What credit he may deserve may be worth the inquiry of some future historian. His work in general will strike every reader as a strange mixture of veracity and credulity.
The above singular mode of inflicting death seems to have prevailed about this time; for we find not long afterwards another instance of it in the execution of George duke of Clarence, who, as is generally agreed, was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. He appears to have chosen the manner of his death, on which Mr. Hume makes the following observation: "A whimsical choice, which implies that he had an extraordinary passion for that liquor."[16] It should rather be inferred that the punishment in question was more frequent than is commonly known, and made use of for culprits of rank and eminence when dispatched in secret. Jean Molinet, the continuator of the above work of Chastellain, has thus described this event:
"Jay veu duc de Clarence
Bouté en une tour
Qui queroit apparence
De regner a son tour;
De mort preadvisee
Le roy le feist noyer
Dedans mallevoisee
Pour le moins ennuyer."
Scene 2. Page 116.
Q. Mar. Away! though parting be a fretful corrosive.
A learned commentator has stated that this word was generally written corsive in Shakspeare's time, and he has indeed proved that it was so written sometimes. The fact is, it was written as at present in prose, and in poetry either way, as occasion required. Thus Drant in his translation of Horace's satyres, 1566, 4to:
"Wote you not why? corrosyve style
Is corsey to the eye."
In the text it should be printed cor'sive.
Scene 3. Page 116.
K. Hen. O beat away the busy meddling fiend
That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul.