queen Margaret. Duke of York slain, and his army defeated; Richard Nevil eari of Salisbury taken prisoner, and afterwards beheaded at Pomfret. Killed 2801. 5. Battle of Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire, on Candlemasday 1460-1, between Edward duke of York on the one side, and Jasper earl of Pembroke and James Butler earl of Wiltshire on the other. Duke of York victorious. Killed $800. 6. Second Battle of Saint Albans, 17 February 1460-1, between queen Margaret on the one side, and the duke of Norfolk and the earl of Warwick on the other. The queen victorious. Sir Richard Grey, a Lancastrian, slain, whose widow afterwards married king Edward IV. Killed 2305. 7. Action at Ferrybridge in Yorkshire, 28 March 1461, between lord Clifford on the part of king Henry, and lord Fitzwalter on the part of the duke of York. Lord Fitzwalter and John lord Clifford slain. Killed 230. 8. Battle of Towton four miles from York, Palm-sunday, 29 March, 1461, between Edward duke of York and king Henry. King Henry defeated. Henry Percy earl of Northumberland slain. Killed 37.046. 9. Battle of Hedgeley Moor in Northumberland, 29 April 1463, between John Nevil viscount Montague on the part of king Edward IV. and the lords Hungerford and Roos on the part of Henry VI. The Yorkists victorious. Killed 108. 10. Battle of Hexham, 15 May 1468, between viscount Montague and King Henry. The king defeated. Lords Roos and Hungerford taken prisoners, and afterwards beheaded. Killed 2024. 11. Battle of Hedgecote four miles from Banbury, 25 July 1469, between William Herbert earl of Pembroke on the part of king Edward, and the lords Fitzburg and Latimer and sir John Conyers on the part of king Henry. The Lancastrians defeated. Killed 5009. 12. Battle of Stamford in Lincolnshire, 1 Oct. 1469, between sir Robert Wells and king Edward; in which the former was defeated and taken prisoner. The vanquished who fled, in order to lighten themselves threw away their coats, whence the place of combat was called Losecoatfield. Killed 10.000. 14. Battle of Barnet, on Easter-sunday, 14 April, 1471, between king Edward on the one side, and the earl of Warwick, the Marquis of Montague, and the earl of Oxford on the part of King Henry. The Lancastrians defeated; the earl of Warwick and the marquis of Montague slain. Killed 10,300. 15. Battle of Tewksbury, 3 May 1471, between king Edward and queen Margaret. The queen defeated, and she and her son prince Edward taken prisoners. On the next day the prince was murdered by king Edward and his brothers. Killed 3,032. Shortly afterwards, in an action between the bastard son of lord Falconbridge and some Londoners, 1092 persons were killed. 16. Battle of Bosworth in Leicestershire, 22 August 1485, between king Richard III. and Henry earl of Richmond, afterwards king Henry VII. Richard defeated and slain. Killed on the part of Richard, 4,015; on the part of Richmond, 181. The total number of persons who fell in the contest between the Houses of York and Lancaster was Ninety-one Thousand and Twenty-six. MALONE. KING HENRY VIII. P. 117. Have broke their backs with laying manors on them] So in King John: "Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries, "Have sold their fortunes at their native homes, Again, in Camden's Remains, 1605: "There was a nobleman merrily conceited, and riotously given, that having lately sold a manor of an hundred tenements, came ruffling into the court, saying, am not I a mighty man that bear an hundred houses on my backe ?" P. 129. Leave these remnants MALONE. Of fool, and feather] This does not allude to the feathers anciently worn in the hats and caps of our countrymen, (a circumstance to which no ridicule could justly belong,) but to an effeminate fashion recorded in Greene's Farewell to Folly, 1617: from whence it appears that even young gentlemen carried fans of feathers in their hands: "we strive to be counted womanish, by keeping of beauty, by curling the hair, by wearing plumes of feathers in our hands, which in wars, our ancestors wore on their heads." STEEVENS. The text may receive illusration from a passage in Nashe's Life of Iacke Wilton, 1594: "At that time [viz. in the court of King Henry VIII.] I was no common squire, no undertroden torch-bearer, I had my feather in my cap as big as a flag in the foretop, my French doublet gelte in the belly, as though (lyke a pig readie to be spitted) all my guts had been pluckt out, a paire of side paned hose that hung down like two scales filled