PAND. So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith; And, like a civil war, set'st oath to oath, 7 Is not amiss, when it is truly done;] This is a conclusion de travers. We should read: Is yet amiss, The Oxford editor, according to his usual custom, will improve it further, and reads most amiss. WARBURTON. I rather read: Is't not amiss, when it is truly done? as the alteration is less, and the sense which Dr. Warburton first discovered is preserved. JOHNSON. The old copies read: Is not amiss, when it is truly done. Pandulph, having conjured the King to perform his first vow to heaven, -to be champion of the church,-tells him, that what he has since sworn is sworn against himself, and therefore may not be performed by him: for that, says he, which you have sworn to do amiss, is not amiss, (i. e. becomes right) when it is done truly (that is, as he explains it, not done at all;) and being not done, where it would be a sin to do it, the truth is most done when you do it not. So, in Love's Labour's Lost: " It is religion to be thus forsworn." RITSON. Again, in Cymbeline : she is fool'd " With a most false effect, and I the truer By placing the second couplet of this sentence before the first, the passage will appear perfectly clear. Where doing tends to ill, where an intended act is criminal, the truth is most done, by not doing the act. The criminal act therefore which thou hast sworn to do, is not amiss, will not be imputed to you as a crime, if it be done truly, in the sense I have now affixed to truth; that is, if you do not do it. MALONE. And being not done, where doing tends to ill, • But thou hast sworn against religion; &c.] The propositions, that the voice of the church is the voice of heaven, and that the Pope utters the voice of the church, neither of which Pandulph's auditors would deny, being once granted, the argument here used is irresistible; nor is it easy, notwithstanding the gingle, to enforce it with greater brevity or propriety: But thou hast sworn against religion: By what thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st: By what. Sir T. Hanmer reads By that. I think it should be rather by which. That is, thou swear'st against the thing, by which thou swear'st; that is, against religion. The most formidable difficulty is in these lines: This Sir T. Hanmer reforms thus: And mak'st an oath the surety for thy truth, Dr. Warburton writes it thus: Against an oath the truth thou art unsurewhich leaves the passage to me as obscure as before. I know not whether there is any corruption beyond the omission of a point. The sense, after I had considered it, appeared to me only this: In swearing by religion against religion, to which thou hast already sworn, thou makest an oath the security for thy faith against an oath already taken. I will give, says he, a rule for conscience in these cases. Thou may'st be in doubt about the matter of an oath; when thou swearest, thou may'st not be always sure to swear rightly; but let this be thy settled VOL. X. FF By what thou swear'st, against the thing thou swear'st; And mak'st an oath the surety for thy truth principle, swear only not to be forsworn; let not the latter oaths be at variance with the former. Truth, through this whole speech, means rectitude of conduct. JOHNSON, I believe the old reading is right; and that the line "By what," &c. is put in apposition with that which precedes it: " But thou hast sworn against religion; thou hast sworn, by what thou swearest, i. e. in that which thou hast sworn, against the thing thou swearest by; i. e. religion. Our author has many such elliptical expressions. So, in King Henry VIII: - Whoever the king favours, " The cardinal will quickly find employment [for], Again, ibidem: "This is about that which the bishop spake" [of]. Again, in King Richard III: " True ornaments to know a holy man" [by]. Again, in The Winter's Tale: "A bed-swerver, even as bad as those "That vulgars give bold'st titles" [to]. Again, ibidem: 9 the queen is spotless " In this that you accuse her" [of]. MALONE. -swear only not to be forsworn ;) The old copy readsswears, which, in my apprehension, shews that two half lines have been lost, in which the person supposed to swear was mentioned. When the same word is repeated in two succeeding lines, the eye of the compositor often glances from the first to the second, and in consequence the intermediate words are omitted. For what has been lost, it is now in vain to seek; I have therefore adopted the emendation made by Mr. Pope, which makes some kind of sense. MALONE. Is in thyself rebellion to thyself: Upon which better part our prayers come in, AUST. Rebellion, flat rebellion! BAST. Will't not be? Will not a calf's-skin stop that mouth of thine ? LEW. Father, to arms! BLANCH. Upon thy wedding day? Against the blood that thou hast married? What, shall our feast be kept with slaughter'd men? Shall braying trumpets, and loud churlish drums, braying trumpets,] Bray appears to have been particularly applied to express the harsh grating sound of the trumpet. So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. IV. c. xii. st. 6: " And when it ceast shrill trompets loud did bray." Again, B. IV. c. iv. st. 48: " Then shrilling trompets loudly 'gan to bray." And elsewhere in the play before us: "Hard-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray." Again, in Hamlet : "The trumpet shall bray out.” Gawin Douglas, in his translation of the Eneid, renders " sub axe tonanti" (Lib. V. v. 820:) " Under the brayand quhelis and assiltre." Blackmore is ridiculed in the Dunciad, (B. II.) for endeavouring to ennoble this word by applying it to the sound of armour, war, &c. He might have pleaded these authorities, and that of Milton: " Arms on armour clashing bray'd "Horrible discood." Paradise Lost, B. VI. v. 209. Nor did Gray, scrupulous as he was in language, reject it in The Bard: " Heard ye the din of battle bray?" HOLT WHITE. FF2 Clamours of hell,-be measures to our pomp? Against mine uncle. CONST. O, upon my knee, Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee, Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom Fore-thought by heaven. BLANCH. Now shall I see thy love; What motive may Be stronger with thee than the name of wife? CONST. That which upholdeth him that thee upholds, His honour: O, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour! LEW. I muse, your majesty doth seem so cold, When such profound respects do pull you on. PAND. I will denounce a curse upon his head. K. PHI. Thou shalt not need:-England, I'll fall from thee. CONST. O fair return of banish'd majesty! - be measures-) The measures, it has already been more than once observed, were a species of solemn dance in our author's time. 3 This speech is formed on the following lines in the old play : "Blanch. And will your grace upon your wedding-day " Forsake your bride, and follow dreadful drums ? " Phil. Drums shall be musick to this wedding-day." * I muse,] i. e. I wonder. REED. MALONE. So, in Middleton's "Tragi-Coomodie, called The Witch:" " And why thou staist so long, I muse, " Since the air's so sweet and good." STEEVENS. |