"Bishop of Ely."—Act III. Sc. 4.

Dr. John Morton, elected bishop of Ely in 1478, advanced to the see of Canterbury in 1486, appointed lord-chancellor in 1487, died in 1500. He deserves the gratitude of posterity as having first suggested a marriage between Henry VII. and Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV., which union terminated the long and bloody contest between the houses of York and Lancaster.-MALONE.

"Put to death a citizen."—Act III. Sc. 5.

This person was one Walker, a substantial citizen and grocer, at the Crown, in Cheapside.-GREY.

"Baynard's castle."—Act III. Sc. 5.

It was originally built by Baynard, a nobleman, who, according to Stowe, came in with the Conqueror. This edifice, which stood in Thamesstreet, has long been pulled down, though part of its strong foundations are still visible at low water. The site of it is now a timber-yard.

"Doctor Shaw."-Act III. Sc. 5.

STEEVENS.

Shaw and Penker were two popular preachers. Instead of a pamphlet being published to furnish the advocates of the administration with plausible arguments on great political measures, it was formerly usual to publish the court-creed from the pulpit at Saint Paul's cross. As Richard now employed Doctor Shaw to support his claim to the crown; so, about fifteen years before, the great earl of Warwick employed his chaplain, Doctor Goddard, to convince the people that Henry VI. ought to be restored, and that Edward IV. was an usurper.—Malone.

"The brats of Clarence."-Act III. Sc. 5.

Edward, earl of Warwick, who, after the battle of Bosworth, was sent, by Richmond, to the Tower, without even the shadow of an allegation against him, and executed, with equal injustice, on Tower-hill, Nov 21, 1499; and Margaret, afterwards married to Sir Richard Pole, the last princess of the house of Lancaster, who was restored to her honours in the fifth year of Henry VIII. and in the thirty-first year of his reign (1540), at the age of 70, was put to death by that sanguinary tyrant. The immediate cause of Warwick's being put to death was, that the king of Spain would not marry his daughter Katherine to Arthur, prince of Wales, during his life-time. This murder (for it deserves no other name) made such an impression on Katherine, that when she was informed of Henry's intention to repudiate her, she exclaimed, "I have not offended, but it is a just judgment of God, for my first marriage was made in blood." MALONE.

"With his contract with Lady Lucy."-Act III. Sc. 7.

The king had been familiar with this lady before his marriage, to obstruct which, his mother alleged a precontract between them:-"Whereupon dame Elizabeth Lucy was sent for, and albeit she was by the kyng his mother, and many other, put in goode comfort to affirme that she was assured to the kynge, yet when she was solemnly sworn to saye the truth, she confessed she was never ensured. Howbeit, she sayd his grace spake such lovyinge wordes to her, that she verily hoped he woulde have married her, that yf suche kinde wordes had not bene, she would never have shewed such kindnesse to hym to let hym so kyndely gette her with chylde."-HALL'S CHRONICLE.

"O would to God, that the inclusive verge

Of golden metal, that must round my brow,

Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain."-Act IV. Sc. 1.

An allusion to the ancient mode of punishing a regicide, or any other egregious criminal, by placing a crown of iron, heated red-hot, upon his head.-MALONE.

"The earldom of Hereford."-Act IV. Sc. 2.

Shakspeare makes Richard refuse to grant the Hereford estate to Buckingham, and their quarrel is the consequence in the tragedy. This is contrary to the truth of history. Buckingham actually obtained from Richard III., when he usurped the throne, the earldom of Hereford, and the office of constable of England, which had long been annexed by inheritance to that earldom.-MALONE.

"Lest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,

Be executed."-Act V. Sc. 3.

"The Lord Stanley lodged in the same town (Stafford), and hearing that the earle of Richmond was marching thitherward, gave to him place, dislodging him and his to avoide all suspicion, being afraide least being seen openly to be a factor or ayder to the earle, his son-in-law, before the day of battyle, that King Richard, which yet not utterly put him in diffidence and mistrust, would put to some evil death his son and heir-apparent."-HOLINSHED.

KING HENRY VIII.

"Butcher's cur."-Act I. Sc. 1.

When the duke of Buckingham's death was reported to the Emperor Charles V., he said, "The first buck of England was worried to death by a butcher's dog."-STEEVENS.