with Holland cheeses, my long stock that sate close to my dock,--my rapier pendant like a round sticke, &c. my blacke cloake of blacke cloth, ouer spreading my backe lyke a thornbacke or an elephantes eare ---and in consummation of my curiositie, my handes without gloves, all a more French," &c. RITSON. P. 180. My barge stays;] The speaker is now in the King's palace at Bridewell, from which he is proceeding by water to York-place, (Cardinal Wolsey's house,) now Whitehall. MALONE. P. 134. a little heated.] The King, on being discovered and desired by Wolsey to take his place, said that he would "first go and shift him: and thereupon, went into the Cardinal's bed-chamber, where was a great fire prepared for him, and there he new appareled himselfe with rich and princely garments. And in the king's absence the dishes of the banquet were cleane taken away, and the tables covered with new and perfumed clothes.---Then the king took his seat under the cloath of estate, commanding every person to sit still as before; and then came in a new banquet before his majestie of two hundred dishes, and so they passed the night in banqueting and dancing until morning." Cavendish's Life of Wolsey. MALONE. P. 145. You'd venture an emballing :] You would venture to be distinguished by the ball, the ensign of royalty. JOHNSON. The Old Lady's jocularity, I am afraid, carries her beyond the bounds of decorum; but her quibbling allusion is more easily comprehended than explained. RITSON. P. 166. To Asher-house, my lord of Winchester's,] Shakespeare forgot that Wolsey was himself Bishop of Winchester, unless he meant to say, you must confine yourself to that house which you possess as Bishop of Winchester. Asher, near Hampton Court, was one of the houses belonging to that bishopric. MALONE. Fox, Bishop of Winchester, died Sept. 14, 1528, and Wolsey held this see in commendam. Asher therefore was his own house. REED. P. 170. Or gild again the noble troops that waited Upon my smiles.] The number of persons wno composed Cardinal Wolsey's household, was one hundred and eighty. MALONE. P. 178. Ipswich, "The foundation-stone of the College which the Cardinal founded in this place, was discovered a few years ago. It is now in the Chapter-house of Christ-Church, Oxford." Seward's Anecdotes of distinguished Persons, &c. 1795. STEEVENS. P. 179. go to, kneel.] Queen Katharine's servants, after the divorce at Dunstable, and the Pope's curse stuck up at Dunkirk, were directed to be sworn to serve her not as a Queen, but as Princess Dowager. Some refused to take the oath, and so were forced to leave her service; and as for those who took it and stayed, she would not be be served by them, by which means she was almost destitute of attendants. See Hall, fol. 219. Bishop Burnet says, ali the women about her still called her Queen. Burnet, p. 162. REED. P. 180. This to my lord the king.] This letter probably fell into the hands of Polydore Virgil, who was then in England, and has preserved it in the twenty-seventh book of his history. The following is Lord Herbert's translation of it: "My most dear lord, king, and husband, "The hour of my death now approaching, I cannot choose but, out of the love I bear you, advise you of your soul's health, which you ought to prefer before all considerations of the world or flesh whatsoever: for which you have cast me into many calamities, and yourself into many troubles.---But I forgive you all, and pray God to do so likewise. For the rest, I commend unto you Mary our daughter, be seeching you to be a good father to her, as I have heretofore desired. I must entreat you also to respect my maids, and give them in marriage, (which is not much, they being but three,) and to all my other servants a years pay besides their due, lest otherwise they should be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things. Farewell." MALONE. The legal instrument for the divorce of Queen Katharine is still in being; and among the signatures to it is that of Polydore Virgil. STEEVENS. P. 188. Chan. Speak to the business,] In the preceding scene we have heard of the birth of Elizabeth, and from the conclusion of the present it appears that she is not yet christened. She was born September 7, 1533, and baptized on the 11th of the same month. Cardinal Wolsey was Chancellor of England from September 7, 1516, to the 25th of October, 1530, on which day the seals were given to Sir Tho mas More. He held them till the 20th May, 1533, when Sir Thomas Audley was ap pointed Lord Keeper. He therefore is the person here introduced; but Shakespeare has made a mistake in calling him Lord Chancellor, for he did not obtain that title till the January after the birth of Elizabeth. MALONE. 