Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents,
The armourers accomplishing the knights,
With bufy hammers clofing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.

The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll:
And (the third hour of drowzie morning nam'd)
Proud of their numbers and fecure in foul,
The confident and over-lufty French
Do the low-rated English play at dice;
And chide the cripple tardy-gated night,
Who, like a foul and ugly witch, does limp
So tedioufly away. The poor condemned English,
Like facrifices, by their watchful fires

1

Sit patiently, and inly ruminate

The morning's danger; (8) and their gefture fad,

(Investing

(8) And their gefture, &c.] The prefent paffage has perplexed the commentators, and feems not to have been at all understood by them: Theobald has left it as it ftands, without troubling himfelf about it. Warburton and Sir Thomas Hanmer have both misunderstood, and both altered it, differently. Their mistakes have arifen from imagining the participle invefting was to be connected with gefture fad in the foregoing line, whereas it is put abfolute, and to be conftrued lank-lean cheeks, and war-worn coats investing; there is no difficulty in the word applied to coats, as the immediate fenfe of the word is cloathing: Shakespear ules investments for cloaths in the foregoing play, A. 4 S. 2.

Whose white investments figure innocence.

**

The difficulty is in the word applied to lank-lean cheeks; it muft there be taken metaphorically: we know how vague our author is in his use of metaphors, and we know how often he uses one verb or participle to two nouns of a different sense, as here. But indeed the metaphor is not unusual, we say often the face is cloath'd with fmiles: thus to me this difficult paffage appears in a very clear light, which I could have wifh'd Mr. Edwards, who fo well understands our author had explained to us: he feems to look upon it as defperate. See Can. of criticism, p. 72.

4

A very ingenious gentleman obferved to me, upon my asking his opinion of the paffage, that invefting, by the common acceptation, fignifies befieging, or rather taking possession of all the avenues to a place and this arifes from the civil and feudal cuftoms of C 3

giving

(Investing lank-lean cheeks, and war worn-coats,)
Prefenteth them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts. Who now beholds
The royal captain of this ruin'd band,
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
Let him cry, praise and glory on his head!
For forth he goes, and visits all his host,
Bids them good-morrow with a modest smile,
And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note,

How dread an army hath enrounded him;
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
Unto the weary and all-watched night;
But freshly looks, and over-bears attaint,

With chearful femblance, and sweet majefty;

That ev'ry wretch pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks.
A largefs univerfal, like the fun,

giving poffeffion by a robe or veftment: He then obferved, that Shakespear ufes the word in a fimple fenfe: an inveftment with him being the matching of cloaths: and cloaths that are well match'd or fuited, are called a fute or fuit of cloaths.

And their gefture fað

Investing (i. e. fuiting or matching with) lank-lean cheeks &c:

He feems to have fallen into the fame mistake with the other commentators in regard to the conftruction. All I would obferve from his judicious remark is, that inveling, in the metaphorical fenfe, if it satisfies not the reader in the fimple one, will explain the paffage very well: lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats taking poffeffion of them, &c. but I think the first fenfe the true one.

I cannot but approve Sir Thomas Hanmer's criticism of presented into prefenteth which I have admitted into the text, as the reader may plainly fee, the chorus fpeaks of the time prefent: they fit, they ruminate, and fo on. To make the line more clear, I have printed it in a parenthefis, and, I hope, fhall be excused for my endeavour to explain fo difficult a paffage, as I would have every line, in our author, if poffible, fet right, and, by all means, prefer the old and general readings, to any wanton conjectures of mifapprehending criticism.

* Prefenteth. Ox, edit. vulg prefented.

His

His lib'ral eyes doth give to ev'ry one,
Thawing cold fear,

SCENE V. The Miferies of Royalty. (9) O hard condition, and twin-born with greatness, Subject to breath of ev'ry fool, whofe fenfe No more can feel but his own wringing. What infinite heart-cafe muft kings neglect, That private men enjoy? And what have kings, That private have not too, fave ceremony? Save gen'ral ceremony ? And what art thou, thou idol ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more Of mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers ?,, What are thy rents? What are thy comings in t O ceremony, fhew me but thy worth:

(10) What is the foul of adoration ?
Art thou aught elfe but place, degree, and form,

(9) 0, &c.] See A. 4. S. 10, of the foregoing play.

