1811.] 
and animated. ‘ Farewel, the neighing 
steed and the shrill trump,” says Othello. 
And I apprehend that the allusion is not 
to a bird of prey, but to a passing bell, 
and that decay in this, as in other pas- 
sages, bears a sense equivalent to disso- 
lution. Thus in Act iv. Scene the last 
-of this drama, we read that, 
vast confusion waits, 
As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast, 
‘The imminent decay of wrested pomp. 
Lewis, stand fast; the devil tempts thee here, 
In likeness of a new untrimmed bride. 
Act III. Scene 1. 
The word “ untrimmed,” Mr. Steevens 
tells us, means “ undressed,” in proof of 
which he adduces several superfluous 
examples, shewing that ‘‘ trimmed” sig- 
nifies ‘ drest,” or rather perhaps gaily 
dressed,—** Trimm’d like a younker 
prancing to his love,” &c. But he offers 
no instance in which uwntrimmed is used 
for undressed. On the contrary, the 
quotations of Mr. Tollet sufficiently 
evince that “ untrimmed” means simply 
unadorned.—“ Sad, pale, and untrim- 
med, &c.”” I am of opinion with Theo- 
bald, that we should read, “ and’ trim- 
med,” that is, accomplished or adurned 
by art and nature. 
—— If the midnight bell, 
Did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth 
Sound ¢a unto the drowsy race of night. 
, Ibid, Scene 3. 
Dr. Warburton, with that happiness 
which marks many of his emendations, 
for on reads onz. Mr, Steevens, how- 
ever, has a long note to justify the absur- 
dity of the old blundering text. This we 
are accustomed to, and it might be borne ; 
hut it exceeds the common limits of pati- 
ence, when we see the first note followed 
by a second, assigning his reasons for 
doubting and finally rejecting his own 
explanation, When may we hope for 
that. great desideratum, an edition of 
Shakespeare, combining in one-felicitous 
assemblage, the perspicacity of Warbur- 
ton, the elaborate research of Steevens, 
and the dignified energy of Johnson; and 
at the same time exempt from the extra- 
vagance of the first, the critical imbecility 
of the second, and the deficiency of the 
last in the language and literature of the 
age of Elizabeth?. Few readers of 
Shakespeare will fail to recollect that the 
ghost in Hamlet makes its appearance, 
** the bell then beating one.” . 
In the same noble speech from which 
the passage we are now criticising was 
 faken, the old copy has; “Then in 
s Movi Pern 
Critical Remarks on Shakespeare. 
323 
despite of brooded watchful day,” &c. 
This nonsense Mr. Pope, with true poe- 
tical feeling, had altered to “ broad-eyed 
watchful day.” But Mr. Steevens tells 
us, “‘ that this emendation, however ele= 
gant, is unnecessary, for that all animals 
while brooded, that is, with a brood of 
young ones under their protection, are 
remarkably vigilant.” The comment 
must be acknowledged worthy of the 
text, To speak candidly, however, 
Shakespeare is unquestionably indebted 
more or less to all his annotators; but it 
is surely high time that the golden ore of 
their criticisms should be separated from 
the dross. 
Ricnarp II, 
Mr. Pope has justly remarked “ that 
the rhyming couplets in this play are so 
much inferior to the composition in ge- 
neral, as to appear of a ditferent hand.” 
It is now fully ascertained that chere 
existed an old drama on the same subject, 
which is referred to both by Camden 
and Lord Bacon ; and these rhyming pase 
sages, with divers other passages nof in 
rhyme, but which are equally distinguish- 
able, were in all probability burrowed from 
that antient historic play. As,for instance, 
the garden scene at the close of the 3d 
Act, the greater part of the resignation 
scene In the 4th Act, and almost the 
whole of the 5th Act. The long and 
tedious soliloquy of Richard in his prison 
of Pomfret castle, in particular, exhibits 
no trace of Shakespeare’s pen. And the 
only two scenes in this act which appear 
to me entirely genuine, are those very 
short, but very excellent, ones; in the 
first of which York describes to his 
dutchess the entrance of Richard and 
Bolingbroke into the metropolis; and in 
the last, which passes at Windsor, the 
new king complains of the conduct of his 
son the prince of Wales, whose chia- 
racter is sketched with great force and 
felicity. 
Ricuarp Il.—-ct IT. Scene 3. 
Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands 
The royalties and rights of banished Here= 
ford? 
Is not Gaunt dead and doth not Hereford 
live? 
Take Hereford’s rights away and take from 
time 
His charters and his customary dues; 
Let not ‘o-morrow then ensue to day. 
Be not thyself, for how are thou a king 
But by fair sequence and succession ? 
Jt is apparent from this speech that York 
kuew nothing of “the right diyine of 
1 kings 
