But we are not prepared to say that the latter is unintelligible, or that it is not in accordance with the diplomatic phraseology of the time.
The following new reading has something to recommend it; but much also may be said in defence of the old text. Salisbury, indignant with the king, says, as the ordinary copies give it,
"The King hath dispossessed himself of us;
We will not line his thin bestained cloak
With our pure honours."
The margins propose "sin-bestained," which is plausible. But there is also a propriety in the use of the word "thin." The king's cloak (that is, his authority) was thin, because not lined and strengthened with the power and honours of his nobles. The text ought not to be altered.
We conclude our obiter dicta on this play with the remark, that Pope's change of "hand" into "head," which is also proposed by the MS. corrector in the following lines, (Act IV. Scene III.) seems to us to be an improvement, and entitled to admission into the text. Salisbury vows
"Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
Never to be infected with delight,
Nor conversant with ease and idleness,
'Till I have set a glory to this head,
By giving it the worship of revenge,"
—that is, the head of young Arthur, whose dead body had just been discovered on the ground.
King Richard II.— Act. II. Scene 1.—Ritson's emendation, as pointed out by Mr Singer, is unquestionably to be preferred to the MS. corrector's in these lines—
"The King is come; deal mildly with his youth,
For young, hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more."
"Raged," the common reading, can scarcely be right. Ritson proposed "being reined." The margins suggest "being urg'd."
We differ from the MS. corrector, Mr Collier, and Mr Singer, in thinking that there is no good reason for disturbing the received text in the lines where the conspirators, Willoughby, Ross, and Northumberland, are consulting together; but, on the contrary, very good reasons for leaving it alone. Willoughby says to his brother-conspirator, Northumberland,
"Nay, let us share thy thoughts as thou dost ours."
Ross also presses him to speak:
"Be confident to speak, Northumberland;
We three are but thyself; and speaking so,
Thy words are but as thoughts, therefore be bold."
The change proposed is our for "as." "Thy words are but our thoughts." The difference of meaning in the two readings is but slight; but the old text seems to us to have the advantage in depth and fineness. Ross's argument with Northumberland to speak was not merely because his words were as their thoughts. That was no doubt true; but the point of his persuasion lay in the consideration that Northumberland's words would be as good as not spoken. "We three are but yourself, and, in these circumstances, your words are but as thoughts—that is, you are as safe in uttering them as if you uttered them not, inasmuch as you will be merely speaking to yourself." The substitution of "our" for "as" seems to bring out this meaning less clearly.
Act II. Scene 2.—The following lines (part of which, for the sake of perspicuity, we print within a parenthesis, contrary, we believe, to the common arrangement) require no emendation. The queen, labouring under "the involuntary and unaccountable depression of mind which, says Johnson, every one has some time felt," remarks—
"Howe'er it be,
I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad,
As (though, in thinking, on no thought I think)
Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink."
The Ms. corrector reads "unthinking" for "in thinking;" but this is by no means necessary. The old text is quite as good, indeed rather better than the new.
Scene 3.—Much dissatisfaction has been expressed with the word despised in the lines in which York severely rates his traitorous nephew Bolingbroke:
"Why have those banish'd and forbidden legs
Dared once to touch a dust of English ground?