(10) What, &c.] What is thy foul of adoration--- is the common reading: there wants but the alteration of thy into the, as in the text, and all is well: the meaning is as well explained by Mr. Upton--what is the foul, i. e. the real worth, what substantial good is there in adoration or ceremony? What are the rents? What are the comings in, Oh ceremony! fhew me but thy worth, tell me what is the foul, the very utmoft value, of adoration ?---"ShakeSpear ufes the word foul in this fenfe very often;--in this play, he says, There is fome foul of goodness in things evil; i. e. fome real or fubftantial good.

In his midfummer night's dream

I

But you must join in fouls to mock me too; i.e. unite together heartily, and in earnest. And in Measure for measure;

We have with fpecial foul
Elected him, &c.

i. e. particularly and specially Speciamente. The alterations foifted into the texts in the feveral places, are too ridiculous to need mentioning: Upton's Obfervations, p. 406,

1

XU

C4

4. Creating

Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art lefs happy, being fear'd,
Than they in fearing.

What drink'st thou of, instead of homage fweet,
But poifon'd flatt'ry? O be fick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give the cure.
Think'ft thou, the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?

Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Can't thou, when thou command't the beggar's knee,
Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
That play't fo fubtly with a king's repofe;
I am a king, that find thee, and I know,
'Tis not the balm, the fceptre and the ball,
The fword, the mace, the crown imperial,
'The enter-tiffued robe of gold and pearl,
The farfed title running 'fore the the king,
The throne he fits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high fhoar of this world;
No, not all these thrice gorgeous ceremonies,
Not all thefe, laid in bed majeftical,
Can fleep fo foundly as the wretched slave;
Who, with a body fill'd, and vacant mind,
Gets him to reft, cramm'd with distressful bread;
Never fees horrid night, the child of hell:
* But, like a lacquey, from the rife to set,

Sweats

•

But, like, &c.]The poet in this most beautiful paffage is compar ing the laborious have to the lacquey or footman of Phoebus: "He never beholds night, fays the poet, but like a lacquey obliged ever to attend and follow his mafter, fweats from rife to fet, in the eye of Phoebus, bis mafter, fleeps all night, where be (Phoebus) fleeps, in Elyfium, and the next day, after dawn, rifes to his bufinefs, and helps his mafter, Hyperion, to his horfe; in whofe fight he again fweats from rife to fet as before, and thus follows the ever-running year &c." Nothing can be more exquifite, and more nobly befpeak the hand of Shakespear. Mr. Seward's alteration is quite unneceffary; for this manner of expreffion is entirely

agreeable

Sweats in the eye of Phoebus; and all night
Sleeps in elyfium: next day, after dawn,
Doth rife, and help Hyperion to his horse:
And follows fo the ever running year
With profitable labour to his grave:
And (but for ceremony) fuch a wretch,
Winding up day's with toil, and nights with fleep,
Hath the fore-hand and vantage of a king.

A

SCENE VII. A Defcription of the miferable State of the English A my.

Yon island carrions, defperate of their bones,
Ill favour'dly become the morning field:
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air shakes them paffing fcornfully.
Big Mars feems bankrupt in their beggar'd hoft,
And faintly through a rufty beaver peeps.

The horsemen fit like fixed candlesticks,
With torch-ftaves in their hands: and their poor jades
Lob down their heads, dropping the hide and hips:

agreeable to our author. That gentleman, in his preface, brings the following paffage from Philafter, A. 4. as worthy to be placed in competition with that of Shakespear, and where the hands, he fays, are scarcely to be diftinguished, except from one fingle expreffion of Shakespear. "A prince depriv'd of his throne and betray'd as he thought in love, thus mourns his melancholy ftate. See Beaumont and Fleteber's works, Vol. 1. preface, p. 24.

Oh that 1 had been nourish'd in these woods,
With milk of goats and acorns, and not known.
The right of crowns, or the diffembling train
Of woman's looks; but dig'd myself a cave,
Where I, my fire, my cattle, and my bed,
Might have been fhut together in one shed:
And then had taken me fome mountain girl,
Beaten with winds, chafte as the harden'd rocks
Whereon the dwells: that might have ftrew'd my bed'
With leaves and reeds, and with the skins of beasts,
Our neighbours, and have borne at her big breafte
My large coarfe iffue! -

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