New-dated letters from Northumberland;

Their cold intent, tenour and substance, thus:-
Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
As might hold sortance 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 opposite.

Mowb. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch

ground,

And dash themselves to pieces.

Hast.

Enter a Messenger.

Now, what news?

Mess. West of this forest, 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 just proportion that we gave them out. Let us sway on, and face them in the field.

Enter WESTMORELAND.

Arch. What well-appointed leader fronts us here? Mowb. I think, it is my lord of Westmoreland.

7 Let us sway on,] I know not that I have ever seen sway in this sense; but I believe it is the true word, and was intended to express the uniform and forcible motion of a compact body. There is a sense of the noun in Milton kindred to this, where speaking of a weighty sword, he says, "It descends with huge two-handed sway." Johnson.

The word is used in Holinshed, English History, p. 986: "The left side of the enemy was compelled to sway a good way back, and give ground," &c. Again, in King Henry VI, Part III, Act II, sc. v:

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

Again, in King Henry V:

8

"Rather swaying more upon our part," &c. Steevens.

well-appointed leader -] Well-appointed is completely accoutred. So, in The Miseries of Queen Margaret, by Drayton: "Ten thousand valiant, well-appointed men."

Again, in The Ordinary, by Cartwright:

66 Naked piety

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

West. Health and fair greeting from our general, The prince, lord John and duke of Lancaster.

Arch. Say on, my lord of Westmoreland, in peace; What doth concern your coming?

West.

Then, my lord,

Unto your grace do I in chief address

The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth,' guarded with rage,1
And countenanc'd by boys, and beggary;
I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd,
In his true, native, and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords,
Had not been here, to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection

With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,-
Whose see is by a civil peace maintain’d;3

9 Led on by bloody youth,] I believe Shakspeare wrote heady. youth. Warburton.

Bloody youth is only sanguine youth, or youth full of blood, and of those passions which blood is supposed to incite or nourish. Johnson.

So, The Merry Wives of Windsor: "Lust is but a bloody fire.” Malone.

1

guarded with rage,] Guarded is an expression taken from dress; it means the same as faced, turned up. Mr. Pope, who has been followed by succeeding editors, reads goaded Guarded is the reading both of quarto and folio. Shakspeare uses the same expression in the former part of this play:

"Velvet guards and Sunday citizens," &c.

Again, in The Merchant of Venice:

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Give him a livery

"More guarded than his fellows." Steevens. Mr. Steevens is certainly right.

in a former part of this play:

We have the same allusion

"To face the garment of rebellion

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

So again, in the speech before us:

2

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to dress the ugly form

"Of base and bloody insurrection-" Malone.

so appear'd,] Old copies-so appear. Corrected by Mr. Pope. Malone.

3 Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd;] Civil is grave, decent, solemn. So, in Romeo and Juliet:

Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd;
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor❜d;
Whose white investments figure innocence,*
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,-
Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself,
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war?
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,

"Thou sober-suited matron, all in black." Steevens

4 Whose white investments figure innocence,] Formerly, (says Dr. Hody, History of Convocations, p. 141,) all bishops wore white, even when they travelled. Grey.

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

Tollet.

5 -graves,] For graves Dr. Warburton very plausibly reads glaives, and is followed by sir Thomas Hanmer. Johnson.

We might perhaps as plausibly read greaves, i. e. armour for the legs, a kind of boots. In one of The Discourses on the Art Military, written by sir John Smythe, Knight, 1586, greaves are mentioned as necessary to be worn; and Ben Jonson employs the same word in his Hymenei:

66

upon their legs they wore silver greaves.” Again, in The Four Prentices of London, 1615:

"Arm'd with their greaves and maces."

I know not whether it be worth adding, that the ideal metamorphosis of leathern covers of books into greaves, i. e. boots, seems to be more apposite than the conversion of them into instruments of war.

Mr. M. Mason, however adduces a quotation (from the next scene) which seems to support Dr. Warburton's conjecture:

"Turning the word to sword, and life to death." 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 addressed, may be urged in favour of glaives, i. e. swords:

Chearing a rout of rebels with your drum,
"Turning the word to swoRD, and life to death."

The latter part of the second of these lines, however, may be adduced in support of graves in its ordinary sense. Mr. Steevens observes, that "the metamorphosis of the leathern covers of books into greaves, i. e. boots, seems to be more apposite than the conversion of them into such instruments of war as glaives;" but surely Shakspeare did not mean, if he wrote either greaves or glaives, that they actually made boots or swords of their books, any more than that they made lances of their pens. The passage

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

Arch. Wherefore do I this?—so the question stands.
Briefly to this end:-We are all diseas'd;
And, with our surfeiting, and wanton hours,
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it: of which disease
Our late king, Richard, being infected, died.
But, my most noble lord of Westmoreland,
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, show a wh'' like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, sick of happiness;

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

What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.

We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforc'd from our most quiet sphere?
By the rough torrent of occasion:

And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to show in articles ;
Which, long ere this, we offer'd to the king,

already quoted, "turning the word to sword," sufficiently proves that he had no such meaning. Malone.

I am afraid that the expression "turning the word to sword," will be found but a feeble support for "glaives," if it be considered as a mere jeu de mots. Douce.

6 — our griefs —] i. e. our grievances. Malone.

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

And are enforc'd from our most quiet there.

This is said in answer to Westmoreland's upbraiding the Archbishop for engaging in a course which so ill became his profes

sion:

you, my lord archbishop,

"Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd;" &c.

So that the reply must be this:

And are enforc'd from our most quiet sphere. Warburton. The alteration of Dr. Warburton destroys the sense of the passage. There refers to the new channel which the rapidity of the flood from the stream of time would force itself into. Henley.

And might by no suit gain our audience:

When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs,
We are denied access unto his person

Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
The dangers of the days but newly gone,
(Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet-appearing blood) and the examples
Of every minute's instance, (present now)
Have put us in these ill-beseeming arms:
Not to break peace, or any branch of it;
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.

9

West. When ever yet was your appeal denied?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you?
That you should seal this lawless bloody book
Of forg'd rebellion with a seal divine,
And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?1

Arch. My brother general, the commonwealth,
To brother born an household ruelty,

8 Of every minute's instance,] The examples of an instance does not convey, to me at least, a very clear idea. The frequent corruptions that occur in the old copies in words of this kind, make me suspect that our author wrote:

Of every minute's instants,

i. e. the examples furnished not only every minute, but during the most minute division of a minute.-Instance, however, is elsewhere used by Shakspeare for example; and he has similar pleonasms in other places. Malone.

Examples of every minute's instance are, I believe, examples which every minute supplies, which every minute presses on our notice. Steevens.

9 Not to break peace,]" He took nothing in hand against the king's peace, but that whatsoever he did, tended rather to advance the peace and quiet of the commonwealth." Archbishop's speech in Holinshed. Steevens.

1 And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?] It was an old custom, continued from the time of the first croisades, for the Pope to consecrate the general's sword, which was employed in the service of the church. To this custom the line in question alludes. Warburton.

commotion's bitter edge?] i. e. the edge of bitter strife and commotion; the sword of rebellion. So, in a subsequent scene: "That the united vessel of their blood,"

stead of "the vessel of their united blood." Malone.