200. CORIOLANUS. P. 228. in Galen.] An anachronism of near 650 years. Menenius flourished Anno U. C. 260 about 492 years before the birth of our Saviour. Galen was born in the year of our Lord 130, flourished about the year 155 or 160, and lived to the year GREY. empiricutic] The old copies---empirickqutique. "The most sovereign prescription in Galen (says Menenius) is to this news but empiricutick: an adjective evidently formed by the author from empiric (empirique, Fr.) a quack." VOL. IX. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. RITSON. P. SS. ---though you bite so sharp at reasons, &c.] Here is a wretched quibble betweeen reasons and raisins, which in Shakespeare's time, were, I believe, pronounced alike. Dogberry, in Much Ado about Nothing, plays upon the same words: "If Justice cannot tame you, she shall never weigh more reasons in her balance." And Falstaff says, "If reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, L." MALONE. P. 84. How the devil luxury, with his fat rump, and potatoe finger, tickles these togethe Laxuria was the appropriate term used by the school divines, to express the sin of incontinence, which accordingly is called luxury in all our old English writers. Hence, in King Lear, our author uses the word in this particular sense : "To't, Luxury, pell-mell, for I want soldiers." But why is luxury, or lasciviousness said to have a potatoe finger ?---This root, which was in our author's time but newly imported from America, was considered as a rare exotick, and esteemed a very strong provocative. As the plant is so common now, it may entertain the reader to see how it is described by Gerard, in his Herbal, 1597. p. 780: "This plant, which is called of some Skyrrits of Peru, is generally of us called Potatis, or Potatoes.---There is not any that hath written of this plant ;---therefore, I refer the description thereof unto those that shall hereafter have further knowledge of the same. They are used to be eaten roasted in the ashes. Howsoever they he dressed, they comfort, nourish, and strengthen the bodie, procure bodily lust, and that with great greediness." Shakespeare alludes to this quality of potatoes in The Merry Wives of Windsor: 'Let the sky rain potatoes, hail kissing comfits, and snow eringoes; let a tempest of provocation come." COLLINS. P. 87. the dreadful spout, Which shipmen do the hurricano call,] A particular account of “a spout," is given in Captain John Smith's Sea Grammar, quarto, 1627: “A spout is, as it were, a smal! river failing entirely from the clouds, like one of our water-spouts, which make the sea, where it falleth, to rebound in flashes exceeding high; i. e. in the language of Shakespeare to dizzy the ear of Neptune. STEEVENS. KING LEAR. P. 217. And well are worth the want that you have wanted.] You are well deserving of the want of dower that you are without. So, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. Act. IV. sc. i: "Though I want a kingdom," i. e. though I am without a kingdom. Again, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 137: Anselm was expelled the realm, and wanted the whole profits of his bishoprick," i. e. he did not receive the profits, &c. TOLLET. P. 224. That can my speech diffuse,] We must suppose that Kent advances looking on his disguise. This circumstance very naturally leads to his speech, which otherwise would have no very apparent introduction. If I can change my speech as well as I have changed my dress. To diffuse speech, signifies to disorder it, and so to disguise it. STEEVENS. P. 280. Which they will make an obedient father.] Which, is on this occasion used with two deviations from present language. It is referred, contrary to the rules of grammarians, to the pronoun I, and is employed according to a mode now obsolete, for whom, the accusative case of who. STEEVENS. P. 232. That these hot tears, &c.] I will transcribe this passage from the first edi tion, that it may appear to those who are unacquainted with old books, what is the difficulty of revision, and what indulgence is due to those that endeavour to restore corrupted passages." That these hot tears, that breake from me perforce, should make the worst blasts and fogs upon the untender woundings of a father's curse, peruse every sense about the old fond