Say, uncle Glofter, if our brother come, If I Your highness fhall repose you at the Tower: 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 else reported Succeffively from 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 posterity, Even to the general all-ending day. Glo. So wife fo young, they fay, do ne'er live long". Prince. What fay you, uncle? [Afide. Glo. I fay, without characters, fame lives long. 3 Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity, I moralize, two meanings in one word. } Afide. Prince. 1 As 'twere retail'd to all pofterity,] And fo it is: and, by that means, like most other retailed things, became adulterated. We fhould 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. 2 So wife, &c.] Is cadit ante fenem, qui fapit ante diem, a proverbial line. STEEVENS. 3 Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity, I moralize two meanings in one word.] 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 Prince. That Julius Cæfar was a famous man; With what his valour did enrich his wit, His to play upon the devil ;) and this buffoon went by the name of a Vice. This buffoon was at firft accoutred with a long jerkin, a cap with a pair of afs's ears, and a wooden dagger, with which (like another Harlequin) he was to make sport in belabouring the devil. This was the conftant entertainment in the times of popery, whilft 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 business was to range on earth, and feduce poor mortals into that perfonated vicious quality, which he occafionally fupported; as, iniquity in general, bypoerify, ufury, vanity, prodigality, gluttony, &c. Now, as the fiend (or vice,) who perfonated Iniquity (or Hypocrify, for instance): 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 certainly put on a formal demeanour, moralize and prevaricate in his words, and pretend a meaning direly oppofite to his genuine and primitive intention. If this does not explain the paffage in queftion, 'tis all that I can at prefent fuggeft 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 those fins, is a fancy of Mr. Theobald's, who knew nothing of the matter. The truth is, the vice was always a fool or jetter: 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 reason I mention, appears from the following paffage of Jonfon's Staple of News, fecond inter meane: "M. How like you the vice i' the play? "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, His wit fet down to make his valour live: For And, in The Devil's an Afs, we fee this old vice, Iniquity, defcribed 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 foolith player. The vice, or iniquity being not a formal but a merry, buffoon character. Befides, Shakspeare could never make an exact fpeaker 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 Shakspeare 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 allwife 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, Axóure or the equivocator. So far as to the general fenfe; as to that which arifes particularly out of the corrected exprefion, I shall only observe, that formal-wife is a compound epithet, an extreme fine one, and admirably fitted to the character of the fpeaker, who thought all wifdom 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 nonfense: but reformed in this manner, very fenfible: 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. This alteration Mr. Upton very justly cenfures. Dr. Warburton, has, in my opinion, done nothing but correct the punctuation, if indeed any alteration be really neceffary. See the differtation on the old vire at the end of this play. To this long collection of notes may be added a question, to what equivocation Richard refers? The pofition immediately preceding, that fame lives long without characters, that is, with out For now he lives in fame, though not in life.- Glo. Short fummers +lightly have a forward fpring. [Afide. out the help of letters, feems to have no ambiguity. He must allude to the former line: So young fo wife, they fay, did ne'er live long, in which he conceals under a proverb, his defign of haftening the prince's death. JOHNSON. From the following ftage direction, in an old dramatic piece, entituled, Hiftriomaftix, or the Player whipt, 1610, it appears, that the Vice and Iniquity were fometimes diftinct perfonages: "Enter a roaring devil, with the Vice on his back, Iniquity in one hand, and Juventus in the other." The devil likewife makes the distinction in his first speech: "The Vice, Iniquitie, and child prodigal." The following part of this note was obligingly communicated by the Rev. Mr, Bowle, of Idmeftone near Salisbury. I know no writer who giyes fo complete an account of this obfolete character, as archbishop Harfnet, in his Declaration of Popish Impoftures, p. 114, Lond. 1603: "It was a pretty part (he tells us) in the old church playes, when the nimble Vice would fkip up nimbly like a jackanapes into the devil's necke, and ride the devil a course, and belabour him with his wooden dagger, till he made him roare, whereat the people would laugh to see the devil fo vice-haunted." STEEVENS. 4 lightly-] Commonly, in ordinary courfe. JOHNSON. So, in the old proverb: "There's lightning lightly before thunder." See Ray's Proverbs, p. 130. edit. 3d. Again, in Penny wife and Pound foolish, &c. Misfortunes "feldome walke alone, and fo when bleffings doe knocke at a "man's dore, they lightly are not without followers and fel"lowes." Hollingfbed, p. 725, concerning one of Edward's concubines: one whom no one could get out of the church lightly to " any place, but it were to his bed.” Again, in Ben Jonfon's Cynthia's Revels: He is not lightly within to his mercer, STEEVENS. Enter Enter York, Hastings, and the Cardinal. Buck. Now, in good time, here comes the duke of York. Prince. Richard of York! how fares our loving brother? York. Well, my 'dread lord; fo must I call you now. Prince. Ay, brother; to our grief, as it is yours: Too late he died, that might have kept that title, Which by his death hath loft much majefty. Glo. How fares our coufin, noble lord of York? York. I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord, You faid, that idle weeds are faft in growth: The prince my brother hath outgrown me far. Glo. He hath, my lord. York. And therefore is he idle? Glo. O, my fair coufin, I must not say so. York. I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger. York. Of my kind uncle, that I know will give; And, being but a toy, which is no gift to give. Glo. 5 dread lord;- -] The original of this epithet applied to kings has been much difputed. In fome of our old ftatutes, the king is called Rex metuendiffimus. JOHNSON. 6 Too late he died,] i. e. too lately, the lofs is too frefl in our memory. But the Oxford editor makes him fay: Too foon he died WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton is certainly right. "Too late" is again used in the sense of too recently, in our author's Rape of Lucrece: -I did give that life, 66 "Which she too early, and too late hath fpill'd." 7 And, being but a toy, which is no gift to give.]. This is the reading of the quartos ; the first folio reads: And, being but a toy, which is no grief to give. |