mented on by Warburton, who seems to have influenced Mr. Malone to adopt it. The speaker's design is to shew that all the common effects of nature which he mentions would be perverted by the people; but an escape of nature would be very properly deemed an abortive. The original reading is therefore correct; nor could an apter word have been selected. Thus in King Henry the Fourth, Part I;

"And curbs himself even of his natural scope."

ACT IV.

Scene 2. Page 128.

PEMB. If what in rest you have, in right you hold.

Mr. Steevens would read wrest, which he explains to be violence. But surely "the murmuring lips of discontent," would not insinuate that John was an usurper; because the subsequent words, "in right you hold," would then be contradictory. One could not say; "if, being an usurper, you reign by right." The construction may therefore be more simple: "If the power you now possess in quiet be held by right, why

should your fears," &c. The explanation given by Mr. Malone might have sufficed.

Sc. 2. p. 137.

K. JOHN. It is the curse of kings to be attended

By slaves that take their humours for a warrant
To break within the bloody house of life,

Mr. Malone ingeniously conceives this to be a covert apology for Elizabeth's conduct to the queen of Scots; yet it may be doubted whether any such apology would be thought necessary during the life of Elizabeth. May it not rather allude to the death of the earl of Essex? If this conjecture be well founded, it will serve to ascer tain the date of the composition of the play, and to shew that Meres had mistaken the older piece for Shakspeare's.

Sc. 2. p. 139.

K. JOHN. Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,
As bid me tell my tale in express words.

And, and or, have been proposed instead of as, but without necessity. The words are elliptical in Shakspeare's manner, and only mean, "or turn'd

such an eye

of doubt as bid me," &c.

Sc. 3. p. 142.

SAL. Two long days journey lords, or e'er we meet.

Dr. Percy has judiciously remarked that ever or e'er in this phrase is a useless augmentative, or being of itself equivalent to before. The corruption is not much older than Shakspeare's time. In some of the editions of Cranmer's Bible, Ecclesiastes xii. 6. is rendered, " Or ever the silver lace be taken away, and or ever the golden well be broken." In others the second ever is omitted. Wicliffe's translation, an invaluable monument of our language, has it, "er be to broke the silveren corde," &c. This is pure Saxon æɲ or ep; and so is our modern ere, often erroneously spelled e'er, as a supposed contraction of ever. Chaucer's time it had become or;

"For, par amour, I loved hir first or thou."

Yet in

Knight's tale, v. 1155.

though some copies, both manuscript and printed, read er in this place as well as in others. Mr. Steevens seems properly to object to the orthography of ore.

ACT V.

Scene 1. Page 155.

BAST. Away then, with good courage; yet I know,
Our party may well meet a prouder foe.

Mr. Steevens has noticed Dr. Johnson's misconception of this passage; yet it may be doubted whether he has sufficiently simplified the meaning, I know that our party is fully

which is

yet

competent to engage a more valiant foe." Prouder has in this place the signification of the old French word preux,

KING RICHARD II.

ACT III.

Scene 2. Page 272.

K. RICH. That when the searching eye of heaven is hid Behind the globe, and lights the lower world.

THE

HE slight but necessary emendation of and for that ascribed to Johnson, had already been made by Hanmer. Lower world simply means lower hemisphere.

Sc. 2. p. 279.

K. RICH. Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's, And nothing can we call our own, but death.

This resembles Wolsey's speech;

"To the last penny 'tis the king's; my robe

And my integrity to heav'n, is all

I dare now call my own."