eyes, beweep this cause again," &c. P 24S. "--and shall find time From this enormous state,--seeking to give JOHNSON. Losses their remedies:] I confess I do not understand this passage, unless it may be considered as divided parts of Cordelia's letter, which he is reading to himself by moonlight: it certainly conveys the sense of what she would have said. In reading a letter, it is natural enough to dwell on those circumstances in it that promise the change in our affairs which we most wish for; and Kent having read Cordelia's assurances that she will find a time to free the injured from the enormous misrule of Regan, is willing to go to sleep with that pleasing reflection uppermost in his mind. But this is mere conjecture. STEEVENS. P. 244. Of Bedlam beggars,] Randle Holme, in his Academy of Arms and Blazon, has the following passage descriptive of this class of vagabonds: "The Bedlam is in the same garb, with a long staff, and a cow or ox-horn by his side; but his cloathing is more fantastick and ridiculous; for, being a madman, he is madly decked and dressed all over with rubins, feathers, cuttings of cloth, and what not; to make him seem a mad-man, or one distracted, when he is no other than a dissembling knave." In the Bell-man of London, by Decker, 5th edit. 1640, is another account of one of these characters, under the title of an Abraham-Man : “------he sweares he hath been in Bedlam, and will talke frantickely of purpose: you see pinnes stuck in sundry places of his naked flesh, especially in his armes, which paine he gladly puts himselfe to, only to make you believe he is out of his wits. He calls himselfe by the name of Poore Tom, and comming near any body cries out, Poore Tom is acold. Of these Abraham-men, some be exceeding merry, and doe nothing but sing songs fashioned out of their own braines: some will dance, others will doe nothing but either laugh or weepe; others are dogged, and so sullen both in loke and speech, that spying but a small company in a house, they boldly and bluntly enter, compell ing the servants through feare to give them what they demand." STEEVENS. P. 250. Corn. What trumpet's that? Reg. I know't, my sister's:] Thus, in Othello: "The Moore,---I know his trumpet." It should seem from both these passages, and others that might be quoted, that the approach of great personages was announced by some distinguishing note or tune appropriately used by their own trumpeters. Cornwall knows not the present sound; but to Regan, who had often heard her sister's trumpet, the first flourish of it was as familiar as was that of the Moor to the ears of Iago. STEEVENS. 'P. 285. There's your press-money.] It is evident from the whole of this speech, that Lear fancies himself in a battle: but, There's your press-money has not been properly explained. It means the money which was paid to soldiers when they were retained in the King's service; and it appears from some ancient statutes, and particularly 7 Henry VII. c. 1. and 3. Henry VIII. c. 5. that it was felony in any soldier to withdraw himself from the King's service after receipt of this money, without special leave. On the contrary, he was obliged at all times to hold himself in readiness. The term is from the French "prest," ready. It is written prest in King Henry VIIth's Book of household expences still preserved in the Exchequer. This may serve also to explain the following passage in Act V. sc. ii: "And turn our imprest lances in our eyes ;" and in Hamlet, Act I. sc. i: "Why such impress of shipwrights?" DOUCE. P. 287. This a good block?] Upon the king's saying, I will preach to thee, the poet seems to have meant him to pull off his hat and keep turning it and feeling it in the attitude of one of the preachers of those times, (whom I have seen so represented in ancient prints,) till the idea of felt, which the good hat or block was made of, raises the stratagem in his brain of shoeing a troop of horse with a substance soft as that which he held and moulded between his hands. This makes him start from his preachment. Block anciently signified the head part of the hat, or the thing on which a hat is formed, and sometimes the hat itself.