"The duke being at the rose.”—Act I. Sc. 2.

This house was purchased about the year 1561, by Richard Hill, sometime master of the Merchant-Tailors' Company, and is now the Merchant-Tailors' School, in Suffolk-lane.-WHALLEY.

Leave these remnants

Of fool, and feather."-Act I. Sc. 3.

"At that time (in the court of Henry VIII.) I was no common squire, no under-trodden torch-bearer; I had my feather in my cap as big as a flag in the foretop, my French doublet gelt in the belly, as though (like a pig readie to be spitted) all my guts had been plucked out; a paire of side-paned hose that hung down like two scales filled with Holland cheeses; my long stock that sate close to my dock, my rapier pendent like a round sticke, &c.; my blacke cloake of black cloth, ouerspreading my backe, lyke a thornbacke on an elephant's eare; and in consummation of my curiositie, my handes without gloves, all a more French.”

NASHE'S LIFE OF JACKE WITTON, 1594.

"Enter the King, and twelve others, as maskers.”—Act I. Sc. 4. "Before the king began to dance, they requested leave to accompany the ladies at mumchance. Leave being granted, then went the masquers and first saluted all the dames, and then returned to the most worthiest, and then opened the great cup of gold, filled with crownes and other pieces, to cast at. Thus perusing all the gentlewomen, of some they wonne, and to some they lost. And having viewed all the ladies, they returned to the cardinal with great reverence, pouring downe all their gold, which was above two hundred crowns. At all, quoth the cardinal, and casting the die, he won it; whereat was made great joy." CAVENDISH'S LIFE OF WOLSEY.

“I were unmannerly to take you out,
And not to kiss you."—Act I. Sc. 4.

A kiss was anciently the established fee of a lady's partner. So, in A Dialogue between Custom and Veritie, on the Use and Abuse of Dauncing and Minstrelsie, no date, "Imprinted at London, at the long shop, adjoining unto Saint Mildred's church in the Pultrie, by John Allde," we find the following stanza :

“But some reply, what foole would daunce,

If that when daunce is doon,

He may not have at ladyes lippes
That which in daunce he woon?"

Your grace,

STEEVENS.

I fear, with dancing is a little heated."—Act I. Sc. 4.

The king, on being discovered, and desired by Wolsey to take his place, said that he would "first go and shift him; and, thereupon, went into the cardinal's bed-chamber, where was a great fire prepared for him, and there he new appareled himself with riche and princelie garments. And in the king's absence the dishes of the banquet were cleane taken away, and the tables covered with new and perfumed clothes. Then the king took his seat under the cloath of estate, commanding every person to sit still as before; and then came in a new banquet before his majestie of two hundred dishes, and so they passed the night in banqueting and dancing till morning."-CAVENDISH'S LIFE OF WOLSEY.

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Norfolk opens a folding door; the king is discovered sitting, and reading pensively."-Act II. Sc. 2.

"Exit lord

The stage direction in the old copy is a singular one. chamberlain, and the King draws the curtain, and sits reading pensively;" and it will enable us to ascertain precisely the state of the theatre in Shakspeare's time. When a person was to be discovered in a different apartment from that in which the original speakers in the scene are exhibited, the method was to place such person in the back part of the stage, behind the curtains which were, occasionally, suspended across it. These the person who was to be discovered (as Henry, in the present case) drew back just at the fit moment. Rowe, looking no further than the modern stage, changed the direction thus: -"The scene opens and discovers the king," &c., but besides the folly of introducing scenes when there were none, such an exhibition would be improper, for Norfolk has just said, "Let's in," and, therefore, should himself do some act in order to visit the king. This, indeed, in the simple state of the old stage, was not attended to; the king, very civilly, discovering himself.”—Malone.

"That he ran mad and died."-Act II. Sc. 2.

Aboute this time the king received into favour Dr. Stephen Gardiner, whose service he used in matters of great secrecie and weighte, admitting him in the roome of Doctor Pase, the which being continually abrode in ambassades, and the same oftentymes not much necessarie, by the cardinalle's appointment, at lengthe he tooke such greefe therewithe, that he fell out of his right wittes."-HOLINSHED.

"Two gentlemen, bearing two great silver pillars.”—Act II. Sc. 4.

