Page:Richard II (1921) Yale.djvu/123

King Richard the Second you may be sure for their estates.' (Holinshed's Chronicles Richard II 1398–1400 and Henry V, edited by R. S. Wallace and Alma Hansen. Oxford. 1917. p. 48.)

farm our royal realm. 'The common brute [rumor] ran, that the king had set to farme the realme of England, unto sir William Scroop to sir John Bushie, sir John Bagot, and sir Henrie Greene knights.' (Ibid., p. 13.) This means letting out the privilege of collecting the taxes for a fixed sum paid in advance.

blank charters. Blank acknowledgments of indebtedness, which wealthy citizens were compelled to sign, the sum being filled out at the pleasure of the king or his treasurer.

unstaid. There are three possible meanings: (1) the opposite of 'staid,' i.e., 'frivolous'; (2) 'unchecked'; (3) 'unsupported.'

In the First Quarto, in general the most authentic text of Richard II, l. 18 reads: 'As praises of whose taste the wise are found [fond];' the First Folio has, 'As praises of his state: then there are sound.' Craig adopts the latter reading, emending 'sound' to 'found.' The present editor sees no good argument for rejecting the authority of the Quarto in this instance, and reads 'praises,' 'Lascivious metres' (l. 19), and 'reports of fashions' (l. 21) as a series of appositives to 'sounds' (l. 17), 'as' being equivalent to 'such as.'

'Being sick myself to see it, and seeing disaster in thee.'

waste. A reference to legal terms,—'destruction of houses, woods, lands, &c., done by the tenant to the prejudice of the heir.' Here the extent of the destruction.

possess'd. A play on two