---See Much Ado about Nothing: "He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it changes with the next block." STEEVENS. VOL. X. HAMLET. P. 11. as, by the same co-mart,] Co-mart is, I suppose, a joint bargain, a word perhaps of our poet's coinage. A mart signifying a great fair or market, he would not have scrupled to have written-to mart, in the sense of to make a bargain. In the preceding speech we find mart used for bargain or purchase. MALONE. P. 41. And all we mourn for.] The ridicule of this character is here admirably sustained. He would not only be thought to have discovered this intrigue by his own sagacity, but to have remarked all the stages of Hamlet's disorder, from his sadness to his raving, as regularly as his physician could have done; when all the while the madness was only feigned. The humour of this is exquisite from a man who tells us, with a confidence peculiar to small politicians, that he could find “Where truth was hid, though it were hid indeed "Within the centre." WARBURTON. P. 46. an aiery of children, &c.] Relating to play houses then contending, the Bankside, the Fortune, &c. played by the children of his majesty's chapel. POPE. It relates to the young singing men of the chapel royal, or St. Paul's, of the former of whom perhaps the earliest mention occurs in an anonymous puritanical pamphlet, 1569, entitled The Children of the Chapel stript and whipt: "Plaies will neuer be supprest, while her maiesties unfledged minions flaunt it in silkes and sattens. They had as well be at their popish seruice in the deuil's garments," &c.-Again, ibid: "Euen in her maiesties chapel do these pretty upstart youthes profane the Lordes day by the lascivious writhing of their tender limbes, and gorgeous decking of their apparell, in feigning bawdie fables gathered from the idolatrous heathen poets," &c. STEEVENS. P. 54. To be, or not to be,] Of this celebrated soliloquy, which bursting from a man distracted with contrariety of desires and overwhelmed with the magnitude of his own purposes, is connected rather in the speaker's mind, than on his tongue, I shall endeavour to discover the train, and to show how one sentiment produces another. Hamiet, knowing himself injured in the most enormous and atrocious degree, and seeing no means of redress, but such as must expose him to the extremity of hazard, meditates on his situation in this manner: Before I can form any rational scheme of action under this pressure of distress, it is necessary to decide, whether, after our present state, we are to be, or not to be. That is the question, which, as it shall be answered, will determine, whether 'tis nobler, and more suitable to the dignity of reason, to suffer the outrages of fortune patiently, or to take arms against them, and by opposing end them, though perhaps with the loss of life. If to die, were to sleep no more, and by a sleep to end the miseries of our nature, such a sleep were devoutly to be wished; but if to sleep in death, be to dream, to retain our powers of sensibility, we must pause, to consider, in that sleep of death what dreams may come. This con. sideration makes calamity so long endured; for who would bear the vexations of life, which might be ended by a bare bodkin, but that he is afraid of something in unknown futurity? This fear it is that gives efficacy to conscience, which, by turning the mind upon this regard, chills the ardour of resolution, checks the vigour of enterprize, and makes the current of desire stagnate in inactivity. We may suppose that he would have applied these general observations to his own case, but that he discovered Ophelia. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson's explication of the first five lines of this passage is surely wrong. Hamlet is not deliberating whether after our present state we are to exist or not, but whether he should continue to live, or put an end to his life: as is pointed out by the second and the three following lines, which are manifestly a paraphrase on the first: "whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer, &c. or to take arms." The question concerning our existence in a future state is not considered till the tenth line :--"To sleep! perchance, to dream," &c. MALONE. P. 61. The dumb short follows,] and appears to contain every circumstance of the murder of Hamlet's father. Now there is no apparent reason why the Usurper should not be as much affected by this mute representation of his crimes, as he is afterwards when the same action is accompanied by words. I once conceived this might have been a kind of direction to the players, which was from mistake inserted in the editions; but the subsequent conversation between Hamlet and Ophelia, entirely destroys such a notion. PYE. I cannot reconcile myself to the exhibition in dumb show, preceding the inter |