PRODIGIOUS. Act III., Sc. 1.

"Crooked, swart, prodigious."

Prodigious is used in the sense of supernatural, monstrous. REST. Act IV., Sc. 2.

"If what in rest you have in right you hold."

Rest is here employed in the sense of a fixed position. "To set up a rest," was to take a part in the game at cards, and does not imply repose. Steevens proposed to change the word to wrest-violence-an absurd alteration.

ROBERT HIS. Act I., Sc. 1.

"Sir Robert his, like him."

This is the old form of the genitive case, as those who have looked into a legal instrument know.

ROME. Act III., Sc. 1.

"That I have room with Rome."

Rome was formerly pronounced room. Shakspere here indulges in a play upon the words.

ROUNDER. Act II., Sc. 1.

""T is not the rounder of your old-fac'd walls."

The rounder is that which surrounds. In modern editions the old English word of the original has been changed into the French roundure.

66

These scroyles of Angiers flout you."

Scroyles is from the French les escrouelles, the King's evil. SIGHTLESS. Act III., Sc. 1.

"Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains." Sightless is the opposite of sightly.

SOUL-FEARING. Act III., Sc. 1.

"Till their soul-fearing clamours."

To fear was often used by Shakspere and his contemporaries in the active sense, to make afraid. See Taming of the Shrew' (Act V., Sc. 2), where the word is used in both the active and passive sense.

TARRE. Act IV., Sc. 1.

"Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on."

Horne Tooke derives tarre from an Anglo-Saxon word mean. ing to exasperate. Others think it refers to the custom of exciting terriers-tarriers.

THREE-FARTHINGS. Act I., Sc. 1.

"Look, where three-farthings goes."

The three-farthing silver coin of the time of Elizabeth was small and thin, as may be supposed from the value. This

coin also bore a rose placed just behind the head, whence the allusion to the flower.

"And, to his shape, were heir to all this land." This is with his shape, in addition to his shape.

TOOTH-PICK. Act I., Sc. 1.

"He and his toothpick."

The use of the tooth-pick was considered a foreign frivolity, and is alluded to by many of the writers of Shakspere's time-Gascoigne, Ben Jonson, Overbury, and Shirley.

TO-SPEND. Act V., Sc. 2.

"And not to-spend it so unneighbourly."

To is here used as the sign of the infinitive; though Steevens considers it as a prefix, combined with spend, as in 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,'

"And fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight."

TRICK. Act I., Sc. 1.

"He hath a trick of Coeur-de-Lion's face."

Here and elsewhere Shakspere has used the word trick in the sense of peculiarity. It is thus used by Gloster in 'Lear,' by Helena in 'All's Well that Ends Well,' and by Falstaff, in Henry IV., Part I.' Wordsworth also thus uses it in "The Excursion,' book 1.

UNHAIR'D. Act V., Sc. 2.

"This unhair'd sauciness.

Unhaired is unbearded.

WHERE.

Act I., Sc. 1.

"But where I be as true begot, or no."

The word where is sometimes used by Shakspere and his contemporaries in the sense of whether. It is usually printed whe'r, as a contraction, but was not so written by them

WINDOW. Act I., Sc. 1.

"In at the window, or else o'er the hatch."

These were proverbial expressions for an irregular entry, having reference to cases such as that of Faulconbridge's, which he gently terms "a little from the right."

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

KING RICHARD II.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 4. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 5.

Act IV. sc. 1.

EDMUND OF LANGLEY, Duke of York; uncle to the King. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 6.

JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster; uncle to the King.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3.

Act II. sc. 1.

HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, Son to John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3.

Act IV. sc. 1.

DUKE OF AUMERLE,

Appears, Act I. sc. 3; sc. 4.
Act IV. sc. 1.

Act II. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3.
Act V. sc. 3; sc. 6.

son to the Duke of York.
Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3.
Act V. sc. 2; sc. 3.

MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk.
Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3.

DUKE OF SURREY.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 1.

EARL OF SALISBURY.

Appears, Act II. sc. 4. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3.

EARL BERKLEY.

Appears, Act II. sc. 3.

BUSHY, a creature to King Richard.

Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1.

Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3 Act IV. sc. 1.

Act V. sc. 1; sc. 6.