SUF. 'Faith, I have been a truant in the law;
And never yet could frame my will to it;
And, therefore, frame the law unto my will.

SOM. Judge you, my lord of Warwick, then be

tween us.

WAR. Between two hawks, which flies the higher

pitch,

Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,
Between two blades, which bears the better temper,
Between two horfes, which doth bear him beft,"
Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye,
I have, perhaps, fome fhallow fpirit of judgment:
But in these nice fharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wifer than a daw.

PLAN. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:
The truth appears fo naked on my side,
That any purblind eye may find it out.

SOM. And on my fide it is fo well apparell'd, So clear, fo fhining, and fo evident,

That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye.

PLAN. Since you are tongue-ty'd, and so loath to fpeak,

In dumb fignificants proclaim your thoughts:
Let him, that is a true-born gentleman,
And ftands upon the honour of his birth,

6

bear him beft,] i. e. regulate his motions moft adroitly. So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"He bears him like a portly gentleman." STEEVENS. "In dumb fignificants -] I suspect, we should read-fignifi'cance. MALONE.

believe the old reading is the true one. So, in Love's Labour's Loft: "Bear this fignificant [i. e. a letter] to the country maid, Jaquenetta." STEEVENS.

If he fuppofe that I have pleaded truth,
From off this brier pluck a white rofe with me.
SOM. Let him that is no coward, nor no flat-
terer,

But dare maintain the party of the truth,

Pluck a red rofe from off this thorn with me. WAR. I love no colours; and, without all colour

From off this brier pluck a white rofe with me.] This is given as the original of the two badges of the houfes of York and Lancaster, whether truly or not, is no great matter. But the proverbial expreffion of faying a thing under the rofe, I am perfuaded came from thence. When the nation had ranged itfelf into two great factions, under the white and red rofe, and were perpetually plotting and counterplotting against one another, then, when a matter of faction was communicated by either party to his friend in the fame quarrel, it was natural for him to add, that he faid it under the rofe; meaning that, as it concerned the faction, it was religiously to be kept fecret. WARBURTON.

This is ingenious! What pity, that it is not learned too!The rofe (as the fables fay) was the fymbol of filence, and confecrated by Cupid to Harpocrates, to conceal the lewd pranks of his mother. So common a book as Lloyd's Dictionary might have inftructed Dr. Warburton in this: "Huic Harpocrati Cupido Veneris filius parentis fuæ rofam dedit in munus, ut fcilicet fi quid licentius dictum, vel actum fit in convivio, fciant tacenda effe omnia. Atque idcirco veteres ad finem convivii fub rofa, Anglice under the rofe, tranfacta effe omnia ante digreffum conteftabantur; cujus formæ vis eadem effet, atque ifta, Miowurdμονα συμποταν. Probant hanc rem verfus qui reperiuntur in mare

more:

"Eft rofa flos Veneris, cujus quo furta laterent

66

Harpocrati matris dona dicavit amor.

"Inde rofam menfis hofpes fufpendit amicis,

"Convivæ ut fub ea dicta tacenda fciant." UPTON.

I love no colours;] Colours is here ufed ambiguously for tints and deceits.

JOHNSON.

So, in Love's Labour's Loft: "I do fear colourable colours." STEEVENS.

Of base infinuating flattery,

I pluck this white rofe, with Plantagenet.

SUF. I pluck this red rofe, with young Somerset; And fay withal, I think he held the right.

VER. Stay, lords, and gentlemen; and pluck no

more,

Till you conclude--that he, upon whose fide
The feweft roses are cropp'd from the tree,
Shall yield the other in the right opinion.

SOM. Good mafter Vernon, it is well objected;' If I have feweft, I subscribe in filence.

PLAN. And I.

VER. Then, for the truth and plainness of the cafe,

I pluck this pale, and maiden bloffom here,
Giving my verdict on the white rofe fide.

