powers

Their cold intent, tenour and fubftance, thus:-
Here doth he wifh his perfon, with fuch
As might hold fortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers,
That your attempts may overlive the hazard,
And fearful meeting of their oppofite.

MowB. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch

ground,

And dafh themselves to pieces.

HAST.

Enter a Meffenger.

Now, what news?

MESS. Weft of this foreft, scarcely off a mile, In goodly form comes on the enemy:

And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number Upon, or near, the rate of thirty thousand.

MowB. The juft proportion that we gave them

out.

Let us fway on,' and face them in the field.

Let us fway on,] I know not that I have ever seen sway in this fenfe; but I believe it is the true word, and was intended to exprefs the uniform and forcible motion of a compact body. There is a sense of the noun in Milton kindred to this, where,, fpeaking of a weighty fword, he says, "It defcends with huge two-handed Sway." JOHNSON.

The word is used in Holinfhed, "The left fide of the enemy was way back, and give ground," &c. Part III. A& II. fc. v:

English Hiftory, p. 986: compelled to fway a good Again, in King Henry VI.

"Now ways it this way, like a mightie fea,
"Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind;
"Now Sways it that way," &c.

Again, in King Henry V:

"Rather fwaying more upon our part," &c.

Enter WESTMORELAND.

ARCH. What well-appointed leader fronts us here?

MoWB. I think, it is my lord of Westmoreland. WEST. Health and fair greeting from our general, The prince, lord John and duke of Lancaster. ARCH. Say on, my lord of Weftmoreland, in peace; What doth concern your coming?

WEST.

Then, my lord, Unto your grace do I in chief addrefs

The fubftance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in bafe and abject routs,

Led on by bloody youth,3 guarded with rage,4

2

-well-appointed leader-] Well-appointed is completely accoutred. So, in The Miferies of Queen Margaret, by Drayton :

"Ten thoufand valiant, well-appointed men."

Again, in The Ordinary, by Cartwright:

66

Naked piety

"Dares more, than fury well-appointed." STEEVENS.

3 Led on by bloody youth,] I believe Shakspeare wrote― heady youth. WARBURTON.

Bloody youth is only fanguine youth, or youth full of blood, and of those paffions which blood is fuppofed to incite or nourish. JOHNSON.

So, The Merry Wives of Windfor: "Luft is but a bloody fire.' MALONE.

4 guarded with rage,] Guarded is an expreffion taken from drefs; it means the fame as faced, turned up. Mr. Pope, who has been followed by fucceeding editors, reads goaded. Guarded is the reading both of quarto and folio. Shakspeare ufes the fame expreffion in the former part of this play :

"Velvet guards and Sunday citizens," &c.

Again, in The Merchant of Venice:

Give him a livery

"More guarded than his fellows." STEEVENS.

And countenanc'd by boys, and beggary;
I say, if damn'd commotion fo appear'd,5
In his true, native, and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords,
Had not been here, to drefs the ugly form
Of bafe and bloody infurrection
With your fair honours.

You, lord archbishop,Whofe fee is by a civil peace maintain'd;"

Whose beard the filver hand of peace hath touch'd;
Whofe learning and good letters peace hath tutor❜d;
Whose white investments figure innocence,"
The dove and very bleffed fpirit of peace,-
Wherefore do you fo ill tranflate yourself,
Out of the speech of peace, that bears fuch grace,
Into the harsh and boift'rous tongue of war?
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,

Mr. Steevens is certainly right. We have the fame allufion in a former part of this play :

"To face the garment of rebellion

"With fome fine colour, that may please the eye
"Of fickle changelings," &c.

So again, in the speech before us:

to dress the ugly form

"Of base and bloody infurrection-." MALONE.

fo appear'd,] Old copies-fo appear. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

• Whofe fee is by a civil peace maintain'd;] Civil is grave, decent, folemn. So, in Romeo and Juliet :

-Come civil night,

"Thou sober-suited matron, all in black.” STEEVENS.

