KING RICHARD II.

ACT III.

Scene 2. Page 272.

K. Rich. That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
 Behind the globe, and lights the lower world.

The slight but necessary emendation of and for that ascribed to Johnson, had already been made by Hanmer. Lower world simply means lower hemisphere.

Scene 2. Page 279.

K. Rich. Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
 And nothing can we call our own, but death.

This resembles Wolsey's speech;

"To the last penny 'tis the king's; my robe
 And my integrity to heav'n, is all
 I dare now call my own."

Scene 2. Page 279.

K. Rich. And that small model of the barren earth.

Model or module, for they were the same in Shakspeare's time, seems to mean in this place, a measure, portion, or quantity.

Scene 2. Page 280.

K. Rich. ... For within the hollow crown
 That rounds the mortal temples of a king
 Keeps death his court; and there the antick sits,
 Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp.

Some part of this fine description might have been suggested from the seventh print in the Imagines mortis, a celebrated series of wooden cuts which have been improperly attributed to Holbein. It is probable that Shakspeare might have seen some spurious edition of this work; for the great scarcity of the original in this country in former times is apparent, when Hollar could not procure the use of it for his copy of the dance of death. This note, which more properly belongs to the present place, had been inadvertently inserted in the first part of Henry the Sixth. See Act IV. Scene 7, in Mr. Steevens's edition.

Scene 3. Page 283.

North. Your grace mistakes me; only to be brief
 Left I his title out.
York. The time hath been,
 Would you have been so brief with him, he would
 Have been so brief with you, to shorten you,
 For taking so the head, your whole head's length.

"To take the head," says Dr. Johnson, "is to act without restraint; to take undue liberties." It is presumed it rather means to take away or omit the sovereign's chief and usual title; a construction which considerably augments the play on words that is here intended.