Mow B. 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 Westmoreland, in

peace;

What doth concern your coming?

WEST.
Then, my lord,
Unto your grace do I in chief address

The fubftance of my fpeech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth,' guarded with rage,"
And countenanc'd by boys, and beggary;

Naked piety

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

5 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 supposed to incite or nourish. JOHNSON.

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

6 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.

Mr. Steevens is certainly right. We have the fame allusion 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.

I fay, if damn'd commotion fo appear'd,'
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 spirit of peace,-
Wherefore do you fo ill tranflate yourself,
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boift'rous tongue of war?
Turning your books to graves,' your ink to blood,

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

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

Come civil night,

"Thou fober-fuited matron, all in black." STEEVENS. Whofe white investments 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 inveftment meant the epifcopal rochet; and this should be worn by the theatrick archbishop.

2

TOLLET.

-graves,] For graves Dr. Warburton very plaufibly reads glaives, and is followed by Sir Thomas Hanmer, JOHNSON.

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 Hymenai:

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 second Canto of The Barons Wars, by Drayton: Marching in greaves, a helmet on her head,”

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

ARCH. Wherefore do I this?-fo the queftion ftands.

Briefly to this end:-We are all difeas'd;
And, with our furfeiting, and wanton hours,
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we muft bleed for it: of which disease
Our late king, Richard, being infected, died.
But, my moft noble lord of Weftmoreland,
I take not on me here as a physician;

Warner, in his Albions England, 1602, B. XII. ch. Ixix. fpells the word as it is found in the old copies of Shakspeare:

"The taishes, cufhes, and the graves, staff, 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, propofed 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 fecond 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 words 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 fword," will be found but a feeble fupport for "glaives," if it be confidered as a mere jeu de mots. "DovCE.

Nor do I, as an enemy to peace,
Troop in the throngs of military men:
But, rather, show a while like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, fick of happiness;

And purge the obftructions, which begin to stop
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 fee which way the ftream of time doth run,
And are enforc'd from our moft quiet fphere3
By the rough torrent of occafion:

And have the fummary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to fhow in articles;
Which, long ere this, we offer'd to the king,
And might by no fuit gain our audience:

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

2

our griefs-] i. e. our grievances. See Vol. VIII. p. 557» n. 5. MALONE.

3 And are enforc'd from our moft quiet sphere-] In former edi

tions:

And are enforc'd from our moft quiet there.

This is faid in anfwer to Weftmoreland's upbraiding the Archbishop for engaging in a course which fo ill became his profeffion: you, my lord archbishop,

66

"Whose 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 stream of time would force itself into.

HENLEY.

4 We are denied accefs-] The Archbishop fays in Holinfhed: "Where he and his companie were in armes, it was for feare of the king, to whom he could have no free acceffe, by reason of fuch a multitude of flatterers, as were about him." STEEVENS.

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 inftance,' (prefent 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.

WEST. When ever yet was your appeal deny'd?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer hath been fuborn'd to grate on you?
That you should feal this lawless bloody book
Of forg'd rebellion with a feal divine,
And confecrate commotion's bitter edge?"

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

Of every minute's inftants,

i. e. the examples furnished not only every minute, but during the most minute divifion of a minute.-Inftance, however, is elsewhere ufed by Shakspeare for example; and he has fimilar pleonafms in other places. MALONE.

Examples of every minute's inftance are, I believe, examples which every minute fupplies, which every minute preffes on our notice. STEEVENS.

6 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 Holinfhed. STEEVENS.

7 And confecrate commotion's bitter edge?] It was an old cuftom, continued from the time of the first croifades, for the Pope to confecrate the general's fword, which was employed in the fervice of the church. To this custom the line in question alludes.

WARBURTON.

commotion's bitter edge?] i. e. the edge of bitter ftrife and Commotion; the fword of rebellion. So, in a fubfequent scene: "That the united veffel of their blood,"

instead of " the veffel of their united blood." MALONE.