Glo. My lord, the mayor of London comes to greet you. Enter Lord Mayor and his train. Mayor. God bless your grace with health and happy days! Prince. I thank you, good my lord; and thank you all. I thought, my mother, and my brother York, Would long ere this have met us on the way:Fie, what a flug is Haftings? that he comes not To tell us, whether they will come or no. Enter Lord Haftings. Buck. And, in good time, here comes the sweating lord. Prince. Welcome, my lord: What, will our mother come? Haft. On what occafion, God he knows, not I, The queen your mother, and your brother York, Have taken fanctuary: the tender prince Would fain have come with me to meet your grace, But by his mother was perforce with-held. Buck. Fie! what an indirect and peevish course If fhe deny, lord Haftings, you go with him, Arch. My lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory. Can from his mother win the duke of York, Anon expect him here: But if fhe be obdurate Buck. You are too fenfelefs-obftinate, my lord; Too Too ceremonious, and traditional. 7 Weigh it but with the groffnefs of this age, To those, whose dealings have deferv'd the place, But fanctuary-children, ne'er till now. Arch. My lord, you fhall o'er-rule my mind for once. Come on, lord Haftings, will you go with me? • Too ceremonious, and traditional.] Ceremonious for fuperftitious; traditional for adherent to old cuftoms. WARBURTON. Weigh it but with the groffness of this age.] But the more groft, that is, the more fuperftitious the age was, the ftronger would be the imputation of violated fan&tuary. The queftion, we fee by what follows, is whether fanctuary could be claimed by an infant. The speaker refolves it in the negative, because it could be claimed by thofe only whofe actions neceffitated them to fly thither; or by those who had an understanding to demand it; neither of which could be an infant's cafe: It is plain then, the first line, which introduces this reasoning, should be read thus, Weigh it but with the greennefs of his age. i. e. the young duke of York's, whom his mother had fled with to fanctuary. The corrupted reading of the old quarto is fomething nearer the true. -the greatnefs of his age.. WARBURTON. This emendation is received by Hanmer, and is very plausible; yet the common reading may ftand. Weigh it but with the gronefs of this age, You break not fanctuary, That is, compare the act of feizing him with the grofs and licen tious practices of thefe times, it will not be confidered as a violation of fanctuary, for you may give such reafons as men are now used to admit. JOHNSON. Haft. Haft. I go, my lord. Prince. Good lords, make all the speedy hafte you may. [Exeunt Archbishop and Haftings. Say, uncle Glofter, if our brother come, Where fhall we fojourn till our coronation? Glo. Where it seems beft unto your royal self. If I may counsel you, fome day, or two, Your highness fhall repofe you at the Tower: Then, where you please, and fhall be thought most fit For your beft health and recreation. Prince. I do not like the Tower, of any place :Did Julius Cæfar build that place, my lord? Glo. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place; Which, fince, fucceeding ages have re-edify'd. Prince. Is it upon record? or elfe reported Succeffively from age to age to age, he built it? Buck. Upon record, my gracious lord. Prince. But fay, my lord, it were not register'd; Methinks, the truth fhould live from age to age, As 'twere retail'd to all pofterity, Even to the general all-ending day. Glo. So wife, fo young, they fay, do ne'er live long. Afide. Prince. What fay you, uncle? 6 As 'twere retail'd to all pofterity,] And fo it is: and, by that means, like most other retailed things, became adulterated. We should read, -intail'd to all pofterity; which is finely and fenfibly expreffed, as if truth was the natural inheritance of our children; which it is impiety to deprive them of. WARBURTON. Retailed may fignify diffused, difperfed. JOHNSON. 9 So wife, &c.] Is cadit ante fenem, qui fapit ante diem, a proverbial line. STEEVENS. Thus, Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity, I moralize: Two meanings in one word. Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity, I moralize two meanings in one word.] } Afide. Prince. By vice, the author means not a quality, but a perfon. There was hardly an old play, till the period of the Reformation, which had not in it a devil, and a droll character, a jefter; (who was to play upon the devil ;) and this buffoon went by the name of a Vice. This buffoon was at first accoutred with a long jerkin, a cap with a pair of afs's ears, and a wooden dagger, with which (like another Arlequin) he was to make sport in belabouring the devil. This was the conftant entertainment in the times of popery, whilst fpirits, and witchcraft, and exorcifing held their own. When the Reformation took place, the ftage fhook off fome groffities, and encreased in refinements. The mafter-devil then was foon difmiffed from the scene; and this buffoon was changed into a fubordinate fiend, whose bufinefs was to range on earth, and feduce poor mortals into that perfonated vicious quality, which he occafionally fupported; as, iniquity in general, hypocrify, ufury, vanity, prodigality, gluttony, &c. Now, as the fiend (or vice, who perfonated Iniquity (or Hypocrify, for inftance) could never hope to play his game to the purpose but by hiding his cloven foot, and affuming a femblance quite different from his real character; he must cer. tainly put on a formal demeanour, moralize and prevaricate in his words, and pretend a meaning directly oppofite to his genuine and primitive intention. If this does not explain the paffage in queftion, 'tis all that I can at present suggest upon it. THEOBALD. Thus like the formal vice, Iniquity, I moralize two meanings in one word. That the buffoon, or jefter of the old English farces, was called the vice, is certain: and that, in their moral representations, it was common to bring in the deadly fins, is as true. Of these we have yet feveral remains. But that the vice ufed to affume the perfonage of thofe fins, is a fancy of Mr. Theobald's, who knew nothing of the matter. The truth is, the vice was always a fool or jefter: And, (as the woman, in the Merchant of Venice, calls the clown, alluding to this character,) a merry devil. Whereas thefe mortal fins were fo many fad ferious ones. But what misled our editor was the name, Iniquity, given to this vice: But it was only on account of his unhappy tricks and rogueries. That it was given to him, and for the reafon I mention, appears from the following paffage of Jonfon's Staple of News, fecond intermeane. M. How like you the vice i' the play? T. Here Prince. That Julius Cæfar was a famous man ; With what his valour did enrich his wit, His T. Here is never a fiend to carry him away. Befides he has never a wooden dagger. M. That was the old way, goffip, when Iniquity came in, like Hocas Pocas, in a jugler's jerkin, with falfe fkirts, like the knave of clubs. And, in The Devil's an Afs, we see this old vice, Iniquity, described more at large. From all this, it may be gathered, that the text, where Richard compares himself to the formal vice, Iniquity, must be corrupt : And the interpolation of fome foolish player. The vice, or ini quity being not a formal but a merry, buffoon character. Befides, Shakespeare could never make an exact speaker refer to this character, because the fubject he is upon is tradition and antiquity, which have no relation to it; and because it appears from the turn of the paffage, that he is apologizing for his equivocation by a reputable practice. To keep the reader no longer in fufpence my conjecture is, that Shakespeare wrote and pointed the lines. in this manner, Thus like the formal-wife Antiquity, I moralize: Two meanings in one word. Alluding to the mythologic learning of the antients, of whom. they are all here fpeaking. So that Richard's ironical apology is to this effect, You men of morals who fo much extol your all-wife antiquity, in what am I inferior to it? which was but an equivocator as I am. And it is remarkable, that the Greeks themfelves called their remote antiquity, Aixóμ or the equivocator. So far as to the general fenfe; as to that which arifes particularly out of the corrected expreffion, I fhall only obferve, that formal-wife is a compound epithet, an extreme fine one, and admirably fitted to the character of the speaker, who thought all wijdom but formality. It must therefore be read for the future with a hyphen. My other obfervation is with regard to the pointing; the common reading, I moralize two meanings is nonfenfe: but reformed in this manner, very sensible, Thus like the formal-wife Antiquity I moralize: Two meanings in one word. i. e. I moralize as the antients did. And how was that? the having two meanings to one word. A ridicule on the morality of the antients, which he infinuates was no better than equivocating. WARBURTON. |