; Folios I, 2,