SOM. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off; Left, bleeding, you do paint the white rofe red, And fall on my fide fo againft your will,

VER. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed, Opinion fhall be furgeon to my hurt,

And keep me on the fide where still I am.

1

- well objected;] Properly thrown in our way, juftly propofed. JOHNSON.

So, in Goulart's Admirable Hiftories, 4to. 1607 :" And becaufe Sathan transfigures himfelfe into an angell of light, I objected many and fundry questions unto him." Again, in Chapman's verfion of the 21ft Book of Homer's Odyey:

"Excites Penelope t'object the prize,

"(The bow and bright fteeles) to the woers' ftrength.”

Again, in his verfion of the seventeenth Iliad:

"Objecting his all-dazeling shield," &c.

Again, in the twentieth Iliad :

his worst shall be withstood,

"With fole objection of myfelfe."----- STEEVENS.

SOM. Well, well, come on: Who else?

LAW. Unless my study and my books be false, The argument you held, was wrong in you;

[TO SOMERSET.

In fign whereof, I pluck a white rofe too.

PLAN. Now, Somerset, where is your argument? SOM. Here, in my fcabbard; meditating that, Shall die your white rofe in a bloody red,

PLAN. Mean time, your cheeks do counterfeit
our rofes;

For pale they look with fear, as witneffing
The truth on our fide.

2

SOM. No, Plantagenet, 'Tis not for fear; but anger,-that thy cheeks * Blush for pure fhame, to counterfeit our roses; And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error. PLAN. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset ?

SOM. Hath not thy rofe a thorn, Plantagenet ? PLAN. Ay, fharp and piercing, to maintain his truth;

Whiles thy confuming canker eats his falfehood. SOM. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleedingrofes,

That fhall maintain what I have faid is true,

Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.

PLAN. Now, by this maiden bloffom in my hand, I fcorn thee and thy fashion,3 peevish boy.

+2

but anger, that thy cheeks &c.], i. e. it is not for fear that iny cheeks look pale, but for anger; anger produced by this circumftance, namely, that thy cheeks bluth, &c. MALONE.

3 Ifcorn thee and thy fashion,] So the old copies read, and rightly. Mr. Theobald altered it to faction, not confidering that by fashion is meant the badge of the red rose, which Somerset

SUF. Turn not thy fcorns this way, Plantagenet. PLAN. Proud Poole, I will; and scorn both him and thee.

SUF. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat. SOM. Away, away, good William De-la-Poole ! We grace the yeoman, by converfing with him. WAR. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'ft him, Somerfet ;

His grandfather was Lionel, duke of Clarence,4

faid he and his friends would be diftinguished by. But Mr. Theobald afks, If faction was not the true reading, why should Suffolk inmediately reply

Turn not thy fcorns this way, Plantagenet.

Why? because Plantagenet had called Somerfet, with whom Suffolk fided, peevish boy. WARBURTON.

Mr. Theobald, with great probability, reads-faction. Plantagenet afterward uses the fame word:

66

this pale and angry rofe

"Will I for ever, and my faction, wear."

whom

In King Henry V. we have pation for paction. We should undoubtedly read-and thy faction. The old fpelling of this word was faccion, and hence fashion eafily crept into the text. So, in Hall's Chronicle, EDWARD IV. fol. xxii : “ we ought to beleve to be fent from God, and of hym onely to bee provided a kynge, for to extinguish both the faccions and partes [i. e. parties] of Kyng Henry the VI. and of Kyng Edward the fourth." MALOne.

As fashion might have been meant to convey the meaning affigned to it by Dr. Warburton, I have left the text as I found it, allowing at the fame time the merit of the emendation offered by Mr. Theobald, and countenanced by Mr. Malone.

STEEVENS.

His grandfather was Lionel, duke of Clarence,] The author mistakes. Plantagenet's paternal grandfather was Edmund of Langley, Duke of York. His maternal grandfather was Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, who was the fon of Philippa the daughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. The duke therefore was his maternal great great grandfather. See Vol. XI. p. 225, n. 5. MALONE.