7 Whofe white inveftments figure innocence,]

Formerly,

(fays Dr. Hody, Hiftory of Convocations, p. 141,) all bishops wore white, even when they travelled. GREY.

By comparing this paffage with another in p. 91, of Dr. Grey's notes, we learn that the white investment meant the epifcopal rochet; and this should be worn by the theatrick archbishop.

TOLLET.

8 graves,] For graves Dr. Warburton very plausibly reads glaives, and is followed by Sir Thomas Hanmer.

Your pens to lances; and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet, and a point of war?

We might perhaps as plaufibly read greaves, i. e. armour for the legs, a kind of boots. In one of The Difcourfes on the Art Military, written by Sir John Smythe, Knight, 1586, greaves are mentioned as neceffary to be worn; and Ben Jonfon employs the fame word in his Hymenæi:

upon their legs they wore filver greaves." Again, in The Four Prentices of London, 1615: "Arm'd with their greaves and maces.'

Again, in the fecond Canto of The Barons Wars, by Drayton: Marching in greaves, a helmet on her head."

Warner, in his Albion's England, 1602, B. XII. ch. lxix. spells the word as it is found in the old copies of Shakspeare: "The taithes, cufhes, and the graves, ftaff, penfell, baises, all."

I know not whether it be worth adding, that the ideal metamorphofis of leathern covers of books into greaves, i. e. boots, feems to be more appofite than the converfion of them into inftruments of war.

Mr. M. Mason, however, adduces a quotation (from the next fcene) which feems to fupport Dr. Warburton's conjecture: Turning the word to fword, and life to death."

66

STEEVENS.

The emendation, or rather interpretation, proposed by Mr. Steevens, appears to me extremely probable; yet a following line, in which the Archbishop's again addreffed, may be urged in favour of glaives, i. e. fwords:

66

Chearing a rout of rebels with your drum,

Turning the word to SWORD, and life to death." The latter part of the second of thefe lines, however, may be adduced in fupport of graves in its ordinary fenfe. Mr. Steevens obferves, that "the metamorphofis of the leathern covers of books into greaves, i. e. boots, feems to be more appofite than the converfion of them into fuch inftruments of war as glaives ;" but furely Shakspeare did not mean, if he wrote either greaves or glaives, that they actually made boots or fwords of their books, any more than that they made lances of their pens. The paffage already quoted, " turning the word to fword," fufficiently proves that he had no fuch meaning. MALONE.

I am afraid that the expreffion "turning the word to sword," will be found but a feeble fupport for " glaives," if it be confidered as a mere jeu de mots. DOUCE.

ARCH. Wherefore do I this?-so the question

ftands.

Briefly to this end :-We are all difeas'd;
And, with our furfeiting, and wanton hours,
Have brought ourfelves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it: of which difeafe
Our late king, Richard, being infected, died.
But, my most noble lord of Weftmoreland,
I take not on me here as a physician;
Nor do I, as an enemy to peace,
Troop in the throngs of military men:
But, rather, fhow a while like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, fick of happiness ;

And purge the obftructions, which begin to ftop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance juftly weigh'd

What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we fuffer,

And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We see which way the ftream of time doth run,
And are enforc'd from our moft quiet sphere'

9

our griefs-] i. e. our grievances. See Vol. X. p. 248, n. 6. MALONE.

1 And are enforc'd from our most quiet sphere-] In former editions:

And are enforc'd from our moft quiet there. This is faid in answer to Weftmoreland's upbraiding the Archbishop for engaging in a course which fo ill became his profeffion :

you, my lord archbishop,

"Whofe fee is by a civil peace maintain'd;" &c.

So that the reply must be this:

And are enforc'd from our moft quiet fphere.

WARBURTON.

The alteration of Dr. Warburton deftroys the fenfe of the paffage. There refers to the new channel which the rapidity of the flood from the ftream of time would force itself into.