GAUNT. All places that the eye of heaven visits *, Are to a wise man ports and happy havens: Teach thy necessity to reason thus ; There is no virtue like necessity. Think not, the king did banish thee '; author. But the title-pages of not one of these copies contains any such assertion: though in some other of his plays, the booksellers were hardy enough to add those words. Unquestionably, Shakspeare never revised a single quarto copy of any of his plays, whether in a first or second edition; nor is the edition of Romeo and Juliet, in 1599, an exception to this assertion. It was not revised by him, but printed from an enlarged and corrected copy. To suppose that he did, is to shut our eyes to his habits, character, and history. He suffered plays to be imputed to him (with his name affixed to them), of which he had not written a word. When Thorpe, a bookseller, in 1609, printed his beautiful poem, entitled The Lover's Complaint, together with his Sonnets, in the most incorrect manner, he never took the trouble to print a second edition, or even to point out the numerous errors of the press with which these pieces abound. Can it then be supposed that he would revise or correct the second or third editions of such of his plays as had been fraudulently obtained from the players, against his will, and against his interest? MALOne. All places that the EYE OF HEAVEN visits, &c.] So, Nonnus: adepos oμua: i. e. the sun. STEEVENS. So, in Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis, 1593: "And Titan, tired in the mid-day heat, "With burning eye did hotly overlook them." Again, in his Lucrece, 1594: "The eye of heaven is out." So also Spencer, Faery Queene, b. i. c. iii. st. 4: "As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright." MALONE. The fourteen verses that follow are found in the first edition. РОРЕ. The whole of this speech and the preceding one, are omitted in the folio; but they are found in all the quartos. BOSWELL. I am inclined to believe that what Mr. Theobald and Mr. Pope have restored were expunged in the revision by the author: If these lines are omitted, the sense is more coherent. Nothing is more frequent among dramatic writers, than to shorten their dialogues for the stage. JOHNSON. 5 did banish thee;] Read: 66 Therefore, think not, the king did banish thee." RITSON. But thou the king: Woe doth the heavier sit, Go, say, I sent thee forth to purchase honour, The grass whereon thou tread'st, the presence strew'd 7; The flowers, fair ladies; and thy steps, no more 6 Think not, the king did banish thee; But thou the king:] The same thought occurs in Coriolanus: "I banish you." M. MASON. "All places that the eye of heaven visits, "Are to a wise man ports and happy havens :"Think not, the king did banish thee; "But thou the king." Shakspeare, when he wrote the passage before us, probably remembered that part of Lyly's Euphues, 1579, in which Euphues exhorts Botonio to take his exile patiently. Among other arguments he observes, that "Nature hath given to man a country no more than she hath a house, or lands, or livings. Socrates would neither call himself an Athenian, neither a Græcian, but a citizen of the world. Plato would never accompt him banished, that had the sunne, fire, ayre, water, and earth, that he had before; where he felt the winter's blast, and the summer's blaze; where the same sunne and the same moone shined: whereby he noted that every place was a country to a wise man, and all parts a palace to a quiet mind.-When it was cast in Diogenes' teeth, that the Sinoponetes had banished him Pontus, yea, said he, I them of Diogenes." MALONE. 7 the presence strew'd ;] Shakspeare has other allusions to the ancient practice of strewing rushes over the floor of the presence chamber. HENLEY. So, in Cymbeline: "Tarquin thus "Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken'd "The chastity he wounded." STEEVENS. See Hentzner's account of the presence chamber, in the palace at Greenwich, 1598. Itinerar. p. 135. MALONE. Than a delightful measure, or a dance: Or wallow naked in December snow, A measure was a formal 8 Than a delightful MEASURE,] court dance. So, in King Richard III. : "Our dreadful marches to delightful measures." STEEVENS. It is described by our author as being "full of state and ancientry." See Much Ado About Nothing, vol. vii. p. 36. MALONE. 9 O, who can hold a FIRE in his hand, &c.] Fire is here, as in other places, used as a dissyllable. MALONE. many It has been remarked, that there is a passage resembling this in Tully's Fifth Book of Tusculan Questions. Speaking of Epicurus, he says:-"Sed unâ se dicit recordatione acquiescere præteritarum voluptatum: ut si quis æstuans, cum vim caloris non facile patiatur, recordari velit se aliquando in Arpinati nostro gelidis fluminibus circumfusum fuisse. Non enim video, quomodo sedare possint mala præsentia præteritæ voluptates." The Tusculan Questions of Cicero had been translated early enough for Shakspeare to have seen them. STEEVENS. The Tusculan Questions were translated by John Dolman, and published in 1561. Shakspeare, however, I believe, was thinking on the words of Lyly, which are found in the page preceding that from which an extract has been already made: "I speake this to this end, that though thy exile seem grievous to thee, yet guiding thy selfe with the rules of philosophie, it shall be more tolerable: he that is colde doth not cover himselfe with care but with clothes; he that is washed in the rayne, drieth himselfe by the fire, not by his fancie; and thou which art banished," &c. MALOne. GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way: Had I thy youth, and cause, I would not stay. BOLING. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu ; My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet! SCENE IV. [Exeunt. The Same. A Room in the King's Castle. Enter King RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN; K. RICH. We did observe 2.-Cousin Aumerle, AUM. 'Faith, none for me: except the northeast wind, 1- yet a trueborn Englishman.] Here the first Act ought to end, that between the first and second Acts there may be time for John of Gaunt to accompany his son, return, and fall sick. Then the first scene of the second Act begins with a natural conversation, interrupted by a message from John of Gaunt, by which the King is called to visit him, which visit is paid in the following scene. As the play is now divided, more time passes between the last two scenes of the first Act, than between the first Act and the second. JOHNSON. 2 We did OBSERVE.-] The King here addresses Green and Bagot, who we may suppose had been talking to him of Bolingbroke's "courtship to the common people," at the time of his departure. "Yes, (says Richard,) we did observe it." Malone. 3 'Faith, none FOR ME:] i. e. none on my part. Thus, we say, "For me, I am content; "Where those words have the same signification as here. Which then blew bitterly against our faces, K. RICH. What said our cousin, when you parted with him? AUM. Farewell: And, for my heart disdained that my tongue Should so profane the word, that taught me craft To counterfeit oppression of such grief, That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave. Marry, would the word farewell have lengthen'd hours, And added years to his short banishment, He should have had a volume of farewells; K. RICH. He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt, When time shall call him home from banishment, Whether our kinsman come to see his friends. Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green 3, 3 Thus the authentick copies, the quarto 1597, and the folio 1623. The reviser of the second folio, 1632, who altered whatever he did not understand, substituted-by me, instead of the words in the text, and has been followed by all the subsequent editors. MALONE. If we read-for me, the expression will be equivocal, and seem as if it meant-no tears were shed on my account. So, in the preceding scene: According to the doctrine here laid down, if the words of an author clearly and precisely admit of the meaning which he intends to convey, but at the same time may also bear a different sense, we are always to suppose that the passage is corrupt. I conceive, however, that if a writer has expressed his meaning, in proper and significant words, he may rest satisfied, though the words may be distorted to another sense from that which he intended. MALONE. 3 Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,] The first quarto, 1597, has only-"Ourself and Bushy," in which way the line |