Wolsey had one pillar borne before him as cardinal, and another as legate. So in The Treatous, an ancient satirical poem, by William Roy:

"With worldly pompe incredible,

Before him rydeth two priestes stronge:
And they bear two crosses right longe,
Gapynge in every man's face:

After them folowe two laye men secular,
And each of theym holdyn a pillar,

In their hondes steade of a mace."

STEEVENS.

"The queen, and some of her women, at work."-Act III. Sc. 1.

Her majesty (says Cavendish), on being informed that the cardinals were coming to visit her, "rose up, having a skein of red silke about her necke, being at work with her maidens.' Cavendish attended Wolsey, on this visit, and the queen's answer in the play is exactly conformable to that which he has recorded, and which he appears to have heard her pronounce.-MALONE.

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“O, good my lord, no Latin.”—Act III. Sc. 1.

Then begane the cardinall to speake to her in Latine. Naie, good my lord (quoth she), speak to me in English."-HOLINSHED.

"Worse than the sacring bell.”—Act III. Sc. 2.

The little bell which is rung to give notice of the host approaching, when it is carried in procession, as also in other offices of the Romish church, is called the sacring or consecration bell; from the French word, sacrer."-THEOBALD.

"Ipswich."—Act IV. Sc. 2.

"The foundation-stone of the college, which the cardinal founded in this place, was discovered a few years ago. It is now in the chapterhouse of Christ-church, Oxford."-SEWARD'S ANECDOTES.

"You'd spare your spoons.”—Act V. Sc. 2.

It was the custom, long before Shakspeare's time, for the sponsors at christenings to offer gilt spoons as a present to the child. These spoons were called apostle spoons, because the figures of the apostles were carved on the handles. Such as were opulent and generous gave the whole twelve; those who were less rich or liberal escaped at the expense of the four evangelists; and some gave one spoon only, which exhibited the figure of the saint in honour of whom the child was named.

STEEVENS.

"Paris garden."—Act V. Sc. 3.

This celebrated Bear garden, on the Bankside, was so called from Robert de Paris, who had a hot-house and garden there in the time of Richard II. The Globe theatre, in which Shakspeare was an actor, stood on the southern side of the Thames, and was contiguous to this noted place of tumult.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

"Thou stool for a witch."-Act II. Sc. 1.

In one way of trying a witch, they used to place her on a chair or stool, with her legs tied across, that all the weight of her body might rest upon her seat, and by that means, after some time, the circulation of the blood would be much stopped, and her sitting would be as painful as the wooden horse.-GREY.

“The elephant.”—Act II. Sc. 3.

It was an old opinion that elephants had no joints. Hence, in The Dialogues of Creatures Moralysed, mention is made of "the olefawnte that bowyth not the kneys;" a curious specimen of our early natural history. STEEVENS.

Dr. Hodges, in his Treatise on the Plague, says, "Spots of a dark complexion, usually called tokens, and looked on as the pledges or forewarnings of death, are minute and distinct blasts, which have their original from within, and rise up with a little pyramidal protuberance, the pestilential poison chiefly collected at their bases, tainting the neighbouring parts, and reaching to the surface."-REED.

"Keep this sleeve."-Act V. Sc. 2.

The custom of wearing a lady's sleeve for a favour is mentioned in Hall's Chronicle: :166 One ware on his head-piece his lady's sleeve, and another bare on his helme the glove of his deareling."-STEEVENS.

"The dreadful sagittary."-Act V. Sc. 5.

"Beyonde the royalme of Amasonne came an auncyent kynge, wyse and dyscreete, named Epystrophus, and brought a M knyghtes, and a mervallouse beste that was called sagittayre, that behynde the middes was an horse, and to fore a man; this beste was heery like an horse, and had his eyn rede as a cole, and shotte well with a bowe; this beste made the Grekes sore aferde, and slew many of them with his bowe."

THE THREE DESTRUCTIONS OF TROIE.

"Some galled goose of Winchester."-Act V. Sc. 11.

As the public stews were under the controul of the bishop of Winchester, a strumpet was called a Winchester goose, and a galled Winchester goose may mean, either a strumpet afflicted with disease, or one that felt offended by the remarks of Pandarus in the play.-MASON.