Imatges de pàgina
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For one commanding all, obey'd of none.
Thus hath the course of justice wheel'd about,
And left thee but a very prey to time;

Having no more but thought of what thou wert,
To torture thee the more, being what thou art.

SCENE V. His Mother's Character of King Richard.

Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy; Thy school days frightful, defp'rate, wild and furious; Thy prime of manhood, daring, bold and venturous; 'Thy age confirm'd, proud, fubtle, fly and bloody.

ACT V. SCENE II.

HOPE.

True hope is swift, and flies with fwallows wings; Kings it makes gods; and meaner creatures kings.

SCENE III. A fine Evening.

The weary fun hath made a golden fet, And, by the bright tract of his fiery car, Gives fignal of a goodly day to-morrow.

SCENE IV. Day-break.

The filent hours fteal on,

And flaky darkness breaks within the east.

give sense to this, as it is now read; but I fhould apprehend the author wrote,

For one being fear'd of all, now fearing all: and this correction not only the next line, but the whole manner of the fpeech, as well as the fuperior elegance given to the paffage, feem to confirm.

K 2

Richmond's

Richmond's Prayer.

O thou! whose captain I account myself,
Look on my forces with a gracious eye;
Put in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath,
That they may crush down with a heavy fall
Th' ufurping helmets of our adversaries !
Make us thy minifters of chastisement,
That we may praise thee in thy victory.
To thee I do commend my watchful foul,
Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes:
Sleeping and waking, oh, defend me still!

SCENE V. Richard starting out of his Dream.

Give me another horse-bind up my wounds. Have mercy, Jefu

-Soft, I did but dream.

O coward confcience!-how doft thou afflict me?
The light burns blue-is it not dead mid-night?
Cold fearful drops ftand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear myself?

SCENE VII.

CONSCIENCE.

Confcience is but a word that cowards ufe, Devis'd at firft to keep the strong in awe.

Richard before the Battle.

A thousand hearts are great within my bofom,
Advance our standards fet upon our foes;
Our ancient word of courage, fair St. George,
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons,
Upon them! (9) victory fits on our helms !

(9) Victory, &c.] The image here is fine and noble: Milton defcribing Satan, fpeaks thus fublimely,

His ftature reach'd the skies, and on his creft,

Sat horror plum'd!

And in another place, he says,

At his right hand victory

Sat eagle-winged.

B. 6. v. 762.

SCENE

SCENE VIII. Alarum. Enter King Richard.

K. Richard. A horfe! a horfe! my kingdom for a horse !

Cates. Withdraw, my lord, I'll help you to a

horse.

K. Richard. Slave, I have fet my life upon a cast, And I will stand the hazard of the dye;

I think there be fix Richmond's in the field;
Five have I flain to day instead of him.
A horfe! a horse! my kingdom for a horfe!

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ROMEO and JULIET.

ACTI. SCENE II.

LOVE.

OVE is a smoke rais'd with the fume of fighs,
Being purg'd, a fire fparkling in lovers eyes,

Being vex'd, a fea nourish'd with lovers tears;

What is it elfe? a madness most discreet,

A choaking gall, and a preserving sweet!

SCENE V. On Dreams.

O then I fee queen mab hath been with you.
She it the (1) fancy's midwife, and she comes
In fhape no bigger than an agat-ftone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies,
Athwart mens nofes as they lie asleep :
Her waggon fpokes made of long spinners legs;
The cover, of the wings of grafhoppers;

The traces, of the smallest spider's web;

(1) Fancy's, &c.] This has been read Fairies, but Mr. Warburton alter'd it, to Fancy: the lines following.

Which are the children of an idle brain

Begot of nothing but vain phantasy,

evidently prove the truth of the Reading. Refide, as he is the queen of the Fairies, it would rather be beneath her dignity to be their midwife too. The word shape is ufed in the next line very licentiously for form, fize, or magnitude.

The

The collars, of the moonshine's watry beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lafh, of film;

Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,

Not half fo big as a round little worm,
Prickt from the lazy finger of a maid.
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joyner fquirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies coach-makers:
And in this state fhe gallops night by night,
Through lovers brains, and then they dream of love:
On courtiers knees, that dream on curtfies ftrait :
O'er lawyers fingers, who ftrait dream on fees:
O'er ladies lips, who strait on kiffes dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blifters plagues,
Because their breaths with fweet-meats tainted are.
Sometimes the gallops o'er a (2) courtier's nofe,

And

(2) O'er a courtier's nofe.] Tho' lawyer's is here used in almost all the modern editions, it is very obfervable, that in the old ones the word ufed is, Courtier's; but the modern editors, having no idea what the poet could mean by a courtier's fmelling out a fuit, notwithstanding he had introduced the lawyers before, gave them another place, in this fine fpeech. Mr. Warburton has very well explain'd it, by obferving that "in our author's time, a courtfollicitation was call'd fimply a fuit; and a procefs, a fuit at law to diftinguish it from the other." The king (fays an anonymous cotemporary writer of the life of Sir William Cecil) called him [Sir William Cecil] and after long talk with him, being much delighted with his anfwers, willed his father to find [i. e. smell out] a Juit for him. Whereupon be became fuitor for the reverfion of the Cuftos Brevium office in the Common-Pleas. Which the king willingly granted it, being the first fuit be bad in his life." Nor can it be objected, as Mr. Warburton alfo obferves, that there will be a repetition in this fine fpeech if we read courtiers, as there is, if we read lawyers, it having been said before,

On courtiers knees that dream on curtfies ftraight.

Because they are fhewn in two places under different views; in the first their foppery, in the fecond their rapacity is ridiculed." Befides, we may add, that in the first line he feems to allude to the court ladies, in these under confideration to the gentleThe custom being fo much out of ufe, it is not amifs that

men,

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